 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this panel discussion on the West after the Ukraine War. I'm Terry Martin, a journalist and TV news anchor based in Berlin. I'll be your moderator for this session. We have a remarkable group of speakers with us here today who will share their views on the implications and lessons of the Ukraine War, a war that has shaken Europe and the world. I want to introduce them in a moment, but first I just want to say how delighted I am to be here. This is my first World Policy Conference. I want to thank the organizers for inviting me and extend my warm thanks also to Abu Dhabi for hosting this event. Now this session is focusing on the Ukraine War, a topic that has already received some attention at this conference. Hamas' Israel War may have bumped Ukraine from the front pages, but as we heard yesterday from Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is continuing with brutal consistency. Now, what we're dealing with today is a very difficult topic. We have to be very honest about that. Mr. Kubella gave us an update on where things stand from his perspective in the Ukraine War right now as his country fights for its survival. In this session today, we're going to be looking at the conflict from a broader, longer-term perspective, and that of course is no easy task because, as we all know, the war is ongoing. Nobody really knows how it's going to end. Plus, the geopolitical context is rapidly changing. And what is the West anyway? That's in our title, What is the West? So for the purpose of this discussion, let's think of it mainly as liberal democratic societies, not limited to the geographical West, who claim to value a rules-based international order. That's what we're going to work with as our working definition of the West for this session. But a tough brief for this session, but we'll do our best to get a sense of where the West might be when the Ukraine War is over. Now fortunately, we have a distinguished group of speakers who are extremely well qualified to reflect on this, and I'll introduce them in order. On my immediate left, Elbe Dorch Tsakhegin, working on that Mongolian pronunciation, he's the former president of Mongolia. He played a key role in leading the Mongolian revolution, democratic revolution. He created the Elbe Dorch Institute and is a commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, a topic that you spent a lot of time working on. Next is Bogdan Klich. He is a senator in the Polish Parliament, currently serving as the chairman of the Foreign and EU Affairs Committee in the Senate. He served as Poland's Minister of Defense and was a member of the European Parliament as well. Beyond that, we have Zakir Laidi. He is special advisor to Joseph Borel, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security. He was formally strategic advisor to the French Prime Minister. He's been a professor at Sciences Po for 20 years, over 20 years, and he's written numerous books on global affairs. And someone who I've been familiar with for a long time, Norbert Röttgen, we both live in Germany, is a member of the German Parliament, the Bundestag. He sits on the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee, which he led as chairman from 2014 to 2021. He has served as Germany's environment minister, and I remember being in background talks in Copenhagen with you at an important COP a long time ago. You may not remember that. And he is co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations. And joining us from Paris. I hope you all can see him, if he isn't on your screen just yet. Hubert Vardrin, I hope you can hear me. Hubert Vardrin was going to try to join us remotely. His flight, I understand, from Paris had a problem, and he wasn't able to join us. He was trying to be here, but perhaps he'll tune in a bit later, I hope so. But I will go ahead and give him a quick introduction. Not that he needs much of an introduction. He's the former Minister of Foreign Affairs in France. He's the founder of the Hubert Vardrin Council, a public affairs consultancy. He's written over a dozen books and served as president of the Institut François Mitterrand, a French president he was very closely associated with. So, enough introductions. Keeping with the WPC format, we'll hear some introductory remarks from each of our panelists, and then we'll get the discussion going, hopefully, integrating some input from the floor. So, as we're discussing up here, please reflect on any questions you might have and save them for... I'm hoping to bring you in during the last third of the event. So, without further ado, let's get going with our opening remarks. President Sakyagin. Thank you very much. Yeah, first of all, I would like to thank Tere Demombraal and his wonderful team and also people in government of UAE for hosting us and extending this beautiful... Yeah, having us here and giving us this opportunity. And this is really timely and informative gathering of world community and experts. And I'm learning a lot. I think Ukraine, since the start of the Russian aggression, they are conducting a textbook example of diplomacy for a long time. And I'm one of the concerned global citizens and particularly from the global south, I may say. And now this Ukrainian conflict coming to the new stage, I think. Yeah, now Ukraine is a little bit fading away from the front page because of the new conflict and new war. And because of that, I think Ukraine should do more. And everything depends on Ukraine. First of all, and Ukraine should have, in this war, a final say, because they are suffering a lot. And one thing we have to think about that what Ukrainians are really saying. Before that, I would like to say that I'm in a relation with Ukraine. I'm involved in three issues quite deeply. One is environmental damage. And also I'm one of the elders which was founded by the Nelson Mandela and others. And I'm the youngest elder. And we are involved with that. And we visited several times Ukraine and met Ukrainian leaders. And also we are involved with the crime of aggression and humanitarian mission. What Ukrainians are talking about, I think last year in November 2022, Ukrainian President Zelensky introduced his peace formula. That peace formula, if you see, they have 10 issues. But first five issues can be discussed now. Still they are discussing. They discussed in Jeddah and Malta. And the first issue from the first five thing about the first issue is the nuclear safety. And they are talking about the Zaproger issue and the Zaproger power plant. Second issue, of course, food security. We can talk and all world community, main players should pay more attention. Third issue, of course, energy security. And Ukraine energy power plants, almost half of them damaged. And they want to restore that. And that's an issue. And we are working with that very closely. Fourth issue, of course, prevention of ecocide. You know, because of the blow of the Kakaoha Dam and all those things consequently happened there. That's really big environmental damage and also land mining issue there. And we are working very closely with that. And I think other interested parties also follow this very closely. Fifth one, of course, it leads the prisoners and also deputies including those children. I think it should happen and we have to talk about that around it. But the second part, of course, there are five issues related with the Ukraine's territorial integrity and withdrawal of Russian troops and, you know, special tribunal and also the security structure and confirmation of the war's end including the signing of the document. Those are the Ukraine's peace formula. And also President Zelensky raised the issue to have peace summit in Ukraine and before that they are conducting international diplomacy. With that I will stop here for the sake of time and I hope next time you will give me a floor. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm very glad that you mentioned that 10-point peace plan from Ukraine because that represents Ukraine's perspective and we don't have a representative of Ukraine on our panel and it's extremely important that we include Ukraine's perspective in our discussions today. We did hear from their foreign minister yesterday and his words are still echoing I'm sure in this room. So let's move right on to the next speaker, Bogdan Klich. Thank you very much for having this chance to talk about the Ukrainian challenge. Ukrainian challenge for all of us again. I do remember our conversation last year when we were talking about the first conclusions that we could have after the first phase of this Ukrainian resistance against Russian second invasion on its territory. There are not so many good news from Russian Ukrainian front but there is at least one good news from Ukrainian neighborhood and I'd like to underline that because it refers to my country. I'd like you to know that Poland is back. That Poland is back. Poland is back after recent elections in which 74% of Poles decided to return to the community of values that for many years we attended and we were proud of. I mean this community consisting of democracy, liberal values, political freedoms, the rule of law of course and the rights of minorities and the government that was responsible for undermining this understanding of the West in Polish eyes and also in international public opinion will be soon removed from power. So our full integration with European Union will be continued, our cooperation with our main partners and good relationship with our neighbors will be recovered and of course our contribution to let's say to support Ukrainians as those who are fighting for those values will be continued. So after this declaration, important declaration from my national point of view I can move to the topic of this discussion. Once during this conference I described the situation after 2014 and the first invasion of Russian troops on Ukraine together with the creation of the Islamic State as a crestant of fire surrounding Europe from the East and from the South. Now unfortunately it exists and the scale of this fire is much bigger. The challenge is much harder for us, I mean for European and Euro-Atlantic community and the responses to that should be much wiser than after 2014 and 2015. So from that point of view I would say that the results of NATO summit in Vilnius, recent one, were a good sign for implementation of those decisions that were taken one year before, I mean during the Madrid summit. We should go this way to implement the new model of forces that was established after the Madrid summit, the new model of forces responsible for reinforcing those countries that would be attacked in the future and the eastern flank of the alliance belongs to this group of countries. Secondly, the number of forces, I mean this huge increase of forces from 30,000 to 300,000 response forces that would be responsible for this reinforcement should be achieved as quickly as possible. The new model of deterrence, this shift from deterrence by punishment to deterrence by denial should be also implemented as quickly as possible. And fourthly, the decision concerning regional plans, regional defense plans responsible not for reinforcement of a country or a group of countries attacked, but for defending every inch or every square meter of NATO territory should be also implemented. Those four major decisions of Madrid summit repeated by Vilnius summit and implemented to some extent this year are of major importance for security of Euro-Atlantic community. As for the European Union, I believe you know that the Russian invasion on Ukraine created a completely new space for the EU and the EU carried out a kind of Copernican revolution. Copernican revolution in the sense that it was the first time engaged in military support of a country not belonging to the European community. Secondly, that it decided to allocate such a huge amount of money for macroeconomic injections into this country budget as far as I remember it was 11.6 billion euros only by the European Union last year and for this year we estimate around 18 billion euros when for the military purposes we were able to allocate last year 5.6 billion euros not counting allocations, not counting financial supports coming from particular member states of the European Union. So this is the huge change in the activity of the European Union and it should be continued. Great, thank you very much. Important points being made there both in relation to the European Union and NATO. Also, I'm sure that many people will be glad to hear that Poland is back and I'm certain that Ukraine is glad to hear what you just said regarding the pledge of continued support for Ukraine because Poland has played a crucial role in strengthening Ukraine as it seeks to repel Russia's ongoing invasion. Very good. So, Zaki Adlaidi. The floor is yours. Zaki, is it Laki? Sorry. Zaki is my first name, Adlaidi is my last name. Of course, okay. My apologies. Okay, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here once again with virtually the same panelists to discuss the same topic. So I would like to introduce a kind of dynamic interpretation. And in a nutshell, I will tend to say that nothing has changed since last year, but virtually everything could change. Nothing has changed because we are confronted, and Ukraine is confronted to a violent Russian aggression which will unfortunately enter its third year next February, which is probably longer than we all expected. The second point, and it had been mentioned by Bogdan, the European support is stronger and is stronger than ever, and this point should be stressed. All in all, all in all, we have committed, I'm talking about commitment, not disbursement, which are lower, but in terms of commitment, we are around 80 billion euros for Ukraine. Through different mechanism, I'm not to enter into detail. And for the first time, our commitments are higher than the American ones. And I would like to insist on this because I had many distinctions with the Kiel Institute who constantly insisted on saying that the American commitment was much more important than the European one, and at the end of the day, they realized that our commitments were extremely important and they actually corrected the figures and they came to the figure that the European commitments were the higher. Of course, I'm not comparing the United States with Europe because virtually we are absolutely on the same line, fortunately, but it's important to say that we are on the forefront. And this idea matters if some unfortunate changes take place in the United States in the next future. So the other achievement is that the level of consensus among Europeans is still very strong, important, with, of course, some caveats, but by and large is extremely strong. And the reason why it is strong, it's because all European states see in Ukraine a challenge to their security and see in a unfortunate success of Russia, which I cannot imagine, a huge blow to our security. Even countries of Europe which were, let's have a, well, South-oriented are now changing their views and, let's say, pivoting towards Central Europe. So this is a huge change which will take place in the next decade. So Russia, unfortunately, is and will remain a security threat to Europe, and this view is now shared massively by the European. Two main achievements from the European side which have to be mentioned and reaffirmed, we succeeded in putting an end to our energy dependency vis-à-vis Russia, which is a huge achievement. And second, we are probably now on the verge of transferring the frozen assets, Russian assets to Ukraine. I hope that we will be able to give them the 300 billions of Russian assets which had been frozen. So in that, in a sense, everything is fine. But, yeah, but, the first, and we have to confess, and even from my personal perspective, the military situation is difficult and much, much more difficult than what expected, compared, for example, to last year. The cost incurred by Russia are absolutely huge, huge. And by Western standards or European standards, they are unbearable, unbearable. And if you see the last months in October, the casualties on the Russian side were absolutely huge, and among the most important casualties were in advance. So they are losing, they are losing. Now, what is unbearable by European standards is perfectly bearable by Russian standards. And we have to take this into account. And you need, in this regard, to read the formidable interview, a piece written by the chief of staff of Ukraine, General Zelensky, in The Economist, which is not extraordinarily optimistic on the evolution of the situation. And in fact, Putin is following, unfortunately, what Stalin said in the past, when he said that to a certain extent, and I'm sorry, because the sentence is terrible, quantity becomes a source of quality. But that's the way Russia behaves. So people are killed en masse, but they are killed, and new waves of soldiers arrive. And the problem is that the Ukrainians cannot work on the same footing. So there is an inequality. So to stop on this, so just to say that's going to be a long war, much probably longer than expected, and there is no doubt that, of course, a kind of fatigue may appear in Europe, but also in the United States, where the news are not terribly good, but which will put the Europeans in front of their responsibility. So I will come, if you allow me, later on, on the interaction, which seems to be extremely important between what's going on in Ukraine and what's going on in the Middle East. Thank you very much. It is important to point out that European support has been extraordinary. U.S. support as well. I think Ukraine has emphasized that as well. The interview that you referred to in The Economist I highly recommend, if any of you are interested in this topic, reading further into it, the term that's used in that interview quite a bit is stalemate, and I was rather surprised to hear the Chief of Staff referring openly to that. We'll hope to come back to those points you were making. Thank you very much. Norbert Rötgen. Thank you for the invitation. It's a pleasure and honor for me. Perhaps let me start by reiterating the most important thing in my view that has not changed, and this is the meaning of this war of Russia against Ukraine, and this meaning is that the outcome of this war will determine the fate of Europe for decades to come. Because this war is about whether the return of war in Europe as a land war will be accepted and rewarded as a political instrument in the 21st century. If that were to happen, if war turns out to become a political success, war will remain in Europe, and of course the world will and would draw a lesson from the success of war as a political instrument. And in a way, the world already is learning because the geopolitical struggle between China and the United States in a way functions as a protective umbrella for regional actors to just apply war as a political instrument, which we have seen in the southern Caucasus and which we are now seeing in the Middle East. So under this umbrella, war is coming back in regional conflicts. What we have seen so far is also the consequence for the Europeans and for the world, I would say, is a definition of victory. Victory means that there has to be a victory over war as a political instrument. This is really faithful. This is crucially decisive that we beat war as an instrument. This understanding of the historic dimension of this war has unified I could even say reunified the West has injected a historic sense again. Has contributed members to NATO. So this really has constituted a new West in responding to the return of war into the 21st century and at least into Europe. What we have seen is I slightly disagree. I think we have seen that again in the situation of a European land war, the US against all the intentions of the United States which intended to pivot to Asia was drawn back to Europe and is acting as the number one security power in Europe. The European security power is the United States of America. We are lucky to say this and we should also say it's embarrassing for Europe that we have to say that. However, the war in the Middle East is possibly changing also this role of the United States. It's not only distracting public attention from the war in Ukraine to the Middle East which is good for Vladimir Putin. There's also mounting pressure on the President from the Republican Party and influential elements. For example, now the Speaker of the House are mounting pressure not only to reduce support to Ukraine and replace the financial and military support of the United States from Ukraine to the Middle East. So there are increasing doubts whether the United States will serve in this role as the number one security provider for America. This is only one reason why we are not going to see an end of this war until the presidential elections. My view is that Vladimir Putin, irrespective of this event is neither willing nor able to withdraw from Ukraine. I think he is beyond this point. He will stay in and he has to stay in because this war which started as a war to re-establish a Russian empire in Europe has become now a war about his very personal political survival at least as Russian President perhaps even personal survival so he is not able to withdraw even if he wished to withdraw at least he will wait until the presidential election and if Trump gets re-elected we will see how the strength of the Europeans are. I doubt that we have become the number one security supplier. I don't talk about commitments but I would talk about supply and delivery and there of course America is far out of the Europeans if Trump gets re-elected and even if he not only were to reduce military support but perhaps strike a deal with Putin and start an economic war with China then we were to see where Europe is and because this can't be excluded as a possibility at least the Europeans should start to prepare for that. My lesson now after more than one and a half years of this war is that we really have to wake up to appreciate and recognize, not appreciate to recognize this war as a European war and that the demand and the necessity that Europe enables itself to provide security for our Europe has become ever more urgent and we have to urgently prepare the clock is ticking for that and if we are again unprepared for the events we can't exclude but we can clearly foresee we will wake up in a disaster situation and then we will contribute to the re-establishment of war as a political instrument even in Europe. That was my point. Thank you very much. The point about a victory for Putin would be a victory for the notion of war as a political instrument that helps define a little bit what success would look like in ending this war. I've been told that we can't get the connection up to I've seen a sign on our monitors here across the front that there is a stable connection could not be formed and so I'm afraid that we will have to proceed without input from Ube Badrin but if you can hear me we hope to see you maybe next time in any case we will proceed with the panel that we have which we've got a lot on the table already we've already explored quite a bit of territory important territory for thinking about the trajectory of the Ukraine war because while we cannot talk about how it will end we can talk about how we might want it to end and we can talk about how Ukraine of course wants it to end and what the principal factors are that will determine the trajectory move along. The commitment from the European Union other European players also players abroad not just within the European Union but the United States is absolutely critical within the context of NATO so I want to get the conversation going and then I'm going to bring in some input from the floor as soon as we can. I want to just first put a question to Ibegdorch Tzakyagin because you look at this from outside of the European Union Mongolia has a special geographical and political location in this discussion. I want to ask you first about not the future but where we are right now regarding the West and this war. The West's leaders failed to anticipate and prevent this war. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 how much has that in itself damaged the West and it's standing in the world? I think this war is not between West and South I mean between the global West and global South. I think this war is actually a long fought war between autocracy and democracy. I personally personally I was when I was in office I was very closely working with Putin and I think I really regret that Putin started this war I think one of the many reasons if that free Ukraine if that democratic Ukraine if that Ukraine with Europe integrated with Europe if Ukraine became more successful it would be that successful Ukraine would be bad example for Russia for his rule. I think because of that Putin started this war to punish and my country actually since 1990 between Russia and China circled by Russia and China only democracy only surviving 33 years democracy there means that between us there is only one country free democratic Ukraine free democratic Mongolia in terms of that I think this war has global implication if we lose I think we means the free world lose in Ukraine those autocrats will be encouraged if Ukraine prevails free world prevails I think those autocrats will be discouraged even in Russia even in Asia even in Latin America even in Africa because of that this war has really big global implication of course this war has original implication that European and all we are talking about and we call Ukraine is a gate to the Europe I think Europe I say originally structure and continent they don't want to keep their enemy inside their gate I think that enemy should be outside of gate I think because of that Ukraine also fighting for that and I think since the start of this war actually world community was very supporting Ukrainian cause and also blaming Russian aggression that United Nations 141 nations actually blamed Russian aggression only 5 countries including Russia they supported it I think still this kind of support hard solid but there are some cracks and because of that I started that Ukraine has brilliant diplomacy and they have to do more and also I have for the Ukraine I have one idea that Ukraine should be more engaging less reactionary and also more engaging in what sense more engaging with all over the world with the old countries you know they have to rally they have to push for the new diplomacy yesterday we heard the foreign minister I think the answer was brilliant and question was of course brilliant questions and his answer was really good and Ukrainians are feeling that something is changing there even in Europe there are some countries and because of that I think Ukraine needs more more engaging also Ukraine should be more graceful also Ukraine should be more thankful to the world community and I think this is the most important and important question of course OK thank you I'm going to bring in some if you have any questions start thinking about raising your hand I'm going to put one critical question basically our headline question to the panel before we bring in that from the audience and give each of you a quick opportunity to respond war is in the way that it's being prosecuted and the way the support that it's been getting the Ukraine has been getting from Europe and the rest of the world in the United States above all how is how is this war affecting the West's status? Okay I have to disagree on first the way you are framing the debate and to disagree respectfully with our Mongolian friends for the following reason I think that it would be a terrible mistake to frame the conflict in Ukraine in terms of the Western world against the rest of the world it's a terrible mistake it's a terrible mistake and the high representative I'm very proud to work with him is doing his best not to frame the problem in those terms why because the crux of the matter is the respect of territorial integrity of an independent state which independence had been recognized by the United Nations and by a large number of big powers including Russia so you start saying that only democratic states are liable for that is a terrible mistake all attempts aiming at putting the West on one side and the rest of the world are doomed to failure and this is one of the worst mistake so I will never ever talk in terms of the West against the rest that's the way some people would like to see us framing the problem but we are actually I'm surprised because you are constantly talking about the West it's in the title I didn't make it up sorry I'm referring to Europe sorry I'm introducing a sort of debate I'm talking about Europe the less politically speaking I'm talking politically speaking because I'm in a sense a political actor the less we frame the problem in terms of the West against the rest the more we we gain support but because when you are in front of the country is from the global south okay I can't tell you the objections they are making on Ukraine and it is independent from the nature of the government okay I mean we talked to hundreds of governments all over the world democratic non-democratic leftist and non-leftist and virtually and virtually they have the the the the same view what are their views they are different views I'm sure they do I mean this is an important debate and important points that you're bringing up the whole question about the global south and how it's perceiving what's going on and I take your point also on on the West it's is it a useful term or not I you know I'm I'm not one to really say that it's a wonderfully useful term but I think it's also important to point out that we're not necessarily talking about a binary opposition here the West and the rest but rather as I defined the West just for the purpose of our conversation at the beginning a group of mainly liberal democracies who hold the principles of a rules-based international order which includes territorial integrity as being very sacrosanct anyway there's that part but when we and we can define it as in terms of autocracy and democracy as that sort of conflict but the point I think we're trying to look at here is whatever you want to call those countries who that Ukraine and those countries supporting it represent whether you want to call them I don't know you can y'all let you use whatever term you wish to use on that side Ukraine's side to use a neutral term and whatever Russia represents in this terms as Norbert Burtken described a threat to the notion of how did he put it of using war as a political instrument that this is that that idea be coming into conflict so just to make sure that we're not really setting up a false dichotomy here with the West and and the rest in our discussion I wanted in but I know I just we have we have 27 minutes left I do want to get input from the audience and I'm hope perhaps they'll direct some questions to you but before we do that Zachi lady has indicated is excuse me a book done clique has indicated his wish to intervene I wanted to underline that according to my understanding of this conflict and another I mean a Hama's aggression against Israel we can talk and we should talk about the West because we as we are united not only by our similar interests but we are community of values and those values are in the basis of our political systems they are introduced into the Washington Treaty preamble they were introduced into the Lisbon Treaty article 2nd so they are they express you know the unity and cohesion of our community that's why this war of Russia against Ukraine is also the war against the West we are we were threatened by Russian president Vladimir Putin on the eve of the second aggression when ultimatum was presented to the to NATO let's not forget about about that because it was in effect the attempt the attempt to reverse the the history of recent 20 20 years secondly we shouldn't divide the let's say the involvement of the United States from the involvement of the European partners because the basis for this coherent reaction of the West after the 24th of February 2022 was the meeting by president Biden with European partners in June 2021 when he visited the first time Europe with this message America is back so it was the let's say reconstruction of the cohesion of of NATO the role of the United States in Europe as a major provider of security to European partners and thirdly the cooperation with the European Union by the United States that was not at this level before United States in June 2021 recognized European Union as an indispensable partner for the security issues not only security but many security issues so those three factors should be taken into consideration because they were let's say undermined by president Putin's aggression against Ukraine and very briefly Ukrainians are also dying for for Western democratic liberal values they decided in 2013 belong to the community of this community of values and it was the beginning of their problems with huge problems with Russian Federation let's not forget about that that that Ukraine fights also for democratic set of values thank you very much I'm I want to bring it okay okay okay okay great all right because I would have brought you in here with a question anyway um questions from the audience so are I see one two three hands we're gonna collect three questions and then move from there we'll begin here in the front well my name is free pet Flüger I'm German I've been a colleague of Norbert Rotkin in the German Bundestag for 20 years and I would first of all say to Bogdan he was very modest because not only Poland is back but he is back he was re-elected by 71% which is a wonderful victory and we should mention that and and Bogdan I want to address that what you just said you said NATO has been strengthened by this war there's new unity u.s. is back stronger in Europe than ever and Europe has lived up to that challenge but if I hear the undertones in this discussion I think we have to put some question marks and I would like to be avocados Diaboli and point a picture and I'm hopefully that you can bring forward the counter arguments well the West is pretty weak you're right NATO pretty good but look to the United States and we see this enormous polarization and we don't know whether mr. Trump will will win next time sir I'm coming very short to the question you the same thing look to to Israel and the war in Israel and the EU position to that so the question is whether we are not well advised to to follow mr. Zaki ladies position not to say it is just the West if we want regulations in foreign affairs we should not say it is only the West who is asking for that if we do that I think we found ourselves pretty much isolated in this world look at this bricks meeting that we had people are fed up with this polarization they want regulations they do not want to that war wins as Norbert has put it but if we put it as this is a Western value or a Western point I think we are not doing the right thing thank you very much this is obviously is feeding into the whole discussion about the global south and the West and in these terms whether they're useful and what the perceptions are around the world and whether we need to maybe come up with new terms so let's we're gonna take two more questions we'll allow you of course to answer to that in a moment but first the gentleman in the one two three four fourth rope and then we'll take one more question from that side I think I see you thank you hero Akita from Tokyo so definitely defeat of Ukraine is bad scenario but maybe worst scenario is Simon simultaneous war in Europe and Asia obviously there are many many focal point like a time on straight or Korean Peninsula so my question is how should we avoid the same scenario of World War one or World War two in which war in Europe spilled over to Asia especially World War two spilled over within two years after German invaded Poland 1939 then two years after that Japan attack power harbor so timeline was very very fast so my question is how should we both win both in Ukraine but also deter China simultaneously thank you okay so we've got the whole question about the West again emphasizing that but we've also got now the question of spillover how do we avoid that and there's a gentleman there in the home we'll take that question and then oh move over to the front here sorry just a moment Volker Pertis from Berlin if Norbert Rutkin is right and I think he is that Europe has to prepare itself from now to provide security for fellow Europeans threatened by a power that doesn't respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its neighbors if that is the case what does it mean and I would like you Norbert and probably your fellow Europeans to further elaborate what does that mean for the institutional development of Europe what does it mean for budgets and what does it mean for the narrative which your party and others will have to pursue in the coming European elections thank you well that's a that's a complex question we could put together a whole panel on that thank you Volker Pertis and we will take one additional question tell you Montréal Montréal had had drawn my attention to a lady in the front well thank you Elizabeth Gigu from France I'm very happy that at the beginning of the discussions Bogdan and Zaki and Norbert have given us some kind some science of optimism in this very gloomy and worrying context so I want to come back to the European Union as they did at the beginning after the war and of course it depends on how long this war will last and on which conditions it will end but after the war supposing that what we hope here is that Ukraine wins the war and can negotiate on acceptable terms some kind of peace what should be in the view of the panelists what should be the degree of autonomy strategic autonomy of the European Union vis-à-vis the United States and given the fact that the European Union obviously will support the massive cost of the reconstruction of Ukraine thank you so there's a lot on the table here much of it is institutional focused on on the European Union concerns about that and the whole question of strategic autonomy which has been around a big discussion for a long time but what we get a feeling for here and also that the broader global debate because this does plug into the global debate about the West and what it is what it stands for and what's at stake here but also the question of this possibly spilling over there has been a great deal of discussion about any lessons that maybe other countries are taking from the Ukraine war about how to pursue its own foreign policy interests by violating another another areas territorial integrity so let's get some responses from from the panelists again a lot on from panel out on the table who would like to begin now Norbert Whitner yes thank you and perhaps I would pick the question of Horker-Peters he asked if if what does European security mean in terms of institutions budgets and narrative and I would answer these questions in reverse order because when you start with a narrative the answers follow out of this out of this of the response to the narrative yet I think there is space and room and necessity for a European narrative and only if you think about the possibility of an election of Donald Trump which I consider as the nightmare as such we have the war in Europe we have the war on the Middle East but this this this implosion of the West from inside there is this is the real threat to the West not from the outside but from the inside so if you just consider this for a moment as a possibility which can't be excluded then the narrative is absolutely clear we have to provide as Europeans for the security of our Europe and security has become also indifferent in in other areas the new paradigm there is people feel scared they they they feel not protected in different areas in the economy but also in in this area of physical military security so I think this is the core narrative we have to develop and we can sell because it is the truth it is what we are facing that we have to provide and care for ourselves and we can't rely only and solely as we have done in the decade of the Cold War on America and I say and I add even if if Joe Biden were to be re-elected there will never be a time as we have seen in the Cold War when a Europe was only the receiver of European security he will come back at some time to the new priorities of American policy which is the reconstruction of the American economy and of course the competition with China so either way we will have to face this necessity and if once we have made this clear that this is the historic challenge of our time for Europe then the ensuing questions get the answer of course the budget has to follow the essence what is necessary for our time and the institutions will adapt to to a policy which is necessary so I'm not scared about that may I ask you though just to intervene do you see the political will within the among the European Union member states to come up with the agreement and the resources to create those to strengthen those institutions particularly on the military and defense side because right now the European Union does not even have that identity outside of NATO yes yeah so what we can say that we have remarkably developed so the the state of mind and the state of policies after the war compared to the pre-war time is fundamentally different for example Germany I really can say our society our attitudes have as profoundly as quickly changed as it has never occurred in the post-war period however I admit not sufficiently if you if you measure it with a past profoundly impressively if you measure it against what is necessary insufficiently so my answer to your question is we could act out of insight and foresight I do not expect this unfortunately what I fear is that we will act and more react out of necessity we could avoid it we could be better prepared but I think it's not how to predict the circumstances that Europe has to bring itself to a level to a level of responsibility because we are forced to act and then Europe is acting quite quite convincingly I would just point out at this point that the need that many see for reforming institutional reform of the European Union also in terms of its decision-making process when it comes to foreign and security policy if it's going to be only unanimous decision-making that's going to be a difficult ask okay we'll bring in psyche lady please yeah I'm I'm always amazed in such a debate to see to what extent the Europeans the European Union is constantly underrated okay and your comments which are coming from a non-European view but it's perfectly acceptable are the perfect illustration of this I've lived longer you started talking about the the limited effort but I think that mr. Rogan made it very clear I mean the changes which took place in Germany are absolutely impressive at the beginning of the war in Ukraine people were laughing at the Germans because they had in mind to just send helmets to the Ukrainian five thousand now now now Germany is the first provider of military aid to Ukraine behind the United States okay huge and the quality and the quality of the German equipment is outstanding so I as a European I'm very proud to defend what the Germans have done and the changes which took place and even in regard to their energy dependency what Germany did is absolutely formidable so I remember meetings of the gimmick just before the beginning of the war and journalists coming to the HRP and telling him but how can you have expect having a common position of Russia whereas you are all divided but he told him wait a minute wait to the end of the of the meeting and you you'll see and what happened after the meeting that was the decision to take very harsh sanctions against against Russia so in terms of military effort a change is taking place but of course it's not going to happen within a year or two years it's a sea change and let me just come to three question but in fact I don't see a lot of disagreement among us this change just to you know but the word Titan vendor I believe is something that has been has been put out there now that on in a result of this on the EU US relations I think that we do agree that this relationship is absolutely crucial fundamentals nobody's this they I mean putting into question the importance of this relationship but I think that we do all agree now that we need to make a a a a European effort on our side and because we cannot foresee what could happen in in the future now the point on which I disagree respectfully with you concerns the global south I mean if you go to the global south and tell them that in Ukraine we are defending Western values and you need to share the values you're going to face a huge opposition so you should certainly not bring to them the Ukrainian issue through the lenses of democracy because you have to put the emphasize on the integrity the territorial integrity of nation-state and in fact you have democracies which are going to tell you well that's your problem in structures and if you take Latin America why I mean is it part of the West or not is it part of the Western art okay so if you take in Latin America I mean most of countries almost all of them are democratic countries but their narrative and their interpretation of the conflict is not very different from Asian or African countries they tell okay there was an aggression but there are so many aggression in the rest of the world and secondly it's an aggression but don't expect from us more than condemning the aggression because we have our own agenda and we don't want to see the Ukrainian agenda hijacked by other issues which are much more important for us and this narrative and this perception is widely present in the in the world and it doesn't matter if countries are democratic and undemocratic African Latin Americans or Asian it's simply not the truth I mean you have to look at the reality of the world as it is and not as you expect it to be thank you look like this perhaps you can pick up on some of those points and also maybe speak to the the question that was raised concerning the the risk of spillover in this because that's a quite great concern together with Robert Gates the United States faces more serious threats to its security today than it has faced in decades perhaps ever it has not before faced four allied adversaries at the same time Russia China North Korea and Iran whose combined nuclear arsenal could be nearly twice the size of the US within a few years this is Bob Gates of course this is the specific situation of the US responsible not only for security in Euro Atlantic area but also engaged in other parts of of the globe but let's not forget you know that that to some extent this is also our problem because the West consists as we know of two parts of the Atlantic Ocean that's why I absolutely aware that there is a difference between those threats coming from the east and from the south from these do we have traditional conventional threat in the form of military aggression full-scale aggression in the neighborhood of of Europe when in the south we have we face more asymmetric more asymmetric threats because nobody can predict that even the bad evolution of Hamas Israeli war can be can create a create a military danger for for Europe there can be massive migration flows there can be a next wave of terrorist attacks on our soil in European Union there can be various cuts of energy supplies to to Europe but those threats are different that's why we should be prepared for with different responses to those threats when we speak about about the US possible policy or strategy after new elections presidential elections in the United States yes this is one of the main challenges for us for the for the West and nobody can predict what will happen in the US so we should be prepared to keep Americans in as we kept Americans in during the first Donald Trump's presidency of course political cohesion of the Alliance was undermined because of Donald Trump's approach but thanks to the commanders great commanders of the US armed forces NATO cooperation military cooperation was going ahead what we should do what should we do in Europe referring to what Elizabeth asked about this is the Spanish presidency right now that concentrated our thinking about strategic autonomy only on social economic issues we abandoned this military political military aspect during class last month because of this good cooperation with the United States because mainly of the Russian Ukrainian war we should keep thinking in those categories social economic categories about about the European strategic autonomy not forgetting only one sentence not forgetting about the security and defense union that could be achieved according to the existing treaties because there is no mood for changes of treaties in European Union but we can go farther with European defense and security union within European Union this is one of the possible directions thank you we only have one minute and 30 seconds left so I'd like to give a picture to a targeting a chance to intervene yeah you know I think to live free it's a universal desire not the western or eastern or southern desire this is universal desire why we choose freedom I think because of that we want to live free and in my country freedom is non-negotiable because freedom equals to our independence freedom equals to our our right to exist and I know in the West you may see some socialists or even communists even friends of autocrats I think it's not new thing but desire to live free is very important that's universal thing but other thing I really concerned that this is a middle eastern conflict and also there are flash conflicts and in Asia South China Sea Taiwan and Korean Peninsula and also North Koreans are delivering that arsenal that weapons they say almost 1000 containers of weapons and I said I read that those things little yeah concerning and maybe if there is more flash points it may next in Asia if that come this war or conflict become more global I think that's nightmare because of that we have to talk about more issues related with the global things not the of course we have to pay attention regionally thank you thank you very much you ended directly on zero zero congratulations for that we are out of time I it's obvious that we could continue discussion for a long time you said there's much need for discussion fortunately we are at a place where we have some brilliant minds and some some really experienced policymakers and analysts to help us put things into context I really appreciate your input from all of you I was hoping for a frank and open discussion we got that it's a really really difficult subject I hope we can follow it up perhaps and bilaterally at some point I want to thank our audience for being with us today and feel please feel free to you know to continue our discussion maybe in the later on thank you