 Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Paulie Murphy. I'm a senior fellow at the Institute, and this afternoon we have the great pleasure of welcoming Dr. Fiona Hill with us. Fiona is a senior fellow at the Center on the US and Europe in the Brookings Institution in Washington. She has written a very interesting book called There is Nothing Here for You Here, or There's Nothing for You Here, to be more exact, which gives an account of her odyssey, I suppose you could call it, from Bishop Auckland and County Durham to Washington DC by way of St Andrews University in Scotland, Harvard University and the Brookings Institution, and on the way at my post in the Security Council of the United States. Fiona, you're very welcome. I should say you're very welcome back to Ireland because we had the honor of speaking to you already. Thanks, Parg, it's really great to be with you. I wish I was there in person actually, but it's very nice to even be there in Zoom. Fiona, as I was saying, your book, and I was mentioning to you already, my father could have said to me, as your father said to you, there is nothing for you here. I come from rural County Cork, and indeed there was nothing for me. In some ways, there were parallels between your experience growing up and many Irish people. On the other hand, there were significant differences because you grew up in, let's say, what was formerly a relatively flourishing, mining and steelmaking area. We grew up in rural Ireland where there was and never had been anything much except agriculture. So if there was nothing for us there, we in fact had to emigrate. I'm a member of a family of six, five of us emigrated, and four came back, so there's been a lot of change in the meantime. And you put a lot of emphasis on the importance of education quite rightly. In fact, you end the book with a series of recommendations and what might be done to promote talent like that you yourself had. And I find it all very interesting. And you're putting together of the United States, the UK and Russia is also very interesting in that I suspect that what is behind it is that these three countries above all, where the prime sites of what would be called the classical revolution industries, admittedly in Russia it was lazy and it was forced by Stalin, but it suffered in the Donbass and elsewhere from the same problem that you suffered from in County Durham. And it's quite striking also I think that in all three countries you forgive me for saying so but you have the equivalent of make America grace again. I mean, I'm not talking about Joe Biden obviously but 74 million Americans think that this should be done. And what is happening in Russia today is another example of make Russia great again I'll bring back the Russia that we all know and love. I would think that a policy of having your cake and eat is is a good description of an empire, and in many cases, and when we're trying to judge your native country, we sometimes think that the ambition is to go back to 1870. I don't know what you think about that kind of sort. You know, I think that you've just touched a program on those parallels, you know because obviously I did have in mind, you know when I was writing the book also about this, you know whole shift in the UK, you know post Brexit as well with the whole idea of global Britain, I think we're saying that there's kind of some connotations that have you know perhaps not the most promising in the complex world that we're in now. And of course, you know sitting, you know where you are in Ireland and Dublin, you know that imperial history obviously has a pretty different perspective right you know it's kind of you know we always talk of Ireland. And I'm incredible amount of truth not hyperbole is the first colony, you know the place that you know kind of England practiced out on first. And, you know in terms of the kind of colonial rule that it would take around the world. We're still in the struggles now of the legacy of this just as we are in Russia with Ukraine. You know, if we think about you know what's going on in Ukraine today and you mentioned the Donbass and there's an irony I mentioned in the book by the way that during the miners strike in the UK 1984 which is the time that I decided to study Russian. The miners unions, you know such as they were in the Soviet Union, though, you know heavily orchestrated by the Russian Soviet states, basically raise money for the miners of the UK and some miners money from the Donbass ended up in the Donbass and Donbass of course now being the contested area in Ukraine, and I got some of that money to go to study Russian for a summer program as a daughter of a coal miner so I feel very responsible now at a big debt to the miners of the Donbass and I'm really sorry about the predicament that they're in. But you know this is that still dealing with the fallout from the imperial period. And you know all of the, as you said the rapid industrialization, and you know kind of regional historic differences as well as geographic differences. You said that Ukraine isn't really a country that you know part of it was in Eastern Europe you know carved up by the various other empires of Austro-Hungary and the German Prussian Empire in the past and others under the Russian Empire. Well you know you could say that about all kinds of countries and you know you could say that about Ireland. You could say that about Poland you could say that about actually the entire United Kingdom because the borders have changed Scotland was independent. You know for a long periods of time, you know, pick your point in history and you've got a completely different configuration, but the grievances today that have you know pushed us forward to this idea of make you know whichever country great again are really rooted in the period I talked about in the book that you've described that period after, you know World War II where there was the big buildup of mass manufacturing industry as well on top of you know earlier periods. In the UK you end up with a nationalization of industry that you don't really have in the United States but you do have that big buildup of auto manufacturing and steel and also coal in the United States is recovery from the war and moving into mass production. And in the Soviet Union of course you do have that huge buildup the development of the oil and gas sectors you said under Stalin but going up until the 1970s, and then when the economy changes. And when Americans experience this as well, you go into a whole new phase from the, you know, 70s and 80s onwards, and it's that sense of dislocation as you move away from heavy industry union privatized nationalized industries which happened in the UK, as well as in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They get an awful lot of people who find themselves that they've lost their work. They've lost the culture and the identity group around that work, they're kind of all adrift. So somebody sort of steps up and says look, you know I'm going to fix this for you. This is the fault of globalization or this is the fault of this group or that group. We're going to fix this. You know we're going to find using the title of my book something for you here again we're going to put everything back for you it becomes, you know very seductive and it's that kind of impulse, you know to restore things that helps to lead towards this kind of phenomenon we're dealing with today. We are missing to mention some housekeeping items, which I should do now, and that is to tell our audience that the event is on the record, both our exchanges and the question and answer afterwards which should be in about 15 to 20 minutes. And that your questions can be posed using the question and answer function at the bottom of your screen, and also that the discussion can be followed on Twitter, using the hashtag at IEA. And to continue a bit on the path we were on, Fiona. It is also striking isn't it that the northeast of France and notoriously the rural and Germany and southern Belgium were also sites of this kind of early capitalism, but we don't seem to have witnessed the same kind of reaction there. And it seems to me that, although it wasn't perhaps designed to meet that precisely this eventuality, the establishment of the European coal and steel community in 1952 might have something to do with it because it took the edge of the competition between France and Germany, and it had a social component which is very important in the European Union. And there's a really great observation. In fact, you know I haven't had somebody make that before, and I'm really grateful for you to point that out. Because you know I have myself, you know when I set up to write the book I was going to do it quite differently I was going to do more of a comparative work then the pandemic hit and I got stuck where I'm still sitting talking to you now. I did a few more, you know research and so that was how I actually came upon using my own story and just focusing on the UK, you know, Russia and the United States and how there was very similar manifestations for you know these reasons. And then in a broader comparative perspective I've been thinking about since then. I mean in France we have seen a populist uprising and regional differentiation but it's been more on that kind of divide you started with on the urban rural divide. We've seen the yellow vest movement in France that we could you know kind of says a sort of a manifestation of grievance and, you know that there has been some, you know, populist, you know, elements of that and you know kind of Macron himself had to play the populist you were going out to town halls across all of France and engaging with people to, you know, try to manage that that was really that divide of rural urban and the French provinces feeling they left out of, you know whatever's happening in Paris in Germany. You've had more of an East West split exactly as you said not the old industrial heartland of West Germany, but the East German parts, where you saw the rise of the alternative for Deutschland, because they were left out of that earlier and it's really been the stresses and strength since unification in, you know, 1990 that we've seen playing out. Of course there are lots of regional divides in Germany, as well historically, you know between North and South, not just the East and West that has persisted because of, you know, the divisions during World War Two. I think that's spot on. And that point about funds becomes very relevant now because we're going to have another major economic dislocation we're in the middle of it COVID has accelerated it. Because of the nature of changing work arises artificial intelligence, you know we're going to go into so much more automation, all kinds of jobs have changed. So we're going to have to figure out how do we, and I get back to that theme of education in the book and that you mentioned that you and I benefited from. How do we give people the skills it doesn't have to be through universities but technical training vocational training apprenticeships to deal with the way that work is going to shift. I think Ireland has actually done a bang up job on that. I mean, you know admittedly you've still got you know out migration and other issues but you know, it's reinvented itself, and you have been you know the center of a lot of innovation, high tech industry, financial services I mean Brexit seen a lot of people moving to Dublin, you know, away from London, for example. But you know that's, we're going to have to think about that so how do we fund that. How do we think about how we take the edge off this next transition. And then to go a little further into the case of Russia and, well, we all know that Vladimir Putin said some years ago that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the sense of the you know, in some ways you want to understand what he's saying, but he's more recent actions, put a different age on it. And we know that Tony Lincoln and Sergey Lavrov have met today and apparently the Palavres are going to continue until next week. It's very difficult to figure out what exactly is going on, except that the massing of military formations close to a border is a very dangerous lever to use in negotiations. And if indeed that is all that is intended, but even if that is all that is intended it's still a very dangerous maneuver, because things can go wrong all too quickly but what's your take on honest. I agree with the same take that you do because, you know, there is that, you know, possibility that this is an elaborate bluff and a lot of people are suggesting that that, you know, kind of look you know it would be insane to invade Ukraine again, try to take Kiev, you know move even into the western parts of Ukraine there's all kinds of scenarios. You know, we see Putin and the Russian military have amassed enough forces, equipment men, you know, and other weaponry there to give themselves a range of options you know we've just heard that the Russian Navy is sending three amphibious assault vessels from the Baltic to the Sea, I mean, talk about upping the anti there and suggesting that you're going to invade Odessa take Mariupol, well actually they'd have to go through the Sea of Vazov, you know, for that you know so what you know what is all of this about I mean people are pouring over maps, people are pouring over satellite imagery and trying to you know figure out the full extent of this, and that is what exactly as you said what makes it dangerous, because Putin is not the kind of person who wants to be seen to be just bluffing, although he understands a bluff and the power of a bluff and saber rattling and all the rest of it. But you know, Putin's stock in trade has been to make good in some way on a threat. You know, he wasn't bluffing the first time when he seized and annexed Crimea and sparked off, you know the war in Donbas, and in fact you know they did try to set off insurgencies you know uprisings on the side of the current conflict zone in Donbas and Luchans going right all the way down, you know, into Ukrainian territory, you know to the approaches of Crimea, Mariupol, you know, Herzog, you know, Kharkiv and it didn't work out you know immediately after 2014 I think we've forgotten a lot of that. We've seen them intervene in Syria when we weren't expecting it, you know, quite so much I mean there's all kinds of the invaded Georgia in 2008. People, you know, basically underestimate Putin or you know kind of basically try to call the bluff he often makes good on it. So, as you're saying that we're in a very dangerous situation and of course we have to be very careful ourselves about, you know, before we underreacted. Now you know there is a chance of overreaction and setting up one of these escalatory dynamics. But you know that is on Putin because you know he's the guy who decided to amass all of these forces and you know people are seeing moving into Belarus as a game changer now, but that's the thing he keeps changing the game. He's also, you know, threatening, sending, you know, hypersonic, you know, cruise missiles to Cuba and Venezuela, you know, to Western Hemisphere there's been, you know, all kinds of commentary from people like Sergey Lavrov and others about Japan and Beijing and you know the United States positions there so you know you're seeing a pretty huge based maximalist approach here that I agree with he was extraordinary dangerous. And it is perhaps the more frightening in that the fact to Russia is preeminently a military power. Apart from its oil and gas reserves which makes some of the important players and that came along with the United States. It is, I think, between the two of them, 90% of all the nuclear capacity in the world. And it Putin, as no doubt he is, is considering what the position of his country in the longer term is. It wouldn't be surprising that he would see or try to see what he could make of this particular trump used the word that he has. Because I think in the long term questions arise about what exactly the position of Russia in the overall world scheme of things is. I was very struck some months ago, we had a speaker from Russia, who talked to us about the situation in Russia today and she was very, she was very frank. It is quite clear that she and I suspect a lot of other Russians are very concerned about Russia becoming a kind of hostage of China and also losing what to her was it's essential European identity. I think that that's a real risk and one of the things that one might recommend to Russia if we were in a more rational environment at the moment was getting their own strategic balance appropriately. They will need strategic autonomy in the context of China eventually. We all are trying to grapple with how we manage China, although I think China's own trajectory is also I think somewhat uncertain. Given demographic changes, the lingering and ongoing effects of the pandemic which have certainly affected their economy just as much as ours. I mean these recent statistics coming out of China about now the kind of, you know, slow down in growth and you know that in the population, which is obviously going to slow down you know growth in the economy. I think it was like 4% growth or something in the last year so a real, you know, diminution there, their continued focus on zero COVID policy, negative vaccines have not been obviously all that successful. And, you know, their own decoupling and we've been talking about the US decoupling from China but China's been decoupling as well I mean in a literal way I mean it got me to get in at the moment. I must say how this goes on with the Olympics of course. But you know that there is, though, you know that decision of Russia's as we know we're pointing out here to kind of go all in with China. They'll say well that's, you know, the United States fault and Europe's fault for sanctions, etc. But you know kind of processing this sense of impending doom confrontation and war with the Europe doesn't really help, does it? And, you know, I think that UK Defence Secretary called this out in the last couple of days in an essay and a statement when he said, you know, Russia is not encircled by NATO. Only 6% of Russian territory abuts NATO countries. The rest of it is Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China and then the Arctic and then a bit, you know, to the United States over, you know, in the North Pacific, you know, the Aleutian Islands, etc. I mean, this is, this is kind of, you know, not really to basically keep this going. We know why and, you know, I am sympathetic to, you know, Russia's ever, you know, enduring sense of vulnerability, you know, historically and, you know, the kind of the way that they articulate this isn't the way to go to basically build a more secure stable environment around you, especially when, you know, the Russians themselves have a lot of historical legacy of friction with China, including the fact that Chinese do still see Russia as one of the colonial powers along with the UK and, you know, many others who took some of Chinese territory in the 19th century. And indeed, I know that unofficially 1.5 million square kilometers of formal versus territory is contested by China. It appears in schoolbooks. Exactly. I mean, even though they signed that agreement really quickly in 2000 and, you know, kind of reaffirmed it all the time. I think that's also another reason why Russian postures so much, right? He wants to show to China that it's a force to be reckoned with, that it's not a, you know, a lesser power on the world stage. And it wants to preclude the idea that China might predate on territory and say, hey, give us that back again as well. This could be as a Ruslan first there. But it struck me that what George Kennan said in 1997 about the expansion of NATO and the consequences of doing it. He reads very professionally now. It was perhaps a mistake, although one that can't be reversed to proceed as, as we did, I say we the West generally. And if we had to do it all over again, perhaps we would focus more on an overall European security architecture, you know, that is a phrase which rings bells in Germany more than anywhere else, but it is persuasive to some extent. And I personally regret that something more wasn't done to pursue Gorbachev's vision of a common European house, common European home. I mean, we did have the partnership for peace. I mean, I myself have forgotten about this because peace seems to be on the road at this point. And, you know, kind of, that was the model, exactly addressing, you know, she said project that, you know, that dilemma, you know, back in the day in the 1990s, I mean, I was a junior, you know, scholar at that point. You know, I remember George Kennan's admonitions. I also, you know, then at that point was a PhD student with Richard pipes, you know, no friend to the Soviet Union, but who had exactly the same analysis that this would be, you know, somewhat disastrous in the terms of the relationship with Russia itself. I mean, Professor pipes was from Poland. And of course it was Poland's push, along with, you know, Hungary and the Czech Republic and then later the Baltic States and Slovakia, you know, such as to come into NATO, because of, you know, the nature of this is an alliance and people can apply that really push this in a different direction. And you know, and again, a lot of people would say that we could go back in time, you know, beefing up partnership for peace and thinking about, you know, some kind of larger architecture. You know, it might be possible. I personally also think that, you know, one of the major. You know, mistakes and episodes and I take some personal responsibility for this because I was an actual intelligence offers at the time and we were warning about the negative impacts of this but we obviously didn't make ourselves clear enough. In 2008 and the Bucharest Summit, when Georgia and Ukraine had applied for a membership action plan, there was an awful lot of resistance in Europe, precisely because of this. But everybody wanted to find a compromise and we didn't find a compromise we found in fact, you know, just a recipe for disaster later, because an open door without, you know, timeline and agreement. You know, kind of put Ukraine and Georgia in the same categories Sweden and Finland, where, you know, that kind of made a lot of sense to their strategic, you know, perspective, whereas Ukraine and Georgia were not likely to get entry. And also, you know, kind of, you know, just like there had been concerns about whether we'd be able to really defend, you know, the Baltic states and, you know, everywhere else. And, you know, there wasn't a fully thought out plan of how we would manage this and some people think, you know, and tend to agree with them that now the bill is due, you know, from that kind of, you know, series of mistakes and not really kind of thinking through the consequences of everything. So the Baltic states certainly in Poland and others assumed that Russia would come back and be more aggressive, you know, and a lot of other people had more like, you know, an idea of oh they might remain weak and that's of course got the Russians resenting all the kind of the framing of this. And others thought no we'd really managed to have a much better relationship with them, you know, we'd have a strategic partnership but you know my colleague Andrew Stent, you know, everyone knows quite well you know wrote that book the limits of partnership. But it's emphasizing that that was all misplaced so we've all made some blunders and missteps that have brought us to this particular point. And I do agree that you know had we had, you know, different thinking about this a partnership for peace other arrangements there, you know, early on in the 1990s, you know, we might be in a different place but again, you know world affairs might have drawn us in this direction because I think one of the just to just very quickly point out that, you know, one of the episodes were actually I think the two episodes where people's minds are changed in Moscow. One is 1999 and the bombing of Belgrade during the standover of Kosovo where everybody in Russia decides that well NATO is still a military alliance that's kind of hell bent on because they take it personally and I think this is kind of a proxy for Russia. Exactly, he's playing in midair and goes back, you know, we might have handled that one a bit better as well. And then, you know, we have 2003 and you know the US massive strategic blunder and deciding to invade Iraq. And then Russia decides at that point that the US can't be trusted and the US is just in the business of regime change. In fact, Bucharest 2008 is a very curious phenomenon, because given the opposition on Germany and France, they couldn't offer membership action plans to Ukraine and Georgia. But it surprises me that everybody thought it was a compromise to state formally, Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO. In fact, they were put in a different category from that of Sweden and Finland. That was, I think, something that was not thought through. I agree with you. I mean, in fact, I know it wasn't. There we are. So I was actually intelligence officer. We had lots of warnings, but you know, all of the debates took place too late. They applied in January, and nobody really did anything until, you know, February March. I mean, you know, kind of everyone was a bit shocked that they sent these letters together, Ukraine and Georgia. I mean, there's a whole backstory to that, because there wasn't it wasn't anticipated they were asked knowing that they didn't have the support. And then I think, you know, it was also incumbent on other NATO allies to have been much more forthright in their opposition. Because they kept, you know, waffling around in the discussions with the principles with George Bosch and Dick Cheney with us, you know, worker bees in the background, they were being very frank, not going to happen. We're not going to do this. I said, well, please tell, you know, because we're getting accused of, you know, being bad analysts and, you know, bad intel people because we're saying, well, you know, this is this. This thing that's not what we're hearing. And you know, and so, you know, we got undercut as well and others, you know, in the State Department and elsewhere who, you know, might have in principle wanted to support Georgia and Ukraine but knew that our European allies, you know, for the most part were opposed. And I think it was the UK and David Miliband and a number of others who helped to, you know, create what they thought was a face-saving formula. But of course, it infuriated the Russians on it, infuriated the Georgians and it made the Ukrainians and everybody nervous and, you know, probably got a lot of the other allies on edge as well. Yeah, let me move to some of the questions if you don't mind. We have one from Dr. Noll O'Connor who says he really enjoyed your book that you highlight the issue of the rise of populism and politics. And yes, how can traditional political parties respond to such a shift on the ground? And the second one from Shane Barry, which is more or less in the same area, has the idea of the meritocracy being pernicious in the long run. The winners have earned their place through hard work while the left behind deserve their fate. The meritocracy makes this as a school more palatable. This of course is a team of several books that were written recently and has merit, I think. So what would you think in regard to those two observations? They're all tied together, right? Because I mean, there is a very, you know, kind of strong body thought among, you know, various people, people have their own, you know, views on this obviously that they've got to where they got by hard work and their own individual talent. Well, actually I say in the book, not so much, not so fast, you know, I did work extraordinarily hard, you know, I like to think that I've got some talent, but I got a heck of a lot of help. And, you know, kind of I got a lot of help at different points. And this is actually where I think the mainstream political parties need to sort of think about this for the left behind places, you know, rural island, you know, northeast of England, Midlands, you know, all the kinds of places, Northern Ireland, Belfast, you know, you kind of name it, where you have to be much more responsive and much more connected to your constituencies. You know, if you're playing politics all the time in, be it Westminster, you know, Whitehall or Washington DC, or just, you know, in Dublin, you know, kind of all, you know, any of the other capitals in there and you're not connected, you know, with people back home, that's where you're going to get yourself into trouble. And as I talk about in the book, a lot of opportunities might be out there for people, but they can't take them. So I talk, you know, in the book about various opportunities that I, you know, did have like, you know, I had an opportunity to apply for Oxford. I had no actual chance in hell of actually getting in there, not because, you know, I wasn't necessarily capable of it. But first of all, you know, I went to a run to resource comprehensive school that was actually in the bottom tier of schools in the whole of the United Country and the United Kingdom, you know, in various assessments, because it used to be the old vocational and secondary modern school wasn't set up, you know, for people to do air levels. You know, I had no preparation, never even seen an exam before. The exam was all about philosophy. We didn't get philosophy in a comprehensive school in the northeast of England. I wasn't sure what it meant. You know, remember at the time, I think the exam was on something like Schopenhauer's, you know, the of the world. Well, first of all, Schopenhauer composer. You know, what am I supposed to do here? And then I remembered, you know, something from Tolstoy about, you know, the thing of the will and I just thought I'll just adapt, you know, something from there. So it was just humiliating and embarrassing, you know, and then I go to an interview and I have no idea what to do. And that opportunity is just beyond my reach, it's there, but it's not realistic. The other thing is that an awful lot of people also don't necessarily want to or, you know, go to an elite college, but they don't have the opportunities there for training and skills. The funding isn't there, you know, for, you know, various apprenticeships, we're not focusing in on that. That's where political leaders, members of parliament and others, you know, should be actually focusing their energies and political parties need to not just, you know, be kind of seem to be representatives of elites from certain settings, but really kind of make an effort to diversify their membership. Most major institutions need to do that. So in the United Kingdom, since I've left there has been an awful lot of effort being put into, you know, just diversification of, you know, well, not so much the Foreign Service but like a government and you know, you know, talks with people since where a lot more women represented a lot more people from working class, you know, backgrounds, more, you know, racial and ethnic diversity, but not regional diversity. And I think that that's the bit that my book points out that really has not changed. There are still these real divisions and discriminations and opportunity based on where you are. You know, reflected in the politics. So the reason that, you know, my hometown in County Durham voted for Brexit, and voted then for, you know, Tory MP for the first time since the creation of the constituency in 1885 because it was so fed up, you know, with members of parliament that were, you know, after a period of time, you know, increasing from the, you know, 90s onwards, just kind of, you know, carpetbaggers who were kind of coming up there for a safe seat because they had ambitions in London, you know, and elsewhere, and they didn't really care that much about the constituency. It used to be more that somebody was represented the constituency from the area, and who was, you know, kind of really dedicated to local politics not that interested in playing in the national stage. And so that is over time, you know, kind of with all the other dislocations happening, where people feel like the parties have lost the plot. And in the United States, for example, so my extended family in the US my husband's one of 12 kids and he's got, you know, a sibling over every, you know, imaginable place in the Midwest. You know, some of, you know, my in-laws said to me, you know, during the 2016 campaign, well, I can't possibly vote for Hillary Clinton. Because, you know, she's palling around all the time with Hollywood celebrities drinking champagne, you know, giving these mega speeches for hundreds of thousands of dollars and she didn't come and visit here. So it's that kind of retail local politics, you know, with people with a connection that gets lost, and the kind of sense that elites, you know, the people in the, as a result of the meritocracy, you know, people like you and me and others, you know, we've kind of got there just by dint of individual, you know, kind of capacity and actually we haven't. We've, you know, all had some help along the way, families, friends, institutions. My entire education was paid for by County Durham's local education authority. I've never have gone to college if there hadn't been any money there. Yeah, as Hillary Clinton said, it takes a village. It does take a village, but she seemed to have forgotten that unfortunately, you know, and others have as well. So I'm just putting that, putting that, you know, kind of sense of responsibility and agency back to the village, the community, which is very important as well. On the meritocracy question, I think, you know, it's a fair comment in that the meritocracy when you look at it closely is made up not only of people like you and me, but there is a lot of freezing of the pathways into the institutions that maintain the meritocracy, which doesn't necessarily mean that the most highly qualified succeed. Correct. Yeah. I have a question from a colleague of mine. Yes. How you know Rory. He asked, was there ever a serious opportunity for successive US administrations to have established a better and more stable relationship with Putin without abandoning basic principles. Well, you know, I think Rory actually in the way that he framed the question is just hit on something that's, you know, kind of, I've been really concerned with for some time and I haven't really got a good answer to it unfortunately. So we think about, because he says Putin right and successive administrations, that's part of your problem right Putin has been in power for 21 22 years. You know, basically, that's one continuous stretch of one, you know, essentially unit to reactor. I mean, yes, he was Prime Minister for a while, but it wasn't like he went anywhere. And it's just a rearranging of the personnel that, you know, Lavrov has been Foreign Minister for eons. You know, Peskov and Gromov, you know, the press secretaries have been there, you know, everybody in that firmament around Putin. You know, there are some younger people have come in, you know, I know the other chief of staff, you know, protocol guy who then rose up and he's gone into in a different positions but essentially, it's the same team of people and you know, kind of you know, Sergei Breabkov, the Deputy Foreign Minister. I mean he's been there, you know, in a long time, etc, etc. We just come and go. I think that's the problem and how do we structure some continuous touch points. You know, under Trump, of course, he was just all over the place constantly changing national security advisors, secretaries of state, people like me, you know, off we will go the whole time off with our heads and we were off, you know, to something else all the time. And the Russians got deeply frustrated, because they felt that they had to keep starting again to explain with people now that's part of our, you know, strength, but it's also a weakness for things like this. So how could we create some permanent structures, I mean we were to have the NATO, Russia, you know, forum, you know, the format that we created there, the Council, I mean, that, you know, kind of then suffered from all these ups and downs and other, you know, sets of bilateral relationships. You know, perhaps if we really had, you know, early on as we were talking, you know, set up, you know, some kind of larger structures in the 1990s, we might have a forum on which we could all take something to I mean we keep wanting to take it back to the you know, the way we structured bilateral meetings in Geneva under the rubric of the strategic stability talks. NATO Brussels, you know, reaffirming again the NATO Russia Council format, and then you'll see in the Russian stuff we don't want the OSE. I like the EU tried to talk to them, they're bugger off, we don't want to talk to the EU. I don't want to talk to the US but the thing is there's not a US to talk to. There's just constant changes and I think one of the reasons that the Russians are gunning for something now with Biden and the team, they know them. They've talked to them before, under Clinton and Obama, and you know now they're all back, and they want to get something resolved before we're off to the races again at the in the US with the midterms and then you know, good everybody could change over again. I do think this is a problem and if Rory and others have got some good ideas I know during the Cold War we had all kinds of you know transatlantic formats we need to seriously think about how can we structure something of course you know this might now be in some post conflict environment you know I can't say right now what's exactly going to happen, but trying to find something that gives some permanent group to be talking about this like we've had in the past. This seems fairly important. Yeah, in other words, find something now that we should have found 20 years ago. Yeah, I mean I mean we really did need that. And again, I mean how you structure something like that and then you do have that dilemma, of course as you know European allies and others saying if you don't want the US, you know doing this over our heads. And you know the OSCE does seem you know that kind of format the right format we keep coming back to that Helsinki arrangements but the Russians have said no, you know, we don't want that. They want a concert of Europe, you know just them, and you know a couple of others selected, you know kind of thing to do it. We have a question here from former Secretary General of the Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs Noel Dorr, who says a sovereign state such as Ukraine now is should be free to choose international alignment. And an Irish Foreign Minister Frank Aiken addressing the Security Council during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 seemed to suggest that small countries placed beside powerful neighbors for whom they may have disputes had a kind of responsibility. They ought to ensure that they will never be used as a base for attack on that neighbor. He recalled him and devalera's assertion about Ireland in the UK. During World War Two and commended it to Cuba, the US in 1962 simply would not tolerate Russian missiles in Cuba. And without in any way comparing the present case with Cuba are impugning Ukraine sovereignty or approving Putin's belligerent chess game. Is there an argument and prudence for a sovereign Ukraine to decide that it would not join NATO, which Putin perceives as hostile. I think that's the great way of formulating it right. If Ukraine decides like Island did, you know, to, you know, assess this in its own way without, you know, being at the boss of, you know, point of a bayonet. I completely agree with that. I mean, I think that is a, but, you know, Ukraine has to have, you know, the sovereign independent right to decide that. Everybody else is talking about a sort of a forcible imposition of that kind of scenario that when they talk about Finland, I said, well, Finland, choose to just chose to join the European Union when you start thinking about Finlandization, people are talking about, you know, a period that fins themselves, Bristol on because they really did defend their independence and sovereignty. They actually had the Irish maxim that they were kind of trying to sort of figure out there about how they were going to manage that relationship their members of the EU and they'd still reserve the right to join NATO if they want to if they should choose. Austria, you know, totally different situation, pretty much, you know, kind of that was a condition of the ending of occupation in Austria and what was it 1955, you know, for example. So we can't do this by force. I think that actually Ireland and other countries that have made similar decisions could actually play a very important role in this right now. If it was done in that larger international context to make that clear. I think that is a really, you know, wonderful way of looking at this that gives a fresh perspective, you know, here to this rather than it may need looking like, you know, the United States or others are forcing this onto a country because that means that Russia has to, you know, de-escalate and basically pull back and give the space. But that, you know, doesn't seem to be Russia style at the moment, they want to force the issue and say, we, you know, secure this and then, you know, there is the risk of Russia doing, as in fact they have done to Ukraine over all this period of time. You know, we're supposed to be guaranteeing, you know, Ukraine's sovereignty and independence when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, you know, in 1994, but what the Russian says and then Ukraine, you know, broke out of that neutral position and started to, you know, pursue NATO. So that's why they're doing it. But, you know, they make it actually more difficult to achieve the kind of outcome that we're describing here is we have to figure out how to get to that point so the Ukraine can make that decision itself. It's a very delicate one I recall being in Berlin some couple of years ago talking about this to German colleagues, and it occurred to me in the course of the conversation to say that if the Ukraine adopted a position analogous to that of Switzerland and the European system, it would resolve the problem and the answer came back quite rightly. It can't be done over the head of the Ukrainians. Yeah, exactly, exactly right. And I mean that's kind of you know the position that was carefully formulated by Ireland. I mean again, an attack on Ukraine by Russia right now would put the jeopardy into jeopardy, you know, even the, you know, the concept of independent sovereignty that Ireland has maintained in all of this period. Because I mean you are again another country that's come out of an empire, and you've had to fight for your independence and sovereignty. And you know, people can make claims on Ireland, you know, right so. So you have a geographical position in Fiona. Yes. Well, yeah, but you still you know you can't pretty close to the other guys. I know Brian who is the economic director of the Institute asked two questions. One, do you foresee Finland and Sweden joining NATO to over the long term. Do you envisage the EU developing a defense capability separate from NATO stroke the US. I think on the latter, that really kind of depends on you know where we end up at the end of all of this right. I mean I think you know before we've been wanting to have those conversations about the future of European security I mean we really should have been having this for some time but always you know the risk was it was you know particularly after 2008. You know when you think about the you know NATO strategic concept in 2010 and then you know those relationships with the EU. You know how do you work on this out when you've got you know basically somebody else screaming, you know the whole time, you know, you're, you know, kind of illegitimate you shouldn't be here, and you know in 2014. The annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass took place on the, in part on the premise that an association with the European Union or the part of Ukraine would lead to a back door to NATO. Because Russia read the small print that you know I you know those hadn't I mean I was what they're talking about because the EU they said before this was fine but then when you start to look down the list of European security and defense policy cooperation. That's also in cooperation with NATO so you know when the Russians, you know going through this with a, you know, kind of a fine tooth comb as they said, you know start to see all of this they're right that's not that's not going to happen. And then it's squeezed that spares to have that kind of discussion about how you reconfigure European security arrangements, and you know we ought to have that 30 years on. It is preposterous that the United States is you know it's also seen in that light as it was during the Cold War, you know, Russia says it's all about the United States of course, but we haven't had that space to really kind of figure this out and I remember, you know, some of this and wonderful as big near Brzezinski in 2010, you know, during some of the debates about the NATO strategic concept the morning the fact that we didn't have much clarity and you know and strategic thinking about where we all went from here. And that was too much you know kind of thinking about the past arrangements and of course you know he was not one to, you know kind of discount Russian aggression but it just said that that can't be just the whole, you know kind of premise for, you know kind of where we are and you know many, of course, have grappled with the idea of how do you factor, you know Russia into that in an ideal world you know what would this look like the other part of the question I've kind of forgotten now the first bit. It was whether you taught Finland and Sweden. Oh yes, because then that might actually I knew there was something that I was trying to do. You know Sweden might have a you know a range of choices. But you know right now Finland and Sweden do not want that door closed. And that's why an minister the President of Finland has you know spoken out and you know where you've had previous Swedish governments whenever Russia starts menacing them, and you know suggesting that you know NATO should pull back they actually assert they're NATO, but they might you know kind of, you know be more comfortable who knows, you know in a different configuration. I mean Sweden and Finland are very strong partnerships with NATO I'm sure that if anything happened to them we would do something you know major in support of them. I mean they're serious partners, and you know I think you know to all intents and purposes they function as if they are members of NATO. So you know that again also needs to be thought about very carefully and there's been actually a lot of resistance to closing the door to Ukraine and Georgia and other former Soviet states by some of the Scandinavian countries because of Sweden and Finland. And as you said, you know Ukraine and Georgia actually got a promise that one day that they would join NATO which Sweden and Finland. Don't actually have I mean they have a more of a come in if you want to kind of thing. But it's that kind of idea that countries can choose to join that they won't get there and you know the Norwegians remember I mean when they first joined it was very difficult. In the 1950s because they have that border, and they were the exception of Turkey, they were the only country that had a direct border with the Soviet Union. Yeah, yeah, but I think they have special arrangements whereby there won't be deployments on Norwegian. Obviously see there's all kinds of formulas there and I think Norway is worth looking at as well I mean you know discussion with the Norwegians about you know how would you structure something how would you, you know think about this. Alex Conway, who is a researcher at the Institute says, Putin will presumably he says not be able to live forever. What does Russia look like once Putin leaves the global stage and what does that mean for Russia's relations with Europe and the US. That's a big question. I hope that crystal ball. I mean the thing is, you know, of course we do, you know, game this out. And, you know, we shouldn't, you know, make any assumptions about the kind of person who comes in right I mean look at Venezuela. Maduro could get a lot worse. You know kind of after Chavez left the scene but not also Gorbachev emerging. You know Russians of course would be not happy to make that kind of comparison because what happened to Gorbachev at the end of the Soviet Union and Ravelling. But Gorbachev was definitely a different person different style different, you know, approach and outlook to the people before. Medvedev, when he was, you know, kind of there was the understudy stepping up into the presidency had a different style and approach and you know there was a lot, you know, of different things could have happened. Had he stayed on in office and had Putin actually in fact left the scene. You know so I would just say I mean there are lots of different outcomes but it's the manner in which he departs. And you know obviously we've seen a lot of signs that he wants to choose his successor just as Yeltsin chose him, the same kinds of reasons like Kazakhstan I mean actually, you know that looks a little dodgy now, because you know isn't always a given that the successor can keep things under control and one of the rationales in fact for Putin coming back in 2007 2012 was supposed to be felt that you know to meet Medvedev didn't have a strong hand at the wheel of the state. And there was an economic crisis and there was all kinds of upheavals everywhere and you know maybe he needed to get back in there and take control again. So, you know, handing off even to a chosen successor is also risky, depending on what's happening in circumstances and I think one of the reasons that he had their amendment to the Constitution so that he could stay on. I mean, it might not intend to stay on till 2036 has given himself the option but it's also because you know that maybe there's never a good time. He had to hand off and he wanted to give more time not to be, you know, forced to keep to this timetable of 2024 which might be from his another perspective artificial. Then again, you know, it's all speculation now that he's been hidden away for the last two years in splendid isolation hiding from covert. Maybe there's something going on with his health, you know, maybe he has some, you know, susceptibility that could be quite dangerous maybe you know that's it it's a wildcard. Like you said can't live forever maybe you know there's some health issue we don't know that. But that then creates this uncertainty and instability in the system. If he dies tomorrow, you know, heaven forbid falls on the flight of stairs you know kind of all these things I mean we've run scenarios like this before. You know, there is a succession plan, but then there could be an absolute free for all, and we don't know how that's going to play I mean look in Kazakhstan again. There seems to be a lot of palace intrigue and power struggle going on behind the scenes of the protests there. It's not, you know, very. Let's just say reassuring to think in those lines. I think they have to be prepared in a buckle up just right now because we don't know what he's going to do. It's the dilemma of all autocrats. They can't conceive of a succession. They extend their period in office and as you say, that's right. No, so it's an example of it. Very cross who's a board member of the Institute says that it seems very unlikely that any form of economic sanctions would deter Vladimir Putin given the capacity of the Russian people to bear pain. So would you conclude that we have no real deterrent. We have some deterrence. I mean, I share, you know, the same skepticism. I do think however that sanctions did work in 2014. After MH 17 the Malaysian Airlines were shot down because there was an immediate response that the Russians weren't really banking on everybody, you know, got in on the sanctions act and they pulled back from, you know, that push forward to Mario Paul person and all these things like that they were, you know, trying to mess with in some form and, you know, kind of consolidated their gains for a while. But you know, you can only keep doing that kind of thing so much and I think they're already factoring in that there will be sanctions and trying to figure out how they will respond to it. You know, if they're taking out a swift alternative payment systems, cryptocurrencies, you know, kind of whipping up, you know, kind of anti sanctions fervor, which is easy to do. In Europe, but elsewhere where people, you know, worry about the weaponization of the US financial system and want to push back. I mean, Iranians, you know, try to do that. I mean, Ireland, plenty of protests that I got from, you know, your Irish leadership when Rusal and Dharupaska were sanctioned because of, you know, aluminum plants and things in Ireland and you know elsewhere. I mean, that's what the Russians got quite a bit of leverage. They've got people in their payroll that they can, you know, you know, basically tap into and that's actually one of the things that we can do. We can clean up our act. You know, we can, you know, kind of close up all these loopholes because what's them just loopholes and our regulations that allow, you know, Russian oligarchs and others to swan around at will. In European settings, you know, kind of oligarchs having mansions in. And American settings. I was going to say that I was just about to say everything from Trump Tower to shell companies in South Dakota and Delaware, you know, Joe Biden's homestay in Miami. And, you know, all the people who were on the boards of gas prom, which, you know, includes some of my former colleagues in government. And, you know, George Osborne working for Deropaska and former Senator Lieberman working for, you know, Chinese, you know, telecom community, we can stop this. You know, we can actually blunt a lot of the leverage and influence that they have we can sanction ourselves. But I think we can also take this international just like all of these really good comments about, you know, the role of Ireland, the comments during the Cuba missile crisis getting other countries to stand up there and say, hang on a second. This affects my interests, my independence and sovereignty. I'm in the same boat as Ukraine. You know, I've been all the old colonial powers and you know, others that got their independence after World War One, World War Two and onwards that are enshrined in the, you know, the guarantees of the international system just shows now that there's no guarantee, right. I mean, I'm not suggesting Ireland is going to be invaded tomorrow. But I mean, any other country in around the world that has a hostile neighbor, the things that their territory belongs to them or there's some historical, you know, legacy there that can, you know, be refuted. I mean, just look at the struggles over right now over, you know, Northern Ireland and the Good Friday accords because of, you know, kind of UK prerogative and, you know, the EU institutional arrangements. I mean, all of these things become much more complicated if another country thinks it can act with impunity. I do think that there is, you know, cleaning up our own act, making it much more difficult for Russian money to have influence and, you know, leverage, you know, in our economies and politics. You know, honestly, former government officials should be ashamed of themselves. They know better than this, you know, kind of working for, you know, Russian companies that are used for political leverage. I'm sorry, you just get out of that right now. And then, you know, kind of, you know, basically figuring out how we take this on a bigger stage. Yes, I mean, I was thinking about him, but I thought I'd just, you know, use a few close doors. A last question from Horst Stieglag, who is a German national who lives here and has a lot of experience in NATO. He asks about Putin's proclaimed perception from NATO. Does he not have enough in-depth information about the real capabilities of NATO today? You know, I think that that might be one of the problems as well because he is, like many of us, a product of the Cold War. You know, I just decided to study Russian against the backdrop of the war scare of, you know, November 1983. That's, you know, when we're all going to get blown up. I mean, you probably remember this and I do. I mean, it was a pretty scary time. I mean, I obviously do not remember the Cuban missile, of course, but I certainly remember that. And, you know, kind of Putin in that timeframe is that's in his, you know, kind of rise in the KGB, you know, such as it was, you know, he's stationed later on in Dresden. You know, it's all in that kind of mix and he has that Cold War perspective on NATO and the NATO threat. And, you know, he still thinks of NATO as the United States occupying Europe, you know, kind of the standoff, you know, across the Berlin Wall, etc. and Soviet forces. And, you know, still great concern about the conventional and nuclear capacity of the United States that can't prevail upon and the thought then that, you know, it's that cumulative impact of NATO. He doesn't think of it as an alliance. I mean, when he's saying that NATO needs withdraws or he's saying that US needs to withdraw as well. And very much thinking about in Cold War terms. The STO was set up in a ways to be the poor man's version of the WTO, the world's Warsaw trade organization. And with some of those I said WTO people got the word, yeah, World Trade Organization, we're talking about the Warsaw Pact, you know, which we keep forgetting about. And, you know, he still thinks in those terms that this is just a cover for the United States and in the Cold War sense. So he's also sitting in a bubble. I mean, what kind of ideas have, you know, hidden away, you know, from people, what kind of advice is he getting, you know, is he just using, you know, his old, you know, patterns of thinking and, you know, what kind of information is there, what information is there really about Ukraine and the state of play there. I do wonder about this. And I do think there's a lot of mirror imaging and past patterns that have been projected, you know, onto the current situation I'm worried about that very much. And I suppose you could say that historically, people in power in Russia have always felt that they were surrounded and threatened from all sides. And the expansion of the Russian Empire was the result of this in many ways. Absolutely. Yeah, and they always worry more about encirclement in the West than they do in the East. So if you're that long border with China, I wouldn't be worried about Mongolia or Kazakhstan, but I mean they do, you know, kind of start to think and then they are worried now about the Arctic. You know, the pushing out of sovereignty claims on the continental shelf. And it's just, you know, all come as I think China worries them there too with its increased interest in Arctic positions. But yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's a frame that they can't get themselves out of even those Ben Wallace says, you know, in, you know, factual, you know, factual frame here, you know, just looking at it 6% of your territory abutting NATO that's ridiculous. How's that encirclement. But, you know, as you said, it's really that perceptions it's your mental maps and Putin's mental map is that of the Cold War. It's a pleasure talking to you. We benefited greatly from your views on quite a range of subjects. And I thank you for this person which you dealt with the variety of questions that are thrown at you. We benefited greatly from it. We hope that when all this is over, we will have the honor and the pleasure of welcoming you in person to Dublin again. Yeah, I was saying before that my last visit was the 100th anniversary Easter uprising and the Irish census and I was counted in the census. Yes, you'll be welcome back. Thanks for your questions and sorry I couldn't reach them all. And until the next time. All the best. Thank you so much.