00:00I want to talk about Finland, India, India, EU, the mother of all deals, the trade and security and defense
00:07opportunities.
00:09But it's tough to get there without contextualizing the world we live in right now.
00:13And so I think, therefore, we should address first the grim situation we're seeing in the Middle East before I
00:19talk about more hopeful things.
00:22You have a unique perspective on this war.
00:25You probably have a year inside the rooms where decisions are being made.
00:30How long is this war going to continue?
00:34What will it take to end it?
00:37I hate to disappoint you, but the answer is no one knows.
00:41I don't think there was a strategic endgame for the war.
00:46So we are in a situation whereby Iran and the United States, sorry, Israel and the United States attacked Iran
00:55probably for four reasons.
00:57Nuclear weapons, missiles, proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and then regime change.
01:07But as we all know, these kinds of attacks, if you aim for those four things, can rarely be achieved
01:14only through an air attack.
01:17And then I think the surprise of it all was that Iran decided to attack, depends on your count, 11
01:25to 13 of its neighbors.
01:27And it's not only hitting back at U.S. bases, but it's hitting back at civilian infrastructure.
01:33I've had the chance to speak to the President of the Emirates, the Emir of Qatar and the King of
01:39Jordan in the past few days,
01:41just to not only pay my respects and show our support, but to understand what is going on.
01:48And what we're seeing in the world right now is so-called local conflicts becoming regional conflicts and those regional
01:55conflicts having an impact on the world.
02:00We see the one, Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine, how it impacted grain or food, fertilizer, energy.
02:11Now we're seeing how this war is impacting trade and energy prices.
02:19This is what happens when power vacuums emerge and the world order changes.
02:24No one exactly knows where we're going.
02:26Can anyone mediate?
02:27In fact, given how White House operates under this new administration, is there scope for anyone to be able to
02:35mediate?
02:35Could Europe stand up to that?
02:37Well, I think peace mediation, traditionally, when it's been successful, it's been about the UN and a UN envoy.
02:46You know, previous state visit here to India by a Finnish president was by Martti Ahtisaari, who was a great
02:52peace mediator.
02:53He was here 30 years ago and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.
02:59And he was a firm believer that he needed a mandate.
03:01Now there's no one that can give you a mandate to mediate, and I just don't see that happening.
03:07You spoke of the economic costs of war.
03:11We're already seeing it in the first order effects in terms of supply chain disruptions, the impact on crude prices,
03:17well above 90, you know, briefly yesterday.
03:21What else were you sort of, you know, counting in as the economic cost of war?
03:26Can you elaborate for us?
03:27Well, if you start with the basic, it's just the basic idea of how much does a missile cost, or
03:33how much does it cost to defend a missile.
03:36And here are some of the estimates that I've heard of the first week of the war in Iran is
03:40roughly 40 billion, 40 billion dollars.
03:44And if you then look at the cost of war in Ukraine and Russia, Europe is paying something to the
03:51effect of 45 billion this year, 45 billion next year.
03:56And if you look at the total expenditure that Europe has given to Ukraine, we're talking somewhere between 250, 300
04:05billion euros.
04:06So that, to a certain extent, is the cost of war.
04:10But then to start monetizing it in some kind of an Excel sheet, I mean, at the end of the
04:16day, the most fundamental question that you can pose is, what is the cost of a human life?
04:22You know, in Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, we're talking about over a million dead or wounded.
04:29Of course, the loss in the war in Iran is so far much, much smaller.
04:36But nevertheless, it's indispensable.
04:38You can't put a price tag on it.
04:41Then, of course, I know there are a lot of business leaders, so they're looking at things from their business
04:44perspective.
04:45What is going to be the market impact of this?
04:47You know, what's going to be the impact of energy prices?
04:50And we don't know.
04:51Had someone told me that the cost of COVID is going to be X, Y, and Z, I would have
04:57probably doubted it.
04:58And I simply don't know where this is going to go.
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