 Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. It is one minute past 5 p.m. Greetings from London and the Centre for Grand Strategy at Kings College, London. My name is Alessio Patlana, and I am absolutely delighted today to welcome you to the second part of a three-segment series, but that the Centre has been doing, trying to explore one year on how the integrated review that was published last year, the main guiding documents for British foreign and security policy is holding up against what is a fast-evolving international security landscape. In the last episode, we talked about the basic principles and first orders ideas about continental maritime strategy. Today, we're taking this conversation at the very heart of how usually big ideas are tested or don't tend to withstand the reality of events as they unfold. And I couldn't be luckier today towards an absolutely stellar panel for the conversation we're going to have. The main theme of our conversation is certainly the integrated review, but the integrated review in light of the past few months of what started as a major crisis and then evolved into an invasion and now war in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, waged by Russia. The panelists today, and I will introduce them in order they will be speaking, are Dr. Louise Kettle, Air Marshal Edward Stringer, and Dr. Natasha Kurt. Now, starting with Louise Kettle, she joins us today. She's an associate professor and she works on key matters related to British foreign security policy. She's also a historian, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. And she brings her wealth of expertise to this conversation. Air Marshal Stringer, retired from the Royal Air Force as after a number of posts. He served in both 1st and 2nd Gulf War. He was involved into war in Afghanistan. And in his last post, had a chance to reflect upon his own past experience as he was overlooking the overarching defense education establishment in the British military. Last but not least, list Dr. Natasha Kurt, there's a colleague here under the Department of War Studies and the lecturer in international peace and security, a Russian specialist at heart and certainly someone has been following these events concerning Russian behavior over the past few months very closely. So all these speakers will all have about 10 minutes to have some opening remarks to set the stage. And then, Rebecca, of that, we will proceed with a broader conversation. A couple of general sort of points, just in terms of the logistics of how we're going to proceed. For asking questions, you have traditional ways you can use the chats or indeed you can use the Q&A space dedicated on Zoom. After the first sort of few minutes, you can start typing your questions, your comments, and I will make sure to bring to the panelists attention. I should also sort of note that the event is currently recorded. So you should be aware of that as you provide your forcing contribution to our proceedings. So without any further ado, I leave the floor to Louise. Louise, welcome and thank you very much for joining us today. The floor is yours. Thank you very much for having me and thank you very much for everyone joining today. I'm going to start by focusing on specifically on the integrated review which I know Professor Patelano mentioned, but very much the integrated review rather than the defense command paper that came out of it, which I believe Emel Scholl Stringer will focus on. So this is more about the kind of strategic direction for Britain moving forward up to 2030 rather than the kind of defense implementation side of things. Now overall, I think the integrated review has held up pretty well actually in the night of the Ukraine crisis. Writing these things are always tricky, kind of trying to foretell the future, some prediction required. And I think it is just the law of these kind of things that as soon as they're written, some sort of international crisis happens, which brings them all into question. However, what I would say is, I think it's held up pretty well in three key ways. The first is that it made it very clear that in the run up to 2030, we were going to see a real change in the nature and distribution of global power. And from the integrated review perspective, they argued that this was going to be a move away from terrorism and insurgency as the key threats and instead moving to watch more towards state-based threats, focused on kind of systemic competition between states due to geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts. And in determination of international rules and norms. And I think that we will review the Ukraine crisis in light of this sort of shift. And it fits very kind of neatly within that prediction. The second key thing that the integrated review emphasised that was that whilst China was definitely identified as Britain's most systemic competitor, that Russia was identified as its most acute threat. This was very clear throughout. There are a number of other countries who identified as threats North Korea, Iran, but fundamentally it was seen that Russia was the most acute and prevalent and immediate threat to Great Britain's security. And clearly that has proven to be the case. The third way in that I think it's held up well is that it stated that the UK is not going to be able to achieve too much on its own. The emphasis was very much on alliances, continuing to support five eyes as the kind of primary intelligence alliance, of course a focus on NATO, which I'm sure we'll discuss quite a lot. The relationship with the United States, which given the kind of Biden-Johnson relationship, we weren't quite sure how that was going to pan out. But again, I'll come back to that a bit more in a minute. And the relationship with Europe. So the EU and Europe were very small footnotes in the integrated review, but they were in there. And there was a discussion about rebuilding the relationship with Europe. And this has definitely panned out. Actually, the Ukraine crisis, I think has probably helped in this way because even as we are seeing difficulties, over Northern Ireland at the moment, Brexit really has been overshadowed by the fences being mended in order to try and get a positive response to the Ukraine crisis and the United response to Ukraine crisis. So I think the next question I sort of wanted to ask was how has the integrated review guided the UK response to Ukraine? And the honest answer is I don't know because I'm not sure how much these documents really do sort of act as guiding principles, especially to politicians, maybe more so to civil servants, but especially to politicians. But what I do know is that there is some alignment, whether this is by fortune, one cannot tell, but there's alignment in I think four ways. The first has been this strong emphasis and focus on alliances and partnerships, especially with the US. The United States has really kind of stepped up after a pretty disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in supporting its European partners in Ukraine. In addition, it's clearly brought the importance of NATO to the fore. First of all, it's demonstrated that some countries see the threat perception of NATO and it works more as a threat perception rather than a deterrent for some. However, it has clearly brought the issue of NATO and NATO security right to the forefront of security agenda. While it's always been important, the debates about it, I think are much more prevalent. And of course, we see attempts for NATO expansion with Sweden and Finland. And as I say, there's this kind of focus on partnership with Europe as well. The second way that I think the integrated view has really aligned with the UK response to the crisis is that it called for a renewed sense of leadership in the world. And whatever people may think about Prime Minister Johnson, he has taken a lead in the Ukraine crisis. He's been well liked by Ukrainians and certainly compared to some other European leaders who have perhaps been more hesitant. I'm thinking of course, Macron or Schultz. He has seen to be a driving force in terms of rapid deployment of troops, of equipment, of pledging weaponry and aid, of going even physically going to Ukraine and showing a presence and support to Zelensky. And also the UK are continuing to show leadership through the joint expeditionary force. It's more flexible coalition and force. The third way that the integrated review, I think has aligned with the response is this reiteration of the importance of reconnaissance and intelligence sharing, which we know has been so vital in the Ukrainian fighting of Russian troops. And then the final way is about having a stake in shaping the new world order. A big part of the integrated review or a big ambition that was identified was that the UK should be a force for good supporting open societies and defending human rights. I'm quoting that directly there. And there was a shift in the way that this was thought about from defending a new world order to actually reshaping it, to understanding that it is changing, but that the UK wants to play an active part in shaping what that becomes. Now, this is going to be a question of course, moving forward, what will this new world order be? And does the integrated review need to respond to this new world order? And part of that will have to see as the Ukraine crisis continues to play out. But there are some things to consider. The first is that Russia is now weaker. Its military strength is reduced due to losses in Ukraine, to sanctions on equipment. It's reducing economic capability. Its diplomatic strength is reduced due to the fact that some countries do not necessarily want to be placed in a position of having to align one side or the other, that he's having to call in a number of favours now with allies, you know, Chechia, Syria, Iran, even China. And its economic strength has reduced as well through sanctions and even the crackdowns on kind of Russian investment and organized crime. So in a number of ways, Russia is now weaker. And that must impact Britain's kind of strategic approach and response, considering that it was always considered its primary threat. The second is that continental Europe is also now more focused on its defence and security. We see increasing defence actors against Russia and there's going to be competing influence in this space. So we think about Germany now kind of upping its defence spend, talking I think it's about $113 billion, something like that. A lot of NATO nations upping their defence spending, think about Denmark, even kind of Poland's going up, Romania's going up, all defence spending is going up. And there's a question about what that means then for the UK in terms of what will the UK's role be? How will this continue to reduce the Russian threat? And what will this mean in terms of continental Europe being able to have greater defence for itself and the UK therefore perhaps managing to achieve more of what it aims to in terms of its pivot to Asia? The third is the impact on China and the kind of broader anti-Western bloc. And I think this is the next big thing that needs to be thought about in terms of considering the integrated review. Now, I'm not an expert on China, so I'm not going to pretend to be, but clearly there has been an impact from the Ukrainian crisis, both in terms of losing a kind of strong ally for China, and they've now got a very weak ally in Russia. The pitfalls of military operations have been revealed. And I'm thinking here in terms of any ideas that China may have in terms of confrontation over Taiwan. And there's been a reconsideration about how much tolerance of autocracy there should be. On the flip side of that, China no longer has to be worried about a kind of strong neighbour along its borders. It may be richer from a Russian economic reliance on it. But all of these things mean that clearly a review is needed about what is going to be China's place in this new world order and how can the UK think about that, considering it is supposed to be its biggest systemic competitor. And the final one, which is very short because I am aware of my time, is the failure of deterrence. So this was a core part of the integrated review strategic framework. And the NATO deterrence in Ukraine has clearly failed. And there needs to be some consideration about what this means and what this should mean for Britain's deterrence strategy moving forward. And I'll end it there. Wonderful, Louise. Thank you very much for taking through quite a lot of ground. There were so many points that you raised. To me, there were two strands that really came out quite strongly. Going back to the very beginning of your observations when you placed the integrated review and how the international order is going to look like in 10, 15 years down the roads and, obviously, Russia, the acute military threats, China, the systemic competitor. One of the key messages that I hear you telling us is really the idea and the assessment behind it was certainly correct. But the war is changing that in the sense that, yes, Russia remains an acute military problem, but a much weaker one. And that, in turn, has an impact on how we understand the idea of China as a systemic competitor. Is it going to be a China that is going to take more advantage of Russia? Is it going to be China that is going to be twice about giving you a certain assertive and competitive type of path as we've seen because of Russia? Regardless of how we come to the conclusion, that's one of the two very cool points to think about as we move forward. Thank you. This was absolutely brilliant. And again, anyone that wants to start sort of putting questions down or comments, please do so. The chat and the question and answer spaces are open. But now, how does it all stack up with the command paper? Air Marshal, tell us all about it. That's what we've got, sir. Ms. Pashlana, thank you very much. May I just add to your very kind intro by saying that I actually run the Defence Academy was about a quarter of the responsibilities in my last job. And I only say that because the other bits were about imagining the future of warfare. And therefore, one ended up contributing quite a lot to the integrated review. And I'd hate any listeners to go away saying, hold on, he never told us that. He would say that, wouldn't he? The Mandy Rice-Davies defence would apply. Let's look at some numbers based on what's just been said. These are very rough wrong figures because your currency's Ukraine Defence budget roughly four billion a year. UK's, so that's one tenth of the UK's at 40 billion a year. Euro-NATOs was, and as we've just heard, going up was about 400 billion a year. So it's 1% of that. And if you look at the whole NATO spend with America thrown in, it's $1.2 trillion. So given that what we've now seen is all of Russia's combat power is pretty much tied up in trying to take one sixth of Ukraine. If you put that to an actuary, the actuary might say you're probably overinsured. So with all the other bits and pieces that integrated review mentioned, which are genuinely existential when you look at things like climate change and coming out of the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions, given what China is clearly setting out to do, then actually, my note is an optimistic one, which is if we spend that money much more wisely, there is probably enough to address the challenges. So let's unpick some of those elements. I'm not actually going to talk massively about the command paper because I don't like it very much. And I think a criticism of it is that it didn't really take the integrated review and say, even though it tries to use these words, this is what it means for defense. What it did is it sort of rehashed all of the integrated review in slightly different language. And what it really needed to do is say, so this is what this means for defense and these are now the hard choices. And just to make sure I wasn't suffering from false memory syndrome, I re-read it again just before coming on here. And it says that there's a lot of it who are going to do more of this and more of that and more of the other. And yeah, well, okay, so you've got to be, but you're reducing numbers in all sorts of other areas and none of these silos are tied off. So it's a lot of nice phrases with which no one could disagree, but it doesn't go the next step. And especially given those numbers I've just spoken about, you'd think a ruthless attempt to spend such a large defense budget and spend it a little bit better would have perhaps an opportunity missed. However, the question you posed to me was, how much did it provide a handrail for the Ukrainian operation? And I'm going to therefore, for those reasons, merge the thinking of the integrated review and the command paper. Actually, they were followed, but they have been followed for a while. So one of the things not really identified is what's persistent engagement and a bit of insider knowledge. I know the integrated review team repeatedly asked the MOD to define persistent engagement and never really got an answer. And I know some of the suggestions are actually not far off. So a persistent or pulsed engagement, well, actually that's good because people can rely on you and the Brits to have a habit of taking big interest in someone and then ignoring them for a decade. That's what our Asian allies used to regularly complain about. So Orbital, for example, or Orbital, which in the previous life I set up in 2015, was for seven years, persistently training at the cost of only the salaries of about 100 troops training Ukrainians. I think it's one of the most cost-effective operations the Brits have ever mounted, given along with our major allies back to that idea that Louise mentioned about alliances. Clearly it's had a very beneficial effect on allowing the Ukrainians, and they have done this themselves, to think through how they develop their modern military from the same post-Soviet roots as the Russian forces they're now up against. Some commentators have derided the iron-the-command paper but for mentioning cyber and space, claiming that, look, tanks are back. Well, they're not saying that quite so much now. We look at how many tanks Russia has lost for not a great deal of ground taken through great maneuverist armed warfare. Meanwhile on space, we know, we won't know all of it, the Ukrainians are linking themselves very effectively using Elon Musk's Starlink, which is exactly the sort of sieve mill collaboration, generating multi-domain combat capabilities and having to use what are increasingly going to be private sector or civilian produced capacities. Louise has already mentioned intelligence. I think we're seeing the benefit of that. And I should think almost every other nation in the world would like to be a member of the Five Eyes Club, if it could. And certainly every operation I've been involved in in my 39 military career, every country that wasn't in the Five Eyes tried to get into it using the reasoning that the war had now started. And by and large, they were allowed in. And it then talks about transformation. And I don't think we've got time to do that today, but the debate has already started, hasn't it? Have drones and long range precise fires and cheap but very effective like weight anti-tank mitt has that fundamentally transformed the battlefields to question that needs to answer it. The second point you mentioned was to say, what was the perception of Russia as a threat? It's been quite interesting to me how we've gone from coin to China with a very brief intervening period of Russia. Though actually, Russia was always much more serious. I mean, the air defense forces of the UK, for example, which I commanded in 2007 when the Russians started flying their long range aviation around our shores again, and did it really quite professionally. Well, those people never lost sight of the fact that Russia was a threat. Our submarine service never lost sight of the fact that Russia was the threat. So the deep state had always known that Russia was the threat. And indeed government came around to admitting that in October 16, I remember Tim Barrow chairing a Cobra meeting where suddenly this all came out and then China. So I think if I go back to the integrated review, actually, I think John Buce team did really quite well considering the politics of the administration for which they were working. They did get the EU in. They pointed out that NATO and the EU are the twin bedrocks of European security, which I think is absolutely right. And they identified Russia as the acute military threat. And it's there. It might be a simple statement, but it's pretty stark. And perhaps there weren't so many distracting actually glossies and diagrams in both documents. We'd be able to concentrate more on the text and exactly what it said. So I think the deep state of the military had always seen Russia as the pacing threat. And was getting around to thinking about what China meant and has the IRR been followed? Well, of course, yes. Well, we're concentrating on Ukraine. What else has happened or happened just before, AUKUS, which is an excellent example of cooperation that doesn't require youthful presence of troops at great expense, but has already shifted the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific region. And it will extend more because if you read the small print, it's about space and cyber and AI, all the things actually that go into making the overall systemic capability of a nuclear submarine force. So we are seeing the tenets of the IRR and the command paper, not just in Ukraine, but also in that wider engagement in what is, I think we all, we can all see that the rise of China is a once in 500 years episode. Discuss, I know that's a silly thing. Discuss is what you add as a bogus academic, but I know you haven't asked us to come on and discuss that, but I think it's quite easy to make that case. And the final point, I will try and be brief, I know you want to get to questions. Kind of military that Britain needs. Well, what I like about the IRR is it is boldly stated really to anybody really reading closely, there's a difference between war and warfare. And I have thought for a long time the trouble of the British military that over fetishizes warfare as if war between states is nothing but the competition between champions on the battlefield, a bit like medieval jousting. And in fact, what we're seeing in Ukraine is the ability to mobilize the whole of the nation state and your alliances, a point Louise mentioned. And I think that is absolutely right. So within those alliances, what is the sort of military that Britain needs? Will it be sensible to reinvest in armored forces that are kept on Salisbury plane and we'll get to the fight just too late? Or should we leave that to the continental powers? Do those hard choices mean that we should be looking at maritime capacity, especially as defending the North Atlantic, the sea locks and all the bits and pieces that go with the responsibilities of this island nation? Is that a better, is that a more sensible spend of our defense budget within the alliance construct? Stockpiles, I mentioned him already, but you know, very brilliant chiefs of defense staff with debts like Sir Stuart Peach always used to talk about stockpiles. Essentially saying, it's no point in affording the sexiest rifle that you can manage if you can't afford to have a magazine for it. And I think what we've seen now is what we always forget. Stockpiles run out really quickly. So the problem now is not so much getting some of the fighting equipment to the Ukrainians. It's are there enough factories in the world that make 155 and 152 ammunition. These are the real world questions you want to talk about defense seriously. And there are sort of questions that very serious countries like Finland have always asked themselves and have provided really quite sensible answers. So if I may leap about a bit here and I should have mentioned this earlier, Finland and Sweden coming into NATO is just brilliant. Not least because of the conceptual component that they bring with them, which they have been using inside the Jeff. I went to good fortune to be the officer in charge of Jeff for a couple of years and deliberately put Sweden and Finland in charge of some of our operating working groups. Cause I thought they had the best conceptual component. So final, just a few final thoughts. We talk about the integrated force. Can you build it within the Levine model? I'm not sure. And so for all those academics watching everyone pulls apart defense policy, choir policy. Very few people in think tank world actually go and look at the machinery of government and ask in this context, can the structures around and within the MOD deliver the ambition of the integrated review, the command paper and the integrated operating concept and are the structures optimized to do it? Spoiler alert, I think no, they're not. And then the, I will, to provoke debate could I put this, sorry, we've got quite counter to the deterrence failed and say, yes, fail for Ukraine, but deterrence has absolutely worked for NATO. And our problem is leaving Ukraine lingering since 2008, half in and half out, which is obviously what the Swedes and the Finns have concluded. So if you were in NATO, deterrence worked for you if you were just over the border, tough. And so there are some questions about what it is we're trying to deter and is it just looking after those within the collective alliance under article five, which I think is a very important so geopolitical question, it arises over Taiwan, for example. I'll shut up there and leave the floor to our final distinguished panelists. Yeah, Marshall, thank you so much. I have to say it was, the opening was brilliant because you are absolutely right. And when you start putting numbers together rough as they are, the first question really is are we over ensuring ourselves? And you articulated a very good answer, but it's not a question about over ensuring is about how you invest that money. And there I really sort of very much enjoyed your call to draw a distinction between warfare and war because war is about strategy. It's about placing the conduct of operations and the tactical behavior into that broader picture that includes also the D-minor suspense, what happens before war starts and how you shape the environment to push down that sort of down the road that occurrence in a different place. And within that context, you talk very eloquently about this question of being the group of you putting the right emphasis on alliances and sort of really re-engineering the debate of Britain's asymmetry and strategic asymmetry as an actor in European security. Is it about the British Army and the Rhine or is it perhaps about something else? And you mentioned there that Maritime dimension, which of course brings in, in many respects, space is cyber and all the other new domains. And the other point you mentioned about stockpiling so very important and not just about sort of getting the gear but also getting the sort of all the trimmings that are necessary. One debate, for example, about the Maritime capacity for the UK that you mentioned there is can the British shipbuilding industry, the broader sector support if one wanted to have that ambition? And that's a very big question. So from that international order space that Louise is so well sort of picked for us we went into this question of finding a balance between strategic issues and an operational issues. That leads the question of where does this sort of take us in the conversation in so far as Russia's behavior is concerned. Natasha, come in, join us this conversation of all results. Thank you and thanks to Louise and Air Marshal Stringer for their really good helpful remarks. So on the integrated review, when I first looked at it it was surprising to me that there was no real discussion about collaboration between Russia and China. Perhaps that's just because that's an issue that I work on. So I'm kind of always on the lookout. Obviously the integrated review has already been mentioned did single out Russia as an acute threat while China is in a way almost on a sort of slightly different level described as a systemic competitor. So this was actually very similar in turn, I think to the US security strategy as well. But, and I think the IR did do a very good job in a way of the way that it did talk about this need to really keep tabs on Russia and I think it also pointed to the fact that China is such a difficult power with which to deal if you like. And I think we can see that in the way that for example I was just reading today a discussion in the world today the Chatham House Journal, a discussion amongst experts on NATO and there's this whole problem of where does China fit into our thinking now? Because in a way we've kind of not really factored China in to the sense as I said of Russia and China working together. China's tended to be in Asia, Russia is sort of if you like a threat in Europe but as they are increasingly collaborating I think we do have to think much more about how they work together which doesn't mean that they are these kind of omnipotent powers of course and they can't be everywhere at once but at the same time I think we do have to get away from as somebody put it the idea that NATO just does Russia if you like. I know that NATO has belatedly acknowledged the need to sort of address the China problem if you like in terms of security but also I think we have been slow in acknowledging the kind of synergy if you like of Russia and China and that's not to say that we can necessarily drive a wedge between the two I think that's really a misguided idea but I think that we haven't looked closely enough at that partnership and the ways in which it can make it more difficult for us to operate in many ways. I think what the IR has done is to rightly recognize the fragmented nature of the international order. It hasn't necessarily got a solution for that but it has very well recognized that fragmented nature and in that sense I would suggest that it's talking in a way not so much about alliances but as we've heard about the Jeff and Orcus and so on and in a way these are not alliances anymore but these are more these partnerships these very necessary flexible strategic partnerships and it's interesting to note that Russia and China of course keep denying that they are in an alliance and they also refer to their alignment whatever you want to call it as a flexible strategic partnership and so but I do think that these kinds of partnerships like the Jeff and Orcus and so on are very difficult for these kind of if you like traditional great powers like Russia and China to deal with and Russia has in a way been also getting very hot under the collar about these partnerships even though we might think that Russia doesn't really have much skin in the game let's say in the Indo-Pacific for example but it has increasingly been supporting China with joint bomber patrols and so on in that region and so in a way we are also being kept on our toes by this partnership in the sense that it's no longer just Russia, China and Central Asia for example, they're also kind of they're also operating if you like perhaps not actually operating but they're also sort of providing if you like certain demonstrations of power which may be just about signalling but I think that's certainly something that we do need to keep an eye on. I think what this war has shown and this is of course a war that's been going on since 2014, let's just remind ourselves it's not just happened and we could I don't want to get into a conversation now about what should have been done back then but I think what this war has shown is that although Russia is certainly not showing itself to be quite the military power that we thought it was, at the same time it can still inflict a huge amount of destruction as it has done in Chichnaya and Syria and also I would say that although China is taking the stance of studied neutrality as some people have called it at the same time China has been a kind of sort of security blanket for Russia in other ways it's provided it with a kind of cushion strategic cushion, it also there are things that happen under the radar in terms of oil shipments and so on this won't be enough to buoy up the Russian economy but it kind of means that Russia isn't actually completely isolated and there are other countries as well which I think are also quite ambivalent about Russia's behavior and I think we shouldn't lose sight of that. There's also Turkey which is a very interesting case because I wouldn't call Turkey certainly an ally of Russia but Turkey has its own interests in certain areas of the former Soviet Union, for example in the South Caucasus and so Turkey still kind of needs Russia in some senses. I think Turkey is an interesting case because it still kind of needs those institutions like NATO and so on and yet and these are of some value to Turkey but at the same time, if we come back to the fragmented nature of the international order which was noted in the integrated review and also then the intense defying competition over interests, norms and values I don't think that Turkey necessarily if you like upholds the norms that are produced by NATO but it still values NATO in terms of security and so on and I think we could also look at the EU of course and then look at countries like Hungary which need the EU but they don't necessarily subscribe to the norms and values to all of the norms and values produced by the EU. So I think the way in which the IR identified this kind of fragmented nature of the international order was really correct if you like and really accurate and yeah so I think it's and again the integrated review I think has problems as we all do with China in the sense of it talks about having a positive relationship with China including deeper trade links more Chinese investment in the UK but at the same time ensuring our national security and values are protected and I think it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep those things separate and it's become clear that China is not abandoning Russia as a partner and the UK tilt to the Indo-Pacific maybe suggests that the UK could play a role in containing China but in a way the IR seems somehow strangely seems to me to be strangely sanguine about China if you like okay it calls it systemic competitor but clearly I mean of course we do need China in a way as a partner on climate change and so on as well but I felt personally as if there wasn't really a way in which this kind of disconnect if you like was acknowledged. So summing up I would say the IR really did well to recognise the fragmented nature of the international order it was probably better at describing the problems that we faced than it was in prescribing solutions. Obviously this is before the Ukraine war it also of course in the IR says we will uphold international rules and norms and hold Russia to account for breaches of these well so far we've seen that the UK is prepared to offer Ukraine advanced weaponry and so on so forth I suppose the question is then and to build up the capacity of Ukrainian armed forces and so on the question is then for how long how long can we sustain this? And there's already concern I think in Ukraine that the West will tire if you like of providing this support. We could be in there for a long haul because while the Russian army may be weakened it doesn't mean that it can't continue with this sort of war of attrition for quite some time to come especially as Russia doesn't really value its people. So it will let its people take the hit if you like because that's the way that the Russian state the Soviet state before it as well has tended to operate in terms of sort of political culture if you like. So overall I think the integrated review did a good job of highlighting the problems inherent in trying to tackle the threats that Russia presents. I think it was less good perhaps in terms of identifying how to deal with China and it also didn't really to my surprise if you like discuss how to deal with a kind of growing Russia-China partnership as we've noted already that partnership may be fraying as a result of the war but China may also draw closer to Russia they've already drawn closer to each other in terms of their sort of domestic authoritarian systems in terms of their opposition to Western hegemonism and so on. So we can't necessarily assume that China will just you know drop Russia and I'll finish there. Wonderful Natasha thank you so much again so much coming out of your remarks and I thought one of the things that really struck me they came up strongly was this idea of of an international order that was correctly captured in integrated review is very fragmented and that fragmentation cuts both ways. It's not just about you know the authoritarian side and how it's sort of like a undermining and if you want sort of like a working to to slowly dismantle the existing international order it's also how when we talk about values there is an element of division if not fragmentation certainly within the EU, within the NATO within the sort of frameworks and constructs that deliver at the way the international order operates and certainly the way it is described in the integrated review and within that context and you raise this very important point about the partnership between Russia and China the partnership that currently is being tested by the events in Ukraine but certainly a partnership that raises a number of questions about where he could go and it's not necessarily a negative side in terms of like weakening that relationship certainly the joint statement of the 4th of February would suggest that the Chinese were conscious of the fact that this conflict might not necessarily go all too well for Russia and wanted to have a safety blanket against which sort of come claiming in and cashing in their chips as it were of a weakened Russia. Now we've got a lot of questions coming in already and I'm pretty sure we're going to have a fantastic conversation and within that context I will only partly abuse my powers as chair in the sense that I'll try to sort of ask you questions that are coming up in the chat that I also wanted to ask and I'll go in order starting with Louise you mentioned about the failure of deterrence and NATO's deterrence and got at least a couple of questions that wanted to ask you how to articulate that Air Marshal Stringer himself also sort of submitted a different view about that so the question is how would you categorise why from your point of view and you'd say that deterrence has failed as far as NATO's concerned I have a question then for Air Marshal Stringer because I couldn't agree more with you I mean what we're talking about how do we implement the integrated review and do we have the tools is the machinery of state up to the task and you made the very a very good point about if one looks at the main building do they have the capacity to sort of implement the kind of things that we are hoping to do maybe not so much and so in that sense is it a question of tools that we don't have or tools that we're not using properly and is it about you know is it about the tools for the mechanical implementations for example the right to defence procurement or is it a structural governance type of problem that we have so for example we have a National Security Council that perhaps is not used in the best possible way so if you were king for one day what it is the sort of things that you would prioritise focus on to get that machinery of state in the right shape and the last question is for Natasha in the game building some of the points that have been raised in the question and answer space and obviously you talked about the partnership we talked about this before about Russia and China my question for you is honestly is pretty clear my feeling is often that we look at Russia-China relationship and the partnership I like very much when people talk about partnership and on alliance because conceptually I think is the wrong pair of lenses but we tend to judge the quality of that partnership against our own measurements and metrics and I often hear that the criticism raised to me also that well but you know Russia and China do not have a joint operational command structure they don't have the sort of you know the sort of machinery in place that we do when we think about NATO when we think about you know Five Eyes or US and so on and so forth do you think that is part of our mistake is that a little bit delusional to try to continue to force our own way of thinking and on other partnership to get a sense of whether they're good or not to begin with and related to this do they actually need to get something like the sort of you know partnerships and structures that we have to be effective because from all I've seen you know you can do stuff in many different ways do they need to have the sort of NATO like posturing to be looked at and regarded as as potentially effective in what they wish to achieve and I'm not necessarily sure about the answer to the question but again I would really love to have your insights on this so whilst I think I gave Louise enough time to gather her thoughts Louise do you want to come back in yeah sure yeah thank you so on this question the failure of deterrence so I think there's one ways in which it's failed and two ways in which it's succeeded the way that it's failed and I guess how I was referring to it is that a NATO and the EU sought many ways many means to try and dissuade Russian Russia from using force against Ukraine and ultimately that failed so clearly there needs to be a rethink about what kind of ways and means of deterrence are being used and why did that not succeed in this particular event how has it been successful well Air Marshal Stringer talked about one of these one is in fact it has ensured the limits of the war both in terms of limiting the war to Ukraine the territory of Ukraine itself not expanding outside not going close to actual NATO members and we hope in terms of limiting the war in terms of use non use of nuclear weapons now there are obviously other political and use of strategic reasons why Russia may not use nuclear weapons as well as kind of deterrent reasons but so in that sense it has been a failure and a success for different reasons I hope that helps sorry sorry that definitely helps thank you thank you very much for opening this and Air Marshal can I call you in now on this question if you were king for one day even two days I'll give you two days don't worry if that requires more what would you do can I just take 30 seconds to maybe answer the point Natasha made right at the end about the integrated reviews I think it's a bit of a skit to free New York over China that reflects actually it's a segue into the answer I'm going to give you because the integrated review team would have gone a lot further but felt they couldn't because the inertia of government departments especially Foreign Office and Treasury who were very much behind the Osborne camera and Golden Decade the golden era of relations and I can't say too much more but you've read the papers the first drafts of the integrated review before the review team came in you wouldn't recognize the final document I think one of them it took you've got to have page three on the China paper before it even mentioned something called the Chinese Communist Party so what it is is a fantastic demonstration of inertia in government and that's your point that machinery of government so quickly even a I'm only a king for a day around government the problem is it's going well together and it's during the pandemic after about 10 days when things move quickly by the second week let's say technical proposals to use data better went from we're going to make a decision tomorrow to two weeks later there was all 28 scientific advisors from each department now feel they ought to give this their approval so what you have are quite jealously guarded silos and yet in some other areas as well you have to get consensus delivery so government of straight state structure doesn't allow for some of the broader strategic questions so yes your national security council would have to be looked at but also all the feeding elements to it and just one example government's not very good at sharing data and even within some departments and over misreadings of GDPR and data protection act and all that sort of thing so a proper cloud based government that had a proper data policy would be a great start and finally accountability because accountability is never given to particular individuals they can't turn around and use that accountability to demand actions from others and I certainly know you know when a very very senior civil servant recently in private remarks thoughtful remarks said if there was one thing that they could have got government to do decades ago across administrations and across party it would have been a sort of national consensus on energy security I think we can all see the benefit of you know that of that now but government is not structured really to do that and the electoral cycle means that the political class isn't really looking beyond five years either so there are there are many questions to answer here but I would change those sort of three things account accountability putting people in charge of overarching strategic programs on that accountability and better data sharing across government within the military defense similar ones I'd created military strategic headquarters at the moment there isn't one that's just a department of state it fudges some of the functions of a military strategic headquarters but the military as a going concern as a fleet in being is never really commanded collectively until a task force is created and that's handed over to HQ and then that's used well that's fine for crisis response but it's not really good enough for what we're doing at the moment and then I would do a few other things as well around the way the defense board was structured to make sure that the both the department of state and the military strategic headquarters that fed from it were much more tightly gripped and fed from exactly the same strategic analysis and if you got the first bit right then the defense would know exactly where it sat within the government's overarching long term strategic objectives I haven't got time to do it now it's worth a seminar at its own there are some good proposals I was about to say I mean that's a seminar right there because the question that you raised about BGHQ links back to the point that you were making earlier in your own remarks on the question of what does it mean for assistant engagement if we are persistently engaged and therefore peace time activities become operations then BGHQ doesn't seem to be the ideal place where you wouldn't run is PGHQ a co-com is a command and joint operations the global co-com in American parlance and can be given everything we said about war and warfare means it has to be integrated across and I think anybody in UK government would allow us to go in the way that say co-coms are in Africa where you can argue in certain parts of the world the US government's approach is run through the combatant commander and state and treasury and others sort of come through that headquarters that's not really the British way in war but it does need to look at command and control and those are the sort of questions that the command paper ducked I'm afraid I'm going to agree with you and I will hold you on this so we'll have a seminar on this because it's absolutely fascinating Tobi and I'm going to agree more with you this is one of the things that was sort of lost in the cracks in the wings of the command paper and Natasha your thoughts Yeah I mean I think your point about judging the partnership the Russia China partnership on our own metrics if you like or through you know our own lenses I think is certainly very true I would say that in a way it's kind of useful of course for Russia in particular I think to have a sort of guessing and wondering about you know is the number of talks that they've been in the last couple of years you know is there an alliance you know I mean in a way it becomes you just end up going around in circles really I just I think it's slightly personally pointless exercise the point is that they've had a very strong relationship whatever you want to call it going back which started already in 1989 you know because they had to have one in order to demarcate their joint border and actually there's been quite a big kind of institutionalization of the relationship through dint of the border demarcation you know having and also having to deal with all sorts of issues when they opened up the border because obviously it was you know bloody bus stock and so on they were closed cities you know the border was completely closed before and so then you had all of this free trade and so on going back and forth across the joint border and lots of tensions in the 1990s around that border because of like Chinese and so on going back and forth dealing with that you know so there been lots of kind of more micro issues that they've actually had to deal with and that has meant that you know they've actually and they have actually been able to deal with those challenges so it's a lot of the time it's more kind of smaller scale issues that they have actually been able to deal with as the relationship has matured you know we tend to only see these kind of big cheer you know we've got to remember that Russia China they kind of need each other in some ways as well in Central Asia you know again there you know there's this idea of a division of labour and so on I don't think that they've necessarily sat down and created this division of labour you know Russia has actually resisted Chinese economic penetration in Central Asia it's tried to for example in the SCO China wanted to set up all these so on energy clubs Russia stopped China from doing that you know but then of course it's become kind of a moot point because China is now developing the VRI so you know Russia can only do a certain amount really to kind of stop you know the Chinese economic locomotive if you like but it'll be interesting when and if China needs to then protect its economic assets if you like in Central Asia but I think another interesting question about the partnership and certainly about you know how for example Central Asians perceive Russia as this kind of you know probably fear now and concern you know about Russia and the future kind of trajectory if you like of Russian power you know given what Russia's been doing in Ukraine either way either you know there's a fear of Russian aggression but then in the longer term obviously Russia could also be weakened but at the same time many of these Central Asian states depend on Russia you know economically because there are a lot of Central Asian migrant workers so actually Russia and China are kind of bound together in various ways economically and so on in various ways that we don't necessarily sort of see on a kind of daily basis so in a way yes they don't need to normally say we have an alliance because there are already so many things that bind them together I think yeah Thank you thank you so much this is extremely helpful and I have a question that a couple of questions here in the chat for all of you actually if anyone wants to take it one is a point that you all sort of refer to in different ways and it goes back to the sort of the minilateral proliferation right on the back of sort of the big organizations NATO the EU certainly we've seen during the invasion of Ukraine the beginning of even in Europe of different type of formation Air Marshal Stringer mentioned Jeff there was reference done to Orcus in the in the Pacific there was also the trilateral between the UK Poland and Estonia how does this sort of proliferation of minilateral so the suggestion of this more nimble approach to diplomacy that is talked about in the integrated review fits within the broader picture of the stability of the international order and mobilizing partnership and right alliances how do we the integrate established patterns of interaction with partners and alliances and allies with other sort of formations that perhaps does not as just as a structured but still can be very useful in the face of a crisis that's one bigger sort of question for anyone who wants to take it the other question that sort of related to this is if on the one hand would see minilateral as the new sort of thing emerging from the last sort of year or so and certainly has been testing during the the war in Ukraine as the word Ukraine on the other hand from a military point of view turn the clock back to a more symmetric and traditional if you want form of of military challenge in contrast to what we've experienced in the last sort of quarter of a century so two questions how do minilateral challenge the established patterns of in political diplomatic terms and how the sort of war in Ukraine challenge this sort of direction of travel of warfare that we've experienced and we've accustomed to and over the last sort of couple of decades anyone's wants to sort of jump in yes Marshall the second one first then because I think it's probably the more straightforward question I like both questions by the way but on the second one I think the answer is probably no but then again the premise behind the question 10 suggest that there was always some form of pure symmetric warfare and I don't think there ever was I think we're all victims of the fact that most people's history comes from the narrative historians rather than military economists so you know the battle of Jutland features heavily but the blockade doesn't but what was more important in bringing the First World First World War to an end and yes you know the we might call the Red Trails Brigade or manoeuvres in the first week in March writing letters to daily telegraphs saying there you are it's all about tank warfare but actually just look what's happening with grain the blockade of the Black Sea gas prices all the all the other elements of war are continuing as well as the you know frankly terrifying and terrible battlefield destruction that's going on in eastern Donbas and indeed you know the debate we've just had about Russia-China is it a marriage of convenience isn't an alliance as we would understand it I would absolutely agree with everything Natasha said by the way my friends who studied Russia-China will say there were very good geo-economic reasons why they would find themselves working very very closely together so all these things are playing in and have played in and will continue to play in so I think the answer is symmetric warfare isn't back oh by the way we discussed orbital didn't we we discussed several people my more gifted panelists talked about this war's been going on since 2014 all we've added is a bit of what looks like conventional symmetric battle of the bouldery going on in the Donbas but the asymmetric stuff is still there will always be there but always has been thank you anyone else who wants to sort of add to this particularly on the yes Rhys? I'll just add to what's just been said which is that I agree that you know I think this is a little almost like a little blip on a much bigger scale as well you know we've got to think about Ukraine is an important crisis now but it's not the only crisis happening we sometimes get distracted by that but there are still a lot of asymmetric warfare going on in other places around the world that we are concerned about first of all and the second thing is that even if we're thinking about you know China is our kind of biggest long-term threat that China is less direct in its confrontation than perhaps we might expect Russia to have been obviously it does do indirect confrontation as well and so I think thinking about it in terms of turning the clock back to more traditional state versus state warfare is would be very risky very risky. I hear you and Louise thank you both Natasha do you want to add something to this lateral elements? Yeah I mean the mini lateral seems to be the flavour of I don't know the year or longer I suppose but I mean I guess it kind of does make sense and you know you can kind of bring the best expertise to the table so to speak you know obviously the danger is that then you kind of have these little sort of clubs you know and I think and then you know who is invited to the club you know if you like and who's excluded you know that could obviously be an issue along the way but it probably is unavoidable in some senses you know given the kind of given the kind of huge scale if you like of you know some of these institutions are also given that some institutions like the United Nations for example some people might say is no longer fit for purpose I mean obviously it's only as good as its members you know so the UN sometimes works well and sometimes doesn't work well you know obviously you know due to the P5 the veto and so on but on the other hand you can argue well the General Assembly you know has begun to work quite well so you know my take on many laterals is just it's kind of original almost organically and to me that seems to be probably a good thing rather than a bad thing but it could be can be problematic I think in terms of how they then kind of actually interact with and cooperate with pre-existing organisations thank you I have to say that you guys are making my life very difficult to create a little bit of discontent and disagreement here you're agreeing a little bit too much but so I've got the last couple of questions so I'll try to make it work out somehow one is kind of like quick and it's directly related to a point that Marshall Stringer raised earlier on your opinion someone asking about the possibility of the UK using its own independent nuclear weapons outside the NATO context any comment on this particular sort of aspects of the strategic dynamics which in a way it's also fair question because the integrated review did make it a point to reinvigorate the significance of the nuclear arsenal and the strategic element of deterrence in this and is there a value outside of the UK outside this sort of the NATO context yeah go ahead well everyone's just thinking about it it does exist outside the NATO context in fact I think if you said to most people the nuclear deterrent and you said well actually it's offered up to NATO they would be surprised in fact it's what I'm getting a chance to read a tweet today from a Euro think tank saying Europe needs its own nuclear deterrent and it's got two but the French one isn't offered up to NATO but that once again has always been assumed to sort of add to the great ambiguity of what response you'd get from the west the integrated review did take this much more seriously and my final thought for discussion and there's a I put a paper on the policy exchange website talking about this Britain is a strangely reluctant nuclear power because our deterrent is a thing the navy does very well and has done very well since 1969 without missing so much as an hour of continuous at sea deterrent but for everyone else in the military might as well be a non-nuclear power and until I found this odd as I ran the course that taught all our baby generals I introduced the chiefs and they said to me actually that's the elephant in the room because the Jeff we've mentioned already with the framework nation you would expect a two-star British commander we've got one I think we're on the third iteration at the moment standing joint force headquarters commander major general Jim Morris he could be in charge of a 10 nation operation on the border in Estonia let's say and across is a commander Russian commander who has got a concept for using battlefield nuclear weapons it's not to say that we should have some ourselves it's to say but our commanders have pretended or we have pretended and therefore our commanders have been educated to assume that the nuclear deterrent just takes the nuclear question off the table completely and Ukraine has reminded us that no it's very much very much back does it always have to be that way well absolutely not I mean the French that got rid of the land component a few years back now but they still have forgive me a two prong triad you know what I mean and on the first day of their equipment baby general course their equipment high command and staff course they all go down to the French nuclear test facility and it's made absolutely clear to them as you are senior commanders of a nuclear military power and then after that they do the same sort of learning to steer a core or a division or brigade etc etc so I think there will be a wake-up call for the for the UK it won't be so much we will rethink through the deterrent for the reasons that are in the IRR but I think we'll also rethink through the fact that we are in a nuclear world and we can't give ourselves a post 1989 by any longer wonderful thank you so much for that and indeed I can recommend more your paper with policy exchange because I think he absolutely nails this question and this discrepancy that is quite sort of clear about the fact that one is a nuclear power with the permanent at sea deterrence but then most of the time the thinking assumes is there but doesn't really sort of articulate its implications advantages challenges and opportunities that he presents now we're almost sort of coming to the end of this and perhaps one final quick words on the question of the Middle East and the Gulf region and I'll perhaps ask Louise very quickly to what extent what is happening in Ukraine particularly from an energy security point of view sort of racist question about the UK and foreign policy and direction of travel if you want of its relationship in the Gulf States region yeah thank you yes it's a good question I mean it's been interesting that the Middle East response has been very tepid that actually they've been noticeably quiet about saying too much about the Ukraine prices and that has been a little bit challenging but also perhaps not surprising the I don't think that it's necessarily changing any kind of relations with Britain we've tried to convince societies to help us out and they're sticking very strictly to their modus albremdi but I don't think it's going to have any some long term impact in changing relations that already exist the only question has been whether it has forced some more pressure on the Iranian nuclear negotiations because of the lifting of sanctions following it and how that might feed in but I don't think that while that might add an extra layer I think there's plenty of other layers before it gets to that one in terms of negotiations and complications so I don't think it's changing fundamentally and I don't think from a strategic perspective and if this really changes the relationship with the Middle East the Middle East was noticeably not very present in the integrated review at all noticeably absent and I think there is this kind of concern that if the Ukraine crisis continues ongoing and also tilting to the Indo-Pacific and if something happens over there we mustn't forget that the Middle East still exists and that there are likely to still be challenges there and think about what Britain's response might be in particular it seems very quiet following Abraham Accords and this sort of new alliances or relationships being formed between different countries that's making it seem like since US withdrawal from Afghanistan that it's kind of forced a bit of more security relationships to be formed across the region but I don't think Britain we should be lulled into any kind of false sense there so we do need to kind of think about how that feeds into this bigger picture as well. Wonderful, thank you very much. Natasha I could see really briefly I wanted to food security because when we're talking about the Middle East and you know Russia's been on a bit of a diplomatic offensive in the Middle East this week they can they can cultivate the discontent there and stoke the discontent there around the grain shortages and so on you know in a particular way. Wonderful and you will be pleased to hear that in a couple of days time there's a piece of mine addressing this specific question food insecurity the war in Ukraine and the maritime volcano this is all linked as you've all sort of showed in your conversation and Martian, last word literally the very last. No well I'll say someone else it was to back up to say go and look at the map of those countries who are providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine those providing military aid and it's in the south split and the you know that we've got to our diplomatic offensive must be much more channeled into the area that we're not concentrating on in the south because they will look up and I think our prime minister will have been told this in New Delhi recently another bloody war in Europe that you lot can't control yourselves and we're paying for it with starvation and all the other bits and pieces and you know they have a point and did they do and you know in this respect I think this conversation is ending exactly where we should have ended it instead having addressed some of the broader sort of implications of the integrated review how they've been sort of tested by recent events but at the same time lay the ground for the next conversation the one in which really sort of thinking outside the box and how to link the different dots whether it is different theaters in the Pacific Euro-Atlantic whether it is about linking food and security to the blockade to the war to the diplomatic dimension particularly on the question of diplomacy and its reform that's the topic that we will be addressing in the third event related to the series so all very good I can be happier I can be more grateful to the panelists for showing their time with us their insights enabling the conversation that has left some of the questions unanswered but then we are almost for me it's a past of the ending time so we really need to sort of like leave it there it's good to leave people with something to be wished and wanting some more so we've all done their job hopefully I did not feel too much my chair due to this again I want to thank Louise Kettle Air Marshal Edward Stringer and Natasha Kurs for joining us today in what has been an absolutely delightful discussion thank you very much and I look forward to seeing you everybody thank you everyone for coming thank you have a good evening