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00:00Since the start of the year, there's been a staggering number of escalations and flashpoints, incidents, crises around the world.
00:06A rendition in Venezuela, an aftermath still playing out.
00:09Maria Karina Machado, the opposition leader, speaking tonight in Washington, a day after giving President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize.
00:16President Trump threatening Colombia, Cuba, where there are anti-Trump protests today taking place.
00:22There's also an Iranian uprising, savage subsequent repression by the regime, with President Trump considering strikes.
00:27Relentless rhetoric too, as we just heard, by the US leader over the need to own the Danish Kingdom of Greenland, causing a diplomatic standoff between NATO allies.
00:35This is a separatist offensive too in Yemen at the start of this year.
00:39Saudi airstrikes in response.
00:41That is on top of ongoing wars.
00:43A thousand days of conflict in Sudan this week, a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, and nearly four years of war in Ukraine,
00:49where temperatures in the capital, Kiev, have dropped to minus 20 degrees this week,
00:55and where thousands of people are without power as a result of Russian bombardment.
00:59Western leaders have shifted in recent months into a footing of heightened ward preparedness.
01:04This was a view of the Chief of Britain's Foreign Intelligence Service, MI6, Blaise Metrawally,
01:09telling reporters last month we are operating in a space between war and peace.
01:13Our world is more dangerous and contested now than it has been for decades.
01:22Conflict is evolving and trust eroding just as new technologies spur both competition and dependence.
01:29We are being contested from sea to space, from the battlefield to the boardroom.
01:36And even our brains, as disinformation manipulates our understanding of each other and ourselves.
01:42Well, to explore and discuss this, we're joined on the programme by Lieutenant General Ben Hodges,
01:47former commander of US ground forces in Europe, former commander of NATO Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey.
01:52Welcome to France 24, Lieutenant General.
01:54Thank you for speaking to us tonight.
01:57Let's start with Blaise Metrawally's assessment we just heard there.
02:00How would you assess the level of danger for Europe right now in terms of possible escalation with Putin?
02:07Well, the Russians are already at war with all of us.
02:13Even if we don't see Kinzhal missiles slamming into Western European cities,
02:19it's clear that the Russians are at war with us.
02:22And the sooner we acknowledge that, the sooner we can start doing what's necessary
02:28to actually push back on their grey zone operations and prevent this from becoming an actual kinetic conflict.
02:37So Blaise, the head of MI6, she's right.
02:41It's a very dangerous time, but we have to act.
02:44It's not inevitable that this is going to become an all-out kinetic war.
02:48I want to talk with you tonight about the various theatres, flashpoints, escalations, conflict and ceasefires.
02:55But on that issue, President Trump on Ukraine was asked this week about why there is no peace deal yet.
03:01And in a triage of other stories around, it's easy to miss.
03:03But he gave a one-word reply, Zelensky.
03:06And as we approach the four-year mark of war coming up in the next few weeks,
03:11where do you see this conflict heading militarily?
03:14Well, first of all, the reason there's no peace negotiation is because President Trump
03:19has never understood or cared how the war started, when it started, why it started.
03:26He put zero pressure on President Putin.
03:30So if you had to use one word, I would say it's Trump is the reason that there is no peace settlement yet.
03:39Look, the Ukrainians, of course, they're fighting for their survival,
03:42but they have stopped Russia.
03:45Russia spent €150 billion last year and lost over 200,000 casualties for less than 1% of Ukrainian territory.
03:55That's not sustainable for them.
03:57Meanwhile, the Ukrainians have figured out that by destroying Russia's oil and gas export industry,
04:04it will become increasingly difficult for the Russians to sell oil and gas to China, India,
04:11Turkey, and other countries to pay for the war.
04:14So I would say the Ukrainians are actually in a much better position than how the president
04:21or the Russians try to describe it.
04:25And there's a Zen diagram here, Lieutenant General, about how Russia does and does not fit into it.
04:30The biggest issue for NATO being Russia.
04:32There is a chance, though, isn't there, over the Greenland issue and the perceived Russian threat,
04:37as well as China, that NATO could eat itself from within over Trump's proclaimed need to own it,
04:44as we just heard.
04:45Yeah, well, Gavin, you're right.
04:47The happiest person in the world about this whole Greenland fiasco is Vladimir Putin,
04:54because what the Trump administration is doing is eroding or chipping away at the cohesion of NATO.
05:03And the cohesion of our alliance has always been the secret sauce.
05:07Even though nations would argue with each other about different things over the decades,
05:12there never was a doubt about American commitment or the commitment of other countries.
05:17And now, because of this absolute needless policy by the Trump administration towards Greenland,
05:27it is causing our allies to wonder what the hell is going on.
05:32And I think that they have leverage that they can use, and I hope that they will stand up to us,
05:42hold us accountable, make us be a good ally, just the way we have complained about our European allies not being good allies.
05:50Again, it's trying to distinguish, isn't it, Lieutenant General, between the sounds and the signals and the noise here,
05:55when you hear President Trump is saying that he might think about tariffs for those who don't support Trump's decision to own it.
06:03Do you remember a time in the military, over your time in NATO as well,
06:08over tensions over Greenland with the US in years gone by, over security issues?
06:12Has it been bubbling under the surface?
06:15No, this is, Greenland is not about security.
06:18That is the pretext.
06:21Just like Venezuela was not about drugs, that was the pretext.
06:25This is all part of the administration trying to implement this new national security strategy
06:31to dominate the entire Western Hemisphere, to keep the Chinese and the Russians out,
06:38and to assure American access to all the different resources.
06:42The sad part, or the pathetic part, is that we already have access to all of these things.
06:47So this is not about security.
06:51I'm sure you and all your listeners know that we used to have 15 or 17 different bases in Greenland.
06:58We pulled them out because you didn't need all that.
07:01And the Greenlanders and the Danes have always said, we can come back.
07:05In fact, we have, by treaty, the authority to come back whenever we want.
07:09President Trump is in his fifth year as president.
07:12Just now, all of a sudden, he says we have to have Greenland.
07:17And I was glad to hear your earlier report.
07:20Really, the key to success in stopping this nonsense is going to be the Congress.
07:25And we're seeing more and more Republican members of Congress starting to rediscover their backbone
07:31and stand up against this.
07:33One thing that strikes me, and you've spoken about this before,
07:36that when there was an internal problem within NATO, the French, the Brits, the Americans,
07:42would often be the problem solvers, the mediators, smoothing over any frictions.
07:45And it leads to the question, who does that now over Greenland?
07:49Yeah, another excellent point.
07:53And I do believe that the alliance can be the venue, if you will, the mechanism for tamping this down.
08:02And this is where I hope our allies will, through multiple channels, make it clear that this is not acceptable.
08:10You know, we've done this in the past where we would say to other allies, you know,
08:17whether it was Turkey and Greece or whoever, unacceptable to be doing these things.
08:22And this is where President Macron, the German Bundeskanzler, the British prime minister,
08:28should be saying, this is not acceptable and we're not going to stand for it.
08:32But I think also the military, the U.S. military, they know that this, in my view, would be an unlawful order.
08:42So I think because in our Constitution, Article 6 of the Constitution says that any treaty is the law of the land.
08:53So to violate our treaty, the Washington Treaty, which created NATO, would be a violation of U.S. law.
09:00And so I would expect that the senior military leadership in the U.S. is conveying to the White House, like, you know, we're not going to do this.
09:07We can't. We can't do this. This is an unlawful order.
09:10So pressure from allies, pressure from the Congress, and the reality that you cannot use military force,
09:17I think will eventually get to a better outcome.
09:22One person we haven't mentioned is the Secretary General Mark Reuter in this.
09:26I wonder whether you think he should say more. Does he address it directly?
09:29He hasn't yet. He's given an interview with CNN. He's spoken in Zagreb as well this week.
09:33He talks about this not being a crisis, about it's a good thing, he said, that they talk about better security,
09:38but he deliberately avoids the issue of ownership.
09:42They call him the Trump whisperer. Should he mention something or is he best keeping out of this?
09:48Well, the Secretary General, of course, is a far more experienced politician than I am.
09:54But I have to say, I hope that European leaders will stop this disgusting obsequiousness, flattering the president all the time.
10:06Hold us, hold the Americans, hold your allies accountable.
10:10Make us live up to our own talking points about our Constitution, about the law.
10:14And I think the Secretary General, it's his duty as the Secretary General of the entire alliance to make it clear that this is not acceptable
10:25and to make it clear how this damages the United States.
10:29I mean, we depend on bases in European countries are essential for us to carry out our strategic reach, whether it's to the Middle East, Africa or across Europe.
10:41The recent operation to seize a Russian flag tanker between Iceland and UK was only possible because the UK allowed us to fly equipment and helicopters into our air base in UK
10:54and then get on a British ship to go out and get that tanker.
10:58German air bases, Greek seaports, Italian seaports, these are all essential for us.
11:04And I think this is where allies should say, hey, you know, you're a part of this team, America, and we have some leverage as well.
11:16Intelligence sharing, half of what we use does not come from American satellites.
11:21It comes from French intelligence, British intelligence, German intelligence.
11:26These are things where I think the Secretary General could be reminding the administration what's at stake if we continue on this.
11:34I think it's food, fair to say, food for thought for the US military and its military chiefs as well.
11:40I think you've said recently the possibility of seizing Greenland without Congress approval.
11:45As you see, it would be an illegal ad.
11:47And perhaps you'd have thought about whether you would have carried out the orders if you were put in that position when you were in the forces.
11:54The Constitution is pretty, pretty plain.
11:56Article 6, any treaty such as the Washington Treaty, which created NATO, is to be considered the law of the land in America.
12:05So that means it's American law.
12:07So it would be a violation of American law to attack an ally.
12:12And I think we need to be very clear with the administration about this.
12:19Let's talk about Venezuela because Lieutenant General Maria Corina Machado is speaking tonight, a day after she gave President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize.
12:30Of course, we're only a week after the rendition of Nicolas Maduro.
12:34I want your thoughts on that.
12:36Let's just take a listen for a moment to what Maria Corina Machado said just a short while ago.
12:40We are going to turn Venezuela into that land of grace.
12:47And I believe I will be elected when the right time comes as president of Venezuela, the first woman president of Venezuela.
12:57Very different perspective, given what President Trump said, Lieutenant General, just a week ago, saying that she didn't have the respect, but she has met with him since.
13:04She believes she'll be elected president.
13:06Perhaps it's a slow burn there.
13:07First of all, as a military observer watching that operation, did it surprise you, the scale, the speed, the success of capturing Maduro?
13:17It didn't surprise me that our special operators and intelligence professionals did such a good job.
13:23I mean, they are very well equipped.
13:25They're very well trained.
13:26They practice these kinds of things.
13:29And the technology that was used is impressive.
13:32Not a surprise, but impressive.
13:34What did surprise me is how poorly prepared they were in Caracas with the so-called Cuban bodyguards.
13:42The air defense was not even set up.
13:45And they should not have been surprised that something was coming that had been telegraphed for weeks.
13:49So that was a surprise to me, was how poorly the Venezuelan, with their Cuban mercenaries, how well, how poorly they did.
14:00Do you take a view at all on whether there is an element of trying to bring about a transition within the Trump government?
14:07Or, as many analysts see it, it's first and foremost, if not solely, some say, about oil and making sure that goes towards Washington.
14:17This was 100 percent about oil.
14:19It had nothing to do with drugs.
14:21I mean, that was clear.
14:23Everybody knew that the drug boats that we were hitting, and I think those are legal, questionable legality.
14:28Unfortunately, these were not carrying fentanyl, which is what the administration always complains about, that fentanyl is what's killing thousands of Americans.
14:37But these drug boats were carrying cocaine going somewhere else.
14:40So that was a little bit of a theater.
14:42And then, of course, the former president of Colombia, who was responsible for billions of dollars of cocaine getting to America, he was pardoned.
14:53So this was a pretext to try and justify sending troops in to get President Maduro.
15:02And, of course, everybody else is still there, all the same thugs, the criminals, the goons that have been suppressing Venezuelan people, and they're part of the whole racket.
15:13They're still in power.
15:14So I think the goal was to get American control over all of Venezuelan oil.
15:23And, I mean, now the proceeds from the first sale are going to some bank in Qatar.
15:29I mean, none of this is believable in normal times.
15:35So I think people should have their eyes wide open.
15:38The president is serious about implementing his national security strategy about total dominance in the Western Hemisphere and all the normal laws and things.
15:50I don't think they believe those apply to them.
15:53So this is where the Congress really has to get up, stand up strong, and do their, fulfill their constitutional duty.
16:02To map out the geopolitical flashpoints right now, we can go from that sanctioned tanker you mentioned a short while ago, Lieutenant General, from Greenland, or between there and Scotland, where it's picked up by the US, from Venezuela, where it set off from before it changed its flag and its name, and before that said to be in Iran, filling up with oil.
16:21We still don't know what it was, what was on board and what it got rid of before it was sanctioned by the US.
16:26But to that point, taking us to Iran, you know, you've seen, you've spent time on the ground, you've served in Iraq, you've seen what happens when leaders falls, the hope that there is, the optimism and the chaos that often follows, I think, of Libya as well.
16:41Do you think President Trump should intervene on Iran?
16:46You know, yes, I do.
16:49We've watched, this is the third time, I guess, in the last 10, 15 years, where there's been an uprising of some sort, where Iranian people finally had had enough.
17:01And so it seemed like each time it was going to happen, and then the United States and the rest of the world would stand by and not help.
17:09This seems like the best possible chance to finally do something.
17:15And I do, even though I disagree with the president on so many of his policies, I believe he is sincere in wanting to stop the killing of these protesters and other innocent people.
17:25The problem is, he gave these threats.
17:29He said, you know, you guys keep protesting, seize your institutions, help is on the way, we're going to do something.
17:36And so, of course, people did, but our own military was not in position to do this.
17:42The aircraft carrier that used to be in the eastern Mediterranean was in the Caribbean.
17:47So we don't have all the assets in place to do something, number one.
17:51Number two, the mistake we always make is we don't clearly identify the strategic outcome.
18:00I mean, killing somebody to stop them from massacring protesters, that's not going to end it.
18:07What happens next?
18:09Who comes in next?
18:11That's the hard part, is to clearly define the strategic outcome, and they haven't done it yet.
18:16So now we're in a situation where I don't believe one second that they have stopped killing protesters or stopped arresting them.
18:25So the president used that as an excuse to back away from this, but they should have thought through, before even saying we're going to do something, should have thought through, what are we going to do and to what end?
18:39They have to figure that out first.
18:42But yes, I do support stopping the killing of protesters, and I will support a regime change in Iran.
18:50But we have got to do better on helping to make sure whoever comes next is somebody that is respected and can unite the Iranian people.
18:59Psychologists talk about, as we discuss all of these different escalations, different flashpoints, when there is a time of unpredictability and there is an increased time of fear, there's often a period where people look to nostalgia.
19:12And I don't know if you've seen this, Lieutenant General, but there is an online trend going viral at the moment in the US and the UK and elsewhere in Europe, reminiscing over 2016, a nostalgia for a time people claim to have been simpler.
19:24Do you remember, do you remember, can I ask you what your operations, tools of duty, what you were involved with in 2016, was it a period of comparative calm?
19:34What do you think?
19:36No, Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014.
19:40So, and people were, couldn't believe that Russia would invade a European country.
19:47So that, that was going on.
19:48When I was stationed here in Germany as the commander of US Army Europe in Wiesbaden, and we were very concerned about what Russia was doing, and we were doing our best to help Ukraine.
20:00Look, there never is a time where it's relative calm or there's not some crisis going on somewhere.
20:07What's needed is clarity of thinking, of having allies with shared values that help us work together, a network of diplomatic and military power, soft power, as well as hard power, that can address the inevitable issues and frictions that are out there.
20:29And so anything that damages the trust and confidence between allies is bad for all of us, especially for the United States.
20:39So I don't remember 2016 being like, just a calm, you know, good old, everything's okay.
20:46Everybody was pretty busy then too.
20:49Really good to talk to you tonight.
20:50A real pleasure.
20:51Thank you for your time.
20:52Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, thank you for all your insights and your time tonight.
20:57Thanks for the privilege, Gavin.
20:59Former Commander of US Ground Forces in Europe, former Commander of NATO Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey, Lieutenant General Hodges.
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