 and welcome to tonight's conversation with General the Lord Richards. My name is Dr. Phillip Berry and I'm a lecturer in the Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College, London, and I'll be chairing this evening's discussion. Before I introduce Lord Richards, I'd like to thank everybody for attending this evening's event and I will quickly run through its sequencing. The discussion will be structured into three sections. The first section will discuss the UK's future role in the world including how this will be shaped by an integrated review. The second section will discuss the implications of a Joe Biden presidency on US foreign policy and transatlantic relations and the third section will discuss ongoing conflicts and peace talks in Afghanistan. We will spend approximately 20 minutes on each of the first two sessions and then maybe 10 to 15 minutes on the third. During each section I would encourage the audience to ask questions which I will then put to Lord Richards. If you'd like to ask a question please use the Q&A box, not the chat function. I'm very pleased now to introduce General the Lord Richards who's had a distinguished career that led him to the top of the defence establishment. General Richards led operations in East Timor, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan who's particularly well known for his command in Sierra Leone which ensured the ultimate defeat of the RUF rebels. He went on to command NATO forces in Afghanistan during the alliance expansion of responsibility across the south and west of the country. Having first commanded the British Army in 2010 he became the chief of the defence staff which is the professional head of the British armed forces as well as the prime minister's military advisor and member of the National Security Council. In this capacity he played a major role in the Libyan campaign in 2011 and in devising the UK's final strategy for Afghanistan. General Richards was appointed to the House of Lords in 2014. He's a visiting professor at Exeter University, an honorary fellow of both King's College London and Cardiff University and the Exeter Chairman of Equilibrium Gull, the geostrategic advisory company. So Lord Richards, welcome to the event. Very pleased that you could join us. I'm sure the discussion will be fascinating. So first I'd like to discuss the integrated review and the UK's role in the world and key challenges and opportunities for defence. So as you know last week Boris Johnson announced the largest increase in defence spending in decades. However he did so before the conclusion of the integrated review which will define the UK's role in the world and set out strategic aims and capabilities for the next 10 years. Has Boris Johnson made an error by announcing the means before the end? Well an excellent question and I'll come to it very shortly Of course all three of the subjects we're talking about are connected so I'd apologise in advance if you know I repeat myself or answer some of it in different bits. I should just tell you though that back in 1974 I graduated from Cardiff University with a good enough degree to compete for a very prized MA at King's College London and I was very keen to do it in war studies under Professor Friedman and others whose names you'll know and the army as far as I'm concerned famously told me that you've just had three years swanning around doing nothing get out to your regiment so I never got to King's College London but I was very honoured to be made a fellow a few years ago as you mentioned. Well look turning to defence spending announcement it is undoubtedly very welcome news for defence and I think it's better than the Chief of Defence star thought would be the case I've got no evidence for that but you know I think it would be a pretty sound bet and he and the defence secretary has done very well and as an ex-CDS I know the pressures on them but good for the prime minister too because although politicians often parrot this he clearly recognises that ultimately the primary role of government is to defend and secure its people and he's putting much necessary money into that area. Almost more important than the amount is that fact that it's a four-year settlement and that might sound rather arcane point but it does mean that good or bad and there's both in this the defence chiefs can plan coherently so it's important to understand that and I no doubt that they had quite a tussle with the treasury to achieve that goal. Now on top of that the four-year settlement obviously there's a lot of money that's gone into it although you would not be alone if you saw well 16 billion over four years is not you know it pales into insignificance to some degree given that hundreds of billions that we understand and be spending on dealing with COVID at the moment and indeed other areas of government expenditure but by recent standards it is significant and I think we should be under no illusions and it it it does presage a change in the government's approach. You asked a specific question about whether it's premature well the answer is yes the the one worry I have is that not just the integrated review has been delayed that is not in itself a defense strategy it would I hope have provided the bare bones of a defense strategy but from that integrated review should arise a defense strategy and I don't know when that will happen I'm not certain when we last had a proper one but it should have come before the defense the announcements last week because we ought to know where we want to go and what we want to do before we decide on how we spend the money so yes you're right Philip it is if you like a bit asked about face if you'll pardon a soldierly bit of language just to finish on this particular one because I know you want to ask one or two other things but no cds in history recently has ever done anything like this without quoting Sun Tzu and I know obviously the Chinese are particularly relevant at the moment in our lives but it was he who famously said 500 BC the strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory but tactics without strategy is merely the noise before defeat so I do worry that we've got lots of good ideas and where and we'll talk about where we're going to spend money is right on the whole but what are we going to do with it and how we're going to achieve our national strategic goals even if they were properly enunciated and of course global Britain gives us all a rather warm feeling but it isn't a strategy and thank you very much and just touching on that point about global Britain the the much criticized foreign policy mantra of the May government and it's been embraced by the Boris Johnson government and it what we do not know is where will the UK be focusing its intentions in the future which part of the globe the chief of the general staff has stated that the army is seeking more persistent presence in Asia and Dominic Raab the foreign secretary has talked about this Indo-Pacific tilt being an important outcome of the integrated review when it's published I think probably next January or February in your opinion what are the potential benefits of focusing on the Indo-Pacific region and what are the biggest risks and that's focusing on this area does that carry any any consequences for Europe and our posture closer to home well it's a very good question one that I and others who are involved in defence have been tussling with for you know a couple of years now as we realise what global Britain meant to some people in government there's some logic to and a requirement to you know concentrate a little bit more clearly on China I've often said that the biggest grand strategic issue of this century is how well will America adjust to the relative its relative decline compared with China and we will see I'm sure we'll get to this perhaps when we look at the president elect Biden how he intends to do it but I think it is a very very pertinent question and clearly it's very much in Britain's interest to contribute and influence that process because if I get it wrong and the UK has a bit of history on this and the way we exited from empire on the whole we did it reasonably well and gracefully will America manage to come to terms with its new relevant relevant status or relative status quite as well that's a big big issue our part in it which is the point of your question I think is key the alternative to sending occasionally because we don't have a navy even after this expenditure announcement that is big enough to sustain operations in my judgment because another little bond mow was which I probably overuse is to do with logistics and it was general Bradley at the end of World War II who knew relatively little and was inexperienced as he ended the war at the end he sort of was ruminating and he famously said that amateurs taught tactics professionals taught logistics and the issue of how you sustain any sort of fleet over there is not you know not easy it it can probably be done through the assistance of the Americans but you know how much do you strategically or at the tactical level want to rely on even your closest ally and under pressure and certainly in in a state of conflict or near conflict can you really and should you really rely on it so the logistics is if you like a tactical but important issue the alternative one I personally favor is that the way to free up US assets to focus as I think they should more on the Indo-Pacific area and deterring but managing China's rise along with other democracies in the region could be that the UK focuses on its near abroad if you like the Atlantic NATO in the round the Mediterranean and probably the Gulf freeing up US assets to go and do their stuff on our behalf in the Indo-Pacific to my way of thinking that is a more coherent strategy that plays to our strengths but they're still limited strengths even after this review it binds us more into Europe post-Brexit it binds us more into NATO but it's still militarily materially useful to the Americans it's a more subtle approach it doesn't see us sort of saling forth round you know the harbours of Japan and Southeast Asia I have an idea that you know our political leaders like a bit of that there is no there is some sense to it but militarily it's it has risks on a good day it's okay but when the chips are down not so clever and I'm looking at it in that from that prism thank you very much the you touched on that the increase announced by Boris Johnson he announced said wanting to be the best navy in Europe I think he said but whilst there is a significant increase in real terms over the next four years the M.O.D still faces budgetary challenges not least because of the £13 billion black hole in the equipment budget among other things and so the question is how do you pay for this and there has been suggestions the size of the army maybe reduced or certainly older capabilities will be cut to balance the books and which capabilities do you think should be ring fenced and which capabilities should be replaced to free up a bit of money well let's be clear the government and the M.O.D is quite right to invest more in what I'll characterize as high tech capabilities AI enabled systems cyber space and so on miniaturization you know and drones particularly within that probably and you've got to be able to fight ones wars through the ether if you like and so we do need to do that more mainly to prevent war and to make sure that which I'd emphasize by the way is the whole purpose as far as I'm concerned of defense expenditure it's not to fight wars that means you've failed the aim of spending so much money on defense with your allies is to deter potential adversaries from ever taking you on now there is a gray area of if you like semi permanent conflict now but that's not new it's always gone on it's now a more insidious arguably because of the digital age in which we live but where will we cut capabilities to pay for this new investment well you're right there's a deafening silence officially on where those cuts will be and they must take place one worry I have is going back to my point about logistics is that our ability to sustain operations logistically I think is already pretty thin and I asked a question or a range for a question to be asked and the House of Lords not that long ago on that issue and got a rather unsatisfactory response from the MOD minister in question and I suspect it's an area that the chief of defense staff will want to put some money into because there's nothing worse than in parking on operations even you know something's quite small scale army deployments of a company here and a battalion there one of the things I learned and particularly the Sierra Leone that even a peacekeeping operation at the low tactical level can be very intense so you have to prepare for that and make sure one soldiers are properly looked after so logistics is an area that they also need which no one has mentioned of course because amateurs taught tactics has said a minute ago is an area where I think you need to we need to spend more money but I think it's going to be the army that takes a hit of the three services probably the RAF will feel they're coming out of it rather sort of neutral they've got in theory money earmarked for the new fighter tempest or new aircraft tempest but they are going to have to lose some capability too I'll be interested to see how long the C-130 fleet lasts for example again a vital capability that I grew to totally depend on have we got enough lift to furnish the desire to do more globally think of the ships that are going to have to be resupplied the people have to be moved around and these many army deployments that there's a lot of I think rather loose talk about so you know something are unglamorous like C-130s and air transport a very important part of the overall capability if you want to look at it coherently armor well a big problem is is managing the transition from if you like the industrial age capabilities that we predominantly have now through to the information age capabilities that some people talk about my own view is that that's going to take quite a long time and managing the transition is going to be the defense chief's biggest problem and you cannot get rid of all your armor for instance tomorrow because actually they still have a place on the battlefield maybe in 20 years time they can be replaced by something else so is the money there to manage that transition well my concern is there probably isn't enough and we will start depending in some probably rather incoherent way on allies to fill gaps in some of that I suspect the army will lose manpower they've already talked about it probably down to the air the size roughly that they're currently recruiting to something like that so that would be my summary of a very complex issue largely dominated by this ability or not to manage the transition from the current capability to the new exactly it's a very difficult challenge we have quite a few questions so I'll take a couple from the audience Lord Richards and Ewing Grant asks he said he's worked in Sierra Leone in Yemen before and he asks about the M.O.D. and civilian and military engagement with the ex-diffed side of the foreign office going into Crescent Presence sorry going into countries where Russian China are operating how will all this be integrated well I think it's an excellent question and it requires a much longer answer than I think we've got time for but this is why although many military men weren't very keen on the integrated review I was keen on it and Mark said well and now Lord said well the last cabinet secretary who pushed it forward he and I had discussions about the pros and cons I think as someone who prides myself to a degree in all humility on being a strategist that it's very important that we see how the different levers of state can remain in sync I worry for example that we'll now spend more money on defense which has many many merits and I'm a big supporter of it while spending less potentially on aid and development and that which will make our overall strategic product if you like as a country less coherent and might fan the flames over time of conflict which we then get pulled into and it all for no reason so the interaction between the these different elements is key and I think it is worrying but it could get out of sync if we're not careful okay thank you we have another question from Colonel Adrian Thompson he said that now that the UK has left the EU and the EU is increasing its security and defence aspirations how does the UK ensure that the EU's approach to collective security remains complementary to NATO and doesn't undermine it well it won't remain complementary to NATO if I understood it properly I mean our contribution to European defence will be predominantly through our role in NATO and I think it obviously will this will come we'll come back to with the issue of President-elect Biden but I think the the role of NATO and Britain's leadership within NATO along with the Americans and I can tell you and I I don't know Colonel Thompson's background but you know if he's done anything in NATO he'll he'll know and be able to test that we are almost uniquely looked up to or have been I mean it's a worry that are reducing size particularly in the army as hitherto I think in the last few years affected that our reputation a little bit but it's British officers that often most wanted in key appointments particularly by our American allies so I think it's through a rejuvenation of NATO that we will most contribute to European defence our relationship with France within that will remain strong the joint task force I can't remember the current name but it's something I came up with when I was CDS to try and bind like-minded nations together more that's still going strong so I think it's through our involvement and semi-leadership role of NATO that we resolve and contribute to the most important part of our strategy when it's confirmed which must remain our role in NATO and with our European allies thank you we have a question from Alan West the US are keen for the UK to be involved in the Indo-Pacific region to the extent of signing a number of joint operation options for the US Navy and Royal Navy in the Indo-Pacific region do you believe the UK should join the Quad and should there be a link between that and the FPDA um quick on the FPDA I don't know if that is my friend Lord West but it doesn't say no he wouldn't if it is Alan very good to hear from you the FPDA as he will know is a little bit different in that it's quite tightly drawn and so it might be difficult but given the four other nations that are in it I don't see any reason why if they want to to become involved in that why we shouldn't but it is for a it was designed for a different purpose this is the for those who don't know the five-power defence agreement on the other the bigger issue I'm not anti it although I do come across as questioning it because I don't want to see Peter being robbed to pay Paul I mean there needs to be and Alan I'm sure will have it a grown-up debate on where are still limited defence effort should be focused should it be NATO and Russia largely and looking after our allies broad as I said earlier in the Atlantic Euro Atlantic era and the Gulf or should we stretch ourselves and go into the Indo-Pacific area more I mean we have done that and we'll continue to do so but it's on a different scale that is now being discussed I think there is a very important strategic judgment to be made I can make a case now for a maritime strategy for the UK is a heart of our new and I look forward to a defence strategy I can make that case and and would believe in it by the way but it's at what price and right now my judgment is that we should focus on the nearer broad at freeing up the US strategically to do our collective work better in the Indo-Pacific area but but let's have the debate I think it's a really important one okay um we've had a question about Afghanistan here which we may come back to later but Harry Friend says given your statement on logistics how much can we reasonably rely on contractor support and the 21st century foraging idea we should be planning for should we be planning for such an unknown contractor support I think I know what Harry's getting at the answer is that in a steady state situation where security is good and although you know we had our moments in Afghanistan still do when I was involved things like camp bastion and so on were very solid you know you might occasionally get a rocket or something go into them but on the whole there was no threat to them what is worrying is as the Americans complete this drawdown is can they with us because we're still responsible for security of NATO forces within Kabul I mean obviously other elements one can call on can we protect these contract workers and and so on well there's got to be a question over that they they are not contracted to fight so if the scale of our commitment declines much more then ironically in order to sustain it you've got to put in your own logisticians and then your Robin Peter are going to pay Paul if your numbers are cat so it's a it's a difficult one and I don't know the tactical details of the moment but it's a very good question that at some point it starts to bite you okay thank you very much and just very quickly I want to apologize for everybody that I've not asked questions for quite a lot of questions Lord Richards and but I'd like to move on to discussing the United States and the Biden presidency under the Trump administration the US became more protectionist isolationist and populist do you foresee these trends continuing under the incoming Biden administration or will the US revert to a more traditional global role well every one of your listeners will be as expert as me give or take this area or certainly have their own view which will be extremely credible I do of course have the slight advantage of having met President-elect Biden and at least two of the people I understand today including Michelle Flournoy actually who was my point of contact at a working level when I was you know at the near the top or at the top of the armed forces the answer must be from everything we're reading and from what I remember about my two conversations with Joe Biden is that he will intend to return to a more multilateral approach I think the Iranian deal in particular will be a difficult one for him but I think they will want to get back into that in some way or seek to do a new deal and that'll be really important for Gulf Middle East relations and stability his new sacred state was very involved in the original deal and is closely involved and has been as I understand it closely involved since in trying to salvage it in case President-elect Biden got into this position I think any and I don't buy that President Trump was anti-nato in the sense he's sometimes portrayed but any lingering doubts in that area about Americans commitment to NATO I think you'll quickly put paid to I think our increase in defense expenditure is very timely in that respect it'll attract his attention and he'll be very pleased with it offsetting his apparent sort of lack of enthusiasm for Brexit so that was a clever move by the Prime Minister and right to do it in the timeframe that he has and that may explain by the way and it's perfectly logical why he decided the announcement was more important than waiting for the integration review none of these things are straightforward and you can see that there would have been that sort of debate I think he'll seek more multilateral solutions I mean the people like me and maybe we're being naive talk a lot about you know the Westphalian system the Congress of Vienna the need for a new version of that and it could be that with pronounced American leadership that we do start to look for answers on that sort of scale my view is it would be worth giving it a go because my goodness the alternative as China grows and if America got their response to that wrong in the way we're discussing earlier things look a bit bleak so I'm all for it and I think you'll see a completely different but still hard-nosed given there's that isolationist street in every American hard-nosed approach to multilateralism in particular I have a question for my colleague Dr Joseph Devaney specifically to do with the Anglo-American relationship and how well aligned are US and UK defense policies likely to be over the next four years and what should be the UK's top defense priorities in connection with the UK-US bilateral relationship a minor question okay well I think our policies are at the moment actually aligned in one sense in that NATO remains the basis of our defense and although our defense strategy although President Trump has questioned as I said NATO I never believed that he was fundamentally concerned about it what he rightly was saying is other countries need to spend a lot more of their own resources on their own defense and I for one was a hundred percent behind that and to some degree we've got to remember that he achieved that certainly countries started spending more and I think was really important that other countries do start spending more why should America continue forever to substitute for our Europe's inability to spend properly on its own defense so no bad thing what President Trump achieved there was quite something but I think NATO will remain the center of our joint defense I'd love to call it strategy but probably policy at the moment is right it should become a proper defense strategy but the other issue as we were talking about earlier is how much do we pivot to the Indo-Pacific region and I think that what I was proposing earlier whereby we exhibit more muscle and take more of a lead in NATO and encouraging our European allies to do more as well as take on a bit more in the Gulf for example freeing up America on our collective behalf to focus on the Indo-Pacific area along with important allies like Australia and New Zealand I think there's a strategic logic to that that accepts in a sort of pragmatic way although we are an important country in defense terms we are not as big as some might imagine and we can mitigate the risks of that relative lack of size in that way that said the other area that we need to examine and they obviously link is should we go more if you like into the Indo-Pacific and I'd say that is going to be the basis of Michel Flournoy's sort of quite early bit of advice to President Lech Biden okay well following on from this last year Defense Secretary Ben Wallace warned that the UK must be prepared to fight wars without the US and that the integrated review should be considering this as an issue given that for the past half a century anyway that we have always more or less operated as part of the US coalition do you think that the integrated review should be planning to not go to war with America and do you think that this is going to happen anytime soon well I I remember that comment and I have to say I was rather surprised by it I think you you've got to start by defining war I mean war to me is a big thing I mean it can be limited war career was defined by many at the time as a limited war I mean this is your baby with you guys but even a limited war is big business and you've got to be fully committed nationally to winning I'm not certain that anything I would characterize as war is something that we should plan on doing by ourselves if you define the Falklands conflict as a war maybe that is the exception and I think one could define it as war but we never attacked Argentina in that it was very limited could you define what I did in Sierra Leone with a fantastic team of people about five thousand all up mainly Navy by the way as a war no I don't think so but that's the sort of thing again one should be capable probably of doing independently but even then you'd want the support and encouragement I would argue of allies the Falklands war you know without American support and you know assistance from other countries it would have been very very difficult to conduct even though they didn't actually fight alongside us so I'm a bit baffled by what that really means without being too sort of nuanced about what war actually means but the idea of fighting wars without the US which is a headline I would be very reluctant to contemplate I think it's absolutely great we've won a big lesson of the 20th century whether you like him or not stay bloody close to the USA and we have a question from one of my colleagues Tim will as he wills you and he says or asks how concerned are you that US force levels in Afghanistan fall below safe levels and obviously I think Tim's referring to Donald Trump trying to accelerate the withdrawal recently and will this lead to a scuttle or even a Saigon embassy rift moment well I know Tim and it's a typically a stupid good question I am fun enough tomorrow I'm doing an Atlantic council thing on Afghanistan as a prelude to a bigger event in I'm sort of quite involved but not obviously in the way I used to be but so I'm quite current I think we're very near the point if the Americans do complete their withdrawal in the current situation where the operation will become untenable and there is a risk of that Saigon moment we're not quite there yet I'm being told by people who are closer to it than me but if he pulls them out in theory before the conditions that were agreed were met then we have that problem if the Taliban sort of agree or do as they've agreed then I think we can sorry I'm getting a something on the yeah on the screen I think we can go along with it reluctantly in my on my part because I know how much the vast majority of Afghans do not want to be governed either materially or indirectly by the Taliban and they fought Jolly Har against it but inadequately as a you know their government hasn't managed to do everything that they should have done and I don't well we we're going to look at Afghanistan but whether we're going to the reasons for that but I am worried that there is a real risk that if we don't if the stars don't all align what Tim said could welcome about okay we have another question from Arman Cerveri for multilateral operations to what extent do you envisage peace operations to increase in importance in the ongoing national security stretching sdsr for example increasing UK participation in the UN mission to Mali or involvement in operation Barkhain which was the last one an operation Barkhain I don't know what that is can you tell me no I got the trust um well the issue of whether we should become more involved in the UN is a perennial one I personally am in principle and keen on it I think it can one materially strengthen a UN operation which often because the countries that take the prominent roles in it aren't really militarily yet mature enough to take the roles they end up having not as effective as they could be if say I don't know the British and French Americans were more prominent in them and I seen that on a number of occasions and obviously to some degree what we did in Sierra Leone in 2000 we are we didn't put on blueberries it was absolutely in support and to some degree answering a request of the UN to help at a very difficult time so there are ways of doing it which don't necessarily involve putting on blueberries and we've done that on other occasions particularly logistically I remember in the Congo for example a few years ago now so I'm I think we will see a greater emphasis on it or we certainly should do I'm not privy to number 10 thinking on it I can see that there will be a healthy debate about it you know where are we most influential is it by doing things at quite a small scale you're talking sort of protruding company level often in parts of Africa training roles which you know nowadays seem to be called operations but aren't really although there's no reason they shouldn't be approached in that view at the low tactical level or should we gain influence through involvement in the UN Mali is rather written on my heart because my one of my last acts of cds was to a little anecdote here to go to Mali to see what the hell was happening and I came back from there not too impressed I have to say I think you know the history will record that my my assessment was right and neither the UN nor the French effort was at that time particularly well put together and I'm being polite we are still helping the French because this goes back to defense expenditure they still don't have a heavy lift helicopter such as the Chinook and we are very kindly but logically one could argue giving them those asset that asset I think three helicopters are committed that's quite a big chunk of our overall Chinook fleet because you know the need to sustain them and rotate crews and all that sort of so we asked we are engaged in Mali it's just not wearing blue berries and but it is it is materially useful I keep using that word material apologies materially useful to the UN as well as the French great Operation Barcain is the French anti-insurgent operation against jihadist in the Sahel Armand's just let us know thank you and we I want to combine two questions really one is about what does the US do about China under the Biden administration and there's obviously being considerable tension in the UK over the past few years about our relationship with China what do you what do you think and your former successor just a few months ago mentioned China and Russia in a gray zone activity so what do you think our relationship with China should be both from a UK perspective but the broader western perspective well as I said a little while ago to me how we handle China's inevitable rise to being the most economically powerful country in the world probably in the next 10 years you know different fundings will give you different dates and then in due course given the size of their population at some point we should expect to become militarily dominant at least be able to have a similar capabilities as that of America how we handle their rise is the key geostrategic question of the century and I'm not that sanguine about it at the moment I don't necessarily have any solutions but we've got to come to terms with the fact that the Chinese are going to be in a different league within a few years and we're going to have to live with it that doesn't mean that they can shoulder their way willy-nilly through everything that we hold dear either commercially nationally just strategically or whatever and I don't think to be fair that's that would be seen to be in their interest either that is in China's the current Chinese governments the biggest their biggest priority is stability in China and that basically means continued economic growth and the one belt one road initiative all these things are all to do with that I think as long as we can find an arrangement and it would be brilliant if as I said earlier we could tide into some new version of the treaty worth failure then that that enables them and they see that we are not threatening them and that requirement to remain stable societally through mainly economic prosperity then I think we can live with China but there's a absence of a meeting of the minds and I think there will be people in Southeast Asia the Singapore government other governments there who understand them better and we ought to be prepared to ask them for their advice and take them into our own confidence in a way that we're not very good at we tend to look at it through a western prism and we need to understand China better before we go off on a tangent that could be very dangerous for all of us what I do know is that in all this you need what my American friends sometimes call off ramps you can square up to them but as always in history and diplomacy you've got to find a way to find solutions to the problems you will otherwise have and that means you you're doing a bit of bartering a bit of this and a bit of that it's not all bad if we get this right then we can do that for you all that is slightly absent at the moment and I think it's a very important requirement as we accept this inevitable dominance that they will have at some point this century okay thank you for that we'll move into the final section of the conversation Lord Richards and I'd like to turn to Afghanistan although we've touched on it briefly and I'd like to combine one of my questions with a question from one of the audience so when you were commander of ISAF this coincided with the UK's deployment into Hellman and last month the Taliban and actually throughout the past several years the Taliban have been launching wide-scale attacks in Hellman province and they're now looking militarily and politically stronger than any point since 2001 so looking back at the entire campaign and the campaign in Hellman for the UK specifically do you consider it to be a failure and just to tie in Oli Bryant's question he said that you're on record as saying politicians interfered in our domain in Afghanistan to what extent was it the UK's grand strategy or lack of strategy that was actually at fault well there's a lot of questions within that those two what was it a failure let me part because I think probably it's too early to know that Hellman was one part of yes arguably a weak strategic effort and we won't know the result till we see the outcome of these talks and whether some sort of peace deal can be arranged but I don't view it as you know narrowly certainly well sorry I it could be viewed narrowly as a failure in Hellman but that would be the wrong way of looking at it you've got to look at it as part of an overall strategy and we always knew that at some point there was going to be negotiations but I think you know there's so much in your questions and I don't want to lose Oli's one which I'll come back to but the issue of correlation of forces and commitment I mean as students of war and of conflict but the big issue is you you know I characterized it as as you you don't get a war you don't you don't dribble your clout clout don't dribble and what we did from the outset in Afghanistan for all you know some noble reasons at one in one sense but in every other respect for very poor is we dribbled we never clouted I never forget going to visit the 16-air assault brigade assets in Hellman when I arrived in May 2006 to take on the the responsibility of expansion of NATO across the whole country we already were responsible for the west north and Kabul but the real issues were all in the south and in the east and I went down having done a lot of preparation with HQ Allied Rapid Reaction Corps when we became the point of becoming HQ ISAP I went down to Hellman I could not believe how inadequate the British forces were for the tasks that was being set them and one of the problems I have to say is a NATO commander you know I was British is that we had relatively little influence over the detailed application of the NATO strategy the NATO strategy which has been agreed by all the contributing nations wasn't actually too bad and you know my my headquarters have been involved in its design but at the tactical level the the execution of the strategy was very much up to nations who also yes they signed up to it although I have to tell you I went to a meeting the year before in Whitehall traveled over from Germany where I was based and the civil servant in charge of that strategy in the cabinet office was not even aware that Britain had signed up to a NATO strategy that's how you know wanton some of them were approaching it at the time and if it wasn't for John Reed 16 aerosol brigade would not have had Apache helicopters and artillery for example was only in a because I got to know him at a personal level and we had a sort of a clandestine meeting in Berlin would you believe where he asked me to elaborate on something I'd said to an official visit he'd been on that he said right I've got it I will make sure that the British never get I was a NATO officer but the British get attack helicopters and artillery thank goodness we had that conversation otherwise probably those assets would have been deployed very late and we'd have had more of a problem so I think what I'm trying to get across to you is that this and go back to the point and I'm conscious that many of your students are students of war that we went into this half heartedly with inadequate understanding of the aims and certainly with inadequate resources if there's one big lesson out of Afghanistan is if you're going to do something like it do it properly clout don't dribble now for a little while to be fair we got those correlation of forces about right including in Helmand in about 2010 to and 2011 the Americans put a lot of US Marines in there and we got the correlation of forces broadly okay you're never going to win everything in by the nature but you you you can persuade your opponent they're not going to win and therefore why don't you come to the table more on our terms and theirs we've lost that advantage and we're seeing it play out now in the negotiations that you know we're all a little bit worried about so that's by way of background now what was on his point so all these questions was um you're on record as saying politicians interfered in our domain in Afghanistan to what extent was the UK's grand strategy or lack of strategy strategic options that was actually at fault well I think in a way I've answered much of Ollie's excellent question we didn't really have I don't think it was there was ever any question of a grand strategy I don't think we had a strategy even in the sense that we had some goals but a strategy is a coherent plan and the plan required much more to be put into the British and NATO effort than both Britain and to be fair virtually every other country except the Americans who were at war by the way going back to that I mean the difference in their approach and ours was was profound I used to feel rather guilty that we weren't replicating this wasn't at the time when I was based there for the best part of the year but but later when I was CDS so I do think Ollie's point is a good one I said that I think I remember when I said it it was as a result of tactical interference in what the brigade in Helmut at the time was seeking to do. Prime Minister Cameron like a lot of people in his position and the means now are easier I sometimes thought got too involved in the tactics whereas even I as CDS would trust my subordinates they had clear commander strategic intent we had excellent people on the ground we should have allowed them to get on with it and there was a there was too much sort of overlordism from from from London and not enough trusting of subordinates and I fought against that on behalf of people in in in Afghanistan and that's when I made that comment and what do you think looking back now the Afghanistan campaign or before as we've discussed it's still on going to an extent how would you view Anglo-American relations within Afghanistan because the British came in for a bit of flak when they deployed to Helmut because as you've mentioned the the plan wasn't there they only had oh just over 3000 troops 600 combat troops out of that number so things weren't ideal and then things started to turn around when the Americans came in massive deployment of US Marines what was your impression of how the Americans thought of our efforts in Afghanistan do you think they thought we performed well or badly because obviously the hangover from Iraq cast a bit of a shadow yeah well I'm no doubt and every com I sat and funnily enough there is a documentary an American documentary on the on the cards and a book about all the com Isafs and it was only you know it sort of dawned on people the first proper com Isaf wasn't even an American and there was a debate about whether I should be included or not well I have been so but I know all the American com Isafs Dave portrays Stan McChrystal and so on and they're all well some of them early on you know suffered in career terms they're all outstanding people and I know them well enough for them to tell me the truth at a tactical fighting level they had much respect for the British armed forces and still do no other country other than we and the Americans were prepared or had to accept casualties in the way we both did other other countries were very competent allies but we were the ones that did the real sort of hard graft and had to accept casualties including a number of kia so I no doubt that they have we have their respect at that level but at the higher level I at the strategic level yes of course there's a lot of you know soul-searching about how you know their biggest ally and I think we are still viewed collectively within US defense circles as the the US armed forces and the Pentagon's most important and reliable ally that but nevertheless in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq that we were let down at the strategic level and I share that view okay well thank you very much Lord Richard for that answer and we are now unfortunately out of time so I just have time to say thank you very much for joining us this evening it's been a fascinating discussion and I'd like to thank everyone else for joining us too and for all the questions and apologies I couldn't get through all the questions but once again thank you very much Lord Richard it's been fascinating a pleasure and good luck to all of those on your courses in particular I might have been one of you many many years okay but good luck thank you thanks good night