Western defence spending essential to defeat ‘autocratic tyrant’ Putin | Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

Putin is a tyrant he he's been telling us for the last 5 years he wants to rebuild the old Soviet Union he wants to take Poland lvia Lithuania and Estonia and probably Romania and Bulgaria as well that's what he's planning to do he's on a total war footing his tractor factories and now making tanks he's uh throwing young men predominantly young men from the East into the meat grinder that is the donbass the casualty rates the same as the first world war hundreds of thousand of people are dying and he won't stop joining me now is former Army officer chemical weapons expert HH de Breton Gordon heish good afternoon thanks for joining us good afternoon thanks for having me and uh author and economic commentator Grace Blakeley is also with her grace welcome back to the show thanks for having me again nice to see you uh good to see you both well look let's let's start with the opening statements for example let's go to you heish first do you think this is a good use of 2 and a half% of GDP however much that may be well not surprising as a military person and somebody who's been following the conflict in Ukraine very closely I I I absolutely do in fact I disagree with the Prime Minister he said with the greatest threat since the end of the Cold War I think we're in the greatest threat position since the end of the second world war but unfortunately since the end of the Cold War we've hollowed out our defense so much that it is no longer a credible deterrence and certainly not to Putin PU Putin is the threat we must face down whatever else is happening around the world it is Putin who if he has not stopped in Ukraine will keep going and we will be fighting him so you know I'm sure financially this this money people would want it spent elsewhere but you know if if we are fighting in Europe again and the way things are happening at the moment it may well be come November people are not going to the election booths they're actually going to the recruiting centers because if things go badly we could be involved in a war with Russia and the way to avoid it is to have a really strong and credible defense which we don't have at the moment Grace what do you make of uh H's point there I mean pre the invasion of Ukraine you could be saying well hang on a minute why should we be spending all that money there isn't you know the possibility of of a ground war where we need tanks and planes and missiles is very far-fetched but here it is on our doorstep we see what happens to a country that is having difficulty defending himself look I think there is a lot of kind of scaremongering actually going on at the moment when it comes to the possibility of a kind of you know global conflict um and we really have to bear in mind that whether or not we end up in an allout European war in Russia is a political decision it is going to be a choice that will be made by governments who decide whether or not they're going to try and exhaust all other options before going into an allout War so you know that political decision will be at the front of people's minds and it is very important to remember the massive massive costs that are associated with war whether that is financial costs or cost in terms of people's lives and social cohesion and it's easy to forget those kinds of costs associated with the kinds of war that we would be talking about because they haven't been around for a very long time now having said that it is also critical to recognize that people feel scared and that is the um the kind of emotion that riik is speaking to today when he announces this large increase in defense spending but we have to also ask ask ourselves why do people feel scared what are the clearest and most present threats to the average person in this country at the moment most of those threats are not coming from abroad they're things like if you are seriously injured or you have a a serious health problem you may end up dying before an ambulance reaches you it's that you may end up dying on a waiting list to uh receive treatment for again a preventable illness it is the fact that we are living in this context of kind of widespread social breakdown where many of the issues that people are experiencing whether that's to do with crime illness you know employment um are having like a severely detrimental impact on their health on um social cohesion more generally and that is creating an environment of fear and insecurity and it's easy for politicians to prey on that fear and insecurity in order to basically kind of stoke up um desire for increased defense spending which benefits them and their friends in the in the Armament sector rather than actually benefiting Ordinary People heus what do you make of what Grace is saying that that to ordinary people there are more danger in their everyday lives for not being able to get an ambulance in time not being able to see a specialist in time 7 and a half million people are on the NHS waiting list they're in more Danger from that than they are from for example not having enough tanks or missiles well that's an interesting perspective of course Grace and I come from completely different backgrounds and ends of the spectrum I spent the last 35 years of my life on the battlefields of the war fighting these battles so I've seen War at very close hand and how Dreadful it is and how you must do absolutely everything you you can to avoid it but uh you know unfortunately the position we're in at the moment we only hear today that Russian tactical nuclear missiles have been uh moved forward to bellarus uh people are seeing what what what is happening in in Ukraine so you know everybody wants to avoid war none of us want it in this country but unfortunately sometimes you know it comes to you and and quite frankly if we are at war with Russia this year or next year you know the the NHS waiting lists the cost of living the the temperature of the planet could you know could be horrifically irrelevant and I think the fact that if Grace is is talking for the general people in this country and that is their view then to me that is pretty shocking because the only way we can avoid this war is to but as I said to have a strong conventional defense to make Putin think again because Putin is a tant he he's been telling us for the last five years he wants to rebuild the old Soviet Union he wants to take Poland lvia Lithuania and Estonia and probably Romania and Bulgaria as well that's what he's planning to do he's on a total war footing his tractor factories now making tanks he's uh throwing young men predominantly young men from the East into the meat grinder that is the D the casualty rates the same as the first world war hundreds of thousand of people are dying and he won't stop but the only way he will stop is by nato in particular being determined to hold him and there is a chance that the Russ that the uh us you know if Trump gets into Power are going to leave us on our own so yeah I I I would love to think and say the same way that Grace is but having been involved in Warfare all my life what I'm seeing at the moment really concerns me and I think we've got to try and avoid it at all costs and if that means another 75 billion over the next 5 years then that is the price we must pay so Grace from your point of view what do you do you heard what HH was saying there you've got someone who's uh aggressively you know invaded Ukraine he has made no secret that he's prepared not to stop there how do you keep someone like that at Bay if you're not going to spend on your defense on your on your military I think the way that these issues are presented it's always presented to the public as though there is a very clear black and white Choice it's like either we spend all of the extra available cash we have on defense or you know we're going to end up in an allout war that we will lose is basically the threat there um and those kind of black and white ways of of thinking about the world and thinking in particular about you know the economic underpinnings of uh geopolitical conflict are not you know not the the only way to look at things I mean if you look at the funding that Putin is using to wage this war and this is a really critical point not in just in terms of kind of armaments but also in terms of the fact that the people that Putin are calling up to fight and die on the front lines are some of the poorest people in Russian society and he's paying them large amounts of money to avoid having to call up people um in the draft as they've had to do in Ukraine paying large sums of money to people who perhaps know they're going to die or get seriously injured but are willing to take that um that threat on the basis that they'll have a large payout for their family um or for them if they get injured where is he getting all that money he's getting all that money from the sales of fossil fuels why is he able to get all that money from the sale of fossil fuels because for decades Western countries have utterly failed to invest in decarbonization which has left us dependent upon a whole host of grossly authoritarian regimes not just Putin but also if you look at Saudi Arabia if you look at the Carousel of oil for weapon spending that goes on between countries like Saudi Arabia and the US and the UK that is a clear and present threat to Global Security so you know we live in this world where we kind of allow these threats to grow and grow and grow we allow authoritarian leaders whether that's Putin or you know Saudi Arabia or wherever to become more and more powerful we sell them weapons we allow them um to kind of uh you know pollute the planet and and use that money um to arm themselves and we do nothing until the very last moment and then we say all right now we have to spend all of that cash that isn't going to go into Health spending or indeed decarbonization on building up our militaries so there are other ways of trying to disempower Putin we've had all these sanctions sure but ultimately the thing that is keeping the Russian raw machine going is sales of fossil fuels now that is something we could tackle today and we are just refusing really to do that hey just before we go I'd like to give you an opportunity to respond to that do you see the connection of what Grace is saying there that actually decarbonization might have had a bigger effect in disarming someone like Putin than buying more missiles and tanks well absolutely not I'm not quite sure what utopic world Grace lives in uh Putin you know he's not keeping his his War Machine going on his oil that quite rightly is is Grace is right there India and China are buying it he he is on a total war fighting he is putting everything into his armaments unfortunately he is an autocratic Tyrant um that uh we have ignored for the really the last 10 years and unfortunately people like him people like the Ayatollah in Iran people like Kim Jong in North Korea are are are not people who will reason about climate change about oil and and God knows what else um we all want to be in that utopic world but I'm afraid Grace and everybody else we're not there at the moment and we must prevent war with Russia at all costs okay uh I'm going to have to leave it there fascinating to get both of your views uh heish de Breton Gordon uh our former Army officer chemical weapons uh expert and also author of vulture capitalism and economic uh comment Grace Blakeley thank you both for giving us your time

Channel: Times Radio

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Id: UGBew5SMj4c

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024