 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Siddharth Kapoor. I'm a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. And you might be wondering, what am I doing here? Well, I have the privilege of being the president of King's College London. And it's a real pleasure to extend a very warm welcome to all of you who are attending stronger security in a fast-changing world. I'd like to first extend my welcome to our wonderful speakers and moderators who are here today. A special welcome to our August audience and a particular welcome to my colleagues, our visiting professors, and most importantly, our students who are here today. As I was reflecting on this event, as you can know, this is not the discipline in which I work, I thought there are two very interesting historical lines to draw to this event today. King's College London was founded in 1829 by the Duke of Wellington. So I think if there is a university in this land that can sort of owe its foundation to a soldier's statesman, it's King's. And when he founded it, he wanted to give it a unique purpose. Because at that point in time, there were really only four universities in England. There was, of course, Oxford and Cambridge. And UCL had just founded that other university down the line. And King's, these were two new universities. And there wasn't a university of London. Most people who do not know the history think that there was a university of London which founded all its colleges. It was actually the other way around. So both UCL and King's were founded in the late 1820s. And they sponsored the University of London. But that's not the point. The point is, what the Duke wanted was a university that would be in service of society. It was a little different from being in service of the churches. There was a little difference in being in service of royalty. It was in service of society. Now, what that meant at that time is quite different from what it might mean today. But this ethos of being in service of society, this ethos of using our scholarship to make a difference in the world is what has defined the subsequent 200 years of King's. So I'm delighted in that case. I mean, I don't know if you're in heaven, you can teams into conferences. But if the Duke were looking at this, he would be quite pleased that we're assembling here almost 200 years after the fact to actually share our scholarship for something that is so important for our society. But the other thing that I'd like to draw your attention is this building. Now, for security reasons, you entered from the southern end of the building. If you take time during the breaks and go to the northern end of the building, you'll find two very heroic Greek-looking statues sort of reaching out to each other in what seems like a friendly gesture. And under that is a masthead. It says, for the friendship of the English-speaking peoples of the world. Now, as you can imagine, for historical reasons, we can't rub out some of it. But I think this is a building that was founded actually to cement the British-American friendship almost about 100 years ago. It then became the home for the BBC World Service. And it is now the home for King's and its academic programs. And King's today is a university that does indeed reach out to the world. We have close to 40,000 students. And a very large number of them come from all countries in the world. So I think this is a wonderful place where for us to be hosting this conference. Now, our relationship to war or security studies is rather deep. We were one of the first institutions in the country to have a chair of military studies in 1927. At that point in time, it was a chair. It was a single professor with a few handful of students. But over the last 100 years, and thanks in no small part to the engagement that many of you in government and in industry have had with us, we have become one of the world's greatest academic forces in security studies. So we are the home here for what we call the Department of War Studies, which is globally recognized leading department in that field and recently held its 60th anniversary. And then we have a defense studies department, which is a world leader in joint professional military education. And it's located at the Joint Services Command and Staff College in Srivenham. And also the Defense Academy of the UK. So as you can see, we've been in this for a long time. And most lately, we have realized that we would like to share the scholarship even further. So we've created a third entity in our school of security studies. And that's the King's Institute of Applied Security Studies to innovate in education and research, which is focused not on our students, not on the defense personnel, but on all the other external partners. So I hope you can see that 200-year journey of increasingly reaching out to engage with society on matters of security. So I was very pleased when Lord Salisbury, John Grayson, my colleague professor, Ben Bowen and Ian Martin brought the idea of hosting the London Defense Conference here. And I thought to myself, why at a university? I mean, there are pretty good hotels in London where security even might be easier and the venues perhaps might be better. But as I reflected on it, I thought it was very important we have this discussion here in a university for three fundamental reasons. The first is I think we have to embed security studies in the widest ambit of scholarship in society. So I think it is time that those who are in the field have of course known it, but it is time that everyone else realizes that security is not just about faster missiles and bigger nuclear submarines. It is fundamentally about the way we shape our societies and other societies, and therefore all of scholarship has to contribute to it. And I think by holding it in a comprehensive university where we have everything from moral philosophers to of course engineers who design these sorts of things, I think it's the right setting for it because it puts it in its widest context. But the other thing I think that's very important is for us to have this dialogue in a transparent manner. I think about two decades ago, many of us, and I might say I was one of them, sort of bought into this end-of-history stuff. We thought all of this stuff about war and stuff was the previous generation did it. We will now design a world where this is just history and we don't need to think about it much anymore. And I can say how wrong those who thought like this, me being one of them, were. So I think it is critical that we don't see matters of defense and security, something that people have to secretively go and talk about. This is a matter that is of central importance to society, just as is the environment. And there is no reason for us to not talk about it in the same way, in the same places. So I'm delighted that there is a one thing that a university dialogue brings, its comprehensiveness, its transparency. But there is a third thing that a university uniquely brings. And that is not a fire alarm I was told about. But anyway, but that third thing that a university brings is the intergenerational perspective. And I think that is important because a lot has changed in how we view great power rivalry, how we view war in the last 50, 60 years. And it is critical that we share that perspective from the young to the experienced. And therefore, I'm delighted that you'll be having a session which is a panel with some of our PhD students here because two things are important. As I look around the audience, most of you are my vintage, but it is important that we learn and listen to the younger generation because that is what we do in a university. But conversely, it is important that the younger generation not lose the lessons of history. And that is why it is absolutely critical to have this dialogue, not just amongst established experts, but in intergenerational fashion that the university allows. So with that, my very warm welcome to you and my last duty, perhaps the most important statutory duty, is to keep you safe and secure. So I have to share with you a fire announcement. So there is no planned fire test alarm. So if you hit an alarm, it will be real. And I'm told that there are two exits here. I was told to do it like this, like the stewardess has to do this. Two exits here and two exits behind you. And keep in mind that the nearest exit may be behind you. But I wish you a wonderful conference. Thank you. Fellow, it's a delight to be here in King's College. In fact, I'm also an alumni of the World Service. I think this is about where the BBC Club used to be, back when they allowed alcohol in the corporation. Good morning, everybody. And thank you very much indeed to Professor Kapoor for that wonderful introduction. We have an absolutely splendid panel here to start with what has been the dominant defense issue of the past year or the past 15 months, obviously, the conflict in Ukraine. I'm going to hear from each of them, ask each of them to tell us what they believe the situation, important points they want to make about the battlefield picture in Ukraine. We'll have a discussion and we are going to have some questions in the second half. So microphones will come round. Please get your questions ready. So without further ado, let me introduce the panel for this from me is Shashankar Joshi, who is the normally without a byline, the defense editor of the Economist. Next to him is Dr. Julia Muravska, who's visiting fellow at the Freeman Air and Space Institute here at King's College London, based at the School of Security Studies. She focuses on Ukraine defense capabilities, particularly UAVs or drones. She's also an advisor to industry and government on the question. Then next to that, him, her, we have the Dr. Jack Wattling from the Royal United Services Institute, a no-familiar face to you. And then closest to me, we have Valium Pristanko, who is Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom. So I know you've all have intimate experience of the situation in Ukraine. Shashank, you were there not so long ago. So tell us what you think is happening now in Ukraine on the battlefield. Thank you very much, Adam. Thank you all. I'm really pleased to be here. I'm a visiting fellow at King's. I'm very proud to be associated with it. And it's great to share a stage with two fantastic analysts and one very talented diplomat. I have to say yesterday, when I woke up, I didn't anticipate that for 2023 my bingo card would have Ukraine invades Russia. But there we are. We saw a fantastic bold raid into the Belgorod region. And I think that that really sums up the febrile mood in advance of the offensive, the shaping operations underway now, whether that's the raid that we saw yesterday and the panic and alarm that induced on the Russian side, stretching Russian resources to that northern part of the front, or whether it was the storm shadow strikes on Russian logistics and other command facilities over the last 10 days, which are reminiscent of that early wave of Heimar strikes that we saw last summer in the deep battle well behind the front lines, beginning to chip away at the foundations of Russian combat power in the rear. Ideally, we hope, setting the stage for a successful Ukrainian ground offensive in the weeks to come. Well, of course, as we've seen the weather forecasters, we've all become amateur meteorologists, studying the weather conditions and the bogginess of the terrain in southern Ukraine. It does look fairly wet still at the moment. I just want to make two quick broad points to start us off. One of them on where we are, and the other on one of my takeaways from the last year or so. On where we are, I think there's been profound anxiety that this is going to be a one-shot offensive. Ukraine will get its chance and then it will be forced into talks. And I think there is a risk of that. And if the offensive goes badly or is seen to go badly, and those are two different things we should perhaps interrogate slightly, there is a risk that Western support dries up, that Western momentum fades, and that Ukraine is forced into premature talks that would lock in unfavorable lines. However, I have to say I'm feeling more optimistic today than I was a month ago. And that's because we've got the contours of a post-offensive pipeline being built, visibly so, both some of it visibly, some of it not so visibly. And I'm referring here to the arms packages announced by Germany, very substantial arms package about 10 days ago, by the French, again, a meaningful, substantive package of arms and commitment to train a number of Ukrainian battalions, and of course the British announcement that we saw about a week ago on attack drones. In addition to that, we also had the major announcement of the F-16 training pipeline beginning, which I think locks us into a longer-term commitment on air power that is really important in showing that this is not something that is confined to one offensive. And on top of that, we had the absolutely vital G7 statement supporting Ukraine as long as it takes, supplemented, I would say, from Emmanuel Macron's statement, a leader who has not always been, shall we say, the most forward-leaning on some of these issues, to put it delicately, but on this occasion has made it very clear in the last 48 hours that he does not think frozen lines, the frozen conflict would be acceptable. And I think that's a profoundly important thing to hear from a French president at this stage. So I think that gives us confidence. There is a pipeline being built for supporting Ukraine in a potentially longer attritional conflict after the offensive, and that gives us a base for building arms. So that's really important. And I'd be curious if anyone disagrees with me on that, but I think we have reason not to be fatalistic about this single offensive as a winner takes all. The second point I just want to raise as a broad lesson is I think our defence debate in this country, casting my mind back to 2021 in our debates over the integrated review and the defence command paper that followed it, was set up around this dichotomy between sunset capabilities and sunrise capabilities. That was the phrase, I think, used by the chief of defence staff at the time, and it sort of ran through our discussion, quality versus quantity, mass versus technology. And I think Ukraine has been really clarifying in helping us to understand that that's not really the dichotomy, that technology has been completely vital in so many different ways, some of the ways I think it will hear in a minute, but actually it has helped Ukraine to offset its relative disadvantage in mass in some respects. And we've seen how, for instance, the use of software, digital networks and artificial intelligence on the edge has allowed extremely efficient targeting in artillery and therefore a reduction in shell consumption, but at the same time, it doesn't substitute for mass. If you've saved 30 to 40% in shell consumption but your munition stockpiles are still 50 or 60% below where they need to be, that's scant consolation. It doesn't substitute for mass. And the reality of attrition, whether that's attrition in the form of munitions, whether that's human attrition with both armies effectively fighting is new forces from the ones that began this conflict. I think that gives us that powerful lesson. Technology has been vital, but it will not buy us out of attrition. And that, I think, is a lesson that we have perhaps shied away from in our defence debates over the last two or three years. I'll stop there, Adam. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Dr. Muravska. Thank you very much, Ashanka. I like that you led with Belgorod. I think no Ukrainians got any work done yesterday, myself included, because we've all been glued to new sources and social media channels. But be that as it may, I actually want to speak about UAVs, as Adam mentioned, and one aspect that I want to focus on is the role that they play in current operations and future plans. So kind of going with the theme of where are we going? What are we building, post-offensive and post-victory? Specifically, Ukraine's approach to an experience with introducing, sourcing, using UAVs or drones demonstrates two lessons that I want to highlight about combating a numerically superior enemy and with quite some artillery superiority as well. The first lesson is that adaptation and innovation have to happen both on and off the battlefield, and you want to really have strong links between them. If we cast our minds back to the first weeks following Russia's full-scale invasion, we will recall Ukrainians' very skilled use of the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 combat drone which helped repel the initial Russian assault and slow its non-bass advances arguably. And then Ukraine shifted to using the TB2s for reconnaissance primarily, even though the Ukrainians' prior and kind of existing experience was to use them for ground attack. The other aspect of this lesson, and we saw this play out in particular last year, and there has been quite a lot of media, pieces about it is Ukraine's concerted embrace of technological innovation, improvisation, and creativity in the UAV space, which allowed its armed forces to resist and reverse Russian advances. And I think in that area, the Ukrainian experience can provide really valuable lessons for partners in the area of defense innovation. This includes aspects like a really close collaboration and two-way communication between developers and military end users. So the troops, the integration of commercial of the shelf technologies, engagement of civil society, and really a fusing of the commercial sector, the commercial developments and the defense sector. And of course, the more technical and exploitation lessons that have to do with the technologies themselves. And this actually brings me to the second lesson that I wanted to highlight, which is that planning for future needs and laying down the industrial, legislative, and other structures that you might need for those also needs to happen at the same time as operational activity in wartime. Expanding its UAV fleet has been a major focus of the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, with a close collaboration of the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation, beginning from probably late last year. And this includes strike UAVs of various specifications. So here I would include the one-way attack UAVs or the kamikaze drones, as they are popularly known, and also long-range ISR UAVs, so for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. And Ukraine is not only sourcing these from international suppliers and partner governments. And actually, a major focus has been on turning to its own industry and developers. And these include kind of long-established major defense players like the Ukraberon-Kanglomerat, the Luch Design Bureau, a number of medium-sized enterprises that actually started following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. And of course, there's a lot of startup activity in this space, and it's growing rapidly. Given the scale of the requirement in Ukraine's need for UAVs, it has put in place a host, really, of comprehensive measures to support all of this and ramp up domestic development and production, both in the short and for the longer term. So you probably read that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, earlier this month, announced the formation of eight first-ever UAV assault units, so they're companies, they're company formations, and they are equipped with Ukrainian-made drones, Ukrainian-made UAVs. Ukraine trained to date at least 10,000 military UAV operators, and no less important, the Zelensky administration significantly simplified the acquisition procedures for UAVs in development, and also those that have already been developed. So really, you see here the stage being set for Ukraine's long-term military capability development and the prominent role that UAVs will play in that. And this war and future wars as well. Thank you very much for being here. Dr. Watling, put all that in context. Sure, Dobrananak. I've had the privilege for the last year and a half now, I suppose, of working with Ukrainian colleagues in Ukraine for every other month, essentially, throughout the conflict. And the remarkable thing about that is that I would say there's been two very distinct stories that I have experienced. There is a story which is largely premised among Ukraine's partners and allies, which is a story of the war built around high-level sophisticated technology, transfer of critical equipment, and this idea that what is going to make the difference is the next big system that is gifted, getting over the hurdle of another type of tank. And then there is another narrative, or not even narrative, but experience, which is when in June last year, companies of the Ukrainian armed forces were receiving 6,000 rounds of artillery ammunition onto their positions each per day, for days and days, and they held. And the fact that they held had nothing to do with the capabilities that they possessed. It had to do with their determination to protect their country, the moral component. And the experience on the ground is, yes, a great deal of innovation, a great deal of novel employment of older technology, but fundamentally a lot of young, mobilised people who don't have massive amounts of military skill are having to learn on the job, confronting huge odds and overcoming it because of their dedication both to their country and to each other. And so why do I highlight those two narratives? Because there is a triumphalism to a lot of the discussion around what is happening and an expectation that, ah, this counter-offensive will be decisive, everything will change, it will dramatically redraw the ground, it might, it might. But that is still gonna come at a great cost. The Russian armed forces as much as we write them off for deficiencies in a number of areas are still fielding very large combat formations. Those combat formations now have 30 kilometre deep entrenched positions where they are building extensive minefields and these are mixed minefields of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines with multiple initiation mechanisms. They are covered by UAV reconnaissance and behind that is responsive fire. The average, the counter-battery response time for Russian units is about two minutes, right? It is very fast and it's intense. And the experience of Ukrainian formations is that every time you attack, you are going to be doing so into the teeth of mass responsive artillery. And so how do you get around that? It requires a huge amount of shaping, it requires a lot of innovation, and it will be delivered, yes, by equipment, but fundamentally by tactics, by how that equipment is employed and whether that equipment can be sustained at scale, right? Storm shadow, very useful as a tool in terms of being able to make the Russians feel uncomfortable, hit certain specific points that will disrupt them, and if you can exploit that disruption, very valuable. But it's not going to be decisive in itself. We have very, very few of them. What will be decisive is whether the Ukrainian armed forces can tactically exploit those opportunities. And so I think we have to be very careful about building a narrative ourselves that locks the Ukrainian armed forces into expectations about what they're going to achieve. That's less important, right? What's more important is that the progress made is steady and it's in the right direction. And that might be the judicious use of force in lots of areas to progressively make progress. It might be a big decisive move if the conditions are right for that to be achieved with a sufficient expenditure of resource and personnel. So we need to give the Ukrainian armed forces the maximum flexibility to plan and to execute against the conditions they face. And where we really have to, I think, focus now is, yes, we can debate about whether there are specific system types that might be useful. Additional counter-battery radar would be very useful, for example. But the real thing, and it's unsexy and it doesn't lead to big political announcements, is the discipline of following through on the support, making sure that our industrial base is producing the spare parts for the many, many different types of systems that we've already given to Ukraine, making sure that the training we're conducting in multiple countries, whether that be individual training in the UK or unit cohesion in other parts of Europe, link together so that the Ukrainian armed forces have a training pipeline that continues to deliver troops who can operate at a higher level than their adversaries. And it's that discipline of providing sustained support, which is going to determine whether Ukraine can succeed or not, right? So it's absolutely critical that we stay the course, victory is possible, but it requires all of us to do our part in delivering lots and lots of small, detailed, complex pieces of activity. Just to give one specific example, Julia mentioned the points about UAVs, mass employment of UAVs. Well, it's a very sophisticated electronic warfare environment, right? And the Russians are very good at this. The command sergeant major of 18 Corps last week said publicly that the US is providing 32 electromagnetic spectrum cuts of the operating environment to the Ukrainian armed forces per day, right? So spectral maps, right? How many Ukrainian UAV operators can receive a electromagnetic spectrum map and use that to plan how they root their UAVs? There are people in the UAF that can do it, but it's a small number, right? And how quickly we can train them to use those skills will determine the efficiency of their UAV production because it will determine how many of those UAVs are knocked out of the sky versus how many succeed. And so the training pipeline that is provided and the team effort that goes into enabling Ukraine to win is something that we have to maintain and sustain from now until we achieve our objectives. And if we do that, then victory is possible. And with that, I would hand over to the ambassador. Yes, Ambassador, a lot of points there, your response. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, London Defence Conference and King's College for having us here. Couple of things, and they were very good explanation of what is going on the ground. So I would allow myself to soar about the picture and give you 15 months' sort of overview of what's happening and what is going to happen very soon. First of all, all the front lines are stabilized after the 18, 15, almost 16 months of war. And I mean all of them, not just fronts on the ground but also political, geopolitical, if you wish. The EU, generally the West, finally have made their minds. The Global South isn't decided. And China is playing safe. On Russia's side, what Russia managed to achieve against all the proclaimed objectives of denitrification, demilitarization, de-satanitization, whatever the word was. So what they managed to achieve right now is land breach to Crimea, the supply of fresh water to Crimea, taking the canal, and finally, which is sometimes escaped as the supply of energy by taking the biggest nuclear station in Europe next to the canal, next to the land breach. Not much else, and all of this was predicted and all of this is reversible. On the Ukrainian side, first of all, we survived the initial attack of the nation, which is 16 to 18 times bigger than us, stopped and in most cases, reversed Russian advance. The small Red Army, which Ukraine was just before the war, finally turned in something better than that. Being trained, being supplied with the weapons, we've been supplied with intelligence. Sometimes the doctrinal changes were made and now we're turning in something which can successfully defeat the big original, if you wish, Russian Red Army. We managed to create, with the support of the West, the strategic depths. Something which was given a very difficult thought in the beginning of the war. How can you fight with a nation which is so big, so vast and have such deep strategic depths? Now we're there. We kept the morale high and consolidated support, political, look at Zelensky, he's shuttling from one nation to another, coming with all the things which we are given and the most important, the change, take the Germany, for example. They started with 500 helmets, now they announced 2.7 billion military packages. Unbelievable. Nobody in the world can do it, maybe the United States. So we managed to hide the vulnerable population outside of our nation. Eight million people were given the refuge and we are thankful for this each and every day. Even here, 160,000 take over about these numbers. We're giving the people who opened up their houses, sometimes wallets as well. And we preserve running economy. Not everybody knows, but the business is working. Yes, we lost the economy, but business is working. The credit cards are working, restaurants, cinemas, clubs, schools, universities, all of it is open and running. And it's not a secret that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is being baked. We discussed it and I agree with everyone of you that the expectations are overheated. Just another point, very quick one, on what will come next and what we have to work right now. First of all, the justice for perpetrators. Justice for everybody. We recently had a very interesting conversation of the psychological health of Ukrainians. And one of the conclusions were that you have to provide justice first. This is the first step for recovery. Whether it is the hybrid or special tribunal, we'll have to see how it will develop. But what we want to do, we want to send a very clear message to everybody around Putin, Putin himself, that guys, you will not escape the punishment. You will not escape the justice. So if you want to think of your future and future of your even capitals, start thinking now. Our national security. As very sensitive issue and I hope to have some questions from the auditor right now about what Ukraine, how Ukraine will become something as the one of the prime minister of this nation described at the porcupine, which will be armed to the teeth so even the bear wouldn't be able to chew it and swallow it. Or we will come in agreement with you that Ukraine is, it actually has the place in NATO or any other bilateral or multilateral agreements. And last piece is reconstruction of Ukraine. I'm very thankful for everybody who will be able to open up the coffers and help Ukraine. Still don't understand why Russia is not doing it and why we are not planning to do it with Russian money. This is a lot to do and I will stop here just to hear what the reaction to this. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. I know you want to look at the broader picture. Could we just go to some specifics? Particularly there's been a lot of focus on Bakhmud, the situation in Bakhmud. What do you understand the situation to be at the moment? It's been discussed by many, many, many experts that Bakhmud doesn't have a very significant strategic importance. Yes, it has not bad plans for the sparkling wines and salt is good, but that's all of the Ukrainians do about this tiny, teeny city or town. What has been doing, what we are doing, we are holding the forces, especially the Wagner mercenary group and we are not bringing our reinforcements for the particularism we wanted to train and accumulate enough forces somewhere else. And we're not signaling Russia where this offense will come, but that's the whole importance of Bakhmud. Yes, they're taking more and more of the territory of the town. Sooner or later, they'll be able to cover this gap, but we're getting around to taking more and more of the surroundings. The significance and strategic significance of this town will only be in Russian media. They're quite heavy, that's almost taken, but as soon as we start our counter-offensive, all the gains will be lost, so I wouldn't be worrying about Bakhmud that much. That's what would you say? Yeah, I mean, that there's still skirmishing in some very, very isolated parts of Bakhmud, but the key effect is fixing Russian forces there and forcing the Russians to continue to expend resources for what is ultimately a propaganda goal. That's number one. The other critical element that it's not just Bakhmud, there's a number of other towns that are being fought over very hard, and sometimes the tactical logic would suggest that you withdraw, because when the Russians get the battlefield geometry right, then the relative losses on either side start to become much more comparable. However, Ukraine is trying to defend its homelands and the homes of its people, and if you look at what happens to these cities when they're assaulted, they are erased from the map, right? Zelensky said to himself, Bakhmud now only exists in our minds as an actual place where people can live. And so the notion of withdrawal brings with it the consequence that the fighting will move on to the next town, and that town will then become the priority of Russian operations, and it too will be eviscerated off the map, which means that there is actually a pact between the Ukrainian military and its people that it does hold the line. And I think that is another reason why it's quite important that particular positions are held and that the Russians are prevented from moving from town to town to deliver destruction, even if from a tactical point of view, yeah, you might have fought this conflict slightly differently. One thing, Adam, which is just to reflect broadly that when we were thinking about this issue in December or so, the perhaps fear was that Bakhmud, despite causing attrition to the Russian force and fixing Russian forces in place, might draw in large numbers of Ukrainian reserves in order to try and shore up that situation. And while I think there's a plausible case that attrition moved much less in Ukraine's favour as time went on, I think broadly speaking, Ukraine didn't fall into that big trap that one might have foreseen last autumn or winter. They broadly kept their powder dry, and I think that's perhaps one of the most important things to remember in the grand scheme of things. And just actually on that, I'm so grateful to both of you for your points, because I've been very frustrated by the analysis that goes something like, well, up to point X, Ukraine was really prevailing in the rate of attrition, and it made sense to hold Bakhmud, but now we're at point Y, and that rate has really reversed and is now to the detriment of Ukraine. And there have been a number of assessments like this, which then have turned out to be incorrect, and some of those analysts have subsequently reversed them, which I think we're all grateful for. But I think the key point here is to wait and to see the events play out and to also trust the Ukrainian operational experience, understanding and adaptation, because the point that you, Jack, highlighted, the propaganda victory, I think Ukrainians have a very keen appreciation and understanding of what any victory, even a Pyrrhic victory like Bakhmud would have been, will mean for Russia, for Russian rail. Also, you know, we shouldn't underestimate the rallying effect that something like that can have in the wider Russian public. So I think there are a number of points and considerations here. And, Jack, you just seem to have caused major splits between the various aspects of the Russian fighting force between the Vargan Group and the Red Army. Well, so the Russians divide themselves into sectors and they create storm detachments or assault detachments that are dedicated against specific sectors supported by usually artillery groups and other elements. And Bakhmud was assigned as one of these sectors, which Vargna was the leading force generator for. What's interesting in the Russian military is that they can actually be quite joined up and effective and how they operate within a sector, right? Because there's a commander who has all of these assets, whether they're Vargna, VDV, line infantry, whatever. What they are really bad at is cooperating between the sectors. And their commander control goes backwards and then across rather than across at the front. And so what we often see is that even if they're making progress in this direction, they're not able to exploit that to protect their flanks. And that's what we're seeing in Bakhmud. There's a huge focus from Vargna on this and they are having to withdraw to the defensive positions on either side, which is a weakness of the Russian military. And I think it demonstrates that if you can get them into a dynamic situation where they are having to manage multiple threats across multiple sectors, their coordination can break down because the training level in the Russian military has degraded quite substantially as a result of losses. Sjochen, the other thing you mentioned was that you weren't expecting Ukraine to be attacking Russia. Obviously a focus on the instance there. What do you make of those? Well, it's fragmentary information, I think it's safe to say, given that what we're going on is a few cheerful telegram videos with someone driving vehicles breakneck speed into Russia proclaiming the Free Republic of Belgorod. So I'm hesitant to draw any major conclusions. I was speaking slightly in jest because of course we've seen repeated sustained use of raiding and other similar tactics by Ukraine over the 14 months of this war. We saw quite early on in the spring attacks on Belgorod facilities by attack aviation. We've seen special forces very active. And I think it's important for a couple of reasons. One of them is psychological. You know, this is not just about direct, narrow military gain and advantage. It's psychological. It struck me that in the offices of more than one Ukrainian official I visited two weeks ago, there was sort of paintings on the wall you can see of the Kremlin on fire with the Ukrainian special forces standing in front of it. And it reflects the design of a very popular stamp and art that sort of marks Ukrainian prowess and the Kremlin is sort of the target. And it's partly tongue-in-cheek. It's partly about Ukraine wanting to be seen to take the war to Russia. It's partly about puncturing the Kremlin's sense of authority and the sense that Russian borders are inviolable, the sense that Russia has everything under control, the sense that this war is something that's happening there but not to Russians. So there's a psychological effect of the raiding and there's also, of course, the more direct operational effect of stretching Russian resources, stretching Russian resources, both in terms of actual combat resources to counter what they yesterday called a counter-terrorism operation, but also attention, the attention of commanders. You know, I think things like intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, the things you use for those, the attention of commanders at headquarters, they're all scarce assets and if you pull them into different places, I think you add to that sense of chaos, making it harder for Russia to respond in coherent fashion to what's happening on the battlefield. Well, Ambassador, it's very important for President Zelensky to say that, officially, Ukraine is not in the business of going beyond its borders. We're not. We're not. They're Russian citizens, right? It's a Russian volunteer group. Yeah, and of course, the ambassador's compelled to say so, but it is both sort of, you know, a tongue-in-cheek response to say that, you know, look, it's mirroring Russia's implausible deniability over little green men, but I think it also helps preserve that diplomatic space because it's not a surprise or a shock that there are Ukrainian partners who would probably rather that Ukrainian special forces or Ukrainian military intelligence was not sending long-range drones to attack targets deep inside Russia, was not conducting ground raids. They're nervous about it, so Ukraine government, of course, has to maintain a stance of a degree of detachment from these operations. And Julia, what did you make of the drone attack at the Kremlin? Oh, right, the much-speculated drone attack. Well, again, I wouldn't really want to kind of contribute to the speculation of what exactly it was. I think there's a lot of that already, and I think people can probably make up their own minds, but I would probably put that in the category of important psychological events that demonstrate that Ukraine can, you know, could theoretically actually reach Russia, that Russia is not isolated from the war, that the Russian population and the Russian center of decision-making, the term, you know, that Russians prefer to use in relation to Ukraine is also not invulnerable and not isolated from the war that they have started. I think the Kremlin relies a lot on the fact that the urban populations of Moscow, St. Petersburg, really, you know, go on as before, life continues. It's very easy to feel that the war is quite remote, and that's a huge source, actually, of continued support or acquiescence to the war. So I think to the extent that that can be undermined and to the extent that the kind of strategic patience as it exists within Russia can also be undermined, I think those kinds of moves certainly serve a purpose. Okay, we're gonna take some questions from the audience in a moment, so if you could indicate with your hands, we've got a question coming up there, we get the microphones to you, I think. We've got people manning microphones. Yeah, there we are, over here. Just one person, is it okay? We'll come to that in a minute. There's a microphone there. And the microphone coming up here. While we get set up with that, I do want to ask you, Jack, what about the lessons that we here have drawn from the experience of what's happened in Ukraine? How much has our thinking been transformed? I mean, we've relearned a lot of old lessons, which I think is an important thing. So if we're just at a really basic level, the importance of digging, right? If you go out on exercise with the British military, it's very rare, actually, that units are carrying shovels. Well, Ukrainian soldiers will tell you when you stop, you dig. And if you don't dig, you die, right? Which is something that we knew in the Cold War. So there's an element of relearning. But also, there are a huge number of new lessons. We are learning about the requirements to have UAVs at the tactical level in all units. But that, of course, then creates a command and control problem, because how do you avoid having UAVs in the same airspace that you have your helicopters and so forth? So this generates a whole series of tactical challenges that we need to work around. Those are very tactical things. We are learning about the fact that there is no sanctuary on the modern battlefield. The enemy can strike any point at any time in depth. And so if we look at the way that NATO militaries deploy their field hospitals, and it's worth highlighting what happened to a number of the field hospitals that were given to the Ukrainian armed forces by NATO, where everything is neat in one set of tents, well, they had a 122-millimeter shell land on them, and they were destroyed, right? Because the Russians target these things. Headquarters, you know, if you look at NATO headquarters, they tend to be these massive, tented cities because they were designed during the Cold War when there wasn't the range to strike them. Now, anything can be struck. And so, you know, they have to be dispersed, you have to work disaggregated. I'm not going to be too specific about how the Ukrainians make their headquarters survivable. But that is something that is a real change in doctrine, and it means a change in structures of how we run our command processes. You also have things like the need to be essentially conduct counter-reconnaissance. It used to be the case that concealment was something that you could achieve by being static. Now, I would say concealment is a temporary status. There are enough sensors on the battlefield that you will be found at any depth. And so, you have to be very cognizant of what's detecting you and you need to be aware and respond appropriately. So, there's a big training burden. So, it's a very rich set of lessons. They're diverse. And I just want to reinforce that by saying that I was in exercise 10 days ago, Storm Wessex on Salisbury Plain, and all of those lessons are being absorbed, identified, and they're trying to incorporate them, at least in British Army, and I'm sure other armies are too, in the way they exercise. Perhaps not perfectly, and I'm sure there's lots of problems, but units are being shown. Here's your electromagnetic signature. Here's your visual signature. Here's your signature in the face of a synthetic aperture radar satellite. And being shown, right, now do it again, and this time, get it right, again and again and again. And there's that iteration that's being implemented. The challenge is taking it from one exercise, one unit that may have the best equipment for multi-spectral camouflage nets, or the best equipment in terms of electronic warfare, and scaling that across a force, because it's easy to teach a small unit how to fight effectively with these new lessons. What's difficult is scaling that and normalising it across an entire armed force. Question that, and then we'll take one in the middle here if you could get the microphone there. Good morning, Neil Briscoe, Head of Policy at Wilton Park, which is an arms-length body of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and is one of the supporters of the conference. The ambassador touched briefly on the eventual possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, and Henry Kissinger has recently said that he's changed his stance on this, in part because of the equipment and training that the Ukrainian armed forces have received. What's the current views of the other panellists? Thanks. If you start with the ambassador. There's nothing to add. I used to serve in NATO as a Ukrainian representative, and I know how bureaucratic and slow and painfully gradually through the same story, again and again NATO can be. The problem is here that we're allowing by the summit in Vilnius, we're allowing again to have the same conversation and with the same no-sayers, which will come again and again. Let me name at least Hungary. So we'll use the same arguments 20 years old, not to allow Ukraine into NATO. I agree with this, very unusual when I agree with Kissinger, that we are already becoming a member of NATO, whether it liked or not. What I can also be open for the option that Ukraine is not offered the membership in NATO, but is offered bilateral arrangements on the level, which will allow us to have the same picture and the same global security. I remember that in 2006, I guess, we offered the United States something which we called agreement on mutual defence and security, which was not actually taken quite nicely and we had different offers instead. So we knew that sooner or later it will come to the point when we will remind NATO that either Ukraine is becoming a member of the security organisation or will have repeated situation 20, 30 years. And they will have, as NATO now, they will have to think what we are doing with Ukraine, with a million people who've been battle-hardened, they know how to fight with Russians and don't forget that Russia, more or less Soviet Union, Russian Empire, whatever Russian now is actually our enemy of NATO. So what would NATO exist if there is no particular direction to defend it against it? Ukraine is in a spearhead of this direction. Well, all I would say is that the current thinking, I think, is set up for a bit of a mismatch in expectations at the Vilnius Summit, where Eastern Allies and particularly the hosts, Lithuania, are pushing very hard to go well beyond Bucharest, Bucharest being, of course, the shorthand for the arrangements made in 2008 that said, Ukraine will become a member of NATO one day, but kicked the timeline off into the distant horizon, which meant, you know, really, sort of never, let's not deal with it now. And the hosts are saying, well, we need something concrete and real. But the reality is that big Allies, led by the United States, more than anyone else, do not see that as viable. And I think the most we will get realistically at the summit is going to be something like the equivalent of the NATO-Russia Council, which was a body, a consultative body, a Ukraine-NATO Council, in which guarantees maybe one subject, amongst others, that are discussed. That's probably going to be the biggest deliverable I would expect out of Vilnius. But I think, in a way, the consolation prize is all the work going on underneath, out of the public eye, on building up Ukraine's armed forces in terms of interoperability with NATO, their future force, structure, all of those things. But the long and short of it is, Ukraine's not getting accelerated NATO membership at the summit, or any time immediately after that. OK, question there. And then there. It's working. General David Richards, I was Chief of Defence Staff here a few years ago. I was going to ask a question about Henry Kissinger. But it was asked, I should note that, as I understand it, his assumption was that there would be a ceasefire broadly along the current front lines, which is quite an assumption. But the question I'd like to ask is that, Jack, you twice mentioned that victory is possible. Could you please define victory and give me a feel for how you achieve it? HE CHUCKLES So I think one of the challenges is that there isn't an agreed definition of victory. And because our top priority in NATO countries is Alliance Cohesion, and there are different definitions between Allies as to what that might be, no one really wants to have that conversation in public because it would highlight different expectations. When I said victory, I meant driving Russia out of Ukrainian territory. I think I'm not predicting that it will happen or that it will happen soon, but it is militarily feasible. However, that doesn't lead to an end to the war, right? Because Russia could be completely outside of Ukrainian territory, still blockade Odessa, still strike Ukraine twice a month with long-range fires and prevent the effective functioning of the economy and make it very hard to invest. And they could rebuild and try and go again with a kind of Minsk-like ceasefire that just allows them to regenerate combat power and then have another go. So the question, and I think just to link it to the last question about NATO, is we used to discuss NATO membership as a bit like some bureaucratic process, you know, have you met these standards or not? The bigger question that I think we need to address is, in a scenario where there is a conclusion to the ground fighting, things stabilize irrespective of where the line is. How do we provide a durable peace and a security environment where Russia doesn't feel it can do this again? And that might be the porcupine approach, but it's worth noting that the cost to Ukraine of maintaining armed forces that are able to conventionally deter by themselves, the Russian Federation, for a sustained period, will be crippling. And so we would have to write the check for that. And if we don't want to write that check, then to what extent are we prepared to make concrete guarantees that are credible, believed by both Russia and Ukraine, that offer that security and allow the Ukrainian economy to flourish? And so that's the conversation where I think NATO membership, other arrangements have to be laser focused, right? What produces a durable, stable peace so that Ukrainians can start living ordinary lives and rebuilding their society? And Russia can be deterred from trying this anywhere else in the neighborhood, right? And I think that's a really crucial point that Jack made that kind of brings us back to the fact that, well, what is the alternative to NATO membership or ironclad security guarantees? And if we just think about, you know, if you allow the freezing of the conflict, I think too few people actually think about what that means. You know, what does it actually mean to have something like the People's Republic on a permanent or semi-permanent basis? I mean, not to kind of discount the immeasurable human cost and suffering. That is a perma, you know, semi-lawless, actually totally lawless criminal organization in the middle of the, you know, the biggest country, geographically biggest country in Europe, and why would we want that in the European security structure and the European security architecture? So I think, you know, in all of these discussions, there's been too little, perhaps, realism about what that actually means when you talk about the freezing of the conflict or you talk about a territorial settlement where Russia is allowed to occupy on a long-term basis a part of Ukrainian territory. What that means for Ukrainians, for the civilians, for, I'm not even going to say law and order because that's, you know, it's a nonsense at this point about what that would be like, but for the security architecture of Europe as a whole. Master, what constitutes victory and is there a compromise short of it? I believe the victory is the stage which is better than before the war. If we take this as a simplified sort of approach, so then I agree with everybody who was saying that we have to find out how Russia is not allowed to do it again, either in Ukraine or very rightly said around this area. And I also believe that there are so many red lines which have already been crossed and it's been too late to think about these red lines. Now we have to fight. And we, collectively, have to be quite lucky that there is a stupid nation which is quite eager to lose so many lives as Ukrainians are doing right now to fight for this, not discuss it in some way in the process or somewhere else, but actually fight. We have a chance that this issue will be resolved. Let's take this chance. Gentlemen. Hi, Mungizhigai, National Security Studies. Two quick questions, hopefully. First question, what's Ukraine doing to combat the Kremlin's disinformation campaigns globally, especially on social media? And are there any Syops campaigns within Russian borders that are ongoing, supported by Ukraine or any allies? Second question being, going back to lessons learned, do you think there's a basis for regulatory framework regarding PMCs? Because we can see how much of an asset Wagner has been to the Kremlin. So those are my two questions, thank you. Julia. So the first question, I'll maybe start with the first, try to have a crack at the first question. That's about combating Russian misinformation and disinformation, what Ukraine is doing. Well, actually from the start, Ukraine had quite a concerted creative and I would say, wide reaching approach to doing this. There are a number of volunteer groups that actually run media sources. They try to project into Russia as well as much as they can. I know that at the start of the war, there was actually kind of a massive, almost an email chain where volunteers were recruited on an individual basis to actually send resources and send emails to individual Russians. And then that kind of snowballed, employed the snowball technique. There's, of course, obviously an official, or at least one official platform of the Ukrainian government that I know about that routinely publishes responses to misinformation and disinformation and kind of tags it and calls it that. And several NGOs dedicated to that. So I would say, again, that sounds like quite a comprehensive list, but the extent to which it's actually reaching the Russian population, I think that's a difficult question. Based on what I know, based when I can see also when I look at the Russian media, even the kind of exiled liberal media, it's difficult to see how, or at least it's difficult to see how it's penetrating the shield of apathy and propaganda that over decades Russia has built up and Russian citizens have built up as well. Ambassador. Just one word on it as well. That's the strongest sort of feature of Ukraine is its society. You were talking about the concerted effort and drug, different efforts of the government. We have now united all the TV channels and more or less the concerted sort of, we call it informational marathon. Some people are not happy that we're not allowing the diversification of thoughts and ideas. But now at this moment, we have to preserve our informational space. What is actually the strongest side is the community, the society. The people are coming with all these huge, decentralized things, like stop fake, for example. Very interesting to watch what they're doing, debunking on the fakes. And people are working on a decentralized sort of effort. Everybody's doing it. It's very difficult to get them all together and fight in the same direction. But that's probably we have to live with that. This is a model of our Ukrainian society in comparison to Russian society, generally, not just an informational sphere. On your second question, very good one. I believe that we are facing the same problem that we are facing right now with AI. Somebody, and not Russia, opened up this Pandora box of these private military campaigns, ruining monopoly of use of military force. Now, collectively, we have to deal with that. OK. Time is nearly up. We're going to take two quick questions and then get final thoughts from each of the panel on those. So that question there, please. Thank you very much. Eitanos Burumas, Ambassador of Lithuania, since Shashak mentioned Lithuania, I thought to make some comments and question. Of course, we're not naive. And that's probably where I would start. We know that in pursuing the belief for Ukraine's NATO membership, this is also based on our own experience. And on the mistake we made in 2008, not offering Ukraine membership action plan. So I think we're not naive. And we know that this membership would be difficult, but at least Vilnius, apart from NATO-Ukraine Council, should offer Ukraine as much as possible to be integrated in NATO structures short of Article V, which will come with eventual membership. But my question is, what Vilnius summit can contribute to the defence cooperation between NATO and Ukraine and military engagement of Ukraine? And this is an associate question. Yesterday, I think Washington, World Street Journal came with this idea that there are some sources in the United States considering Israel type of security for Ukraine. What would be your panel? Okay, thanks for that. And one here. Thank you. Bogdan Petroshan of National Security Studies, MA. Dr. Wattling, you mentioned the effects of sort of the morale and how important that was for the Ukrainian soldiers. The panel that went on to discuss how losses like Bakhmut would not have a huge strategic value. My question is, how damaging do you think those would be to the morale of the Ukrainian soldiers? Thank you. Okay, well, thank you. Two important questions there. And each of you have got basically a minute to answer them and to summarise. Start with you, Jack. Very briefly, on Bakhmut, yes, lots of Ukrainian soldiers were, you know, struggled with the fact that they were fighting a very hard battle and they didn't necessarily feel that it was the right battle, but they did accept that if they didn't fight it there, they would have to fight it somewhere else. And so the bigger question of whether they would go through that to defend the country was never in doubt, right? People can be very upset. That's a different thing from their determination in soldiers to fight. Just to circle back onto the information point, I think very briefly, it's critical that we understand, you know, there's been this academic obsession over the last few years with disinformation and tweeting, and that is not the main line of efforts for Russian propaganda and active and influence operations. Their main line of effort is not influencing populations, it is influencing elites. You use propaganda against populations to create constituencies that elites can play off in a country for protection, but their targeting is elites, elite opinion, and elite decision making. And so the ambassador mentioned the fact that lots of many countries are not decided in terms of whether to sanction Russia. This is a line of active influence in the Kremlin to underpin their economic security, right? And it is influence operations. They have centers of special influence run in the Kremlin that are targeting Western countries as well with key narratives, usually headed by Jordi Kovalchuk. And that is about shaping elite opinion. It's a counterintelligence problem, more than anything else. And so we need to refocus our emphasis, encountering it towards knocking back those efforts to shape elite decision making. Julia, final thoughts? Final thought, maybe on the point of the Israel arrangement. Again, I appreciate the point that nobody is naive. I think Ukraine is definitely not naive. But I think, and also in terms of kind of what venues can contribute, I think we need to move beyond the point of stop-gap measures and have a bold political decision and also appreciate that process is key, process is important. But there are times, critical times in our history, which compel us to re-examine process and to perhaps put political will above process. And I hope that venues will be a step in that direction. So, three quick points. One is that we're fundamentally constrained on NATO, Ukraine by the fact that, as I know you know, Ambassador, that the United States does not want NATO at the forefront of the effort. So that's why NATO is largely confined to non-lethal aid, although quite lethal types of other assistance if you look at it indirectly. And that's a constraint right now until the US fundamentally changes position on that. That's going to be a constraint. The second point on the Israel model is, I think you made the important point, but of course Israel has nuclear weapons and Ukraine doesn't. So let's be really clear on the analogy if we're going to completely take it to its conclusion and ask how secure that is, which brings us to Jack's point on how expensive deterrence by denial against the Russian Federation over a 10, 20 year period really is. Let's just face up to the cost of that as well. And the last point is, which broadens all of this out, to leave you with, I think we're in a really interesting place with our long-term relationship with Russia because we have really two positions right now still playing out behind the scenes. One of them is the French positions advocated by Macron, despite his quite staunch support for Ukraine right now in military terms, that there has to be a long-term sustainable balance or sustainable equilibrium is the phrase that he used about two weeks ago. And there's another view, which is held by, I think, more prevalent in the UK system and other partners, which is that we have to work towards a longer-term containment and rolling back of Russian influence and presence, including in places like the High North and the Black Sea, including through active exercises, peacetime military operations. And I think that tension between those two things is something to watch as we look at the evolution of these debates in the coming months. Ambassador. Just a last word on everything. I'm not tired to repeat again and again and again that you promised to defend us when we gave up the nuclear weapons. You did. UK, US, the rest of the world. We gave it away. So now the matter of principle is not about us being flexible enough to find a way how Russia can be contained. This is a matter of principle that you're showing the rest of the world, Iran, I don't know, North Korea, everybody else, that a piece of paper we're signing as the West, as a guarantee to you so you can lay down your weapons. Well, the key of it is in Kiev. You defend Kiev, you make the case with Russia, everybody else will understand and follow the case. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, our panel today. Thank you very much. If you now take your seats, I'm Ian Martin, director of the London Defence Conference. I'm delighted that we're joined by the Prime Minister. So, Prime Minister, welcome to the London Defence Conference. You're just back from the G7 meeting in Japan, and the statements were pretty unified, but with some digressions. Are you confident that the West and its allies can actually hold the line on China? Yes. Well, first of all, thanks for having me, and it's great to be here at King's, and I think this is a fantastic idea to bring us all together to discuss these issues. On China, I think there was actually an incredible degree of unanimity on our approach. Now, I've always been clear, and you can see it in the integrated review refresh that we published early this year, that I believe China represents an epoch-defining challenge to us. It's a country which has both the means and the intent to reshape the global order. Its behaviour is increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad, and in light of that, we do need to take the steps to protect ourselves. Now, what I think is striking is that language in our integrated review is very similar to the language, not just in the G7 Communicator this week, but also if you look at the security strategies in America, in Japan, in France, other allied countries, you'll see there's actually an enormous degree of overlap. So that's what gives me confidence that there is consistency. I think the other thing to say is, if you think about it, I think we don't need to be, in one sense, unconfident of our ability to deal with it. We are seven countries, they're one. We have collective GDP of something like $50 trillion, there's 19 or so, and we have three seats on the UN Security Council, and they have one, right? We represent three continents and they're in one place. I think there's lots of reasons why the G7 as a grouping, like-minded allies, aligned on this topic, sharing values, are well-placed to deal with the challenge that China poses. But any potential divergence, do you think? Divergence with France, for example? No, I don't think so. And I think if you look at it, I think there's an understanding of everything that I just said about the need to protect ourselves, and you can see each country is, in its own way, doing things that we are doing here. For example, passing domestic legislation that allows you to block hostile investment. You know, we did that not that long ago, we've used it to block an investment in a sensitive semiconductor company. All countries are doing the same thing. But again, there's recognition on the other side that China is an indisputable fact of the global economy and the geopolitical space that we all operate in. So it is sensible to engage with China on those topics where we have to, whether it's on global health, macroeconomic stability, climate change, but also to do that from a position of strength and confidence knowing that we've taken the steps to protect ourselves and that we're willing to stand up for our values and interests. I think that approach is aligned amongst allies. Let's talk about the economic implications for a minute. We hear a lot, as you mentioned, about decoupling or de-risking from over-reliance on China in supply chains. What do you say to those in business or the city or other countries who don't want the disruption? Yeah, I think we want it all to almost go away, really. No, well, I think, look, we can't wish this problem away, right? So I would say that, like, this is a reality. And for all the reasons that I just outlined, we have to be alert to the risk that China poses the greatest state-based threat to our economic security. That is just a fact. But what I would say is our approach to that is being quite targeted and specific about the areas where that is really a problem. And I think the language that both the United States and the UK use is kind of small garden or, in their case, small yard, high fence, right? So there are a limited number of very sensitive sectors of our economy or types of technology where we want to take a particularly robust approach, semiconductors, for example, dual-use technologies, quantum, et cetera. But this is not an excuse for a blanket descent into protectionism. And that's something that we discussed at the G7 specifically. So that's what I'd say to business. I would also say that business is going to get help from government. One of the things that we did in the integrated review is establish something called the National Security Protective Agency with more funding, which is where our intelligence services and other arms of government are going to work with many more businesses to help them prepare for the risks that China and other countries pose to them and to the country. So that's what the message to business would be. And the last thing I'd say is, look, on the other side, we're opening up new markets for businesses to trade in. And one of the great Brexit benefits is the fact that we're in control of our trade policy. And I was very pleased that we were able to be the first European nation to exceed to the CPTPP trade partnership. That's where the bulk of global growth is coming from over the next couple of decades. That was a great bit of diplomacy, statecraft, delivering a real benefit for people at home. In that context, though, don't we need something like an industrial policy? Andy Haldane, ex of the Bank of England, suggested that today. Well, I think that means different things to different people. Now, if that means we should just be focusing on who can subsidise industries the most, then my answer is no, right? And we discussed that in the G7. And actually, you'll see in the G7 communicate very specific language, acknowledging that subsidy races that essentially just shift capacity between allies in some kind of zero-sum competition are not appropriate. And we shouldn't be doing things at the expense of each other. That's not improving our collective security. But if industrial strategy means we should have a smart set of economic policies to support the growth of our highest potential sectors, then absolutely, and we do. And the Chancellor has spoken a lot about some of the growth priorities for him. We'll be talking about life sciences just this week. We've talked about our digital industries, financial technology, creative industries, clean energy, advanced manufacturing. Those are our blockbuster high-growth industries where we have world-leading positions. And in all of those, we have a clear strategy. But it's not just about subsidies. It's about smart regulation. It's about skills. So I think in those big growth areas, we do have very clear plans. And as I say, on each of those, the Chancellor is holding a particular day to talk about it, and we'll be doing life sciences this week. How do you evaluate the threat or the risk from the IRA, the Inflation and Reduction Acts in the US, which is essentially mass industrial subsidy? Are you confident the UK's got the right approach? Yeah, I think, look, on this, we should feel collectively very proud when it comes to this topic of climate change, who has the best record of reducing carbon emissions in the G7. It's the UK, by a margin. And we've done that at the same time as growing our economy. So if you look since the 1990 baseline, we've reduced carbon emissions almost 50%. We've grown the economy almost two-thirds. That is a better record than anyone else. So we should feel good about our approach. It's worked. And if others are catching up, if others are keen to focus on climate change as well, that's good. I welcome it. But, as I said, and we discussed this specifically at the G7, and you see it in the communique, policies that descend into protectionism at the expense of allies, zero-sum competition that just haunts each other, isn't the right approach. But as you'll see, what I've just said has been agreed by our partner countries as well. Now, let's move to Ukraine. You've seen a lot of President Zelensky recently. What are the prospects this spring for success? My first reflection is because people talk about counter-offensive, and it's probably worth us bearing in mind that what Ukraine's been doing for the past year is a counter-offensive. Over the year ago, they were invaded, and they've actually recaptured a large chunk of the territory that was initially seized from them. And so that's the first thing we should acknowledge and pay tribute to them, because many people, I'm including maybe a couple in the room, and we're of the view that probably wouldn't be possible, and this would all be over in three weeks, and Russia would just run through it. So we should take a moment to pay tribute to them for that. And then in particular this winter, not only have they held all the ground, withstood aerial bombardment of their people and their civilian infrastructure through a hard winter, they've also managed to rebuild their energy grid and prepare for this counter-offensive. So just to get to this point is incredible, and their bravery, their resilience is something we can all admire and be inspired by. And then I think they have every chance for success because we've worked hard with them to develop a plan that we think can make a difference, and then we led the charge on making sure that they have the resources and the capabilities to deliver that plan. We were the first country to provide main battle tanks. We were the first country to provide longer-range weapons. We've helped with their defense. And those type of capabilities are what they need for this to be successful, as well as training many of their soldiers, including those in tanks and marines. So I think we've played a leading role. We should be proud of that. Others have done their bit as well, particularly the US. And I think they're in a very strong position, but the fact that we're in this position in and of itself is something that we should take a moment to recognize. The Ukrainians have done the most extraordinary job. But what's the level of patience do you think across Europe and in the US, if, for example, the spring offensive is not as successful as people hope? So, I mean, that was one of the most powerful things of the summit, the site of President Zelensky standing shoulder to shoulder with the G7. I think it sent a pretty strong message that we are united behind Ukraine. We're going to be steadfast in our support. And that support is not going away. Just new announcements over the weekend about F-16s from the Americans. There's a longer range weapons from us just recently. So I think that it's pretty clear that we're united and you can see that from the messages coming out of Hiroshima that Ukraine can count on its G7 allies and in particular the UK to continue supporting them. Yeah, I mean, it's almost as though it's prompted a realignment, hasn't it? It's an extraordinary last year in geopolitics. How do you see it? Do you see it as the world assembling into blocks, you know, the democracies against the autocrats potentially, or is there another explanation? Some people say it's multipolar. How do you see the world? So I think one of the striking things is, this is G7, obviously, in Japan and the Pacific. And I actually paid particular tribute to the leadership of Prime Minister Koshida of Japanese people. Australia is in the same boat. But what we've seen with the Ukraine conflict is that everyone has realised that security is indivisible between the Euro-Atlantic theatre and the Pacific. So you've seen all these Pacific nations, whether it's Australia, whether it's Japan, doing their bit to support the effort. Why? It's because what are we ultimately fighting for? We're fighting for the rules-based order and we're fighting for values that are universal. Democracy, freedom, the rule of law. We all cherish those things. And so whether you're in the Pacific, whether you're in Europe, people have recognised that those are values that are worth fighting for, even if it's not on your doorstep. And I think that's been quite a striking feature of it and very welcome, actually. And what's your message to Putin and Russia in that context? It's simple. We're not going away. And we are now leading the conversation with allies about what longer-term, multilateral and bilateral security agreements we can put in place with Ukraine to provide them not just with support for the summer, not just with support last year or next year, but long-term support that they can count on. And there's lots of different ways and forms that that can take, but we are leading and shaping that conversation. You know, why is that important? Well, the way I think we owe it to Ukraine, but also I think Russia, part of Russia's strategy is to just wait this out, right? I mean, they thought this would all be over in three weeks. We're still here a year later, but they will be thinking, well, maybe we can just wait this out. As you said earlier, people might tire. Western democracies, they get bored, they'll move on. So part of putting these things in place now and making it clear to Russia that that support will be coming to Ukraine for years to come means not only can Ukrainians have confidence in their ability to defend themselves in the future. It also serves, I think, as a deterrent and a message to Russia that the waiting it out strategy is not going to work. And actually, the right and only course of action for them to do is to withdraw and stop the conflict. And how do you assess the threat to the rest of Europe? What happened in Ukraine and is still happening has prompted enormous change with Sweden potentially about to join NATO Finland, having joined NATO European security is now back on the agenda. Yeah. I mean, that was one of the great miscalculations that Putin made, that far from fragmenting the allies, it has strengthened them. I mean, he's ended up with Sweden and Finland on a part of NATO membership. He's ended up with an alliance that stretches, as I said, across geographies, 140 countries in the UN condemning Russia's actions virtually isolated on the global stage and then in a more hard edged kind of slant on it, defence spending is going up everywhere, including in the UK, including in all European partner countries. So what Putin has done is catalyzed a bunch of things that he probably thought would not happen and would prefer not to happen. They are happening as a result of his actions and that is good for European security. You know, what's happening in Germany, what's happened in Japan, these are big changes, Sweden, Finland, right? These are huge changes to the security architecture that we were used to living in and indeed the resources being deployed towards it. That is a good and very welcome step given the world in which we're living. Yeah, well, let's touch on defence spending. You mentioned it there. The government refreshed the integrated review recently. Has the UK really got the balance right on geopolitics, Europe and the Indo-Pacific and defence spending? Is the mix really right? Yeah, so that's a big question. So on the defence spending, I think the answer is yes. So, you know, we've always been one of the largest spenders in NATO on defence spending, largest in Europe, one of the few miniscule number who have continuously met our 2% of GDP target. We spend more than 20 other NATO countries combined and then it's not just about the money, even though the money is increasing and we're rising up to 2.25% over the next few years with an ambition to get to 2.5% as soon as the economic and fiscal circumstances allow. Chancellor recently put £5 billion more into both the nuclear enterprise and rebuilding our stockpiles on top of the record-breaking settlement that I gave the MOD when I was Chancellor. So the money's there. Then the next question to ask, well, is it being spent on the right things? Do we have the capabilities that matter? And the answer is, we do, right? We're one of two NATO countries that has the ability to deploy fifth-generation aircraft from sea. We have a nuclear deterrent. We have an offensive cyber capability. You know, I could go on... Do you have a fear on the Army, which has shrunk a lot and may shrink again? Yeah, so, you know, we... Actually, the Army will have a total force capacity of 100,000 split between regular and reserves. Now, the Defence Secretary is currently in the process of reviewing that and there will be a Defence Command Paper, which will be issued shortly, which we'll talk through all that. But ultimately, my job is not to second-guess the decision that our military chiefs are making. What I can say and what we've delivered as a government is record defence uplifts and a trajectory of increasing defence expenditure. Everyone should feel very good about that in absolute terms and relative to all our allies. How that is best spent to deal with the threats that we face ultimately is a question that our military chiefs will make. And as I said, I've ran through a bunch of capabilities that we need to have. I know that we need to put orcas in that mix as well with offensive submarines, so aircraft carriers and a carrier strike group, etc., etc. That's a decision that they will make and optimise our forces appropriately for that. Do you think it might eventually have to go quite a bit higher, actually? If 2% was deemed OK when history was presumed to have ended after the end of the end of history, I mean, 2.5%, 3% or 4% in Poland's case, actually, this year, are we not, as democracies, getting more into that sort of level of spending being required? Well, again, I'll just go back to what I said. We're one of the minuscule number of people that actually spent 2% over the last decade, right? Virtually nobody else did. We have. We're spending more than 2% already, so we're up to 2.25% on an increasing trajectory, 2%, 2.5%, as the fiscal and economic conditions allow. And, you know, because I think that's reflective of the threat environment having changed, as you said, right? We face a more volatile and uncertain world. We can see that. It's right that we're investing to protect ourselves. But as I said, it's not just about the quantum, it's about how we're deploying it. And again, whether it's with the army, you know, we have a plan called Future Soldier, which talks about more lethal, more agile, more deployable armed forces, as well as just the quantum of them, right? And that is a relatively new way of thinking about it, which is important. But I'm just gonna, I know we're on time, but you talked about the balance between that and the diplomacy side, which I think is an important and interesting question. And I think in the environment we're facing, it actually is incumbent on us to what we described in the integrated review is to out-cooperate and out-compete our adversaries. And actually what we want to be able to do is shape the international environment that we're operating in and relationships matter. And that's why I think we have invested very heavily in building diplomatic relationships in all three theaters, in the Atlantic, in Europe, in the Indo-Pacific. And you can see that just this week, the partnership that we signed with Japan means that the UK-Japanese relationship is the strongest it's ever been, particularly on defense and security, where the arrangements we've got with them now, we are the only European country that they've ever done that with and only the third country ever beyond the US and Australia. And we're starting to have those conversations with South Korea. We joined CPTPP, we've got AUKUS, we've got the GCAP program for our next generation of fighter aircraft with Japan and Italy. And as you can see, whether it's the Windsor framework and other things or deals with the French and the Albanians on illegal migration, we're diplomatically operating in all theaters, delivering benefits for people at home. A very quick final question. British economic, about Britain's place in the world, British economic performance in the last decade has been, I think it's fair to say, suboptimal. Now that has consequences, we've talked about defence spending. But given that backdrop, how do you respond to those saying, naming no names, Simon McDonald, that Britain has a declining role in the world? So I'm going to gently push back on the economic one first, in the sense that, well, if you look, you know, what's happened since 2010, and actually new IMF forecasts are out today, which are a big upgrade in UK growth, which has been systematically underestimated for many years. You know, what is a record since 2010? Right, well, the record is, we've grown just the same as Germany, faster than France, Italy, and Japan, and only behind the US and Canada. Right, that's the record, right? Is that suboptimal? Great, of course. Of course, we always want more growth, but out of all the people who have to import energy, we're top of the pack with Germany. So that's the record on growth. And during that time, what else have we done? Chancellor had an excellent op-ed recently, which kind of went through some of the greatest hits. We've created Europe's largest life sciences sector. You know, we've got one of the world's best creative industries. We've, you know, clean growth is. We've got the second largest install base of offshore wind. We've got strength in financial services that's world-leading and, you know, to keep going. You know, we've created more unicorns and digital investment in this country than France and Germany combined, right? So that's the economic record, and we should actually feel very good about it. And when I was in Japan last week, what did we announce? 18 billion pounds of new investment into the UK from Japanese companies. Enormous vote of confidence in us. Just a few months ago, PWC did a survey of 1,000 global CEOs. More than that, a few thousand from 100 different countries asking about investment destination, number one European destination, UK. Third globally behind the US and China, right? So that's the economic side of it. Look, on these narratives, and I addressed this in Parliament yesterday, and people can have a look at my statement. You know, what have we achieved in the last six months, right? Windsor framework. New deal with the French in the summit, the likes of which we haven't seen for years. New deal with Albania to strengthen our ability to deal with illegal migration. We've got CPTPP, first European nation to exceed. The GCAP program for the next generation of fighter aircraft with Italy and Japan. We've got the Japanese defense deal that we've just signed. We've got AUKUS, incredible unprecedented defense partnership with Australia, and the US. We've got our leadership on China and probably most importantly our leadership on Ukraine, not just with hard support, but also leading the conversation from an intellectual perspective about the right way to try and resolve this conflict and make sure that Ukraine is successful. That's what we've just done in the six months. And I don't know how you can look at any of that, as I said, operating in the Atlantic, in Europe, in the Pacific, delivering benefits for people at home, whether it's tackling illegal migration, creating jobs, growing businesses. How can you look at any of that and say that Britain is not anything other than confident, free, and doing great stuff that's making an enormous difference in the world? That's what I see when I look at our foreign policy and having spent a week with people from around the world, I think that's what they recognize too. Britain is absolutely delivering, not just internationally, but domestically. We're a respected ally and we're doing something that I don't believe any other country could do. And the best way to think about it is in the space of about 10 days, I went from having the first Anglo-French summit we've had in years, very successfully, then going to San Diego to sign Orcus with two of our Five Eyes partners, Australia and America, and then a week later, we acceded to CPTPP as the first European nation to do so. Which other country could do all those three things? I'll leave that to you, but I think there you go. I mean, that's the case. On that optimistic note, Prime Minister, thank you for joining us at the London Defence Conference of Prime Minister. Thanks very much. She's beckoning after this session, of course. Well, here at the London Defence Conference, we're going to discuss the geopolitical situation and whether or not the world is heading into a new Cold War. And if it is, I'm rather under what the sides are. I'm delighted to say that we are joined again by a brilliant panel. Further from me is Heather Williams, who is an expert on nuclear issues and a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Next to her, my former colleague has gone on to much greater things as a best-selling author, Tim Marshall, author of, amongst other things, prisoners of geography, the power of geography and his new book, The Future of Geography. So he should know a few things about geopolitics. Next is Neil Brown, who is the geopolitical strategist at the fund CQS. And finally, Elizabeth Broad here from the American Enterprise Institute. I just want to start with a very open question on the question of a new Cold War. Are we in a new Cold War and can you pick the sides? Do we get to pick the sides? Well, no, I mean, who's at war with who? We are in a new Cold War, but it's different because we are squaring off geopolitically while at the same time being extremely connected, and that's what makes it so difficult and different for our companies this time around. Last time around, we weren't that connected. We had had two World Wars and the previous round of globalization happened before that, and then came the Cold War when we didn't really have much trade at all between the blocks and it was clear which countries were in each block. Now we have an emerging Cold War where, first of all, we have to figure out who is on our side and should we try to attract more countries to our side, even if we don't like them completely. And also what does it mean for the companies that have to stay on the other side of the emerging iron, virtual iron curtain? So, actually, worse Cold War. Tim? Yes, we are. I think we've been in it for some time. I think it's a useful premise, a useful construct because we all understand Cold War. I would further argue we're heading back towards the bipolar world in a few years' time. It's different this time. History does not repeat itself. It rhymes. Obviously, it's different. But as a framework, yes. You could even argue it started in 1999, Kosovo. Putin was one of the people that whispered to Yeltsin, go. I think you can draw the line at 2007 and Putin's speech at another security conference somewhere. And from that moment on, we've just been going like that. It is different because it's China. There are non-aligned countries. It is a multipolar world still. But yes, there is a Cold War. And I think the divisions will only go like that. I don't agree completely, but let's be quite clear. It's different Cold War from the one that we all remember when we, if we were in the military or in defence areas before. It's a Cold War between the world's two biggest economies. It's a Cold War between the world's biggest economy and the country with which 150 countries trade. You know, their number one trading partner. It's a Cold War between two countries, I think essentially centred on the US and China, who trade more in the day than the US and the USSR did in a year. So that means that yes, Cold War, because of the political ambitions of Xi, and I think for as long as he's in charge, and we now see after the Party Congress and the People's Congress in the last six months or so, that he'll be in charge for some time to come, his direction of travel is clear, and I think the US response is absolutely clear. What I think we're going to continue to see in strategic areas is a dislocation in a binary way. What we'll see because of the complexity of the global system and all the other areas are tensions, but essentially over time, it'll be increasingly about two camps led by the US and China. Hannah. I'll be the contrarian. No, it's not. It is a Cold War in the sense that it's a great power geo-strategic competition. That's about all that I see it really having in common. Be like saying, oh, a Ford Model T is the same as a Tesla because they're both automobiles. They're so different that I'm not sure that the construct is useful. Two, well, three actually really big areas of difference that I see. The first I would take from US national security and national defense strategies in talking about the two peer competitor problem. And for anyone who engages in DC, you know this is the big topic. This is what everyone's trying to figure out. How do you deter two peer competitors? And US national security documents define Russia as the acute challenge. China is the pacing challenge. But it really does try to treat them as equally important at this moment. And so I think that we would, I think that kind of being dismissive of Russia is something we would do to our peril, even in the long term. The other big difference, also I would draw from some US but also the UK integrated review. And it is on, this is just such a more complex geopolitical environment. The new technologies coming online. It's not just, you know, we used to define it nuclear conventional. You can't really do that anymore. So we're going to be the role of AI is going to have a really definitive role here. And I think that that's just going to fundamentally change the nature of the conflict, particularly in the information domain which we'll probably get into. But really the third way that I see it being a really big shift is who, what are we competing for? Like what is the, what are the stakes in this great power competition? And I think a really key actor here is going to be the global south. And that's something that is quite different as I see it from the Cold War. So at that top level, yes, I agree, this is a great power geo-strategic competition. If you want to call that a Cold War, fine. But I think that when she scratched below the surface, it's just so fundamentally different that we do need to start talking about this in a different way. I mean, the point about the old Cold War, as I understand it, was that it was cold, that there was ultimately this sense of mutually assured destruction that would be, as it were, the next step. Does that apply at all now? Does mutually assured destruction apply? Yes, but it's, again, it's so much more complicated because from a nuclear deterrence perspective, which adversary are you focusing on? Should you assume that they're acting in partnership? Should you be focusing on deterring regional aggression, such as we've seen in Ukraine and what we worry about in Taiwan? Or are we talking about this grand level, mutually assured destruction? I think these are some of the questions that folks are still trying to figure out, to be honest. So nuclear weapons, mutually assured destruction, absolutely still an important part of the equation. But day-to-day, I think things like disinformation campaigns, drones, all of us trying to understand what AI is gonna mean for military operations. I think that those are the real pressing issues as well. I asked you at the beginning who the sides were and you're slightly ducted. Neo, should we say that on the one side it is, quotes, the West, and on the other side it is China and Russia as a unit? Yes, I think it's the West led by the US. I think Europeans, well, many Europeans have been pleased by the US support to Ukraine, which was absolutely pivotal for them. And many of those Europeans in the East, in the Baltics and the Nordics, and I guess the UK as well, have said to old Europe that the US is indispensable for our security. So it is the West led by the US and it is the rest that led by China. But Xi's personal ambition and his party's ambition and his prioritisation of those over his economy and everything else makes it absolutely clear what his direction of travel is. I do agree that the Global South is the battle space. It's the battle space for ideas. The problem that we in the West have got is that our offer to the Global South has been so narrow for so long. Effectively, if it wasn't a CT threat, counter-terrorism, or it wasn't a humanitarian imperative, we didn't do very much. What China's been able to do instead, because they have a full spectrum of options available to them through state-owned economies, is engage with the Global South. And I think we should watch carefully, the voting at the UN General Assembly of Ukraine, we should watch carefully the narrative of Russia and China. Over a year ago, when they went straight to the Global South and said, do you see the sanctions the West are doing against Russia? That's what they'll do against you. And that's a narrative that's prevailed and will prevail into the BRICS Summit next month, when 19 potential applicant countries to the BRICS are very different densely to the one that Lord O'Neill envisaged 20 years ago. We'll be looking at alternate systems to the US-led Western Order. I mean, Elizabeth, Larry Summers sort of made that with now a celebrated remark that when he talks to third world countries, they say, well, China gave us an airport and the US gave us a lecture. Yes, but the airport never materializes. Thus, it materializes and leaves massive debt behind in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For example, there's a massive, well, should I say, hole where Chinese infrastructure should have been that China had promised the DRC in exchange for minerals, but the infrastructure never materialized. What can you do after you've signed the deal? The challenge, though, I think for us here in the West is that China obviously makes these offers and we can't go around saying, well, hang on, they may not fulfill their promises 10 years from now. Nobody cares about 10 years from now. Well, most people don't. And so we have had this incredible luxury we in the West where we have been able to tell countries, this is what you should do in terms of how to reform your economies. They become more successful, more prosperous. And by the way, we also think that you should reform your domestic setup so that you become more liberal like us. And now we've reached a moment where another country can say, well, we'll help you reform your economy and don't worry about that domestic political setup. And it's not just countries in the global south. It's countries, for example, in the Middle East as well. And so you can already see them pushing back against us lecturing them. So I think it was the trade minister of the UAE who was here in London a few weeks ago and said, we have to separate trade and domestic politics. In other words, don't lecture us. We're happy to trade with you, but don't lecture us. And if you lecture us, we'll do more trade with China. And they have the option of choosing now because China is such an attractive partner in a way that it wasn't 30 years ago. It was barely a viable option at all. I mean, that's a problem, because the rules-based system depends on economic sanctions to a large extent, doesn't it, Tim? And if we've got major countries who are not participating in those sanctions, then they become both provocative for those people on who they're imposed and ineffective. It's a weakness in our defence or, indeed, our attack if people have options that they can go to. And we see it with Saudi Arabia playing all sides against each other, and I'm not criticising that. It's part of great biopolitics. Stick by the concept of Cold War being useful as long as we understand the differences, but it was played out in the global south in the 60s and 70s. And it's being played out there again now. It's being played out differently, but it's a continuation of that. And the players, I don't think it's just the West. I think it's the advanced industrialised democracies, because then you can put in Japan, you can put in Australia, potentially India, South Korea, Taiwan, and others. And if you put them against the authoritarian states, led by China, Russia as its very now junior partner, trying to draw into its sphere Iran, Eritrea, Nicaragua, and others, and these two blocks are the new Cold War, with all the differences that was very discussed from the previous one. And it's worth saying, Russia and China have set out to absolutely break the post-Second World War order and the rules-based order, absolutely break it, and they're doing quite a good job, and we are not winning the battle for hearts and minds in the global south, because they have a very strong argument. We never colonised you. And that resonates very strongly, especially in Africa. What about the legacies from the Cold War? Because it was interesting sitting here, the ambassador from Ukraine, his opening statement was, you owe us to defend us, because we gave up our nuclear weapons and you said you would guarantee tears. To what extent does that still apply, do you think? If I could, I want to respond to some of these comments, and I do want to come back to that. I think we should be a bit careful about lumping Russia and China together. It seems to me like they're opportunistic and that they will collude when it's in their interest, but I don't think that it's a fair assumption to say that they are trying to form a unified block, or certainly to say that one of them controls the other. And just an example of that I would point to was the day after the day before Putin announced appointment of nuclear weapons to Belarus. He had met with Xi the day before, and many of us had been hoping, oh, Xi's gonna have this restraining influence on him. He'll really encourage him not to do anything too risky with nuclear weapons, and that just didn't play out. I mean, there's other data points, but I totally take the point that it does seem to be this authoritarian movement, but I think it's just too soon to say that it is clearly forming in a block, which kind of makes me wonder if there's opportunities for us in the West to try to drive a little bit of a wedge in there. And with regards to the Global South point, this isn't an ideological battle, but it is a battle of ideas. And this is where I think we can do a better job of appealing to the Global South. I completely agree. We're not doing particularly well at the moment, but the Global South really cares about things like fairness, and they really care about things like justice. And we have to figure out a way to take our narrative about the rules-based order, and to craft that in such a way that appeals to them more than perhaps some of the economic benefits that they're being tempted with. And that's one of many pieces that I think we have to do better. But with regards to the Budapest-Men Morandom and that question before, I was really glad that the Ukrainian ambassador brought that up, because from a Ukrainian perspective, that's a really fair point. And I think that he's hitting on something which is gonna be a much bigger challenge for the United States in particular, which is how credible are we, the US, as an ally? How much should Europeans count on us to stand by them when a lot of folks in DC seem to be obsessed with Asia at the moment, for example? And also given the US domestic political situation, whenever I travel anywhere really when the first questions I get is, oh, is Trump gonna be reelected and should we panic as allies? And I don't know the answer to either of those questions. But I think that this gets to a bigger challenge for the US, for the US and the UK, for the P3 and for NATO as a whole, which is to show that we really are a credible security guarantor and that we are a partner worth having. There's, I mean, that question about the United States, the direction it's going, I mean, I was reading the National Security Post last year and it talks about competition and it talks about working with allies when it's in our interest. It's not really a kind of leadership document in that sense and that's from the Biden administration. If you look to the sort of things which Donald Trump said about ending the war in one day in Ukraine, not by dropping a nuclear bomb, I don't think, you know, is America really up for leading our side in a cold war? Well, Adam, I sort of think it's a lot of countries, I've made possibly every country engages in a lot of mirror imaging. So we think of, we think countries will behave in the way that our country behaves in any given situation. And so the sort of people who work for governments understandably have spent a long time working for governments, that is their career. But so how can they know how ordinary people in other countries think or even un-ordinary people, just people in other countries, how they think, how they are likely to react? And that's both people in allied countries and hostile countries. And if we don't know that, I mean, we're just operating in a total vacuum of perception, right? And so I'm not saying that every government official and every think tanker has to go out and be an intern in a foreign country just to better understand how other countries and other countries operate. But I think it would be beneficial to have a little bit of exposure to other perspectives, not just a one day visit to foreign capital and sitting in the government office having conversations with other government officials. I'm not sure how it would work in practice. I just know that if you write a strategy document in a bubble without understanding how the other side is likely to perceive it, then you will go wrong. And a really good example of that is the first Gulf War when the White House or the US government wanted to deter Saddam from invading Q8. And so George Herbert Walker Bush sent a very stern letter to Saddam Hussein which Secretary of State James Baker delivered to Tariq Aziz. Remember Tariq Aziz? He was big in the day. Anyway, James Baker delivered this letter to Tariq Aziz. And in this letter, it's in the BBC documentary where Tariq Aziz talks about it. And Tariq Aziz says, so Secretary of State Baker delivered this letter to me. And in this letter, it said, we, the United States, have so and so many soldiers, we have so and so many weapons. And by the way, we have nuclear weapons. And the implication being that the US could destroy Iraq very easily. And Tariq Aziz says in this documentary, I said to Secretary Baker, Secretary Baker, I have no doubt that America is a very powerful country and that you can destroy us. But we have existed for 6,000 years and we will continue to exist. And I think that's just such a good example of, in this case, the US government's misunderstanding how a message would be perceived by the recipients of this message. Tim, why do you see the United States in terms of its resolve? At reasonable levels, nowhere near what it was, let's say, under Reagan. Biden does appear to have this idea that a line has to be drawn and it has been drawn in Ukraine. I think that could change if there is a change of government in the United States and at which point the Europeans would, some of them would begin to peel away. But when you look at what Biden has done in Ukraine and when you look at his four times, not commitment, but hedging to one side of strategic ambiguity when it comes to Taiwan, I think you see that America is still attempting to lead, at this time, not from behind. So I think their resolve is not where it was, but it is still a resolve to lead, like I said, this loose coalition of advanced industrialized democracies. I think it's important that we remember where Europe was just more than a year ago. They were still building Nord Stream 2. They were still saying that Russia was a future economic partner. There were still people in old Europe who thought in relation to Russia and to China that there was a moral equivalence between them and the United States. They were still talking about strategic ambiguity and those people haven't gone away. So what has changed is not so much US leadership, I don't think. It's actually dreadful behavior by Russia and pretty dreadful behavior by China and those are the two things that I think will keep governments in the West focused on what do we need to do to fix this. Once that imperative goes away, many and many countries will rush away from the deterrence and the investment and the deterrence necessary. And I think the most important thing about framing this as a Cold War, notwithstanding the complexity and the wider cooperation that will continue, is that you have to get the deterrence piece right and you have to accept, and the West is accepting and the US is accepting, the economic cost of the dislocation in strategic industries, which is expensive, which is inflationary, which is economically incoherent and which is necessary in order for them to have sovereignty and resilience. And I would say in terms of Russia, China, it's quite clear who's in charge. When Xi invented the, or rather branded, the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Russia and China were still pretending that they could be members of each other's initiatives. Russia's response was, yes, you can join our wider Eurasia Initiative. That pretence has gone away. And there is inconsistency. Shortly after Putin met Xi and they talked about 100 years of cooperation, the next day, the Chinese said, that second pipeline will have a think about it. Last week, China hosted the C-plus-5, or rather, which is China and five Eurasian states, which used to be members of the former, or used to be Soviet republics. Russia wasn't invited. And bloody Vostok as well. So there's quite clearly tension between the two. They've never liked each other. Russia has, for many, many years, been desperately keen to avoid becoming a vassal state of China, which it is now. And I think, ultimately, there aren't... China doesn't have one seat at Security Council. It's got two. Meaning? Russia. OK. We're going to broaden this conversation in a minute. So if anyone's got questions, get ready, and we'll get the microphones out, but you want to come in. Yes. That is on the point that we have an advantage, which is that authoritarianism always needs to move authoritarianism. There are a few, if any, authoritarian leaders who agree to voluntarily reduce their power. And we have seen in China that clearly, she used on the path towards more and more power, which has the effect that he is willing to sacrifice the Chinese economy by going after China's best companies and by instituting or enhancing this law that is totally bonkers because it will drag Western companies away, this espionage law that essentially puts a target on the back of every single person. And so instead, if he were not mostly concerned about his own power, but mostly about China's role in the world, he would have countered this American loss of faith in China with a charm offensive by saying, oh, look, we are still open for business. Come and do business here. We are as interested as ever. Instead, he embarks on this really totally bonkers authoritarian crackdown of business, which, of course, will lead Western businesses to conclude exactly what US government officials have concluded, which is that it's not such a good idea to be majorly exposed to China anymore. Just coming back to the, I think this is a really fascinating discussion about the Russia-China relationship. To state the absolute obvious, so much of this is going to depend on how the war in Ukraine ends and how Russia in particular comes out of that war. How weakened is the Russian economy going to be? I mean, their ground forces are going to be completely decimated and need to be rebuilt. Is that an opportunity for military or economic partnership with China? I think it is going to depend on whether or not nuclear weapons are used. It'd be really hard for Xi to stand by Putin if Russia uses nuclear weapons first, given China's nuclear doctrine. But I also think, you know, Xi wants Putin there. That does seem to be very clear. And I think we're going to see that tested a little bit, just how far China will go in supporting a Putin regime, depending on how things play out in Ukraine, though. OK, have we got the microphones for people around? Yeah, we've got lots of questions. Just need some microphones. We've got one gentleman there, wasn't it, somewhere. Yeah, there, there. That's you, yeah. So Peter Watkins visiting professor here. One difference between this Cold War and the previous one is that this one is taking place against the backdrop of accelerating climate change. I just wonder whether the panel might offer some thoughts as to how that is going to change the geopolitical dynamics, its impact, differential impact on Russia, China, and the global south. Of course, that's one area where we hear from the US and the UK that we can cooperate with the other side. Are we right? Yes, sir, but that's a really important question. You're right that people say, well, we can cooperate with China on climate. But what worried me ahead of the engagement before the COP26 in Glasgow was that the terms were, we could ask for that in return for something else. China's got a climate imperative, and China's got a health imperative of its own. And I think in terms of our future relationships, that we need not to give things away. Just because they're important to us, we need to understand that they're asked a little better. One of the things that strikes me is that ahead of Ukraine, the European Commission published a paper on what we call ESG, so it's environmental, social, and corporate governance, which is the West's values, guidance of investments. And we know all about the E, which is directly on climate, but on the S, the European Commission's statement six months before February 22 was to say that security and defence are like tobacco and uninvestable. So in the West, we have to accept that German defence companies went to the chancellor and said, we can't get banking because we're a defence company. That in France, which is rather more consequential for the government, its defence industry was going and saying, we can't get banking for our defence company. So I think that that area of values investing and climate's really important. And in the long term, out of Russia, the question is, does Russia, oil and gas, come back to the West? Probably not. The question is, if the West continues with its current policies on climate change, which keeps fragility in the energy system, this is the fragility we saw when Ukraine happened, that then there's a political risk there against the long-term aim of renewable-based energy, which is more secure. The fact that we will try to cooperate with China, and we will, and they will try to cooperate, will not mean that, that beneath that, when climate change exacerbates existing tensions that because of the great power plays, they won't take advantage of it. So a theoretical example, if Turkey and Syria were to come to blows over the Euphrates, which is possible, the very fact that we might be cooperating at the highest level doesn't mean that various sides wouldn't then pile in and take advantage of that chaos. And I think climate change will exacerbate existing tensions, or it is. Yes. It's a sign of the times that the US passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is, this is not my term, I read it in their Spiegel, so credit to their Spiegel, it's green protectionism. And it's a brilliant piece of legislation, unfortunately not taking into account the interests of America's allies, but nevertheless, in terms of climate change and reducing dependence on China, it's a fantastic piece of legislation. I think we'll see more of that. The question then is, how can this innovation be scaled and get the markets if we're not going to have this major exposure to China anymore, if we're not going to sell whatever innovation and new technologies come up, if we're not going to sell them to China, because it can make companies dependent on the Chinese market. Where are we going to sell them? Who is going to be in this western block that can absorb the loss of the Chinese market? Then I think it's the big question, not just for governments, but especially for companies. But can I just ask, since climate change came up, thank you for asking about that, Peter. It really needs to involve everybody and not just government, so I'm just curious. For example, I'm a vegetarian out of concern for the environment, because obviously meat reduces, meat adds a great deal of CO2 emissions. For example, how many people here would consider going vegetarian to help reduce CO2 emissions? OK, we'll have a quick, we will indulge you, we'll have a quick show. You have to do a better job of climate change than CO2 reduction. But you made your point. Gentlemen there. An extremely interesting discussion. So my question relates to a discussion I had in Washington DC at the end of last year, sort of foreign policy related discussion, dominated obviously by the US perception of China as their sort of generational challenge now. One thing I was interested by that discussion was the very sort of cogent and sort of particular attention to which it was paid to the role of Europe in that sort of existential challenge between the US and sort of China. And here I think sort of Europe's have used sort of a shorthand to include sort of European nations, the EU and the UK as well. And the way it was sort of described was that in terms of winning that challenge, however defined, Europe was the sort of quite a swing vote in that sort of extended sort of period of conflict or challenge between sort of US and China. I guess my question for the panel is if Europe defined broadly is the swing vote, then how's it going? Well, this is kind of President Macron's idea of being autonomous, isn't it? There's no doubt that there are people in old Europe who had this idea of strategic autonomy. There was presented and Trump was a gift for them in terms of the way that he spoke and the way that he talked of Europe. They spoke about strategic autonomy. There was in their view a moral equivalence between China and the United States. Europe would become a geostrategic third pillar. And I think in some respects Europe is singularly important in terms of its size of its market and its ability to regulate. But let's be quite clear, militarily Europe, the EU is a non-entity and it's going to continue to be a non-entity. And I think one of the lessons of Ukraine is that NATO and the EU need to get their act together and understand how they work together. So what I would say is, and someone mentioned earlier, in terms of the BRICS next week, 19 potential applicants, China seeing this as an advantage, the big question mark long-term in India, these aren't just the usual IMF problem children. The Gulf States are going to be there, countries with deep pockets. So I don't think Europe, post-Ukraine, is a swing voter. I think Europe politically, especially with Eastern Europe showing such leadership, is moving back towards an Atlanticist acceptance given the threats of Russia and China. But there are many other areas of swing voters and the West needs to get at this quickly, especially with the Gulf States. I don't think the Gulf States are abandoning the US, but they're making the US work much, much harder for the relationship. I think the Gulf States are going to be saying to the US, we want the deal that Israel has with you, otherwise we've got China. So I think there are lots of swing states and the West is going to have to act, by the West, I mean, the political West, is going to have to act pretty sharply in order to counter that. Yeah, it's not really the swing voter anymore because for all its bravado, Macron's strategic autonomy is pretty much a Zoom meeting. That's about it. So even though some people still pay lip service to it, everyone knows it hasn't advanced one iota. If it wasn't for the Americans, Ukraine would have lost by now. Europe has had a massive shock to its system. And so I think they will swing in. They will become Atlanticists to one degree or another with one or two exceptions. And then I agree, there are these so many other players and this goes back to what we said at the beginning, those of us that believe things are going like that. And people will be not forced to take sides, but there will be, as the years go by, there'll be more and more pressure on the dozens and dozens of swing voters, swing actors, which way are you going to lean? I confess, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by swing vote, but I'm guessing what you were hearing was that European support for any US-China policy and strategy is essential. And I completely agree with that. A couple of the reasons. One is just purely operational. If the US ever ends up in a Taiwan crisis, a lot of war games are showing, it's not gonna be easy. This is not straightforward. There's a host of basing problems. CSIS has run some really great war games on this and shown where some European assets would actually be really helpful. Another reason that European support would be essential is this gets back to the two peer competitor problem that we're all obsessed with in DC, which is one of the biggest concerns is that Russia or China will be an opportunistic aggressor where if one of them starts mischief in one area then the other one is gonna follow because the US is gonna be distracted somewhere else. If China is the first, is kind of the first crisis zone, then having European allies there, a strong NATO to try to deter any Russian mischief is also gonna be really important. And then just a final area where I think it's gonna be crucial, it's purely political. Having European support for US military action still counts, that is still quite valuable, especially if we are trying to appeal to that wider international audience. I wanna hedge all of this by saying it's so context dependent and what is the nature of the crisis, but I think that if you wanna talk about swing vote as in Europe's European support matters, absolutely it would. I mean, hello, irrespective of Europe, I mean, my reading of AUKUS, and I know there's gonna be a full discussion on that here, is that whatever the EU does or Europe does if there is a Taiwan crisis, the UK's already signed up. That's important. I'm sorry, do we no longer say that the UK is part of Europe? Well, no, I was drawing, no, but I mean, my point is that it may be, we could be going back to a situation as we've seen in the Gulf Wars, where the UK is with the United States in a more forward position than old Europe is prepared to accept. I just briefly want to say about mischief making and about what you said earlier, Elizabeth, about mirroring. China worries very much about India. China worries very much that it's busy invading Taiwan, which I don't think's gonna happen, but that's not the point, that if it did, oh, look what's happening in the Himalayas. And if I may, linking it to what the Prime Minister said earlier, I think that the US's main strategic error in the last few years, if I may say so, was pulling out of the TPP, because if we're gonna contest the Global South, if there's gonna be a Western model, if the rules-based order is to survive, then China's against that. And she was mischievous saying he wanted to join it. The response of the Japanese was superb. You can join it, effectively when you cease to be China, when you cease to be a command economy, when you cease to rely on state-owned enterprises. So the CPTPP, which was designed by Australia and Japan after the US walked away, to allow the US to rejoin, I think would be absolutely key. If the US is serious about containing China on all these other levels. And then that brings us back to the difficulty in the US and you know, I'm talking to think tanks all the time. When I listen to the US defense and security community, they talk about the allies and friends in a way that's very familiar. When I listen to the US treasury and commerce and trade, it's different and there is a distinction there. So even in the US where there's huge bipartisan support that China is the problem, there's not necessarily bipartisan support on how to do it. And it's especially tricky at the moment, the IRA is an excellent example when you have a government whose foreign policy is for the middle class. And I think that shows attention within the US, which we need to work with the US to try and get through together. Anyone else on the floor, let's go yet. Gentleman there. Hi, I'm Freddie Penbroke, Intelligence and International Security MA. You talk about Russia and China being opportunistic. During the First Cold War, we saw Russia being really influential in the liberation movements, training the ANC, for example. And now we see Russia and China pumping so much money into Africa. Do we think we've neglected our relationship with Africa and that Russia and China are going to take advantage of that, putting us at risk? Africa is 54 countries, 2.8% of global GDP and China is all over it. And Russia is all over it quite a lot as well, but mainly China. As I mentioned earlier, the Western Prism of an engagement with the global south is generally government-to-government and counter-terrorism or humanitarian activity. In terms of the wider full-spectrum stuff, we're not at the game because China is willing to invest on projects which are not going to be profitable, not going to be profitable at all, maybe, or certainly not for a very long time because China attaches a value to other things. So what I find really interesting is, again, votes at the UN General Assembly because that's where China is building a consensus. And when you look at the language beyond Belt and Road, Xi has said three really important things. The Global Security Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and now the Global Civilisation Initiative, which we should pay attention to because that's the language that's being picked up amongst the global south and replayed back by them in the UN General Assembly. Elizabeth, you touched on it. I mean, this idea of reshoring, of keeping technology, particularly in the United States, and obviously the IRA and attitude to regulation of the tech giants is part of this. I mean, to what extent is it practical in an interconnected world? Can you actually reshor technology and keep it out of other people's hands? So it's already beginning to happen. I just have to say one thing about China's presence in Africa, and I think that could be a whole conference for itself, but we should make distinguish between various countries' governments and the population. And I'm willing to bet that the population in most countries would view China's presence in various African countries rather differently from the way their governments view it. But when it comes to reshoring, it's already beginning to happen. I mean, I must say the most experimental thinking in national security today is happening in the private sector simply because these companies have to completely refashion if they are in manufacturing. And even if they are just selling to China, they have to completely refashion the way they operate. For example, the other day, two gentlemen from a major car manufacturer, which shall remain nameless, but it's easy to guess, came to see me and they were talking about the new plant, not just a little facility, a new plant. They're building in Canada for electric batteries or EV batteries, and along with that, they don't just have to set up their own plant. They have to essentially bring the suppliers with them or find local suppliers, and then they have to find roots from this plant into the US for the rest of the manufacturing, obviously, because the EVs and the batteries will go into cars. All of this is extremely challenging from a logistical perspective and financial perspective, but it's happening because they are not willing to bet the house or the car, as it were, on China at this point. And so it's fascinating to watch this happen. And I think a good early example to watch is the apparel and footwear companies that used to be big in China. Then when China became more expensive and didn't want them anymore, they had to move. Well, that was complicated enough, and clothing is not that difficult. Well, it is difficult. We went to Vietnam and Bangkok. Exactly, and that was complicated enough. And imagine then, if what you're trying to move is technologically extremely complex products as opposed to shoes and clothes, but it's happening and they are putting so much thinking into it. It's certainly happening. I mean, Huawei, high-sense, and I think the Chinese car industry is about to roll out across the world. And it's coming to a car show, you know, on Africa. I think they read the future earlier than we did, both in Africa and in Latin America. When you look at the amount of investment in both continents and when it started, and they were a decade ahead of us, and we are absolutely playing catch up on the precious metals, rare earth metals, et cetera. They've recently flipped Honduras into their camp, and it's taken until 2023, until Schultz went to Argentina last month, and then a brilliant deal, where instead of all the lithium being shipped to China to be processed, because they have 85% of processing, the Germans are going to actually invest in Argentina and build the processing factories there to guarantee their supply of lithium to the German car industry. But that's taken until 2023, something that should have been done at least a decade ago. So globalization, as we know it, probably peaked in about 2009. And everything's in the sand, has seen a movement towards the acceleration, I think, of sovereignty and ideas of resilience. We now have companies saying to us, they're designing themselves to have one company, two systems, so that their footprint in China is insulated so that the Chinese government can't get their limits, nor can Western sanctions. And if that's the way companies are thinking, I think they're front running where governments are, I think that in the long term, what we're going to see are systems based around supply chains and value chains, all of which are inefficient, all of which add cost, all of which reduce profit. I mean, we used to be agnostic about where any of this happened, and the US have moved from determining that there'd be two steps ahead of China to gaining an absolute advantage, in all respects, in the most advanced technology. So that's where our high tech industries are going. What about defense and security-related technology? Can you keep that out of the hands of the other side in the Cold War? No, we've already seen that no, you can't. But I think there's a couple of points that have been made that apply to the military side, one being the importance of private actors, and that the private sector is really so much further ahead in thinking about a lot of these technologies, which will gradually be integrated into military systems. And I think that that's gonna raise a host of questions from the US government side about regulations, who are you partnering with? How are those technologies being applied? Are they being applied in ways that align with the laws of war, for example? And there's a lot of questions going on about that now. But I think in terms of this question about competing with China is really essential, one in terms of US military technology. And I think it was last year, it might have been two years ago, there was a task force on the role of AI in the US military, and the bumper sticker of that rapport is out-compete China. That is like, I think that phrase is possibly on every single page. But the US has a bit of a comparative disadvantage in trying to do that, just because we're not an authoritarian government. We don't have those same relationships with the manufacturers who are leading and thinking on this. And that's about as far to be honest as I've seen the thinking really get on the US side, which is to say, out-competing China and these technologies has to be a priority. We're still figuring out, I think the mechanisms for doing that. Yeah, sure. I mean, I thought there was an industrial military complex. There is, I don't think the thing is the old military, so if we're gonna use this old and new Cold War, I still push back on that, but fine. The military industrial complex of the old Cold War is very different than the one that is going to be of today. It used to be a relatively small number of contractors and we all know their names, who made one really big, cool, stealthy system that played this essential role in the strategic nuclear triad. Now, you just have a host of different companies making all sorts of different things and they're competing with each other to see who gains the advantage. They're also competing with Chinese companies and in other countries as well. And so the whole, the idea of the military industrial complex, I think it's just a lot more diffuse than it had been in the past, which is just gonna be another kind of degree of complexity in terms of how you incorporate those technologies into defense planning. One thing to, I think, flag off that is so different from if we're going to compare today's situation with the Cold War is we don't even know what a U.S. company or a British company is, so you can be a company located in the U.K., but you are on the New York stock market, which apparently is very popular these days, or you can be U.S. company and have just your headquarters in the U.S. and most of your operations elsewhere, which is obviously well-spent happening, or you can be a Chinese company and set up a sort of a twin, as you were talking about in the U.S., then you're a U.S. company, or you can be like Huawei and have a Dutch operation that then looks after all of Europe that makes you look like a European company. So that has implications for legislation and how we treat companies. And also, if we think about the sense of allegiance among executives, that's what the U.S. government, the U.K. government, every Western government could count on during the Cold War, that in an emergency, at a pinch, a company, you could call up the government, the prime minister, whatever minister in charge, could call up the company and say, please, can you do this? And because the company would have a sense of national allegiance, the CEO would have a sense of responsibility, they would do it. And I sort of wonder whether that would be possible today, if, I don't know, well, since the prime minister was just here, if he called up Barclays and said, can you do this for us? It's in the country's interest. Would Barclays do it or any other major company? But I think that's why the U.S. has doubled down on its support for CFIUS, Committee for Investment in the United States, while it's looking at a mechanism for its outward investment and why all other companies are doing the same. So in this Cold War, in order to regulate and to... I guess to mitigate the threats, exactly this sort of granularity is the bread and butter. It's certainly in Washington at the moment in terms of companies and who their real ownership is and where their real equity is and what the terms of joint ventures really are and what access, for example, Chinese PhD students will have to technology. This is the new space for our high-tech companies. I mean, I just wondered, you know, you're involved with the fund, obviously. Funds want to find growth. So what do you look for? Do you look for the companies that are best at getting around if you like the sanctions and the reshoring? Well, I think what we see certainly is that companies are more alert to the risks than ever before. Companies, especially with the footprint in China, are talking about one company, two systems. Companies are much more sensitive to risk than there were before. And I think the other thing is that in terms of China, companies are becoming more sensitive to China's medium-to-long-term economic prospects because under Xi, with what he did at the Party Congress and then the People's Congress, and his prioritisation of party control over economic growth, we're likely to see China not growing as fast as it was before. And that creates a new dynamic. So we're seeing already government control, government prioritisation of the use of SOEs, which isn't good for growth because government controls... I mean, as I understand it, you know, we've all been talking about AI and the various consumer options. In China, they basically just banned them, right? China's regulation is extraordinary, and it's use of security laws and it's use of the social behaviour indices, things like that. But China's greatest asset is actually data. China regards the data of 1.4 billion people as a national asset, whereas in the West, what we regard it as an individual's private property, which governments have to regulate to access. And that's really important for AI and future technology. I think we have to remember that. It feels so depressing to think about all the things that China can do because it's an authoritarian country and autocracies have opportunities that liberal democracies don't and the government can tell companies what to do. What we have is people wanting to live in our countries and people actually being able to pursue whatever they want to do and innovate, for example, in this space. So, for example, I'm on the advisory board of a VC. It's incredible to look at what sort of innovation is happening. This is in the national security space to see what sort of innovation is happening. Extraordinary, and that's not as a result of the government telling anybody what to do. It's a result of being many brilliant people with business ideas. So I think we just have to retain a little bit of optimism just as we, during the Cold War, obviously the service where everybody said, you know, they're so far ahead because they trained so many scientists, but these scientists weren't exactly innovative because it was a command economy. Okay, that brings me to final thoughts. Whether or not there's a Cold War, my final question to you all is, the last century was the American century. Is this going to be the Chinese century? No. Oh, I'm really regretting that you came to me first here. I'm gonna say, I'm tempted to say no, it's gonna be the century of competition. And there have been those centuries in the past that it's gonna be a century of competition in technology, competition particularly at the regional level, I think. So I think that's what I'll probably go with, but my very last point, if I can make it, is so I used to be a lecturer here at King's and to any masters or PhD students in the audience, I wanna give you the assignment of come up with a different term than that this is a new Cold War because I still am really, really cringing at that. And so if anybody can come up with a better term, then I think that would serve us well, but I'll leave it at that. Does both Chinese century? I think it's the century of the citizen. So in the previous Cold War, if that's how we're going to refer to it, it was just assumed that all people living behind Iron Curtain, they just have to put up with it and it seemed so hopeless with that. And since I've had the opportunity, I think actually it felt like a burden at most of the time, but it was a fantastic opportunity to read lots of stasi files. It is extraordinary to think about what power the government has in the notocracy. And yet, people in the end defeated these governments. And so it's not said that just because the government has massive powers over the rest of the country, that it will, that country will invariably win because people, the citizens of that country may have different ideas and it may take a long time for those ideas to percolate and to burst into the open, including the idea that that country should be a democracy. But I think we would do Chinese citizens a disservice by discounting their interest in this whole equation. Yeah. I'd say it might be, but it doesn't have to be and the West has a vote. Looking at China, it's medium to long-term economic prospects aren't that great. So as long as you use in charge, I think they'll have that difficulty. It's up to the West now to decide what to do about it. And the reason why I find the Cold War title in the talk of geopolitical realignment really useful, and this in here, having spent seven years now in the private sector, I spent seven years hearing from people across the industry and talking about how the market would see through a geopolitical situation because there was an inexorable growth. Globalism was still happening and after the financial crisis, quantitative easing, the injection of liquidity, interest rates at zero, no inflation, meant that everybody knew that it was just going to move on and get better. And I feel that there's the same sort of behaviour in our policy class and our political class in the West that things are somehow going to bounce back to how they were two years ago. And I think for as long as you use in charge, for as long as Putin's in charge and others, so for the foreseeable future, that's not a safe assumption to make. And so the long-term stuff, the non-headline-gramming stuff, the boring stuff about detailed regulation to get our systems working together in order to avert a threat are absolutely critical. And it's up to the West to decide whether it can be bothered. Tim. Cold War 2.0. I like that. And in it, I think two things are already kicking in. One, sorry, and to answer the question, yes, but it will also still be the American Century as well. They will share the century in the broadest of terms. And two things will kick in, they already are. One is the alleged economic idea, which seems plausible that China is beginning to suffer what Japan suffered. You know, as it rose so quickly, it then meets all the trouble that it's now meeting and the headwinds will restrain it to enough that America can at the very least keep parity, but if not stay above it. But the second thing is that Salas's theorem, which I'm sure you're aware of, is that alliances are not built on friendship. They're built on a common fear of a common enemy. And when you look at the number of countries that fear China, they vastly outnumber and are vastly more powerful than China, whether it's Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Americans. You array that and those forces will restrain the Chinese, but it's a double century, not an American century. OK, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, on our panel. Thank you.