Russia-Ukraine War: What Can We Learn from History? | Intelligence Squared

thank you very much indeed um ladies and gentlemen welcome to this Intelligence Squared discussion on the war in Ukraine one that despite the eye-catching Troubles of the British government right now could not be better timed nor could it have a finer cast the title of the discussion is the fabulously pompous fulcrum of History the topic is the key what are the lessons that history can teach us about the Russian war in Ukraine and to address that question we have three wonderful guests we have hopefully a wonderful audience uh some great questions and perhaps most importantly a decent amount of time to chew over the questions and the answers as they come there's always a slightly ghastly moment now where I sing the Praises of our panel as they have to sit there and squirm but we will plunge right in so max Hastings is a journalist a broadcaster and author of more than 30 books former editor of the Daily Telegraph former editor of the evening standard contributor to nearly every National newspaper there is and his latest book which will be available in the foyer um is Abyss the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962. we may be hearing a little on that topic as the evening goes on McMillan is Professor of history at the University of Toronto Emeritus professor of international history at the University of Oxford BBC wreath lecturer and her most recent book is war how conflict shaped us Peter Frank pan is Professor of global history at the University of Oxford his most recent book is the new Silk Roads the present and future of the world that is our panel thank you I didn't squirm at all and very briefly on the format of this evening the first 45 minutes will be given over to me lobbying questions at the panel uh after that there'll be roughly the same amount of time about 40 minutes for you to love questions at the panel there are standing mics you should be able to see them standing microphone there and there and then I can't quite see it because I'm blinded by the lights up in the gallery there as well um so I'm the best thing to do I'm afraid is to sort of go to the microphone and wait to be called um uh it's just otherwise we're having tolerable delays as people make their way to the mics we don't have roaming mics for those of you watching at home there is a box beneath the screen in which you can see us all uh you can type the questions in there and then I will see them here and put those to the panel as well and we hope to get through as many questions as we possibly can I would urge you to put questions rather than statements to the panel it generally produces a better reaction but that all having been said I would like to extend my thanks again to our panel for coming here this evening my thanks to you and let us begin the first question um I'll put it if I made to you Margaret are we fighting the Third World War no I don't think we are and I think it's actually very unhelpful analogy I think it leads to panic it leads to thinking about this war in a way that we shouldn't be thinking about it at the moment what we're seeing is a state to state war between Ukraine and Russia it has of course the potential to turn into something wider it already has drawn in outside forces outside support and so it certainly has the potential to develop into something wider but this is not a World War yet and I think we should hope very much that it won't become one the two World Wars we should remember were absolutely devastating in their impact the second world war even more if that's possible in the first world war because it involves such large parts of Asia as well and the third world war given the types of weapons we have today really has the potential to polish us all off and so I think I'm not saying we shouldn't contemplate it but I think to call this the third world war is wrong because it's not that and let's say a prayer that it won't be that yet Max I agree with Margaret um that it isn't the Third World War I do think what we're discovering from this uh horrible regional conflict is we're being reminded that we live in a Perpetual nuclear age that uh for 30 years since the end of the Cold War in 1991 we've all behaved almost as if nuclear weapons have been uninvented as if they weren't there now what this crisis has reminded us partly because President Putin has made it his business to remind us is that those nuclear weapons Putin still has the largest nuclear Arsenal in the world now I entirely agree with Margaret this is not the third world war but on the other hand the potential as long as you're dealing with nuclear weapons for something horrible to happen is still there and when people talk sometimes some of the very bellicose rhetoric one hears about Russia um I think reversing I just published a book on the Cuban Missile Crisis unto me the one lesson that the last from that one is that President Kennedy in the Missile Crisis displayed a mixture of resolution and caution and what I think the Americans have been doing very well in this crisis is to display the same mixture of absolute commitment to Ukraine and the resolution but also I don't think anybody in Washington forgets the caution bit of the fact that as long as we're dealing with nuclear armed States you always have to be incredibly careful to prevent this from becoming something worse Peter well I suppose if if uh if Margaret's wrong we're not going to live to see the consequences so that's always a good answer to have isn't it if this is the beginning of the third world war um and it escalates in a way that are the worst case scenario is that really is it um I suppose as a historian the question would be if we let's say the survivors in a cave would say when did it begin uh because it didn't begin on the 24th of February 2022 uh you could plausibly argue I think for for a good Mark that 2014 was when this started when Russia invaded Ukraine and occupied it we did nothing that's a separate story and we can talk about that uh you could argue it was maybe 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia and again we didn't really do what we should have done or you could argue that it sort of really the seeds were sown at the end of the Cold War as the Berlin Wall came down the Soviet Union dissolved and that's how the Russians want to frame this right so what Putin garbage who died a month ago or so now uh were adamant that the seeds of all the confrontations were sewn by the way in which Russia was treated after the war began after the wall came down rather and so I think we have to be very careful to first of all work out what exactly we're looking at you know is this a localized conflict where Putin has tried to make a quick land grab is this something much more profound much more existential that is about the West it's about conquests of large patches of territory and where do we where do we carve that up and I think we haven't thought that through particularly well partly because we're so busy with the logistical problem of keeping the Ukrainian Army supplied Margaret can I can I ask you about this question of a hybrid War because I suspect the answer to the World War III question slightly depends on on where you sit doesn't it if you are in Russia and you see economic sanctions from the West you see military supplies from the West flooding into Ukraine you see a constant to and fro in the battle for opinion you might think that the West is pretty heavily involved in this war that it's not just a regional conflict as it's been described here well there's a difference I think between taking measures that are warlike and actually fighting and the West at the moment isn't fighting Russia although it is certainly doing its best to support those who are fighting Russia so I don't think yet it is it is a third world war and we don't know I mean what we have to hope I think is that it doesn't develop and as Peter said we don't know when it started really and with any War you can go back and you can go back and go back and you could go back to actually go back to 1917 when the Bolshevik sees power in Russia and sent Russia down a particular path deeply suspicious of its neighbors but wanting to reconstitute the tsarist Empire but what I think we have to worry about always is is the the possibility of accident as well you know we we have too many well we have too many possibilities for something to go wrong you know in Europe I think if the first sector first world war hadn't happened people would have said oh it was just like the crisis in 1912 and 1913 and we didn't get a full of all-out war and I think a lot of people don't want an all-out War but the danger always is when you get armed forces in close contact with each other I mean what if the Russians for their own reasons drop a tactical and well nuclear weapon I I agree with Lawrence Freeman I don't think that's tactical if you use a nuclear weapon a threshold has been crossed but what if the Russians were to drop something on Poland what what happens then what how would the with polls respond how would the West respond and so I think we have to be at this moment very very careful we're dealing with a possibility and I think Max is right we you know there's a lot of bellicose talk um Often by those who aren't actually fighting it's always easier to say we should fight for the last Ukrainian when we're not actually fighting but I think we are in a very dangerous situation and we have this combination of very high tech War I mean you mentioned nuclear weapons it was also biological War there's chemical War the Cyber War you know we've already seen in the north of Germany last week the whole train system was out because someone hacked the German the German system and all those underwater cables which carry the fiber optic cables which carry the communications among Banks all the things we depend on are so vulnerable now we're realizing just what could happen can I try one historical parallel on YouTube that an awful lot of people today are saying we should never have allowed the Russians to get this far um we should have had Ukraine in NATO we should have intervened in 2014 I don't think the West should ever approach itself for having tried extraordinarily hard to embrace Russia as a partner in the community of civilized Nations and I do see a parallel with 1938 that some in in my view of sensationalists historians today argue that um the Western allies should have gone to war against Hitler in 1938 at the time of yearnings now I don't agree at all partly because in those days an awful lot of people all over the world still were not convinced that Hitler had to be fought still were not convinced that it was necessary to have to participate in another huge War by 1939 that had changed that the Western allies were able to go into World War II extraordinarily United because it was an understanding that everything had been tried um to strike civilized deals with Hitler and it had all failed it there was a man with whom you couldn't do business and I think something of the same is true today that um that there is a clear understanding today as there was not that would not have been in 2014 that Putin is an extraordinarily dangerous and I'm very reluctant to use the word but yes evil false in the world and that he's got to be resisted and fought and I believe that there's a better chance of the West being able to stand United against Putin today than there would have been if we got up against Putin earlier or if they've been I think it's crazy to talk of having had Ukraine and NATO because I think it would have been so divisive a year or two ago but I don't know what he was Ukraine's application to join NATO was turned down in 2010 so there was no sort of there was a attempt to want to join and one could perhaps understand why I don't disagree with anything you say Max the only thing I would say is is that um in the 1994 Budapest memorandum under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons um uh United States Russia the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity and that is a problem in 2014 that under Obama and under the Cameron Administration here in the United Kingdom we fudged what was going on about what those commitments actually meant Max can I pick you up on nuclear because it comes round to the book you've just published doesn't it give me some questions we've seen a lot of chat over the last what 10 days about that situation what are the parallels are there parallels well they're only the good news today um in what the world was terrified of in 1962 was going to be General war between the west and the Soviet Union which would obviously been a catastrophe of the planet because it meant nuclear war and one thing we have caused uh Jack Kennedy has become very controversial figure especially in the United States today especially because of his treatment of women um well for this for purposes we're talking about this crisis I don't think we need to go go there what we can say is Kennedy displayed in 1962. um extraordinary wisdom in seeing from a very early stage that at all costs nuclear exchanges terrifying to read the transcript so listen to the audio tapes of the first day meeting in the white house when they discuss what they're going to do on the first mood the mood of the American armed forces was we got a bomb Cuba and invade Cuba and take on the Russians and the American armed forces Chief were ganging to do that and um somebody said well what happens if we do invade Cuba and uh um The View was that probably the Russians would take out West Berlin which was then an enclave in in Europe and Robert Kennedy said well then what do we do and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at this meeting um said said he said go to General War I guess if it's in the interest of ours um said Kennedy said nuclear exchange and General Maxwell Taylor said guess you have to and thank God John F Kennedy had the sense to say yes yes I mean I'm worse things I even had one worse things were set but John F Kennedy said at that first meeting he said um we all have to understand that nuclear exchange will be the final failure the final failure he said everything we do here has got to be directed towards seeing that we don't get that now today I don't think we're in anything like without rehearsing the whole crisis I think that one thing that is scary is Jack Kennedy was able to see in 1962 scope for a bargain with Khrushchev in particular what the way the deal was finally struck that the Americans formally undertook not to invade Cuba um then or ever and privately and secretly Kennedy promised Chris job he'd remove American nuclear weapons up from Turkey now today it is much more difficult tens of thousands of people have died as a result of Kristoff's of of Putin's aggression it is far more difficult to see the basis of any sort of bargain that either president zielinski or uh President Biden can strike that won't be rewarding Putin's aggressions so I think it is I think this crisis is less dangerous but on the other hand I think it's more difficult to see the path out of Margaret can I get pick up on a point that Max made there or that Max illuminated and that's the role of human beings in international relations because so much of the discussion seems to treat uh the actors as rational actors um are they no it it's fantasy sorry thank you um as as the rational economic being you know that we all make rational economic decisions based on full information and think things through um you know it's a convenient thing to have if you're developing these series but where I think a lot of the realist political scientists the people who say it's all about interest you can just simply measure it and it's your States always behave in a certain way because of their interests whoever's in charge it doesn't really matter I think they leave out the individual they leave out the role of emotion often and I think we would not have had this War I mean if this war doesn't show how you need to bring in the role of individuals if you have someone in office who has a great deal of power what that person wants what that person does is going to make a difference you know a British prime minister particularly at the moment doesn't seem to have a great great deal of power and so perhaps it doesn't matter who's in office but it does actually matter who's in charge of China it does matter who's in charge of Russia because they have built or they've risen to the top of a system in which those office holders have a great deal of power and I think we wouldn't have had a war in Ukraine without Putin I think this is Putin's war and I think the role of emotion I think we're also realizing how important it is I mean when people looked at the relative size of this Russian and Ukrainian forces I thought well there's no way that Ukraine can hold out for more than two days which is what the Russians of course thought they thought it was going to be a cake walk down to Kiev and they apparently had a puppet government in addition to their dress uniforms they actually had an actual live puppet government in that long train that was coming down on Kiev and we all I think and I was guilty of it as well then the Russian certainly did we left out the determination of the ukrainians who were fighting an existential War to survive Peter Well it helped that the Russian army was supremely incompetent yeah uh badly LED they didn't understand basic Logistics uh they hadn't realized and they've done all these training exercises they do with great Show often with Partners from from other countries um that their their tanks had much lower mileages than they thought they did and so you had this 70-mile Cube because you couldn't get vehicles to the front so I mean I think that's right I think with with Putin the problem is is not emotional acting it's being a bad actor and Putin as all opportunists are and as Hitler was and many other leads in history uh is a is an opportunist and you can see why he thought things would play out in a different way he thought we were weak Heath well it starts with absolutely right it starts with Margaret with all the intelligence reports from Ukraine with it he'd be welcome with open arms if intelligence of Russian and FSB Intelligence Officers and Kiev had chosen the apartments they'd move into after the great uh Conquest he was absolutely certain that Ukraine's Ukraine had no fighting spirit let alone competence but beyond that he looked at Europe post pandemic economically stressed he could see the chaos of brexit which is almost incomprehensibly crap how we've been as a country in terms of the leadership regardless of our political Persuasions or whether you're pro-brexit I'm not here for that but no one can argue that we have had strong and stable leadership in the last three or four years and on top of that we've had all the kinds of disagreements where we've we've detached from the rest of the world to solve our own problems that that's opportunity for a permanent member of the Security Council is a challenge you could see macron calling NATO brain dead as quite a clear signal you could see the incompetence of the way that the United States ditched Britain and its Partners to pull out of Afghanistan and the way in which that was done with U.S Marines smashing keyboards to try and make them unusable and taking parts off very expensive pieces of Kit you can see Poland and Hungary effectively by the being or about to be sanctioned by the EU and you'd probably take a view that you'd fight you'd face vertical resistance particularly if you can see what happened in 2014. so Putin gambled on all of that and through a series because of as Margaret said an authoritarian structure that is extremely slim there's no institutional protection anywhere up the whole way up you can see why he threw the dice and thought he was absolutely bound to win and like most opportunist gamblers you you can win often but if you get it wrong you get it really really badly wrong I think one thing we don't um one thing we don't hear enough about and we don't say enough ourselves we all are an extraordinary debt of gratitude to the United States that without the Americans nobody should kid themselves Ukraine would by now be toast if Ukraine was dependent upon European assistance military and economic and although we talk a lot about this quantity of weapons we've sent it nothing compared with the Americans and I think our leader should be saying to Washington should be expressing extraordinary gratitude to Washington and should be making the Americans feel that we understand what we owe them because another president in the White House might have behaved completely differently and um and oh yes and we might we may in 2024 have another president we've got to start in Europe taking security seriously we cannot rely on the Americans always bailing us out and by gosh they have bailed us out this time around no I agree with you and I think what if Donald Trump had been president what what if he had actually won the election yeah you know but he would have been congratulating Putin his new best friend and saying what a great Victory um but just to go back to what Peter was saying about Russian assumptions and and Putin himself I mean there is a terrible thing that you know it's the all dictators should be warned about this the longer you stay there the more isolated you get the more you'll only hear from people who are flattering you to tell you what you want I'm sure a lot of intelligent failures were people telling him what he wanted to hear I mean if you're an FSB agent if you said to me if you sent a note a report back to Moscow saying by the way a lot of ukrainians actually probably will fight for the country that would be the end of your career and so I think Putin had convinced himself there's also really interesting element here he thought the West Was decadent and have you noticed how often he talks about gender and he talks about same-sex marriage and he talks about transgender you know there's something really deeply weird there but I think he he had convinced himself but no I think this is the fact that he fixes on it um you know who knows I mean I'm not going to get into Putin's psychology because that would be like getting into Hades but you know I think I think there was that assumption and again it's it's what people have in their minds when they do something and I think he had certain things this might was going to be easy the West wouldn't do anything and now that the West has responded and now the Ukraine has responded so effectively and shown such military prowess he's stuck what does he do now PT yeah I think I was going to say I mean without falling falling down to the circle of hell and what a glass of wine on as we sit and talk to talk about that one I think Putin psychology is partly that we're all decadent but that's framed and from his perspective so far as we can tell from the idea that Russia is the last Bastion of decency civilization and so on and that has run through since he took office or took power at the end of the 90s it's been a constant theme of Russia seeing itself as the last place standing as The Third Rome is a really important part of Russian historiography and sort of myth-making of you know Rome fell and then it was the bat on was passed to Constantinople in New Rome and Moscow is the Third Rome the heir of the Orthodox traditions and so on that there is a kind of very powerful Motif in using history in that way to try to to frame what it is that Putin is trying to do and you know for what it's worth and I mean I hope we'd also talk a little bit about deeper history or history further back all my colleagues who worked on medieval Kiev and Kevin Russ sort of from the 9th 10th 11th century all lost their jobs 10 years ago you know this wasn't something that has just popped up in the last year or two or even since 2014 the sensitivity around who the ukrainians are where they fit within Russia's idea of the outside world and you know I mean it's a matter of Interest I can't really see everybody's hands but how many people and I'm not going to Point At You know that Putin wrote these crazy essays about history right everybody how many people actually read those essence Margaret okay so you know Putin it's sort of slightly unusual this long essay about Dimitri biansk which is pretty arcane knowledge or the the way in which Polish nobles were awarded with land Holdings I mean as a historian I can't help be admire that people are interested in history but maybe not not Putin but what's most interesting I think about that lecture was how he ends he says Russian Ukraine have a very complex history and I'm open to a dialogue to resolve these and then he says but the way this would be resolved his last sentence if I quote it um is I shall I can't read my own writing without my glasses on what Ukraine will be is up to its own citizens to decide and what he meant by that is that Ukraine has given a choice would absolutely want to join Russia right they would want to join the third round they'd want to stand up against homosexuality they want to stand up because of the Nazi Instinct that they want to align with the fascists in Russia right that all that works quite well so the Russian miscalculation is not just about miscalculating the Western response it's the Deep miscalculation about about how the world actually looks and I mean we're not here to talk about China this evening but that I think important configuration about what is it that intellectual politicians military leaders have been fed for the last 30 years of how they understand the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis how they understand the post-cold war period and how they look at things like oligarchs who've all owned property here in Yachts all over the Mediterranean how they how that's seen and understood by not just cryptocrats and oligarchs themselves but by normal normal Russians and what was once the Russian middle false it's not just I'm a great fan of Orlando five years and you've got a Russia story yeah um which is not a history of Russia what Orlando frag is for whom I think knows as much about Russia as anybody in Britain and he argues in this book it's a short book and it's simply an account of how Russians have portrayed their own history and their own past over the Centric and his essential thesis is that Russians have been inventing and Reinventing a narrative about themselves which most the rest of us wouldn't recognize for a moment since about the 17 18th century and above all because Russia has no natural land or sea Frontiers that successive Russian leaders from Peter the Great through Catherine the Great through Stalin and so have been constantly seeking to redefine the to demand the right to decide where Russia's rightful Frontiers lie and that's a right that most of us in in this Hall tonight would agree we cannot possibly concede but essentially Orlando's point is that Putin is simply the latest in the long line of Russian leaders who demanded this right to say I say this is where the frontiers of Russia belong and this is terrifying Margaret as a historian does it surprise appall or Delight that Putin spends his time using history so badly doesn't he you know he takes it I think very seriously he used to go every summer he perhaps isn't doing it now to conferences of history teachers and tell them that they must teach young Russians the correct patriotic history and I did read the essay that he wrote in 2020 and if I'd been grading it because I'm a very kind person I would have probably given it a d and said you made a lot of effort here and you you know you didn't write this many words but quite frankly it's not very good knowing what I know today I would fail it but it is he he has woven an historical narrative and I think we didn't take it seriously enough I heard Fiona Hill who also knows a great deal of Russia who was the for her pains was was the Russia advisor in in the Trump White House and she has some very interesting stories about that as well which he said you mustn't tell anyone of course we've all been telling everyone but but what she said about Putin was that he thinks in his own historical framework and I think you mentioned this Peter that he thinks back and you did Max he goes back beyond the 17th century he goes back into this history which seems to him to prove and in some ways it's very like the Nationalist histories of the 19th and 20th centuries it assumes it was always something called the Russian people that exists through eternity and the ukrainians were always part of the spiritual Unity with Russia and we know that's not how history works the Nations come and go they Define themselves in different ways and there was no Russia when Kiev Kiev and Roos was set up there was no Russia there was there was there wasn't even a Muscovy and but he sees this some this eternal progression through history and I think it does affect the way he sees the world and he also has been very influenced by these right-wing Russian theorists who argued the Russians are much more spiritual than the rest of the world that they are this Eurasian power which unites Asia and Europe that they are there's one Theory I think I forget which one it is um that we're all each race is created by cosmic rays I mean I think Putin May believe this and the Russian cosmic ray came last and so the Russians are the most vigorous and youngest that makes perfect sense Peter well another thing that Fiona Hill has talked about is that that we all had our lockdown projects and Putin's apart from studying history was spending time in the map room in the Kremlin looking at the ways in which Russia's borders have changed over time and thinking well if you know history doesn't stay still you know Empires they rise they fall or they move and so he developed a slightly different I think view about what what a strong manner what a great leader can do to to to to change those borders I mean they're kind of interesting I guess one of the interesting questions about all of this is because we failed or because the system failed or because the circumstances were as they were in 2014 um effectively Russia took control over the main regions that it really needed access to so Crimea but also the parts of of Don bass and yet if Putin had done what a sane sensible non-opportunist would have done was to say I'm going to lock that in and we'll take two or three generations and eventually the process of time will be such that you know it's unrecoverable military force we get rid of the crazies who will run around the military fatigues we'll have some form of either whether it's appointed Governors or whether it's a his strong man or whatever it was he could have formalized it the question is what was the point in trying to accelerate this and once it was clear on day three that the battle plan wasn't working what was it he well it's next I mean he's so he again in the same essay he calls key of the mother of Russian cities so it's quite hard to see how he Scrolls back and retires to Sochi or detaches and says well if that's some other Russian cities how can it be outside Russian hands which is very similar to how she talks about Taiwan as a matter of fact you have drawn us into the next topic which is the end of this you mentioned Fiona Hill Margaret she said the worst piece is a recipe for more war how do you calculate on this ending well that's always the problem with Wars Those Who start them don't think enough about the endings and we're not all thinking enough about what comes next I mean there's some attempt being made the Germans are sponsoring a congress a conference in Berlin to talk about what happens when peace comes which I think is really important we were talking about this a bit in the green room and then the the terrifying thing and the unfortunately I think something that is very likely is we'll end with a frozen conflict and Putin has a number of Frozen conflicts around his borders where Ukraine is constantly worrying about what's happening over in the East constantly worrying about subversion constantly worrying about hacking attacks constantly worrying about misinformation disinformation worrying about internal subversion and has kept off balance and is unable to do the the I mean the huge job now of rebuilding Ukraine which you know goodness I can't even imagine how this is going to be funded and how this is going to take place and that I think is is the dangerous thing that the conflict won't be settled it will remain like this opens sore draining Ukraine of resources and and causing continual instability on the slightly more cheerful side it may be that Russia is going to be less capable of causing International damage I mean if Putin has done one thing uh what part from creating a much stronger Ukrainian nationalism I mean he should be regarded as one of the fathers of Ukrainian Independence I think but if he's done one thing which he didn't intend to do he has much reduced the power and influence and authority of Russia in the world and Russia more and more looks like a dependent of China which is I'm sure not what he intended when it all started Peter the end have you speculated have you pondered at how this ends well Margaret's so eloquent I mean the right thing in as any student knows is to shut up when you're in the presence of greatness I'm not say anything so I've got very little I can now that will make me look anything apart from you know clearly it's Putin not being in position however that might happen I mean I think there's no question that Putin can be part of any form of settlement but it's much much deeper than all of that I mean if you've been watching it and they've been you know social media is great to be able to show to the outside world what's being said on Russian TV every night I mean it's it's pure poison about the way in which you know commentators regular Joseph never picked up a rifle talk about the Houston nuclear weapons and you know and attacks on outside on other other parts of the world so it's quite hard to see how one rose back from this I mean as Margaret said when we think this through I mean if if that Ukrainian Advance continues as it looks like it might do as you know and I suppose we should hope that it does if a full Ukrainian recovery of Don bass maybe Crimea has a separate category I mean you can discuss that you know who who goes to live there it's quite hard to see how ukrainians have come out will want to be resettled to a frontier region yeah and the big long-term tactical advantages that Russia has is that it can unfreeze whenever it wants and the only way which we can have skin in that game is lies in the Cold War to invest very heavily in our military and to and also to invest very sensibly in our military just giving money isn't very helpful I mean I did something with with Mike Mullen who was the previous chair of the Joint Chiefs of the US Armed Forces a few years ago before the pandemic and he said the single best of the United States could do is to cut the U.S defense budget because if you have 680 billion dollars a year to spend you need to find a home for it and that encourages you to use it and encourage you to get involved in at that time Iraq Syria and Afghanistan and so on so the the long-term solution is it's really hard to see you know I know there's lots of chatter particularly in the states about potential dissolution of Russia Civic unrest there's zero sign of that on the ground so far as anybody could it helps that you control the media helps you can round up young men and throw them into the army I mean this afternoon we've seen um you know Russian telegram channels newly drafted Russian forces wearing inflatable body armor right that looks like looks like body armor but actually is like a like a Lifest that you keeps a child afloat being sent to the front line so presumably at some point there comes some response from those men and their families as there was in Afghanistan that's what really brought the Soviet Union down to to pull out of our kind of standard 17 in the 1980s before we get to the the bad bits and the ending is always difficult to talk about um I do think we can all hang on to one really good thing and that is back in February and March an awful lot of people were terrified that Ukraine was simply going to be wiped off the map by Russia now the one thing we can say with near certainty is that the only outcome of this this war that is not going to happen is is a Russian victim see that Ukraine is going to continue to exist so that is the good news and we should always hang tightly to the good news um what's much more difficult as we talk there's a very good essay in the American Magazine Foreign Affairs um by an American Economist who said as you touched on a moment ago Margaret the difficult part is you said even if um the Russian army can't beat the ukrainians uh that Russia can make Ukraine an unbelievably horrible place to live and work in and when we're told that it will cost about 500 billion to put Ukraine back together again the Russians aren't going to pay that now I personally and I've been accused of being a deficitious northern Pisa by saying this I should be very surprised if any outcome gets the Russians out of the Crimea but I also think and I think we all ought to be thinking about this we're going to have to find ways of getting securing some guarantees for Ukraine out of any ending of this war that prevents the Russians from doing it again and I do think we're going to have to think very seriously about something we didn't think about before whether Ukraine should be admitted to Nato first of all it seems right that the Russians should have to pay a price for the costly things they've done there secondly unless one does offer some security guarantees what's to stop the Russians starting this up again anytime they feel like and but none of these are easier because for example France and Germany well absolutely they will be horrified at any notion of Ukraine belonging to Nato but I think the things we must think about how are we going to find the money in Europe and the United States to put Ukraine together again and how are we going to stop the Russians from doing this again the answers aren't easy but we can at least try and pose the right questions at this point Margaret you mentioned Frozen conflicts and there's a number around the world some closer some further away from Europe do they ever unfreeze and if they do how well they unfreeze if one side decides to turn them into a hot War which is is always a danger which is what happened in Ukraine they can be mediated at the moment talk of an International Community seems a bit optimistic you know the UN which has so often played a part in trying to mediate conflict and coming in for reconstruction in post-conflict situations I think is is much weaker than it was and the fact that both China and Russia have vetoes on the security Council limits I think the effect of us what it can do but yes we know that conflict can be overcome we know that peace can be made I mean if you had been predicting in 1945 that Russia and Germany would be working with each other and would the Russian the German Chancellor and the French President would meet and Shake Hands On the Border and and exchange you know greetings you you we would have said impossible and so things can change but how they change without a good deal of outside intervention I think is is tricky because the trouble is that so often in in conflicts those in power have have a vested interest in maintaining them if not turning them into open conflicts but it's it's a way of maintaining status so I'm not very optimistic about what's going to happen in the case of particularly the Ukraine if those conflicts become Frozen again and Peter can I ask you about other external actors here I mean we we heard this Rumblings of it was it at the Shanghai cooperation Council where there was what clearly an expression of concern from India and China about what was going on do you see any role there well Max has given a shout out to his book so be rude for me not to give a shout out to mine if you if you uh I promise you if you were ever interested in thinking that maybe the Silk Roads there's something in it um in September we had in Central Asia it's in Kazakhstan and then in samakand uh the little China India Pakistan Iran Russia the pope uh you know all South Asian countries uh all Gathering Afghanistan to representatives and I think that that that's like a lot of clubs exists for compromise reasons these are lots of marriages and convenience that are very messy and difficult there's almost nothing that any of these countries really have in common apart from some some very light glue that hold the The Narrative is important and the narrative for many of them that's very persuasive is the West has had it too good for too long you know yeah we colonized parts of the world from Europe uh we are much richer than other parts of Europe uh it doesn't really matter whether the structural and major problems economic social political Narrative of grievance that's right and also in fact as well I mean that's it's also in fact I mean the reason we're richer in this part of the world is because we did do quite well out of other continents whether we gave them Railways cricket and God knows what else you know we built the the industrialized West managed to rise on the fact that it able was able to get resources cheaply from other parts of the world I think that's just how it is having said that many of the countries that I just mentioned have been free and mastered their own destiny for quite a long time now so it's how do you how do you have a script and historians that's what we're also about is having a narrative art that explains why we are as we are so that meeting in samachand was hugely important because it was pre the Optics where this is a world without the West this is where 65 of the world's population live east of Istanbul we have between us you know significant energy needs and and and resources and we should shape the world in the way we want and that starts by not taking orders from the West when you get into one level below that what does that actually mean it's more complicated and what was very important about this Shanghai team was two things first some of the heads of smaller states that Kyrgyzstan kept Putin waiting and that doesn't get done either by chance nor does it get done without consultation with one big power in your corner behind you that you're sure of and I'm not going to give you too many guesses for which one that might be so that architecture of what is happening in Eurasia has been fundamentally changed and of course the second thing was that both um she and also Modi spoke up and said this is not the time for war um you know you shall go back home and find a way of being peaceful without giving too much of a road map but you you can see that what Russia has done by reducing its own Global standing by executing a badly executive War if nothing else and having no exits that's obvious in terms of how do you reintegrate and whatever however good or bad a settlement might look like that sets a bad example for these countries that have traditionally not looked for Russia for alliances and friendships and strategic importance we read a lot into that we think that the Russian and Chinese axis is something real you know this is a marriage of convenience that that suits one side probably more than it suits the other but what Russia has done is it's shown this not competent reading the global tea leaves and that that is as dramatic as the economic damage that's happened to Russia and so on and and is coming towards us so that that Central Asian meeting in Samarkand of all these great Powers was a real sort of Turning Point I think and what we'll see now is what is it that Asia means for the peoples of Asia this this evening on the way here uh Biden said he's not going to turn up the Asia Pacific economic conference because he's going to go to his granddaughter's wedding instead and although that's a sort of Highly superficial um the Optics of that are the West is detaching itself the United States of other things to do than to be getting involved in places like Indonesia Philippines Thailand you know countries are populations Pakistan population 230 million people and their Futures are also highly dependent on Energy prices they don't have a Jeremy Hunt who can throw money or whoever it is in charge uh while we're well this is being broadcast they don't have those safety nets and there's real anxiety I think about what is coming towards us particularly as proper sanctions kicking on 6th of December so that that world looks solid there is a there is a sort of push towards Unity I mean the brics countries China Brazil India all abstained from the vote just to to condemn Russia for its annexations of Ukraine so that you know we should take that all quite seriously my own view for what it's worth is we need ministers in the air going to visit these places all the time rather than sitting here working on which seat they're going to be in tomorrow you know we don't we don't invest enough in our International relationships partly because it brexit I'm afraid is part of that story partly because we expect and we've learned over the last 30 40 years if we sit here people will turn up and do business with us in London and you know if we want to do we want to keep our security Council see do we want to be a global power and you know Max you're right there's an American war run from the Pentagon but the British armed forces have been absolutely first rates uh through this process too there are some things we do in this country universities too that we really do incredibly well and it's how do we play a role in shaping some of those conversations because I'll finish with that you know lots of these times that there are events in Samarkand or Kazakhstan that I go to I'm almost always the only European and I'm always the only Brit in the room but almost always the only European and it needs people to be studying spending time meeting listening wondering what it is that people want and we haven't done that particularly well in Iraq Syria Afghanistan and that's given people like lavrov quite a lot of collateral to play with to say look what the West do we're coming with a different solution could we suggest that since the end of the Cold War um an awful lot of societies in the west notably including Britain have allowed us ourselves the luxury of what I would call frivolity including choosing unbelievably frivolous leaders I would suggest I would suggest that we've now entered a new era in which um we've got to get serious again in which I'm not just talking about the local domestic issues one is thinking of issues like the Ukraine war climate change all the rest of it we have got to ReDiscover the capacity to be a serious country and to be led by serious politicians instead of comics okay thank you thank you very much indeed and that brings just to an end of the bit where I throw questions at This brilliant panel and towards the bit where you throw questions or put questions to them um questions uh from the standing microphones you can see them there and there and I can see one perched up there on the gallery I will try and come to the gallery I promise that makes me squint and also from our online audience as well we have one question coming in please feel free if you are at home and watching this online use the space beneath the screen to put your question to me and it will or to our panel rather not to me I have no answers um and they will attempt to answer them I'm going to go first to the standing microphone here if you would sir thank you very much um Nelson Mandela famously said that history is not made by Kings and Generals it's made by masses of ordinary men and women rather than paying tribute to President Biden should we not in fact be paying tribute to the inspirational struggle by masses of ordinary men and women in Ukraine who are going to defeat this murderous war and in so doing are going to inspire working people in Russia to themselves put paid to the Putin secret police regime thank you very much sir um the general point there history made by the masses history made by the leaders and the elites Max I think one I think the two are not mutually exclusive I'm quite sure that everybody in this Hall shares admiration for the extraordinary fortitude and courage of ukrainians but that does not exclude we should not take anything for granted and I certainly will not dare take for granted Ukraine would not still exist but with the support of the United States the United States has had at least one president in recent years who would not have given such support and I do not apologize for thinking that we should be extraordinarily grateful to the current president yeah I think also well the point I mean it's an absolutely fair fair punch we should also absolutely be talking about the the determination of Ukrainian people and the leadership of apologies to uh to defend their Homeland you know and I think that we have that experience too here in the Second World War II what it means to go and fight for your country it's a it's a hugely powerful thing to to do and to see in the and the determination courage of the Ukrainian people to stand in line and fight rather than accept Russian Overlord ship I think it has been hugely inspiring and it's it's I think a fair point that we can take that for granted by thanking people outside but I think we take as a given that you stand and defend your family names no and I think Max is is right you could the two things are not mutually exclusive I mean Churchill said to the Americans during the second world war one of the darkest times for Britain give us the tools and we'll finish the job you can't do the job unless you have the tools and so if there had been a different president in the white house it is quite possible if Trump had been in office those tools would not have come to Ukraine and no matter how Brave the Ukrainian soldiers are and they are very brave and they have shown a tremendous skill and and daring and tactical and strategic um Brilliance however good they were without the tools they couldn't have done it okay so hi thank you very much um if we look at um this current situation one man thinks that the true um destiny of Russia is to control the rich farmlands and the Water Board of Ukraine others may think that the real uh asset that Russia has to protect is Siberia its oil riches and so on and that is actually at risk we have the historical priesthood of the Khrushchev solution is there any way of looking underneath the Bonnet and understanding the forces at play here amongst the Russian Elites and how that may work because removing Putin sending him to Sochi allows Russia to withdraw and pivot to protecting its current very valuable assets in the east who wants to take that on first he thought I would have thought well I don't think there's any military strategic threat to any Russian Assets in Siberia or anywhere else so um I don't think that's an issue I think the the bigger problem for Putin now is to exploit Arctic natural resources which you can't do without Western capital and technology in know-how so I don't think that pivot away from Ukraine opens up other areas where Russia has exposure I don't recognize that at all no and what Russia has lost is the people who could exploit the oil and gas in the in the East I mean they've lost so many of their Highly Educated people um it's you know it's been and you and they're still losing them and this is going to be a serious problem for Russia in the long run they've lost some of their most educated people and then you can't replace them easily okay so I want to go up up to the gallery I am informed that there are people there despite the Blazing lights yeah is there someone at the microphone um can you hear me okay good evening um may I ask the apparent um stalemate or something close to it which will be the end of this war maybe with this buffer zone how would Putin possibly sell those at home specifically now that more recruits are going into the war possibly badly equipped and more deaths are occurring how can Putin sell those to his own people as a victory thank you very much indeed uh I mean can a stalemate be sold um at the end of a war like this what does what does it do to his own position um within Russia I mean he has sold an image of himself as the wise the powerful leader who is Victorious if he were now to say um we've got a stalemate we've lost a lot of lives we've lost the bulk of our military equipment we're looking our military is looking pretty foolish I think his own position in in Russia would become very difficult indeed I think he's got no choice now but to go for victory well if you control the Press you can sell anything as a victory you know I mean that's the big advantage of the organs of propaganda so I mean at the beginning of the war the Russian Russian uh public opinion insofar as it could be measured in Pew research which is you know as good as one can get in terms of scraping the data uh there was huge popularity for what what Putin was doing it showed that Russia was able to stand up on the global stage and in fact 85 percent of people who were surveyed and it's not my research not my work not My Views um believe that Russia could go for Poland next that that has now all so far as we can see dissipated but you know Point made by uh other Russian commentators is that we've seen no Ambassador rule defections we've seen no one switch sides we've seen no one in the Russian high command look like that they have disobeyed orders um it looks like people are Fair Square behind so how this gets sold if it's a bad result is that Russia wasn't fighting Ukraine it's fighting the West which is what it looks like and the Putin will say his the Russian time will come and for now we will take stock rebuild our military and go again and that that I think is takes us back to the Frozen war and how do we then find a web it's not for us to find an off-ramp for him it's not for us to find a solution that he can sell or work out it probably doesn't help that we have this prominent private citizens in the United States in particular proposing peace settlements that that they think would work for the Ukrainian people this has got to come from a settlement that looks right for this against the people of Ukraine I had an experience um 20 years ago when I was working quite a lot in Russia and interviewing veterans of World War II my very sophisticated very liberal Russian researcher um she told me in Moscow and this was just after 9 11 and she said most of the people that one meets in Moscow um they're absolutely delighted about 9 11. they think the Americans had it coming they think they've been so arrogant for so long and they love to see them on the ship and I was shocked at the time to hear this said but it gave me an insight into the depth of this Russian Narrative of grievance and victimhood and the degree of resentment which I think I mean we find it almost incomprehensible that Putin should have any residual support at all in Russia for and yet there's so many Russians who this hatred and resentment of the West and this desire to see us put down and our arrogance punished and so on and I think it's a very real ongoing Force but Peter you're more up to date than I am about I think that's right it's a source of great mystery to me because you know Russia is a beautiful country and the people are fantastically creative interesting Dynamic energetic but this is what happens when you don't have institutions that protect absolute power and we I think we should be grateful for the fact that in this country and other places for all of the mudsling in our politicians do those institutions do function but we shouldn't take those for granted too I think the problem with with authoritarian autocratic rule is that either you go mad at some point or you get power hungry or there's no sort of there's no Crown Prince to Putin if there was a succession line then you could open up discussions with who might follow next and we've shown that quite well of all the things we've done wrong this country we did quite well when her majesty died of seen that transition to happen smoothly and that that is something we should be thinking about also in the case of of China and Jew because I've mentioned China quite a few times tonight about about understanding how other people see us because like you said max it comes as a real shock to see how we perceived because that's not how we see ourselves we see we're tolerant we don't get everything right we try to do things the right way we welcome people to come and buy our football clubs and apartments to push the price how's the prize up that that works if you haven't happened to buy a house at the right time doesn't help young people but I think that that idea of of what now comes next uh asks very fundamental questions about Russia I am acutely aware that people are queuing at the microphones and I have not forgotten you however there are also people popping questions in uh online and I want to go to some of those or at least one of those a remarkable number about the end of the the war to come you can't cheat Max by looking at the question um and again this this this this this suggestion that an off-ramp away should be found uh to allow Russia and Vladimir Putin to have peace with honor from Camilla Redfern uh how can the war in Ukraine be ended with both sides believing that they are winners Margaret shaking your head at the thought of it no I think the war current banded by anyone except the ukrainians and the Russians and the idea that the rest of us can somehow go in and say we are here to dispense peace and friendship we can't do it and actually I'm not sure we have the moral right to do but I don't think we have the influence to do it I mean what is happening and this happens in Wars it's on the ground what happens on the ground is going to play a very large part outside powers can can help they can perhaps mediate but in most wars when outside Powers often to mediate they're told to buzz off um you know I just don't see the week we have to understand that it's up to the ukrainians and the Russians and that's why I think what's going to happen in the next few months is going to be extremely important okay I'm going to go to the questioner here if you would sir thank you um not my view but what do you make of the Russia apologists in in Western Europe or in the U.S who say well Russia was justified in The Invasion because well Hitler and Napoleon both came through Ukraine we attacked through Crimea in the past so Russell was justified away from the crap history essay that wrote he was justified to protect himself what do you make of those apologies what do you make of the the apologists that the way that our question of phrase is that the apologists within the West who say that there was a justification to this war I'm afraid I think a lot of them um and the mainland there are fewer in Britain than there are in Europe but I'm sorry to say that I think that an awful lot of Europeans in the last 30 years have given up on security and Putin is right about some of them and some of those who are saying well we must see the Russian side of this are saying this because they don't want the gas to be turned off and it is going to be a huge challenge this winter especially maintaining up the unity of the West and of course all the time this is Putin's calculation all the way through he believes that we are weak he believes that our Unity will crack and as soon as the lights start going off um that the West is going to be support for um for Ukraine is going to be ebbing away and it's going to be jolly difficult to keep it going but of course we have to keep it going but I'm afraid it's heartbreaking I mean that I was in speaking in Holland at the weekend and I did ask some of the highly intelligent sophisticated Dutch people who I was talking to about their view about security has Holland has Germany have they started to get serious about security the answer is still just look how many weapons Germany has delivered to Ukraine so far almost none they promised quite a few they've delivered almost not how many weapons the Italians the French the French Behavior dare I say it my speakers are Francophile but the French are fuselanimity about Ukraine has been despicable is Despicable so it's a very difficult issue and it's going to be very tough keeping maintaining European Unity on this crisis and it's heartbreaking to see because the one thing in the cold war that it's amazing how well NATO solidarity and European solidarity held together and it is a challenge if Putin him was allowed to emerge as a winner from all this it would be a generational catastrophe for for us all okay well this also I think is in the U.S you see it there are those who admire power and admire Putin um Tucker Carlson that ornament of your profession um says you know that Putin is a man Putin is vigorous Putin knows what to do and so I I'm afraid this probably as as there was in in Britain and France before the second world war there were an admiration for those who are decisive and seem to be strong there's this I've mentioned gender before but there is a sort of element I don't want to overplay it but there's an element of an admiration for what is seen as masculine qualities and the amazing thing about it all is that like Hitler Putin is unbelievably indecisive right I mean it's the terrible crisis of leadership you can't work out what you should do so you micromanage you interfere and you choose both options every single time and that's part of the Strategic problem and weakness thank you let's go back upstairs if we may and again I I'm squinting into the light so who's next to a microphone madam um I just wanted to draw on something that Mr America and the Deliverance of weapons and NATO and um correct me if I'm wrong but um I think one of the um commitments of NATO when it was founded was a two percent spending of the GDP on defense and pretty much none of the countries that are a part of NATO except the USA spend that amount of money on defense and I was wondering if you thought that if um the like European countries such as the UK Germany started to spend that sort of money on defense we would have a better like stabilized ground to be able to deal with such crisis as when they arised I'll I'll pick it just because some actors want to do about about NATO and GDP spending um interestingly there are countries that spend not just their their specified about the more it's like Croatia and the Baltic states uh Trump for them all the madness and all the disruption was absolutely right that NATO countries in Europe are getting a free ride and they're not investing in their security particularly uh Germany where for a considerable period of time there were no not a single military helicopter able to take in the air um and Trump was right about North stream providing dependency on Russian gas as well so if you assume that the world is all going to run in your favor and you assume you don't need to spend on defense or you assume that you don't need the gas storage that we used to have in this country that we shut down because we thought we'd always be able to rely on a stable world then the problem is like with a pandemic if you don't invest in your critical facilities when something bad happens you have to spend 40 times more so that should be as a few lessons that perhaps are Publishers will talk about as it happens uh prime minister trust if she's still in charge this evening has promised the three percent expenditure which amongst the many things she's promised I've yet to see whether that's one of the things that's also going to be scrapped the only thing you wish I said that seriously anything you've said tonight Peter that I hadn't agreed with you okay just tribute to our Armed Forces but we have to keep reminding ourselves our armed forces are ridiculously small and they've been a large since the end of the Cold War they've been run down to extraordinary level we've depleted our own inventories of weapons we can send to Ukraine we're training ukrainians yeah but we should be in no doubt that the biggest danger of the size of our Armed Forces uh you know somebody said to me what what would the Chinese app do if we sail our aircraft carriers to the South China Sea I said the biggest statement for the Chinese is they die laughing because um the idea we we have allowed this we should not delude ourselves about our own Armed Forces um we've had a terrific wake-up call a terrifying wake-up call and we've got to spend a lot more money and that is not going to be popular no none of our leaders yes Liz truss has said we've got to raise um defense spending three percent nobody's really talked through the implications about what we're gonna but if we're serious about security we've got to spend the money agreed um I will come back to the audience here I want to pick up on a question I think particularly to Margaret if I may um that's come in online um how do you think the war will shape future Societies or relations between nations do you think there's a potential for a return to an iron curtain type situation or state in years to come is it too early to start calling that one Margaret Wars do leave depending on the nature of the war and they do leave often very great scars and and great consequences I think for countries not directly involved in the war we will move on and perhaps tend to forget it although we will have I think in the west and the West I should say is is not really a geographical term it's it's a term of encompassing like cultural I mean Japan's part of the western Australia's part of the West so you know but I think countries which adhere to democratic values constitutional government rule of law will after this war regard Russia with a lot more suspicion I think and I think what the war has done if it's done anything good is forced peoples in the west to Define what it is they think is important and what values they think are important what it will do to the relations between ukrainians and Russians it's hard to see that these will become anything but bitter in the next day you know it'll take at least a generation and the more that comes out about how Russian troops have been behaving in Ukraine I think the more difficult it's going to be for ukrainians to forgive and the Russians if they end up up with with a defeat are going to be humiliated and humiliation is not also a good basis for making friends with your neighbors we're doomed to be in an adversarial relation with them yeah I mean you know he says the right Russians Ukrainian are brothers and we've all had pretty tasty Christmases where things kick off but it's it's it's quite hard to see how you come back from that if this is the way you treat the people who you regard and you write detail histories to say we're born from the same mother we're all the same people it's a it's a pretty bad position to be in if you're Russian to try to think how do we undo this as Margaret said the behavior of the troops on the grand Max has said on the behavioral troops on the ground it's been absolutely abysmal losing dishwashers and so on and that's been seen around the world you know that's not not a particularly positive sign for the long term Margaret for 30 years we thought that trade would change countries whose systems of government we didn't believe win or or that we were opposed to previously that doesn't appear to have been the case there's always been this illusion that the more you trade together the more you're going to like each each other it doesn't work out that way the whole time quite often you you get jealous you you don't like the fact your markets are being cut into look Britain and Germany were each other's greatest trading partners before the first world war and they should have been friends and Norman Angel wrote a very persuasive book I mean people studied it and people set up groups like this to study angelism a Norman Angel argued that because the European economy's economies were so tightly intertwined there could be no war it wouldn't make sense war is not something that is always rational and all you know it's the same argument that a lot of people have made with China the closer that we get to China economically of course the more intertwined the American and Chinese economies are the more likely they'll be friends we'll look at them today sir you've been waiting very patiently thank you very much thank you thank you so a few weeks ago a far-right Dutch politician stood up in Parliament and said he thanked Putin for opening a new front against globalism the world economic Forum George Soros and the American deep State and this is palpably ridiculous obviously but it makes me wonder is there something exportable about the Russian ideology the way Marxism leninism was during the Cold War is it being exported and if it is being exported what do we do against it thank you very much Margaret can I come to you it's being it's being exported to countries around Russia Serbia for example which has always had strong links with Russia not all serbs and I don't want to suggest that all subs think this but this certainly is a strand in Serbian politics which is and you see it in Hungarian Politics as well um you know that there are some of the ideas of and and you referred I mean there are these conspiracy theories that George Soros somehow in the world economic Forum among them around the world and this appeals I think to people who feel powerless I can you know conspiracy theories tend to do that but I don't I think I see Russia actually as as an importer of ideas as well I mean it's important fascist ideas it's imported ideas of the nation um the Eternal Nation I mean I think it's a two-way street I think one thing one historical lesson that is worth mentioning um Churchill in 1940 at a time when Britain was entirely beleaguered and uh one evening at Checkers um a whole group of ministers and uh his staff were all talking about Germany and agreeing that all sorts of terrible things have got to be done to Germany uh after its defeat um which at that time seemed very remote and Britain was completely embattled and Britain was losing um and Churchill intervened after he listened to some of this and he said no no all this talk about pastoralizing Germany and so on so forth he said Germany was part of the European community of Nations up before Hitler came and it must be again and I thought it was an example of Churchill as his absolute best that in those desperate days in I forget June or July 1940 he could display the the compassion and the generosity to envisage a future in which Germany will come back and in the same way I guess we have to be optimistic enough to hope that one day Russia may come back bloody difficult at the moment but nonetheless I do remember that example of Churchills which part of his generosity of spirit and it's very hard to display generosity of spirit in the middle of a war as ghastly as this one Peter can I put something to you that's coming online and and whilst I'm sure the panel disagrees and many in the audience May completely it's a common theme of questioning and of Point making um what do you answer what do you say to people who believe the West provoked Russia by wanting Ukraine to join the EU and NATO foreign the EU didn't Court Ukraine it's what Ukraine wants it's up to you to decide whether they want to admit them so I'm sort of slightly you know it's I I'm very happy to bash the West for all sorts of sins but I think we have to be slightly constructive about allowing self-determination when people want to join NATO or you then the institutions have the right to work out whether they should be admitted and what the risks are and clearly Ukraine is a sensitive issue I think that all military strategists and you know sensible politicians have understood that it's a sensitive issue through the dark days of Revolutions in in Ukraine in the last decade in particular in terms of what that meant for strategic importance and the signaling from the West has been pretty clear that we understand that it's an issue that parking missiles and and so on in Ukraine is not going to be acceptable for for Russia and there was no proposal look that would happen but it does seem valid doesn't it that after the Cold War the West Was in very triumphalous mode and especially the Americans and there's not much doubt that the Americans especially did rub the Russians noses in their defeat in the immediate aftermath in a way that created the mindset so I totally agree that um one thing the Russians will never admit is that a Sovereign Nation including Ukraine should have the right to decide whether it belongs to you but there's no doubt we did not behave with much grace or dignity towards the Russians in the aftermath of which what we saw as their defeat Market sorry well as my mother used to say two wrongs don't make a right and you know we did make mistakes of course we did but you know this idea that Russia was given a promise that not one inch Nita would not expend one inch eastwards is not true Mary Sarat has written a very good book on it if anyone wants to read it called not one inch actually um but you know it was the countries of the former Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe who wanted to get into NATO wanted to get into European Union because they had lived under the alternative yeah you know to go back to what Max said about the second world war you know I suppose if there was a single serious of the many mistakes that we made and there were lots you know uh was that we did a pretty good job in incorporating countries in Eastern Europe they've been hobbled by Warsaw Pact and Soviet Rule and that was a great virtue of the European Union and what it did to bring up standards the living not just in uh Eastern European countries central European countries but also in southern Europe it made us much more inclusive and wealthier altogether and we did by and large we'll get on with each other we still do even though we're out of out of that particular Club here in the UK but the one thing perhaps the biggest regret as a Russia specialist was that when the Soviet Union dissolved in 91 we missed the chance to put some kind of Marshall Plan for Russia you know we had we were good at bringing in Poland Hungary imperfectly and so on with all the flaws but you know in fact we we almost did the opposite not only did we help support we helped the process of looting systematically by allowing our law firms here and our structures here you know Britain is a world-class tax Haven specialist in terms of K Cayman Islands British Virgin Islands and so on dependence crown dependencies and so on and we thought it was sort of amusing that people turned up with their Yachts football clubs boats Etc and the whole lot behind and and they arguably maybe it was good trickle down to politics or the money doesn't really work that way and they're against us they're against us and I think that because in the west it's not hard to see I mean in Russia it's not hard to see how we in the west are portrayed as being complicit in the Looting of Russian to Russians actually but but there was no end of of oil Executives waiting to fly into Moscow you know if you visited Russia before this you know it was a Boom Town filled with chances and and investors trying to sort of work out how to take advantage of the of the fact that it was quite easy to do business if you knew the right people who knew the right way to do things and we didn't encourage any of the institutional development that we not only could have done but some of us think morally we should have done okay I'm gonna ask the gentleman who's been waiting very patiently there thank you sir thank you when this terrible Invasion first took place I remember saying that this could conceivably turn out to be the Putin's couches moment and I'm really picking up on something Peter said a few minutes ago and when he he indicated that there were no signs of any real opposition within Russia I wonder whether that's the case behind closed doors and there is a pattern in history of um dictatorial Powers simply collapsing almost overnight especially when they face disaster especially military disaster weren't all credibility goes and all belief in them goes and I think what we're seeing now with the humiliation of the Russian army at the hands of extraordinary Ukrainian resistance the entire Russian military machine I'm going to put your point I'm going to put your point if I measure to the panel if I may think one of the members of the panel thank you very much indeed Margaret well you're right I think dictatorships can be fragile and and it's it's a bit like the emperor is no clothes isn't it at certain point people say wait a minute this isn't working for us um it's what's happening around today I think you're getting what started out as a protest over a young woman who was killed by the by the religious police who has sparked her death has sparked a whole series of protests about lots of things in Iran and the regime it may survive but it certainly is looking very much on its back foot and what may happen I mean I I heard Catherine Belton who wrote that extraordinary book Putin's people talk the other day and she said cracks are appearing in the Russian Elites how deep they go is difficult to tell because it's really hard to know what's going on in Russia at the moment but there are more people speaking openly against Putin than we've seen for a very long time and it may be that you know we don't know what's happening behind the scenes I mean the best possible thing perhaps that could happen is that his regime collapsed but the thing we think we then have to worry about is who takes over and it may be someone even worse it's unlikely to be a liberal Democrat yeah exactly maybe you've got a few spare British politicians here you could ship some over um can I ask the lady here it's probably gonna be our final question we are the lack of plausibility for a third world war but what do you think about the notion that we're perhaps in another cold war period what do you think about the notion that we're in another cold war period is that is that a fact I don't think it's very important to say this is not a rerun of the old Cold War partly because this is not a bad ideology there's no ideology at stake here this is all about power and territory um on the other hand I do think and going back to Margaret's Point earlier I fear that despite we did try not as hard as we should have done perhaps but we did try to cohab cohabit reasonably peacefully with Russia and China and to get along with them but I'm afraid it looks as if for the time being at least the effort has failed and we are in an adversarial relationship so I do think we're in a what we're not in this I think it's wrong to call it a second Cold War because it's not the same thing um but I do think we're in an adversarial relationship with Russia and China which allows is going to have to persist and I come back and I'm not I hope saber raffling here I think we've got what to show a recognition of the vital importance again to go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis that President Kennedy was able to Prevail in the Cuban Missile Crisis because nobody in the Kremlin indicted that he had both the military means and the political will to go to war if he had to and in the same way today Putin has acted as he has Because he believes that we are weak I'm afraid I believe we're going to have to spend a great deal of money on rearming and if we fail to rearm if we fail to address energy security also then I think the prospects for for the West we will have to face continuing aggression new aggression acts of aggression and I'm afraid all the old cliches are true that the price of of security is Vigilance and is a degree of preparedness we had it in the Cold War we don't have it now we've got to get it back Margaret are we looking at a second Cold War no because I think among other things about the Cold War was that it was a war of ideologies it was a war of competing visions of society and we don't have that at the moment um this is a war this is a war that is much more familiar from the 18th 17th 16th century it's a war of aggression to seize land Peter Well my mother also told me that two wrongs don't make it right but she also said if you haven't got anything clever to say then shut up [Applause] I'm going to draw things to a close we are out of time our panel have been extraordinarily generous with their time their expertise and their experiences the very good news is you will be able to sample a little bit more of that outside in the foyer where they will for varying lengths of times be signing books should you wish to purchase them but I would like to say what a complete Joy it has been to share the stage with you to share this space with all of you and those of you at home and thank you to you all thank you thank you Peter

Channel: Intelligence Squared

Views: 51,095

Keywords: intelligence squared, debate, intelligence squared debate, top debates, best debates, most interesting debates, intelligence2, intelligencesquared, iq2, iq2 debate, russo-ukrainian war, russo-ukrainian war map, russo-ukrainian war every day, russia vs ukraine war update, russia ukraine, margaret macmillan, Max Hastings, peter frankopan, peter frankopan 2022

Id: ZrPzzaaCLvo

Length: 79min 0sec (4740 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022