 Good afternoon and welcome to the Lowe Institute for the 2022 Owen Harry's lecture. I'm Hervé Lemayu, the director of research here at the Institute and I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which the Institute stands, the Gadigal of the Euron Nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present. Since 2013, the annual Owen Harry's lecture has honored the significant contribution made to the international debate in Australia and the United States by Owen Harry's, who was a non-resident fellow at the Lowe Institute. Owen Harry's passed away in June 2020 at the age of 90 years old. He was one of the giants of the foreign policy world and in Australia he was an academic and a trusted prime ministerial advisor. He also spent nearly two decades on the international stage, first in Paris as Australia's ambassador to UNESCO and then of course in Washington DC as the founding editor of the National Interest. He provided counsel and advice to countless young scholars of international affairs and I'm glad that we have a few among them here in the audience today and he always encouraged us to think big and address the most pressing issues at the heart of the international system. His intellect and wit illuminated the world and Australia's place in it. The Harry's lecture has now been given by many important figures including American diplomat Kurt Campbell, Ambassador Cheyenne Saran, the former head of the Indian Foreign Ministry, Jean-David Levit, a French diplomat and advisor to three French presidents, Jake Sullivan, who is now the National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden and of course the renowned political theorist Professor Francis Foucaillama. This year for the first time since the pandemic we're able to host a lecture in person and it's a great pleasure and a distinct honor to have one of the world's most distinguished military strategist Sir Lawrence Friedman join us here in person in Sydney to deliver the Owen Harry's lecture. Sir Lawrence is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London. He has held positions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Chatham House and was appointed Professor of War Studies at King's College in 1982 in a department founded by his mentor and friend the great Sir Michael Howard. He was the first head of King's School of Social Science and Public Policy and served as the vice principal of the college until 2013. As a historian and analyst Sir Lawrence wrote the British government's official history of the Falklands War and he's written extensively 61 books by my account but you might be able to correct me there on nuclear deterrence, military operations, the history of military strategy and the future of war. In 2003 he was made a Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George KCMG and later that decade he was asked to serve as a member of the official inquiry into Britain's role in the 2003 Iraq War. Since Russia's brutal and unjustified invasion early this year in February his commentary on the war has been read and re-read around the world including in Australia. I'm delighted therefore now to ask Sir Lawrence Friedman to deliver the 2022 Owen Harry's lecture titled Inhumane War. So Lawrence, the lectern is yours. Thanks very much. It's a real pleasure to be back at the Lowy Institute. The Lowy brought me to Australia for the first time a couple of decades ago and particularly this is an honour of Owen Harris. So like many of you here I knew a man of sharp wit, sceptical, serious but somebody who was always encouraging always enjoyed a good conversation and a good argument. So it really is a pleasure to be able to give this lecture in his honour. A few years ago Samuel Moyn published a book entitled Humane War which is all about the temptations to wage war if you thought it was so to speak relatively harmless. This would be the case if you need only target those who deserve targeting while sparing everybody else. But best of all of course in this model is that you could stay out of harm's way yourself. And the idea of this sort of humane war came from observing the role that weaponised drones had played in the later stages of the war on terror when President Obama found himself agreeing to assassinations of individuals in a variety of otherwise inaccessible parts of the world who were believed to be responsible for terrorist atrocities or were actively planning them. And this was linked and Moyn linked it to a historic debate which is essentially if wars are going to occur shouldn't we make every effort to mitigate their effect but if we mitigate them too much doesn't that make wars even more attractive as an instrument of policy? Doesn't it not legitimise what we should really be trying to avoid as a way of settling disputes? Now the difficulty with Moyn's case was that the use of drones for targeted assassinations was really rather a special case. Most wars are about territory whether defending it or seizing it and they're unlikely to revolve around the fate of a few individuals. And the moment we're witnessing in Europe something that is far from a humane war in fact it's inhumanity is palpable. It's seen a quarter of the Ukrainian population displaced with over six million having left the country. A number of cities have come famous for the destruction that they've faced Mariupol, Kharkiv, Donetsk along with many towns and villages they've been battered by Russian firepower. In places occupied by Russian forces there have been numerous reported instances of torture, incarceration and murder of individuals alleged to be working against Russian forces as well as looting sexual abuse and wanton violence and destruction in areas which Russia has claimed for itself. And some of these areas have been enforced changes including to education, currency replacing of the Ukrainian with the Russian language and so on. This is not just inhumane in the ways that all wars tend to inhumanity lives wasted and far too many left mourning. The inhumanity is part of the strategy at least on the Russian side. Putin of course is not the first to try to win a war by making life miserable for whole populations as a way of coercing their government but the brazen nature of this attempt is quite startling and so far it hasn't succeeded and I don't think it will but if that is the case then we need to understand why. So to explore this issue in this lecture what I want to do is to consider two contrasting models of war fighting associated with the United States and with the Russian Federation describing how much they diverge particularly when it comes to the deliberate targeting of civil society. This leads into a discussion of the Russo-Ukraine war. This has been the closest we've had for some time in its intensity and the types of forces involved to a war between major powers. Unlike Russia of course Ukraine didn't enter this war with the attributes of a great power. It's not a permanent member of the Security Council it doesn't have a nuclear arsenal. It gave up the arsenal it had inherited from the Soviet Union famously with the Budapest memorandum which gave it security assurances not quite guarantees in 1994 which turned out not to be very useful. It doesn't unlike Russia deploy its armed forces beyond its borders in support of clients and allies. It was however is however fighting a war with NATO support an increasingly NATO weaponry. Until this war there had been remarkably little to go on with regard to a conventional war between the regular forces of major powers or peer competitors as the Pentagon calls them. During the 21st century Western armies defeated much weaker opponents in the conventional stages of their wars although they then got bogged down in insurgencies. Russia also fought against weaker opponents in Chechnya with one more starting in 1994 and another in 1999 Georgia in 2008, Crimea, Eastern Ukraine in 2014 and then in support of the Syrian government from 2015. The most recent example prior to this war of a conventional conflict with relatively modern equipment was the short Armenian Azerbaijan conflict of September 2020. It was evident there that drones were making a difference to contemporary tactics just as the 1991 Gulf War confirmed what had been seen in 1972 in Vietnam, the precision guided munitions were creating new options for conducting a war that's allowed for accurate targeting of enemy systems and avoidance of centres of population. This led to hopes that war could become more humane at least in staying close to the laws of armed conflict. It reflects a classical view that the objective of military action is to eliminate the military capabilities of the enemy ensuring that fighting is largely confirmed to competence so that non-competence is spared. In this case, it's assumed that military defeat leads directly to political defeat or at least the quality of the eventual political settlement will reflect the extent of the military victory. Now accepting that we're simplifying here somewhat there's another contrasting type of war. This is a continuation of all the trends towards total war that led to the persecution of populations as well as the deliberate attacks on them from massive air raids of the Second World War and then eventually the introduction of nuclear weapons. In this type, the enemy's civil society and economy are legitimate targets because they are responsible for funding and manufacturing the equipment vital to the conduct of military operations because also if they're constantly hit and damage that might remove and undermine the enemy's will and capacity to fight and because the subjugation and even extermination of populations is one potentially of the war aims. It's kind of these ideal types. Social scientists amongst you will recognize the Max Weber reference here. Ideal type is not a idealized form of warfare. It's rather, there's not so much a description. It is a simplification, a construct that picks up the essential characteristics of a particular phenomenon to help show it in its purest form in order to facilitate analysis and also to guide action. Although these ideal types may shake strategy, actual practice will differ because of the nature of the adversary strategy, the operational conditions and the wider political context. Keep in mind that's considered first the ideal type of conventional strategy most associated with Western militaries. In this idealized form war is conducted separately from civil society with the belligerence gaining advantage through the speed of their decision making, the quality of their technology and the professionalism of their tactics. Those working within this framework have been particularly enamored with operational concepts based on outmaneuvering the enemy in battle, avoiding attritional warfare which is just based on trading firepower and so tending towards a true ideal in a way in which all casualties military as well as civilian can be reduced. This form came into fashion after the 1991 Gulf War under the banner of the Revolution in military affairs. Western countries concentrated on developing technologies that fitted this ideal type, integrating sensors, command networks and guidance systems that could achieve pinpoint accuracy at extended ranges and in the way it was often presented this could in the way be considered a more humane way to fight wars. Now there are well known problems with this type. First it encourages a view of warfare as the preserve of military professionals and conducted by armed forces with regard for each other but not the political context within which they're operating. In practice the boundaries between the military and civilian spheres are less clear cut. Even in the 1991 war and certainly in most fought sims it's become apparent that military operations including those conducted with the most accurate weapons could not avoid civilian relevant targets especially those connected to the infrastructure supporting the enemy's military operations notably transportational links but also energy and administration. The tax on power supplies didn't start with this war. Second although integral to this ideal type is the core principle that every effort should be made to avoid deliberate attacks on civilians civilian casualties still happen. This was certainly true when dealing with insurgencies. Enemy militants were often indistinguishable from civilians and efforts to avoid killing innocents often failed one of the difficulties with the drone warfare. Enemy militants merged into the villages as a way of protecting themselves and it was very difficult to work out who it was that you were confronting when soldiers were on patrol. And for this reason it was difficult to get the troops to show the necessary restraint that counterinsurgency warfare was often assumed to require. It required that considerations of force protection take precedence over avoiding civilian casualties. That is the more do you take risks with civilian lives or with your own forces and the senior commanders might have one view but frankly if you were the one on patrol you might take a different view. The effort to reduce humanitarian costs through a sharp focus on defeating enemy combatants created narrative issues with any non-combatant deaths because of the implication that this was the result of problems of decision making, technology or tactics and not just the inherent uncertainties of wars fought amongst the people. Third it required that the losing side accept the judgment of battle and not escalate to a potentially more intensive form of warfare or a population centric form of warfare in which it might believe that it had a better chance of prevailing. So these were the... I'm not trying to argue there's an excellent Western model and a terrible Russian model there are problems with both models of war but the intent with the Western model the starting point is that you should do your best to avoid civilian casualties. So with the second model what appeared to be the result of carelessness and uncertainty appeared desirable. The direct targeting of civil society happens to be less demanding in many ways than confining your military operations to the enemy military. It requires directing whatever firepower you've got, artillery, rockets, missiles, aircraft at large targets without any particular requirement for precision although precision can enable attacks on particularly significant targets such as refineries, power stations, railway hubs, government buildings, hospitals and schools. Even before Ukraine the Russians appeared to have embraced this ideal type, this model in the wars against Chechnya to prevent secession the tactics were often quite brutal and the capital Grozny was left flattened in operations to support the Syrian government against rebels from 2015 Russia not only provided cover to prevent criticism of the Syrians for their use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs but also used air power to make life as difficult as possible for civilians to encourage them to leave. So this was the other side of the coin to precision guidance the same systems that can be used to avoid hitting civilians could also be used to target them effectively. In Aleppo for example Russian aircraft and other hospitals often using coordinates handed to them through the United Nations in order to help them avoid those buildings. This Russian ideal type is highly political it's insensitive to civilian actually for that matter military casualties and ruthless in its determination to defeat its opponent tellingly it works hard on the narrative surrounding any military operations seeking to demonstrate that the victims deserved all they got and that Russia was only acting according to severe provocations Putin is widely blamed for a false flag operation in September 1999 involving apparent terrorist attacks against residential accommodation in Russia to provide a pretext for the Second Chechen War which he launched immediately after those attacks Putin managed the transition from being Prime Minister to becoming President. With Ukraine in 2014 he was looking for demonstrations of spontaneous support for action against the government in Kiev which he received with regard to Crimea but was equivocal in the Donbass. With Syria there was less need because he could claim to be acting in support of the Russian government. Although this was presented as an anti-ISIS operation Russia adopted a pretty expansive definition of ISIS really to include any anti-Assad group as they were all effectively supporting as far as he was concerned the Islamists. Now the obvious problem with this type of warfare is that it is inhumane it essentially depends on committing war crimes. As it's questionable strategic utility if there is a strategic purpose to attacking civil society is to influence enemy decision makers to look for ways out of the war to relieve the pain and punishment. As with any coercive effort it cannot dictate the target's reaction. Compliance is one possibility but anti-resistance is another. There are instances when it could be said to have worked for example in persuading rebel supporters to flee Aleppo and if you actually look at the way it's strategically employed you will see quite a lot of suggestions even in Ukraine that one of the ideas is to encourage another refugee crisis in Europe. But to work as a stand-alone strategy inhumane warfare requires the victim population as enabled to adapt to the terror and hardship of their situation and also that there are political processes that can turn their misery into a demand for change in the government's strategy. It's not enough that the people are miserable they must act on their misery the government that is making their life miserable not their own government other than by refusing to capitulate then it's likely and in fact quite usual that the greatest anger will be directed at the perpetrators of the crimes. So such strategies tend to be used for once of any alternative way of hurting the enemy or else as a supplement to do more regular military strategies of the first type that I was describing. In fact because of the limits of this sort of strategy as a form of coercion it may well, as happened with Ukraine still require land operations to take control of disputed territory or even to seize control of the enemy's decision-making centre. This then creates questions about the interaction between the two efforts and it's simplest should far, far be directed against targets that would degrade civilian life or support land operations the choice the Russians have faced chosen the former by and large. Russia and Putin has shown a coercive mindset particularly when using energy and economic measures to encourage other states to be compliant with Russian wishes. This was after all how the Ukrainian crisis began in 2013 when Putin turned the screws on the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych to dissuade him from signing an association agreement with the EU. This was successful except that the popular reaction against this decision set in motion the Euro-made movements and all that followed. In Chechnya and Georgia he used military pressure to force political settlements. In Syria Russia acted ruthlessly to encourage those in rebel areas to flee though it did not contribute troops to this effort. Putin's approach including in Ukraine in 2014 combined ruthlessness with keeping liabilities limited. So while attacks on Rosny or Aleppo might have foreshadowed the attacks on Mariupol and Kharkiv this year, they were not the full tests of a coercive military strategy. The western model sought to limit the humanitarian costs of military operations that were subverted by interactions with civil society. Descriptions of future conflict that show opposing forces interacting well away from populated areas were always unrealistic. This was even more so with the so-called wars amongst the people that began after the end of the Cold War when regular forces faced hostility from at least some sections of the population. Western campaigns therefore have become associated with humanitarian distress despite the accuracy of the weaponry and the skill with which it was used. But because they were occupying territory where their presence was resisted or else there were no sides in an internal conflict the Russian model was apparently indifferent to humanitarian costs and had no issues with taking sides but Putin had sought to limit his liabilities. The Syrian Civil War was the deadliest that the region has known but Russia confined itself to air power so as not caught up in any heavy fighting. In Ukraine in 2014 the annexation involved little for actual fighting some but not much. The situation was different in the Donbas where Russians sponsored separatist groups often led by Russians tried to foment rebellion against the government the new government in Kiev and only later on in that when they were in trouble did the Russians intervene directly but again Putin then tried to limit his liabilities and you have the Minsk process to try to produce some sort of political settlement. So when in talks of future war the US presented the future as one of these peer competitors fighting conventional battles away from centres of population. This in some ways reflected an aspiration to escape from the grinding civil conflicts that account for most of the ongoing 21st century wars and as I tried to indicate was always optimistic there's just limits on how much civilians can be protected from wars being fought in the areas in which they're living. But this doesn't mean to say that there is no difference between the two ideal types I'm describing. They diverged most of all on the question of whether civilians would be deliberately targeted in war. The western model at least in line with the Geneva conventions was that civilians should be protected as much as possible. The Russian model agreed in principle but in practice was far more ruthless. It might not matter to those attacked if there were victims of unfortunate collateral damage or deliberate coercion but the strategic use of firepower to intimidate populations and clear residential areas of hostile populations will inevitably cause the greatest humanitarian distress. One reason why this year's war has provoked such a striking contrast in the military strategies is actually not so much the influence of NATO thinking on Ukrainian practice but actually Ukraine is obviously every incentive to reduce the harm to their own civilian population. It's not fighting on Russian soil while Russia was inclined to target civilians not only as a preferred military strategy but also because of its underlying political objectives. Now as a conventional war this conflict has demonstrated the importance of such factors as logistics and chains of command in determining military effectiveness as well as terrain, rivers have affected both offensive and defensive operations. Because of Russia's nuclear status that dimension has always been present limiting what NATO countries were prepared to do when it came to direct support for Ukraine but also what Russians might try against the NATO countries supporting Ukraine. In a way it sharpened the contrast in strategies because even if it had wanted to retaliate in kind against Russia which it was never going to be able to do on any scale, Ukraine could barely do so at all. It's been a bit at border areas but nothing very much. So it had to concentrate its firepower on targets relevant to the Russian military effort ammunition dumps, logistics, command posts, bases and so on. This focus along with the motivation of its troops has been one of the keys to its success in its counter offensive. In terms of causing harm to Ukraine from the Russian side they can claim a tragic success. Infrastructure has been destroyed and the economy set back some 40% of GDP possibly lost this year. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and wounded millions have been displaced, military casualties also extremely high. Yet the Russian effort to eliminate Ukraine as a sovereign nation with a strong identity has backfired completely. The attacks on civilian life brought Russia no military advantages. Cities and towns were defended despite the rubble. Any claims that the territory of the Donbas was being liberated became absurd when it was precisely the most Russian parts of the country that were harmed the most. Even if as many supposed the Russian objective was to season and incorporate this territory into a greater Russia which is what Putin has now announced would be annexation of the four provinces but this prize will come to a devastated and depopulated if it came to it at all. With those left certainly not those who had not been living in separatist enclaves full of hatred for Russia. If the effort had been coercive in intent it failed. Russian brutality did not prompt calls for capitulation but reinforced the determination to fight on. Evidence from opinion polls demonstrated a nation no longer divided by regions or language but convinced that victory against the occupiers was both possible and above all necessary. Whether or not this was realistic we'll have to see but it created an asymmetry of motivation that told in Ukraine's favor. On the Russian side there was news evidence of extremely poor morale and while the bad behavior may have reflected incessant anti-Ukrainian propaganda it also reflected poor discipline as valuable space on military vehicles was taken up with looted goods. The effort was also counterproductive and it convinced western countries that they couldn't let Russia win and so had to provide Ukraine not only with weapons to defend against Russian offensives but the heavier weapons needed the counterattacks to start pushing Russian forces out of occupied territory. As Russian forces left territory near to Kiev in last March we saw then what terrible the terrible revelations about the war crimes how that hardened western opinion and led to pressure to supply more and better weapons. It removed incentives for Kiev to negotiate. Now it's too early to pronounce the Russian strategy a failure because the war isn't over yet. You can point out that it's implemented the inhumane aspect of its warfare quite efficiently. We've got more efficient with the recent attacks on the electricity grid. Even while its classical land operations have been poorly executed and the use of the newly mobilized forces who were described as cannon fodder when they were mobilized turns out rather sadly to be wholly justified. Also I don't want to set up a false dichotomy all war is to a degree inhumane. The issue is not one of methodology but purpose. What in the end shaped Russian strategy was not solely a belief in the power of coercion but a contempt for Ukraine and a denial of their humanity. In that sense the war method followed from the war. Thank you. A very stimulating lecture good to be reminded about Siberian ideal types. I haven't come across that in a while but I was thinking through the concepts and I thought it was incredibly interesting the intent versus the execution the distinction to be drawn there as well. So thank you for agreeing to take some questions for me and the audience a little later. You argue that inhumanity is not just a feature of this war it's not just palpable but it's part of the strategy surely years from now or even today when Russians look back at their ideal type for how to conduct a successful invasion Ukraine can't possibly qualify as you say attacks on human life had no real military advantage. So were you surprised by Russia's military failures on the basis of everything you knew about their doctrine their strategy, their capabilities or do you think the current situation is a result of deficiencies or Russian incompetence or in fact Ukrainian skill? Well at the point it's both the Ukrainians I think I used first with the Iran-Iraq war the delicate balance of incompetence so all armies are incompetent just in their nature of what they're trying to do there was a lot of incompetence on the Ukrainian side especially beyond but they were less incompetent than the Russians unlearned and adapted and allowed individual units to take initiatives in a way that's not part of the Russian system I wasn't surprised in the sense that I never thought that a campaign of conquest against Ukraine could succeed like others I was sceptical not because the Russians were clearly up to something so you couldn't just dismiss all these forces gathered around the border but what did they think they were doing how could they possibly believe that they could subjugate a country like France similar population how did they think they could do this they couldn't and it was clear that they wouldn't be able to so the surprises were the things you thought they would do well use air power, possibly cyber attacks combined arms operations they didn't do well air power is still one of the mysteries of the whole Russian effort and that partly reflects a lack of preparation but it also reflects the point I was trying to make an underlying contempt for Ukraine an arrogance, a belief that this isn't a proper country it doesn't have legitimate government it's inherently divided the people wouldn't fight I think what caused the failure now as it's become apparent that Mr Putin's special military operation was not going to plan he's repeatedly and increasingly of late raised the specter of using nuclear weapons, do you think as an expert on nuclear strategy that that is a red herring or something to take into serious accounts well you've always got to take into serious account the possibility of nuclear war there's tiny chances enough to make people quite frightened properly so but the point is nuclear weapons are being used, they've been used from day one nuclear weapons are used in the purpose for which they are particularly suited, deterrence Putin has made it clear from his what he said on the 24th of Feb what he made a special announcement a few days later there was a press conference three weeks ago where he said more or less the same thing, if NATO intervenes directly there may risk a wider nuclear war how much they do I don't know but NATO has not intervened directly that's why there's no fly zones that Zelensky wanted earlier on so in that sense nuclear weapons have served Putin's purposes perfectly well up to now which is why I would be surprised if he jeopardised that by trying to use them to turn the battle around for which they're not particularly suited you know it's a very dispersed battlefield you need to for use quote-unquote tactical nuclear weapons you need a very concentrated force and it's not like them and they're not that concentrated partly because existing fire power makes them vulnerable and we saw what happens with the Russian ammunition dumps they're quite easily picked out so I my working assumption has been that they won't be used as with the start of this war you've been trying to read one man's mind and as he's done one stupid thing he can do another stupid thing but it would be stupid it's hard to see how it would fix the political and military problems he's created so it's understandable that everybody pays attention to it the Americans clearly take it very seriously hence the news reports about US National Security Advisor meeting his Russian equivalent or talking to his Russian equivalent which must have been an extraordinary conversation if you know his Russian equivalent Vatreshev is about makes Putin look a little moderate I think but anyway so you understand nuclear weapons are serious stuff but it is having an effect and he doesn't need it to escalate he can do damage to civilian societies without having to rely on nuclear weapons to do so as you say there are other ways of escalation of ramping up the war effort do you think that there is more in this arsenal of inhumanity that Russia could yet deploy or has it already been notched up to its maximum level short of nuclear weapons I think it's quite difficult I mean Ukrainian air defences are improving they're not good enough yet because it doesn't need much to get through cheap Iranian drones can be knocked down but by extremely expensive systems so I think they do have a problem gloss over the problem the Ukrainians are facing with this but as they're also making clear enough they have to have blackouts they'll carry on fighting it doesn't actually affect the fighting at the front it just affects the ability of the society and the economy to function which is not a trivial thing but they'll carry on there's no suggestion from any Ukrainians this is leading to a clamour to end it they just think they're stuck with the war they have no choice now but to carry on Winter is setting in and that appears to have slowed down the counteroffensive a bit how crucial is it that something give way between now and let's say February for either side Well I think we'll put in strategy on the sort of conventional military side it's trying to get them to hold a line now and then more of the mobics the mobilized men can be trained and equipped and so on for March say and I think if the front line does hold in that way then the pressure on Ukraine to look for some way out will grow because it's an expensive business to keep them going and I think the offensive the counteroffensive in September provided a real boost not into them or Albert made the international community more comfortable with what it was doing on their behalf so I think they do need military success I think they'll probably get it the basic problem for the Russians is they've gone through years of military production their officer corps has been pulverized the number of senior officer commanders have been killed as well the stories of low morale and so on are legion the basic problem with winter is you've got to keep warm and the Ukrainians the Ukrainians are beneficiaries of a very large NATO effort at the moment to get winter kit to them I'd be amazed if the Russians the reports in February March which is still winterish were an awful lot of the winter kit wasn't there when they went to the storehouses because as with so much of the military equipment it had been taken and sold so we'll see but if you mobilise large numbers of people we know from those already mobilised they've been having to buy their own body armour boots and so on they're not going to survive in the winter so what's already poor morale will decline that can have all sorts of consequences so by and large without trying to be too predictive I would assume that the Ukrainians will see more gains it's hard to see how the Russians can hold on to Herson all the way through the big Russian offensive which has very little to do with the actual war and more to do with internal Kremlin politics just countless Russians killed including those prisoners you saw those videos being recruited and in Luchansk it's slow going because of the weather but when things freeze over there could be more manoeuvre again so I would assume that something will give but if it doesn't then I think your attitudes to the war would look quite different in the spring more pressure I'm loath to ask you about what you think is the most likely outcome for this war you talk about possibilities rather than predictions but I do wonder going back to the lecture whether the inhumanity in some sense makes a negotiated end to this war less likely if that's not a byproduct of the strategy well if you heard Zelensky the other day talking about they ask for diplomacy while 56 missiles are on their way to our territory what sort of planets are they on Zelensky has promised that any deal goes to a referendum there's lots of polling of Ukrainian opinion and it's pretty uniform so it's very hard and it's a zero sum game this one I mean it's about territory I mean people talk about NATO enlargement and neutrality and so that's part of it and you can dismiss it completely as a fact but it's basically about the existence of Ukraine as an independent country so I think the problem that you have Ukrainians willing to negotiate will they compromise we've seen no evidence of it from the Russian side there's not a hint of compromise from Putin and I think that's not because he's confident in victory anymore he just can't actually cope with losing I think it's easier for Putin to contemplate Ukraine pushing Russian forces out because he can blame NATO than it is for him to say we withdraw because that will be seen as him admitting failure and as soon as the war ends there's a reckoning people are going to say well what was all that about why have we been through this why have we lost and the Ukrainians say 70,000 Russian soldiers have been killed it's probably an exaggeration but not necessarily by much it's still an awful lot of people so I think you know the more I've looked as hard as I can to find how you negotiate to wear out of this and I just don't see it at the moment at some point something will happen but when you see these claims all wars end by negotiations they don't really all wars don't end by negotiations they often end with a victory they sometimes end with a ceasefire and I think that's possible but a proper peace settlement is much harder look I've got three more questions then we'll go to the audience and the three actually a little bit beyond Ukraine I might ask you to think about China here I mean this is a question and an issue that's been the forefront of our money to what extent can we view China as an interchangeable threat or risk with Russia there's been a lot of talk about the effects that Ukraine war has had either to incentivize or disincentivize a move on Taiwan, Taiwan contingency and I wonder whether you part of the answer is surely whether you think Ukraine war is the new norm in warfare or an aberration an exception that proves the rule I think all wars are different I'm sure we're all going to get involved in this what are the lessons of I spent seven years of my life on the lessons of the Iraq war I said on day one the basic lesson is don't do it again and you know the I don't think this is a pattern it's a pattern of Russian warfare as I tried to show but even as a pattern of Russian warfare it far exceeds anything they've attempted or done since 1945 so I think we have to be careful about saying there's a new pattern here we're going to look at the future of tanks and what it tells us about cyber and drones and so on there will be things coming out of it the China having spent the last year trying to read Putin's mind we're going to have to spend the next year having to read Xi's and both have created systems in which they are at the pinnacle surrounded by sycophants which are very dangerous political systems we all know the multiple thoughts of our democracies but at least as Britain has rather dramatically demonstrated if you find yourself with a deaf leader you can change them whereas the Russians and the Chinese are stuck with theirs so we are on to this sort of thing where you're not talking about what is China you're talking about what does Xi do I think as far as Ukraine is concerned Xi is pretty cross with Putin he doesn't like to be associated with failure and he hasn't done anything particularly for Putin he came, Schultz got him to say he doesn't think nuclear war is a good idea and you know you've seen that the weapons he's buying from Russia haven't worked very well American weapons seem to have worked pretty well indeed so this thing is for him to think about and to my mind it's a pretty impressive reminder about not expecting too much from war it always disappoints as it means of solving problems so you hope that's something that comes through but it was very clear in the 20th party congress not to renounce the use of force on Taiwan and he couldn't really, I mean I think what Xi wants to do is to remind the Taiwanese that they dare not change the legal status I'm presuming that's the main objective I can imagine scenarios in which escalation takes place I mean I think it's more likely than a full scale invasion it's actually quite a difficult thing to do over those distances would be blockade, if it's a blockade the pressure on the US and other countries Australia and the UK to break the blockade will be great but one thing leads to another so I don't think, I think they're potentially quite dangerous situations still but you would hope that there's a warning here to Xi as well I certainly don't see it as a reason why he should feel encouraged to have a go at Taiwan but I think in the end the man, his political project oddly he and Putin are about the same age there's obviously something about turning 70 which you have to watch out for so I'm 73 just past it I had a danger there Final question for you, we could talk about British politics, I don't mean to embarrass you I won't go there other than perhaps it does show both the best and the worst aspects of democracy and British democracy in particular to be able to have such a short-lived premiership but also to be able to get rid of someone who posed instability, risks of instability now my final question is on and I mean it's hard to think that that was only last year it's going on in the world it's made a path for Australia to acquire eventually a fleet of nuclear powered submarines so let me ask you from your perspective what do you think of the merits of the initiative or on the decision rather than the initiative because it hasn't really materialized yet and once in operation or if in operation how much do you think that fleet of nuclear powered submarines would really alter the region's balance of power I mean nuclear powered submarines are pretty effective system you know, the UK is one in anger once Saint-Gobel-Grano in the Falklands campaign and that set the Argentine fleet back to port that didn't venture out again these are effective weapons I mean the interesting thing about Arcus is it's a sort of a mingling of a sort of massive procurement project with all the problems massive procurement projects have with a sort of geopolitical project and in a sense one puts at risk the other I think that's a sense of the challenge for Arcus I mean as a technology sharing arrangement which could be expanded beyond nuclear submarines I think it has potentially makes sense in the UK, US and Australia are very natural allies easy with each other trust each other for the moment and so on but it's a heck of an undertaking and especially for a country that doesn't have a history of building this sort of submarine and what you import how you put it together are big decisions that are in the process of being decided as far as I understand nobody's panicking about the situation design work is going ahead and so on so we'll see I think I tend to treat I think in the end it's the procurement side of it that's going to matter most because there are ways of these three countries talking to each other and doing things together without having to establish something new so I don't see it as a new alliance we're already allies but it's important that it succeeds in some way I think partly because it's very embarrassing for your government if it ends up with no submarines at all having annoyed the French which there's some compensation but if that's all you end up doing it's not really what the objective of the exercise is so I think it's important that it succeeds but it's difficult and it's the best role in the world is difficult look we've got a few minutes but I want to do a lightning round of questions from the audience we might have several go at a time and then you can pick and choose how you want to approach them there's a hand at the back there's a hand at the front I actually just came back this week from spending most of the year in the region I lastly came from Moldova but I've been struck throughout the year how the Russians are fighting this war and it's very much as you indicated that they're fighting using slightly 1945 tactics in the 21st century war and it's it sort of begs the question of just how long the home front will last it's a different demography in Russia now they're not having families of five or six children they've got a declining demography and when people lose a child it has a very particular effect on the social fabric and I wonder if you observe and consider that as part of your consideration of the war as well we'll go straight to the next question I think there's one gentleman at the front thanks so you talked about the Russian apartment bombings in the 90s so can you talk about what happens we have that point to Putin being the mastermind behind it Putin being the mastermind so we're going to go to the gentleman to the far left there and that's by who stuck their hand up first if you can just identify yourself as well hi my name is Viktor, always here you're talking about alright we'll go to those three why the west hasn't escalated why shouldn't it sorry we're just going to leave it to those three for now and there will be opportunities to speak with Lori afterwards but we do have to wrap up soon so the final question, I mean nuclear weapons is probably why the west doesn't escalate I mean the west has escalated incrementally in terms of the weapons it's prepared to give Ukraine I mean you've got to think back to February when the Ukrainian population was filling Molotov cocktails to the now using the most advanced American artillery, so you know there's been some change but there's some limits so the next escalation would be aircraft or more modern tanks and so on so that would look cool I think the whole frontier question is a really interesting one the treatment of the mobilized men is appalling there are stories going back now and I don't think I mean it's difficult when you're following a war unreliant on social media because we know that stuff can be manipulated and inserted and so on but there's enough corroboration I think you have incidents of a few hundred being dumped essentially in Luchansk close to the front line as soon as the fighting starts the people mostly in command run away they're left with rubbish equipment and they get killed with only 10% surviving or something there's enough of those sort of stories now they don't always come from Moscow or St. Petersburg so what sort of political impact it has so when the mobilization took place you saw strong protests in Dagestan where troops from Dagestan had already suffered disproportionate casualties and I've really seen an analysis of where the Russian casualties were coming from and as the outline regions far outweighed those from Moscow and St. Petersburg and so on and that's one reason why Putin also didn't want to mobilize because of that concern so we don't know I think and I don't think Putin knows either we do know that an awful lot of Russians fled went to Kazakhstan and so on rather than get mobilized it's not about itself it adds to the dysfunction of Russian society it affects their education system it affects their industries so it will have an effect I think the censorship at the moment there's martial law in some regions there's a strong patriotic drive but even if you watch the dreadful Russian state media being asked those questions will become more incessant I think if in the end there's nothing to show for it so I don't know the answer but it's an important issue and I wish we did know more about what was going on there this is Putin's war what had happened without him a lot of Russians were taken by surprise in the elite how much he's I think the way it's been put is people sort of always sort of hittlin' doomsday sort of thing and the bunker and so on pouring over maps and moving imaginary troops I think what Putin has done in the sense the message made of Russian military strategy is to be against retreats sometimes you just need to move out because your troops are going to be better somewhere else rather than hold on to a hopeless position so it's not quite Stalingrad it's not Stalingrad scale but it's the same sort of issue is they've fixated on a number of cities and poured immense effort into cities that aren't particularly important in the great scheme of things because that's where they were and the Kursyn is now an example of that it's very difficult at the moment to know exactly what's going on the internet's down there there's a lot of censorship there's lots of stories of looted material being taken out I mean the loot is another part of the whole story here so Putin is responsible the tradition in Russia is of civilian control of the military this is why I don't completely expect a military coup I think the military can say we can't do this anymore but that's not the same which is something that they did with Chetcher in 1994 but I don't think they'll take orders so it's up to Putin and while he's still in power and you're left wondering how much he actually knows or appreciates what's going on he doesn't surf the internet he's not on Twitter maybe Elon Musk will invite him in he's and there's things he says suggest that he's not a lot of things desperately well informed we don't know it is a problem of autocratic societies it's not just a question of orders being imposed from the top down information doesn't flow upwards because people are too scared to give bad news Laurie, thank you for a fascinating lecture and a stimulating conversation