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00:00Well welcome to the first in a series of shows called The Conversation. I'm Sam Kiley,
00:06I am the World Affairs Editor here at The Independent and I'm joined by Rachel Elhus
00:12who is the Director General now of the Royal United Services Institute which is the institute
00:20for the brainiest people in the world thinking about security matters and alongside Rachel
00:25is Sir Alex Younger, former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service otherwise known as MI6.
00:33We live in genuinely terrifyingly interesting times I think which is why I'm so excited that
00:40you're both here to try and help unpick it for us. Because of the recent events Alex I'm going to
00:47go
00:47straight in on the kind of intelligence snafu really that we've seen unfold
00:54recently in Washington, the use of the Signal Group, very high, your former equivalents,
01:02Director of the CIA, Head of the National Intelligence Agency, Secretary of State for
01:06Defence, the Middle East envoy at the time in Russia on his personal phone, part of this whole debacle.
01:15But those are my words. Was it, I mean as a former spy chief, what would your reaction have been
01:22if
01:22these were your people?
01:24Well I think, look, the whole administration is a discontinuity, almost by definition it's a break
01:30with the past and that has led to Trump appointing a set of people who are completely new and that's,
01:36you know, that's by design. And they don't come from the security establishment as I would see it.
01:46And there's a whole set of consequentials that stem from that. Not least, of course, conferring on the
01:53President's ability to do things pretty differently. Whatever you think about that, it comes at a cost
01:58just in terms of a basic understanding of the environment in which we all operate and the threats
02:04that exist. On the face of it using a phone, an iPhone or wherever it is to plan an attack
02:12you don't
02:12want to know your enemy about, that you don't want your enemy to know about is not sensible.
02:19And it's ironic in particular because just at the end of last year the previous administration
02:25advertised a set of discoveries about Chinese malware, Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, which illustrated that
02:31China and its intelligence service more or less at will can be present on anybody's phone, including
02:37in the United States. So with an app like Signal, it is true that the conversation between you and
02:45the other phone is completely encrypted and it's true that that is uncrackable. But if the Chinese
02:51or whoever it might be are on your phone, it's going to make no difference. So there's a basic education
02:57issue here. I would hope that that lesson is being learned. You asked me how I would react.
03:03My view generally when I was in charge is that you can make a mistake once but you absolutely don't
03:08make
03:08a mistake twice. So let's see what happens. And it was a pretty big mistake to be holding a phone
03:14of
03:15that kind of vulnerability in the Russian capital, having just come from the Gulf. Let's call it a learning
03:22experience and let's see what happens next. Rachel, how did you react when you saw that? I mean,
03:29you've spent a great chunk of your career in highly confidential conversations as an envoy effectively
03:35to NATO for the Secretary of Defense, among other roles that you've played. Would you have imagined
03:42anything like this ever occurring? Well, I was also shocked that Signal was being used for those types
03:48of conversations. In regular circumstances, at least what I was used to is that there would be
03:55a very deliberate, what we call interagency process that brings people into the White House,
04:01sometimes connected from the Pentagon and State Department via virtual connections, via video.
04:06But those would be all secure communications at varying levels of government. And then those
04:12decisions would be taken very deliberately and the information would be kept very close hold.
04:17Because after all, let's remember, we're talking about strikes here. And so the lives of the service
04:22members from whence those strikes are coming, whether it was a ship or elsewhere, that's not,
04:29you know, a standoff capability where they could move out of harm's way very quickly. So I would be
04:34worried about force protection in the first instance. I didn't also see much of a conversation about
04:40precision of targeting, concern about civilian casualties, how we were coordinating with allies
04:47who might have forces in the region. I'm not just talking about Europeans, but there could have been
04:52you know, other, other Middle Eastern countries with whom we're working who could have been in
04:56the vicinity. So what is usually a very deliberate, in-person, secure process was played out in front of
05:02us, complete with emojis. Bizarre. Very strange. I mean, I was, I was stunned. I mean, what the,
05:10because what intrigued me was the fact that they all seem to be on their personal phones. And I know
05:16from my own communications with people involved in the intelligence community, one has to go through
05:22quite deliberate series of rigmaroles just to have a perfectly natural conversation.
05:28It just seemed absolutely bizarre to me. Do you think, Rachel, that this, we've seen the Canadian
05:35response to this, which was to publicly, but from the former head of Canadian intelligence to suggest
05:42that, and in fact, then the prime minister too, saying this is going to put five eyes, you know,
05:47the, the important Anglosphere system for intelligence sharing under pressure, given that Trump's,
05:55Trump has been notoriously slack about intelligence and security in the past anyway, do you think it
06:00is under, under pressure? You know, that's a big question. I hope not, because we have seen,
06:07and Alex will live this firsthand, we've seen the value of intelligence, intelligence in validating
06:14facts on the ground. We saw it most, most sharply in the run up to the war on Ukraine, when
06:21we were
06:21able to use a combination of open source information and intelligence from a number of allies to
06:27validate what the Russians were doing on the ground. We could see the force movements, we could see the
06:31forward positioning of blood banks, and that painted a picture that you wouldn't get from individual
06:38sources of intelligence. So it really is the strength of what each ally, not just five eyes, but all 32
06:46in a NATO context, bring into the conversation that allows you to act with rigor and, and as full
06:53a picture as possible, even if it will be incomplete. Alex, do you think that they can be trusted with
06:58this sort of sensitive intelligence? Well, it's a good question, because at the end of it all,
07:03an alliance is a trust thing. And Donald Trump sees it as a transaction in some ways,
07:08but I think everyone needs to understand it as a trust thing. Article five is a trust thing,
07:13and the five eyes really is a trust thing. We are astonishingly transparent with one another,
07:19and that has been to mutual gain, profound mutual gain over the years. So it's a good question. I've
07:26lived this, so I was chief when Donald Trump was last in office, and some of the stuff you referred
07:33to
07:35happened then. So it's got to be a cause of concern. But what I would say is that from a
07:41professional
07:41perspective, we're all on the same side. People talk about sources and methods, very dry term.
07:48Methods, you know, is how we do intelligence and how we derive intelligence, and that is indeed very
07:54sensitive and must be protected. Sources are people, real people who are behind the lines, who've decided
08:02to take a risk to keep all of us safe. And for us as intelligence practitioners, their protection
08:09is tantamount to a sacred duty. Now, that makes this personal, and in a sense that gives me some
08:18confidence because I know that my CIA colleagues will die in a ditch rather than see those sources
08:25compromised in whatever way. And that's kind of what we want to know in here. And we're the same,
08:32and they would expect the same of us. So I don't negate the fact that it all starts and ends
08:38at the
08:38top. But the reality is professionally, my former colleagues will be organised to make sure that we
08:44can keep the people who've decided to throw in the lot with us safe.
08:49That's a very interesting way that you put it. And I can see in your face a kind of, you
08:52know,
08:53genuine emotional attachment to, because from real world experience, no doubt you've, you know,
08:59had people who've been risking making the ultimate sacrifice. I hope none of them have ever been,
09:05had to pay the price. But the fact is that the people running the CIA, running the National
09:11Intelligence Agency now, have been, excuse me, sort of hand-picked for ideological reasons.
09:17And that's not new, that happens normally, you know, traditionally there is an element of political
09:23crossover. But these particular characters must be seen internally as difficult to dangerous by
09:34those CIA operatives and leaders that you refer to who do have that sacred bond with their agents.
09:42No, I just don't know. I'm not inside. I can't speculate. But I do know what I've just said,
09:48which is that the professional cadre will be completely invested in the protection of their sources.
09:56And whilst this is, I agree with you, a pretty extraordinary time, actually, we've had
10:03this interface between the professional and the political. It's part of our accountability,
10:08actually. It's what we do. It's the difference between us and our opponents.
10:12It's something we've always had to mediate. Now, I don't negate your point, Sam. It is a very unusual time.
10:20But all I am saying when it comes to the defense of the integrity of our capabilities as five,
10:27there will be a very, very strong machine in operation to retain the integrity, even if I can't
10:36belittle the idea that it's more at risk than it was. Okay. So that's given us the sort of immediate
10:43thing. And please feel free to ask one another questions and interject. Let's take a look at
10:51Ukraine in the sort of broad, and then we may probably drill down. I mean, and I know, of course,
11:00what both of you have your positions on Ukraine. But Rachel, what do you think ultimately is the
11:07Russian agenda when it comes to Ukraine? Is there any real possibility, for example,
11:15that a ceasefire, whether a long or even a short one, would result in a safe Ukraine, free from the
11:25threat of a Russian invasion? Well, it's difficult to speculate on how far this goes and what's going
11:32through the Russian mind. But given what we've seen over the last three years, I think it's fair to
11:38speculate that President Putin's trying to redraw the map. Some of the changes that were made at the
11:45end of the Cold War that left Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova as not part of the Soviet Union, but neither
11:53part of NATO or the European Union left them in a kind of limbo, created an opportunity for him to
11:59chip away
12:00at the margins of those countries and create pockets of instability or insecurity that would
12:06prevent them from fully integrating into NATO or the EU. So in terms of territorial conquest,
12:12I don't know exactly how far he would go. Would he go all the way to Kyiv to try to
12:16take over the
12:17entire country and subsume it into Russia as a whole? I'm not certain about that. It might be enough
12:25to achieve his objectives just to take pieces of Ukraine, take the ports, take the highways,
12:32take critical infrastructure that is really important to Ukraine's survival as an independent
12:39state. That might be enough to achieve his objectives of preventing them from ever becoming members of
12:45NATO or the EU. But I will say, I think he has a secondary objective, which people sometime overlook,
12:51and that is to really challenge and undermine NATO and the European Union. Now, am I saying he's going
12:59to invade the Baltic states or Poland tomorrow? I'm not. But he is going to test the boundaries of what
13:05we call Article 5, which is the feeling or the commitment that an attack against one NATO ally is
13:12attack against all of them. He's already been pushing the boundaries of that through below the threshold
13:18activities that aren't conventional attacks, but things like we've seen weaponization of migrants,
13:25a couple of situations where he's taken migrants in Russia, put them up against the border of Norway
13:31or Poland, and pushed them over in order to create instability unrest and to test whether Poland and
13:39Norway would respond in a balanced way, because then that would open them to criticism. So we've got that
13:46primary objective of preventing Ukraine's full Western integration and viability as an independent state.
13:52And then we have that secondary, probably bigger objective of undermining the Western structures.
13:57Now, do you see it as a matter of sort of, is it an imperial agenda that Putin has?
14:02Yeah, I think of necessity. What does Putin have to offer the Russian people, really? He offers them security,
14:13and that's beguiling for Russians because of the disaster of the democratic experiment,
14:18which the West is semi-complicit in, by the way. But I think when he came to power,
14:24there was a craving for security, and he puts himself out there, he's Mr. Hard Man, as security.
14:31Of course, what you need in that environment, though, is a threat. Particularly, by the way,
14:37when you have no other offer, because fundamentally what the Russians are buying is a corrupt oligarchy
14:43that is ripping them off. But it's doing so because it craves security. Security needs a threat. And
14:50I think at the beginning, the threat was that Russia was fundamentally falling apart, and Putin did fix that.
14:57But now, of course, Putin feels the need to take this to another level. And I think Putin doesn't
15:07have a rationale unless he's in a permanent state of antagonism, specifically with Europe. And so
15:17this needs to continue. Now, you don't need a spy to tell you this. He kind of said it before
15:22the
15:23invasion. So we were clever as spies in revealing his attack plans, which completely lent the lie to the
15:29idea that this was some kind of defensive manoeuvre. Rubbish. But the really revealing bit came before
15:35there in August 21, where he wrote an essay, you know, complete with spelling mistakes. It was definitely him
15:41about the destiny of Ukraine and Russia. Unity, I think was even the word. And that revealed his sense
15:49that Russia just isn't complete without Ukraine and the implication that the reverse is also true.
15:54You've got stuff, the sort of Russian mythology, Ruskimia, all invested in Ukraine.
16:01He made it super clear that Ukraine's existence was inimical to Russian greatness.
16:07And to Rachel's point, by the way, in the same essay, he made it really clear that the
16:12expect the choices that former Warsaw Pact states had made to throw in their lot with the West,
16:19i.e. join NATO, also represented an illegitimate infringement of Russian sovereignty. In all of
16:27this, what he's doing is talking about something that we're very familiar to our predecessors in 1945.
16:34He's talking about spheres of influence. And he has his idea of a Russian sphere
16:39of influence. And I don't think he's going to stop until that has been re-established.
16:44And I think that's his offer, you know, couched as a Russian reinvigoration,
16:50I suppose. But that's his offer. So we need to be hard-headed by this. He's not going to invade
16:56Warsaw tomorrow, but he's going to continue. I agree entirely, Rachel. Primarily, at least initially,
17:03through unconventional means, just chipping away. And what have we learned?
17:07If you don't stand up to him, he comes back for more. How many more times do we need to
17:11be told this?
17:13Well, because we've seen Georgia, we've seenâŠ
17:16We've seen Georgia, Syria, Crimea, you knowâŠ
17:20Chechnya.
17:21âŠover and over again. I mean, what fascinates me, as someone who comes from Africa,
17:26is that when he was operating in the Georgian sphere, I recognised it immediately as classic
17:32apartheid-era destabilisation campaigns. And similarly, in Crimea, everybody was talking
17:37about hybrid warfare as it had just been invented. And I was going, no, no, this is normal. You dress
17:42up as
17:43as the other side. And in the case of the apartheid regime, we go across the border,
17:48commit atrocities, get them blamed internally and clear off. You know, it was a veryâŠ
17:53âŠwe've seen this time and time and time again. But what we⊠have we in Europe appreciated,
18:00do you think, the strategic shift that we're engaged in? I mean, I sometimes say, you know,
18:07some are born in moments of history. If you're born in Afghanistan, you're born into history.
18:13And it's happening to you. But some of usâŠ
18:16âŠin this case, it's sort of being thrust upon us. We've had a lovely complacent
18:19time for the last several decades, eight decades or so in the West. And now we are
18:25in a position in which we've got to kind of butch up.
18:28I would say that the bigger shock that's really going to wake up
18:32Europeans is the behaviour of the United States lately. You know, I was at NATO during the
18:402022 invasion, Russian invasion of Ukraine. And sure, there was, you know, some bustling,
18:46this is outrageous. We have to do something. We have to step up. Putin's really crossed a line here.
18:51And you saw some changes. You saw the Germans increase defence spending. You saw them get rid
18:56of some export control regulations. You saw the UK find a leadership role in Europe and really push
19:01for Ukraine's integration into the West. But largely speaking, defence budgets didn't rise
19:07significantly. People didn't take hard decisions and reorient their economies towards a war footing.
19:14But honestly, you know, as you were speaking about essentially the Russian playbook and Russia
19:22needing some sort of security, needing an external enemy or some sort of enemy in order to
19:29kind of galvanise support for that leader, I found myself thinking about a lot of the behaviours
19:35of President Trump, frankly. Who are the enemies? The enemies are migrants, wokeism, Europeans.
19:45It's quite shocking. It's shocking in that he sounds like he's Putin.
19:49Absolutely. Or that he's using the same instruments to create fear and otherness
19:57in order to, that that is, as Sir Alex said, that's the offer. The offer isn't really more efficient
20:07government, more jobs back in the United States, lower prices for the American people. All the things that
20:17were promised on the campaign, I don't see those materialising. What I do see materialising are,
20:22you know, deportations, angry words for our allies, kind words for our adversaries, cracking down on
20:31all the soft power elements like freedom of the media, freedom of speech that would come to value
20:36and be known by as the United States. So that's what terrifies me. So to your question, I hope if
20:41there is
20:42a wake-up call and a galvanising moment, it will be that.
20:45The galvanising moment for Europe? Yes.
20:48Well, I mean, let's take a look at the Trump-Putin relationship, or the Trump-Maga-Putin
20:56relationship, because, and I've written about this, and so I'm sort of testing my own thesis
21:00against grown-ups, if you like, but the, you know, by now, it's no longer interesting to me
21:07whether or not he is actually a Russian agent, as has been alleged in the past, with no proof
21:14whatsoever. But that he, but he behaves, and one can be sure that he will behave,
21:21as if he were taking instructions from the Kremlin. And that's my working assumption now.
21:28Am I wrong, Alex?
21:29I mean, who knows? I personally don't think he's a Russian agent. I went on my way not to
21:34find out, because why would you want to know, etc. So, I don't know.
21:38He's very, very wise. You've become chief for nothing.
21:41But as you all say, in a sense, that's not the point. The point is he agrees with Vladimir Putin.
21:45He agrees that big countries get additional rights over small countries, particularly in their
21:50own backyard. So, he's a spheres of influence guy. Look at how he's behaving in the Western
21:54Hemisphere, with Panama, and Greenland, and Canada, etc. This is what he does. And his vision,
22:01I think, is sort of Westphalian. It's a balance of powers in the world, but specifically with
22:07Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump in its centre. And in those terms, what Putin says
22:14about Ukraine and his rationale, which is fundamentally that Ukraine got out of line
22:18and didn't understand it was in the Russian sphere of influence, I don't think he really sees that
22:22that's, he doesn't see what's wrong with that.
22:25He basically agrees with it on a sort of strategic level.
22:27Yeah, so there's a bias. And this is what makes me worried about what's going on. I think it's
22:31broadly speaking, a bias towards the idea that Russia has more rights than Ukraine,
22:36because it's a bigger country. By the way, that's basically why Xi Jinping is sympathetic
22:41to the Russian cause. I mean, there's a lot of other stuff going on. But fundamentally,
22:45it's an offence to his political view of the world that a small country gets the same rights
22:50as a big country. He's sort of said that. And Xi Jinping's really clear.
22:54You know, he says rather disingenuously that all countries should have independent rights
22:59to follow their own interests. But that's really about China's heft, China being able to use its
23:04heft and make the rules. So when Putin does that, Xi Jinping hasn't got a problem. And increasingly,
23:09Donald Trump hasn't got a problem. The people who've got a problem are the people who are built on the
23:14new order, where states have rights regardless of their size. And that's called Europe, which is why
23:20this is such a shock to us. It is an extraordinary shock. I mean,
23:24here in Europe, it's quite intriguing to me, the extent to which there's still a kind of wry laughter
23:31when Trump makes remarks about turning Canada into the 51st state or not ruling out troops to invade
23:40Greenland. The Danish have just sent special forces onto the ground to protect Greenland against
23:48fellow NATO ally, the United States of America, who also have a military base there. Obviously,
23:53that is the wake up call that you referred to there, Rachel. But I mean, do you agree with Alex
23:57that this is this is just a simple kind of we're not simple, but but it's about spheres of influence,
24:03or is there something more sinister going on? Well, I would agree with Alex that that bias is there.
24:10The way that that President Trump sees the world is is very different. And it is partial to big states.
24:16The part that that really what he kind of lacks an understanding is from whence does that American
24:23power come? Why is it? Is it just because the United States is big geographically? Well, if that's the
24:30case, then there are other countries who who would be more powerful. So I think he misses a trick in
24:36not really stopping to think why? Why can the US behave in this way where it has outsized influence,
24:42where countries around the world are holding their breath and checking Twitter every morning to see
24:47what Donald Trump has said? It is not because we've thrown our weight around in a ugly way. It's because
24:53we have had that choice, but have chosen to generally speaking, work together with allies and friends
25:02and try to defend the interests of small states, smaller countries, because there's this underlying
25:11belief that it magnifies our own power. So the credibility and the trust upon which the US can
25:17behave as it currently does, all derives from the fact that we have allies and partners around the world. And
25:23so that's the piece that I that I miss in this. It's not the United States's power is not inherent.
25:29It is not God given. It is not exceptional. It has been built over decades.
25:33By the way, I think Xi Jinping agrees with that. So Donald Trump has an idea that it's it's martial
25:42might that commands respect. The thing that scares Xi Jinping is not the US aircraft carrier. It's a sense
25:49of the teamwork which only democratic countries are capable of generating. And he obsessively talks
25:56about containment, encirclement, block mentality. All of this is a complaint against what Rachel
26:02absolutely identifies correctly as our strongest, our greatest strength, which is our capacity for
26:08teamwork and our alliances. So where I differ violently with the new president is that this is somehow a net
26:14liability for America. And this will be the historical tragedy because it manifestly isn't.
26:19He's right. There has been freeloading. It's actually good that Europe has been prodded into action.
26:25I think this is a positive. But but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
26:30You've written two major papers come books on the ability of the European nations.
26:41As you look at it now with the efforts going on to build the coalition of the willing and so
26:45on,
26:46are the Europeans going to be able to put something together to somehow protect Ukraine in time,
26:52given I think that Trump is going to abandon the Ukrainians?
26:55I believe that if the political will is there and European countries are able to work in a concerted,
27:02deliberate way to continue the support that's been given to Ukraine to hold its own in the fight
27:08against Russia, I think they can hold out. Now, even under the current form of assistance,
27:13a lot of people had their doubts about whether the conflict would come to a resolution on the battlefield.
27:18The Russians are unable to hold the territory that they won at great cost.
27:24Equally, the Ukrainians probably can't entirely force the Russians out of all of their territory.
27:29So we are always moving towards a situation where at some point there will have to be some sort
27:34of a ceasefire and some sort of a negotiation. But can the Europeans keep the Ukrainians in the fight?
27:41Absolutely. And I believe there are signs that Russia is under pressure on the battlefield
27:45and probably can't hold out that long. So I think it's definitely worth it.
27:49The tricky bit is that helping Ukraine will come at a cost to European readiness.
27:57So if we believe that Russian designs are beyond Ukraine, Europeans have to be very careful to make
28:03sure that they don't support Ukraine to the degree where they take risk on NATO territory or EU territory.
28:11You have to kind of change your mindset and think about Ukraine as part of Europe,
28:14even if institutionally they aren't members of NATO and the EU. So the types of arrangements
28:21I hope Europeans are thinking about is when you think about ground-based air defence and air cover,
28:27well, a lot of those systems could be based in Poland or Slovakia.
28:32But in practical terms, they actually could provide air cover for Ukraine and ground-based air defence for Ukraine from
28:40NATO territory or EU territory.
28:42It's quite interesting that Maloney has said, apropos of a reassurance force, don't bother with that.
28:49Let's just give them Article 5 status, which given that she's often associated with being quote-unquote pro-Trump,
28:55I don't think she is, to be fair to her, but that was an interesting â it's kind of what
28:59you're saying to some extent.
29:01It is, but if you create those kinds of expectations and guarantees, you have to be willing to enforce them.
29:09You know, it's not Article 5, but, you know, a couple of â in Syria, for example, we set red
29:15lines,
29:15and if a red line is crossed and you then don't turn around and enforce that, then the whole house
29:20of cards falls.
29:21NATO's Article 5 is really the holy grail of security guarantees.
29:25So, if you're going to go that direction, yes, absolutely.
29:28The implication is that if that line is crossed or that is tested, there will be another force coming in
29:35behind it.
29:36Do you think, Alex, do you think we have the metal in Europe anymore for this?
29:40I don't know. I worry. I think we've disarmed militarily, self-evidently.
29:46We've largely dismantled our military industrial base, which is also a big problem.
29:52But I think culturally, also, there's an issue.
29:56We've, for many years, been completely free of any form of existential threat.
30:02We've â unforgivably â and, of course, my generation has passed this â launched a set of wars of choice,
30:08which have imposed sacrifice needlessly on young people.
30:13And there's great cynicism about this idea of collective effort to defend your country.
30:19I think we're more comfortable thinking about the army as like of the England football team.
30:23They go and do their thing over there and we kind of watch it on telly.
30:27And that can't happen anymore.
30:30The answer to your question in truth, Sam, is that it really depends on how close to Moscow you are.
30:35I think in Finland it's well understood and there's a properly integrated, resilient culture
30:41where everyone is accustomed to playing their part.
30:43I think we go to Portugal at the other end, that's just not true.
30:46And in a sense, that's understandable.
30:48So it's got to be a work in progress.
30:51I think the UK is quite conflicted as well.
30:53We've got this astonishing history which makes people readier
30:56to conceive of Britain playing a much more active role.
30:59But I think here, too, there's real concern about being asked to actually do stuff.
31:04Putin and Trump together, as we've discussed, have done their best to persuade us that the rules have changed.
31:09I think that probably comes into place over time.
31:14And actually, in the end, I think you also look back to something that besets all Western countries
31:18at the moment, which is the fact that they're not growing economically anymore.
31:22And I'm pretty confident this whole conversation would be a lot easier if we rediscover economic growth,
31:31because then we can allocate to this task and be more creative and have much more room.
31:37So in a sense, all of the Western government's main problem is still their main problem.
31:41Yeah.
31:42It's economic innovation.
31:43Economic innovation, sort of economic, ultimately, stagnation, an ageing population.
31:50But you're suggesting that also we have children of, we have fighting age males in the family.
32:00Should these young men and women be in the United Kingdom, for example,
32:07be thinking about joining up, becoming a reservist?
32:11You know, is there something the government should be doing?
32:14Is there a cultural shift that somebody has to drive?
32:17I think there's an independent cultural argument.
32:19So you'd have to ask a soldier about the actual efficacy of things like conscription.
32:22I have no idea.
32:23But I know that the military should be a much more, I was a soldier myself,
32:27I know that it just needs to be a more integrated feature of everyday life.
32:30And I think that will bring broader benefits.
32:33So I think this is probably more about a more creative and broader conception of what the
32:38reserves is, getting people within touching distance of this thing, which at the moment
32:44is just seen as other.
32:46But eventually, it really isn't going to be other.
32:49How close are we, Rachel, to it, to danger?
32:52I would like to think we're not, all is not lost, and that we are seeing some of the cracks
33:03and
33:03fissures in time to actually do something about it.
33:07This argument of, you know, U.S. Secretaries of Defense or Presidents saying Europeans need to
33:13step up and spend more, do more, take on more of the responsibility in their own theater.
33:18That's not new.
33:19It's just the urgency and the tone with which it's being said is a bit different than in the past.
33:25So...
33:25And they have galvanized.
33:27Absolutely.
33:27I mean, they are having an effect, right?
33:29Absolutely.
33:29So to go, you know, to the question about growth, I'm pretty excited about the recent
33:34announcements that Germany has made, because not only are they saying they're going to put new,
33:38more money towards defense industry and ramping up production, which will
33:42create growth in the German economy and across Europe. They're also going to do the same for
33:47infrastructure to make sure that it's resilient and up to the task of, you know, moving heavy
33:53tanks across Europe if need be. So there are some bright spots here. I think people are waking up to
33:58the scale of the challenge. And there are shining examples. I mean, Finland really is a good one,
34:02where, you know, even if you are, you know, a pro football player or you're a musician, you know
34:09how to operate a gun. You have, you know, probably some sort of reserves in order to be able to
34:17survive
34:17in your home without electricity or water for about two weeks time. And it's that kind of a mindset that
34:23does scare people a bit if they're not used to thinking that way.
34:26But you're talking about introducing a prepping culture to Britain.
34:30Absolutely. In fact, I think the UK and all NATO allies are working on national resilience plans.
34:35Some already have them. I don't believe the UK did, or if they did, it was not kind of up
34:40to where it needed to be.
34:42So we are going through a period. The Swedes have actually done a brilliant thing. They have a pamphlet
34:48that's called If War Comes. And every household has been given one of these, and it's their responsibility
34:54to create that resilience mindset. So, no, I don't think we're on the brink of war. I think we're still
35:01talking to each other. We're still sharing intelligence. We're still operating together.
35:05We're still around that table at NATO. And Europeans are doing a lot of what the Trump administration
35:12has been asking, and frankly, those long before them. Alex, do you think that, I mean, how do we get
35:18from a bucolic complacency in this country to people storing tin food at home?
35:26Well, look, on the one hand, I don't think it's credible for people like me to claim that there's
35:33going to be an emergency tomorrow. So we need to be careful and studious, as Rachel obviously is being,
35:38in terms of how we describe the threat. But on the other hand, we need to be really clear that
35:43the world
35:43we were in before was not the real world. It was the US security guarantee. And then that was always
35:48going to end, regardless of Donald Trump. And we are going to own our own future. And my point is,
35:53I think that could actually be quite an exhilarating experience. I think this relationship with the
35:56United States has become dangerously unbalanced. We've become infantilized. We've lost agency.
36:03And in doing so, I've lost our willingness and capacity to innovate on our own account and invest in
36:09our own future. There's a whole set of things here that can happen as a consequential,
36:13from an undesirable fact, which is that we are in a more dangerous world. But when it comes to driving
36:20innovation, or altering the balance of our economies, or even some of the cultural stuff you raised,
36:26there are opportunities here. And oddly, I mean, I think this new government in the UK, it felt a bit
36:32sort of directionless at the beginning. But it has sensed in this, a way to galvanize government
36:40across the peace. Now, to your question, it's not going to happen overnight. But there is something
36:47going on. And Germany was genuinely a huge surprise on the upside. If Germany rearming is not the key,
36:56is not the thing, it will not solve the whole problem. But if they don't, there's no chance
37:01of anything happening. So it is genuinely significant what's going on there.
37:05And at the end of the day, how long, how long have they got? I mean, I wrote recently that
37:11if the Ukrainians can hang on for a year, they could win this war.
37:17Am I wrong?
37:17The two things are related. You know, what worries me most about the so-called
37:23conversations around the ceasefire that are happening now, is the fact that the Ukrainians
37:29have been given quite a few concessions, you know, certain things have been taken off the table,
37:35like NATO membership, US boots on the ground, etc. Conversely, the Russians have been given an opening
37:42to continue to attach conditions to the ceasefire. And when I look at those conditions that they're
37:48floating, they are things that are deliberately designed to put Russia in a position where they
37:54can start to reconstitute. So take, for example, this request to open up the Black Sea again.
38:01You know, the Turks have been very diligent in enforcing the Montreux Convention and not allowing Russian
38:07warships to go back and forth into the Black Sea. Ukraine would be in a much more difficult position
38:13absent that enforcement. So the idea that they could ask for a concession around Black Sea security,
38:19whereby sanctions were lifted, that is a deliberate ploy to put themselves in a better position to keep
38:24fighting on. So I think the trick here is to keep the pressure on, because, you know, how much time
38:31do
38:31we have? I would say that, you know, if the pressure stays on and Europeans are serious,
38:38and the Russians continue to feel pressure, you know, you've got five to 10 years, but absent that,
38:44that probably goes down by half. And we're talking maybe three to five years. Before Russia is able to
38:53reconstitute, continue to push into Ukraine, and possibly other places, you know, let's remember,
38:59although their land force has been pretty decimated, the air and naval forces are largely intact.
39:06And the nuclear capabilities in the northeast corner of Europe, up and around the Kola Peninsula,
39:15are absolutely intact. And Putin has shown he's willing to threaten tactical nuclear use in order
39:21to compel and threaten. So we don't have a lot of time. And even absent reconstitution,
39:28that Russian threat is not going away. And during this period, we're also likely to see,
39:32and we have seen, and the European leaders have drawn attention to this hybrid warfare attacks,
39:37obviously continued efforts to subvert Western democracy, infiltrate, carry out direct action in
39:46terms of sabotage. I'm wondering if we're going to see more of that, and any opportunities for the
39:54Russians to combine with fundamentalist groups coming out of the Middle East, other kind of,
40:00you know, my enemy's enemy is my friend type synergy, Alex, you know, because none of those threats
40:07have evaporated, have they? Yeah, I think we are, as Western liberal democracy is very vulnerable to the
40:13hybrid. The reality is that we are law based systems, which to operate, need to have boundaries. So the most
40:22obvious is the legal difference between peace and war. But there's also quite different between
40:27domestic and international, there's a whole set of things, where we, for governance reasons,
40:32constrain our response. Russians have worked this out. And they have a doctrine, which is to cross
40:37across all of these categories, in pursuit of very clearly defined national security objectives.
40:43It's called the Gerasimov doctrine, it isn't actually Gerasimov was actually describing something
40:47he said we were doing to them. But anyway, so this is something we've got to deal with. And it's
40:52tough
40:53for us, because we're not prepared to do stuff appropriate for war when it's peace. We don't have
40:59time to go into all of it now. But I think at the base needs to be an elevated capacity
41:04for partnership
41:05and teamwork, we must be able to work across borders. In the UK, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of
41:16Health is a real premium now on interoperability, using capabilities, the same capabilities for
41:21different purposes. You've got to rethink the way we do stuff. And then that is also true
41:26internationally, and it puts a premium on alliances. But I'm sure a challenge you would have wrestled
41:34with, Rachel, is the problem is, with Article 5, it embodies this boundary, the difference between
41:39peace and war, and yet we're being attacked underneath our boundaries. So there's a whole set of stuff to do.
41:44And on top of that, there's this issue of societal resilience, which the hybrid war is very much
41:49designed to undermine with disinformation and all of that. You know, I would say this wouldn't I come
41:53from the community. I think we're absolutely capable of dealing with this. We have extremely capable
41:58security and intelligence communities. We have very good alliances. But it does require us to recognize
42:05that this is taking place and to organize to effect. And in a sense, in that respect, it's consistent
42:12with everything else we've been talking about. We just cannot be complacent about this.
42:16But that complacency is one of the things that intrigues me, because it's the sort of othering
42:22of threat, in that it happens to other people, or it happens to different locations. And I think back
42:28to the days of the IRA, when, you know, if you saw an unattended bag, you got very anxious as
42:34a small
42:35boy, you know, if you saw, we were all programmed to be vigilant. Now we are very vulnerable to
42:44misinformation in the internet sphere. We haven't even touched on AI, maybe because I don't understand
42:51it. But the, you know, we've got a series of metastasizing threats. Do we, even in the European
43:00context, have the ability to counter them? And how do we counter them without the Americans?
43:05Because they, they have, they have, they've gone, right? They're not coming back.
43:11Well, I wouldn't say we've gone.
43:13We're very lucky that you're still there.
43:15But, you know, the metaphor that a lot of people use is, you know, supporting and supported. That
43:21would be the military way to say it. You know, the United States has said, I think Secretary of
43:25Defense has said, we don't want to take a leading role in responsibility for European security on
43:35the continent. I think Obama called it leading from behind. So there are different manifestations
43:40of this. But essentially, you know, if you think about a car, and you know, you hand over the keys
43:45to your teenager, and you say, you know, go off and drive, you can't tell them then, you know, in
43:51perpetuity, how to drive the car. So to Alex's point, there is a set, there is agency here. And
43:57as Europeans are put in a position where they have to do more, and you know, Big Brother or Big
44:02Sister
44:03USA is not standing there telling them how to drive the car, they will develop that agency and those
44:07reflexes. And mindsets can change. In the space of hybrid activities, if I even think about a year ago,
44:15or two years ago, if you would look at some of the business associations,
44:19and when they would experience cyber attacks, or hybrid attacks, or arsons in their warehouses,
44:25their response would be, you know, that's not really my responsibility. I'm a business person,
44:31I don't care about national security, I could do business in Russia, I could do a business in Iran,
44:36I can do business in the PRC. But I would be challenged to find many business leaders who now,
44:42these days, don't take security and risk into consideration in organizing their businesses. So
44:49this mindset change has happened. And I think we've got to continue to empower individual citizens,
44:56the private sector, non-defense departments of government to not really be paranoid about
45:02everything. But as you said, to look at things with a different lens than you may have. You know,
45:09in Finland, a couple years ago, there was a small archipelago, and it was a house of an oligarch.
45:16But why would this oligarch have, you know, multiple satellites, multiple launch pads for
45:21helicopters and whatnot? You know, you've got to train ordinary citizens to know what looks strange,
45:27and what looks normal. And that doesn't cost very much. But it does start at a basic level of
45:34education and training for resilience. I think, taking up an awful lot of your time,
45:39thank you so much. But I think I'm going to always try and round off these conversations,
45:44which can be quite gloomy, with an idea that I have for reasons to be cheerful. Alex?
45:52Agency. I genuinely find it invigorating. I think we
45:56have got ourselves into a set of unhealthy dependencies. If it's not too psychiatric,
46:02I would say we've lost our sense of who we are. And this is our wake-up call from Trump,
46:08from Putin, and by the way, from Mario Draghi, who's called out the non-sustainability of the
46:13European economic model. So what we can do for our kids is to respond to that,
46:19accord ourselves agency. And I think we'll be quite surprised by what happens next.
46:24Rachel, reason to be cheerful?
46:26So I'll give you two that are related. One, more UK and Europe, and more continental Europe in the UK.
46:33I think there was a period of mutual back turning that happened after Brexit, when the reality is,
46:39is you're very enjoined. And when it comes to security and defense, Europe is not going to be
46:45able to succeed in this endeavor without the UK, and by extension, other non-EU countries like Norway
46:52and Turkey, if they don't bring them into the fold. So I hope we'll see less of an institutional
46:57approach to ramping up European security and defense and just taking a more pragmatic approach.
47:03And then the second would be almost completing that project of European integration.
47:09We get so hung up again on the institutions, we forget that regardless of the outcome of the war,
47:16I think it's hard to envision a future where Ukraine is not part of Europe.
47:21Economically, culturally,
47:24you know, even in terms of security and defense, they have the second biggest army in Europe now,
47:28and probably one of the most capable, given the way that they've used emerging technologies and
47:33managed to evolve throughout the conflict. So that is pretty exciting, regardless of the stress and
47:40the tension that we're feeling now. Ukraine is not going to turn their back from Western Europe,
47:45and I hope the converse is also true.
47:49Thank you both very much.
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