 Thank you very much, Adam. It's good to be reminded of my age. It's been a good day. I want to congratulate the organisers on the speakers, on the panels, say lots of food for thought, and some big issues are rising, indicating the uncertainty of the moment in which we find ourselves. At the time of the end of the Cold War, one of my favourite jokes was of Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden, and Adam turns to Eve and says, you do realise we're entering a period of transition. The idea was that we were moving from one state of affairs to a new state of affairs that was dimly understood, but was certainly going to be better than the old state of affairs. Of course, what we found ourselves in was something that was much more complicated, fluid, dynamic and certain and stable than in many ways the Cold War we had left behind. I'm not one of those who was nostalgic for the Cold War. There were too many alarming moments in that, and it involved the suppression, the repression of half of Europe, but it did have a sort of uncertainty and stability, at least towards the end, despite some alarming moments. We're now moving into a period of great uncertainty, and I think we have to keep in mind that this may be transitional. Some of the discussion today has sort of assumed that we've entered a new normal which we know of a hostile Russia of sanctions in place, of a war that can't quite be brought to an end, but that may not be so. I've learnt through this last few months to be careful about the business of prediction, but it is a fluid situation. The starting assumption we have to recall was that there was a Russian steamroller being set in motion that would overwhelm whatever defences Ukraine could put up, and even those, like myself, who didn't think, who could never see how the Russians could conquer a population of 44 million in a country the size of France, a bit larger than France in fact, assumed that at some point this might have to be an insurgency rather than an old-fashioned positional defence. So it was even those who were more optimistic on the Ukrainian side were still nonetheless ended up being impressed by what the Ukrainians turned out to be able to do against the Russian steamroller we have the Ukrainian tractor pulling away all those burnt-out tanks and BMPs. A lot of the initial assumptions, a lot of the initial responses by NATO countries and EU countries assumed Russian success. They assumed that the new normal was going to be one in which Russia effectively dominated Ukrainian territory along with its new ally Belarus, possibly taking in Moldova as well, the sense of reconstruction as much as possible of the European part of the old Soviet Union, and that we had to reorganise ourselves occasionally, accordingly, in terms of defence spending, in terms of our foreign policy, to talk about a new containment, a new Cold War. In some ways, that's still the mindset that we're in. Now, people assume that the war is not necessarily going to end like that. Indeed, it seems almost impossible that Russia can revert to its initial war aims. But instead, we're now imagining a stalemate, a sort of a long war of attrition in which neither side is able to gain advantage. But I'm not convinced of this either. I think we have to address the possibility that Russia will lose. It's been a while since it's been clear it can't win. We've now moved to a potential draw, but maybe it can lose. Now, this is, again, not a prediction, but it's something we need to think about, because that will start to raise issues that are different from the ones with which we've been concerning ourselves for the first months of this war. Now, I heard what Neil Ferguson said. I think we have to be clear this is not a question of an American war aim, or an American analytical dispute as to what may or may not happen, what we'd really like to see. It's not about us, it's about Ukraine, and the war aims that it has set out, which are not excessive, given where they're starting from, assume effectively a Russian defeat. And there are reasons why that is possible. First, the sociology of armed forces, of a military that has already suffered huge losses. The Russians have lost about a quarter of their fighting force. That's staggering. They've cobbled together units to carry on the fight in the second phase of the war, which has now been going on for a month, upon which so much depended. And they've made a few kilometres of progress in certain areas, and in other areas are starting to be pushed back. Military organisations, even with those as disciplined as the Russians can be, can be quite brittle. And one should not assume that there are forces there that will put up with anything for all time. Moreover, the key development, and I think we will look back and see probably the Ramstein Conference as being a critical moment in this war, the key difference is now being made by the movement of advanced weapons into the Ukrainian armed forces, which they are perfectly capable of using, in particular some of the most advanced Western artillery. This is an artillery war. It was an artillery war in 2014. It's still an artillery war. The anti-tank weapons, the drones are all absolutely critical and important. But in the end, the damage is done in these wars by artillery. And if there has been any Russian progress in recent weeks, it's because of concentrations of artillery making certain positions untenable. But now the artillery advantage is moving to the Ukrainians. And the Russians know that. And that's why I believe, maybe today was such an important date in Putin's calendar that it was set as some sort of artificial deadline by which bring me some achievements, bring me Mariupol or whatever. That hasn't even been achieved. But I think the basic reason was that the Ukrainians were going to get stronger while the Russians don't have allies supporting them in that way. Their defence industry is struggling to keep up partly because of the component parts that are required from the West to make their advanced systems work, but also because just the sheer amount of loss that has to be made up and some of their elite units are the ones that have suffered most. So in a different times the Russians might have found a way to pause the conflict, to keep it ticking over while they work to reconstitute their armed forces. But they haven't given themselves the time to do that. Now Neil Ferguson and others have raised the issue of escalation and one of the things people were waiting for today. And I think if I'm quoting correctly, Neil used the phrase about salvaging the war by using nuclear weapons. Well you can't salvage the war by nuclear weapons. You can add to the risks, you can add to the dangers, you can add to the pain, but you don't fix any political or military problem by using nuclear weapons. Unless you use battlefield nuclear weapons, which is a big misnomer, their effects will not be contained. Unless you're using them in numbers, a man, how do you make sure that you're separating them, their effects from Russian forces? What do you do about fallout? It's very notable that Belarus Lukashenko, who's doing his best on census to distance himself from the adventure in which Mr Putin invagaled him, was very down on the idea of nuclear war. Remember that Belarus suffered from the fallout from Chernobyl more than anyone else. So nuclear weapons don't solve any problems. Putin has made some pretty stupid decisions and damaging decisions, destructive decisions. Who can say that he will not make such decisions in the future? But it will be his choice and his decision. It's not our choice and our decision. And there's no point in us scurrying around, trying to think of rational things that we can do to stop him doing something that is wholly irrational. There is nothing going on at the moment that obliges him to use nuclear weapons. Indeed, he is using his nuclear weapons in a way that is wholly rational within the framework with which we understand nuclear deterrence. He made it clear from the start and he reaffirmed it not long after the start of the war, that if there was any direct engagement by NATO powers in the war, not indirect, not supporting Ukraine, but actually coming in and fighting Russian forces, then that would be a different matter. And NATO has taken that message. So the argument that this war shows that deterrence doesn't work isn't true. Deterrence is working exactly as one would expect. It's deterring NATO countries from getting into a direct fight with Russia and it's deterring Russia from attacking NATO countries. This is being fought on a non-NATO countries territory. If we're acting, we're not acting out of support for our ally, we are acting in support of a country defending itself under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which is the inherent right of self-defence, the same basis, in fact, on which the United States gave support to the UK during the Falklands campaign. So it's not that there aren't risks here and not that we should dismiss them, but we have to be very clear about how these risks could actually materialise and whether there's anything that we or the Ukrainians should do differently. And certainly the Ukrainians shouldn't stop winning just because the Russians may react in an unhinged manner. At any rate, after all the hype about today's speech by Putin, it was a bit of a damp squip. There was an army parading for much obvious reasons, smaller than the normal parade. The fly past didn't take place, so the skies were blue. And the speech seemed to be pretty downbeat. There was no mobilisation announced. But this is still, in Putin's term, a limited operation, and he described it in its original terms. Before the expansive ambitions with which he announced it on the 24th of February, which is about the denazification, the demilitarisation of Ukraine, where it was clearly about conquest and regime change, we're back to preempting a pretty fanciful Ukrainian threat to Crimea, to Luhansk and Donatsk, and even to getting nuclear weapons. So actually if you wanted to take a positive from today, you've got the basis, you've got the talking points for a discussion about a peace deal because they're the talking points that were there before the war. I think also this debate about objectives and about how the war should end, we do have to be careful about not substituting our aims for either peace or war for those of Ukraine. They're the ones who are suffering, they're the ones who are doing the fighting. It's not a particular feature of the British debate, but certainly of the American debate, where it's assumed that American war aims or American peace aims are the ones that Zelensky should be pursuing, and they're not. They're the ones who have to take the risks and who have to make the sacrifices. However, however, it's important that we start to... This is why I think it's important to start to think through the implications of Russian military failure, continuing Russian military failure. Because if we start to move to those issues of a peace deal based on the issues that were there from the start, Ukraine's future security status, what you do about the enclaves, what you do about Crimea, then we could find ourselves with different views. If we say Ukraine has got every right to take Crimea, well, it does because of the way it was taken from it. But if we say you really should, that's a different question, because Crimea is a far bigger military challenge than anything else that might be envisaged. I don't think there necessarily going to be the issues. Obviously, when we heard the ambassador this morning tell us about the new security order and security guarantees and so on. This is a really difficult question because essentially Ukraine is after the sort of security guarantee you get by being a member of NATO without actually being a member of NATO. Fine, it's a good trick if you can do it. But there's a basic problem with all security guarantees even if you are a member of NATO. For some time I suspect Ukraine will anyway feel it has to rely on its own resources. I think the big issues that are going to be coming up are going to be sanctions. We heard a bit about that in the panel on the economic side. If it is a Russian view that they can't withdraw their forces without a commitment to remove sanctions when they do, what does that mean about the future position of Putin and one suspects the belief in the West that when you've got Russia on the ropes or just because of the way that Russia has behaved, you can't remove sanctions while Putin is still in power. If that is the position then recall what happened with the sanctions against Iraq in 1991 when Saddam Hussein stayed in power. What about issues of reparations and war crimes? Do we forget about those? Can we forget about war crimes? I think there are going to be at that stage of a negotiation if we ever get that far. There are going to be some really big and difficult issues to talk about. What happens if Putin does go? We've got no idea, it seems to me, of the discussions in and around the Kremlin at the moment. Putin didn't look very happy this morning and no doubt people are making some instant diagnoses of his health as a result of that. Maybe he's very ill, maybe he's not, maybe there are elements in the FSB that are really annoyed with him, maybe they've already been purged, maybe the military are alarmed and frightened as to where this is all leading and want to bring it to a quick conclusion, maybe they feel their pride is at stake. We don't know enough about that. But just because we can't imagine the processes by which you have regime change in Russia doesn't mean to say it won't happen. And just because we might like it to happen doesn't mean to say that it's going to produce the sort of characters that we saw in Russia under Yeltsin, who desperately wanted to mend fences with the West, we could see ultra-nationalists in power as much as anybody else because they're the ones who have the media platforms at the moment. Again, I come back to the point, this is a fluid situation in which a variety of things are possible. So can we think at all about how this may end or where it's leading? I find it very difficult to believe that the war will be going on in this way for much longer. I just don't think either side can sustain it. You can have exhaustion, you can peter out for a bit and pick up later on. But it can't be sustained at this rate, just simply because not enough ammunition can be generated to keep it going at this rate. Something will have to give at some point. How quickly, I'm not saying, but it can't go on at this level. It is possible that if Ukraine does find it difficult to make breakthroughs as it moves, as it has said it would in the next couple of weeks, to more active counter-offensives, then you could find some sort of stalemate. But we don't know about it yet and we're not there. I think one can say already that the aura of Russian power that Putin has so carefully cultivated has been broken. There's going to be a lot of countries that have either depended upon Russia or feared Russia who will be making their own new calculations at the moment about where does this leave us. What does it mean for Belarus? What does it mean for Moldova? What does it mean for Georgia? What does it mean in Central Asia? What does it mean for China? What questions have been raised? I mean, Xi must be really wondering whether he made a particularly good bet by inviting Putin to Beijing at the start of the winter Olympics. So there's going to be a lot of new calculations doing. Secondly, there are going to be second order consequences of this that are going to be enormous, particularly because of the inflation in food prices and energy prices. Already references being made to the impact on developing countries. That too is something that may leave us with secondary crises that turn out to be as big and as serious and as difficult as this one. Lastly, what does it mean for us? What does it mean for how we think about military power? You know, we went through our own hard lessons being learnt about the limits of military power. The idea that the decisive use of armed force can solve a nagging political problem has affected us as well as it has now affected Putin. And you learn that military power has its role, has its importance, but really it doesn't. The only limited number of problems and by and large these are defensive problems and somebody else has used military power that they can solve. It's an important lesson to learn. It may not be a pacifist lesson, but it's a prudent lesson about the dangers of assuming the fallacies, accepting the fallacies of the decisive military move that leaves your opponents gasping and beaten and looking for capitulation. It doesn't happen. It does happen occasionally, but not that often. So, first is to recognise the limits of military power, keep on recognising it. Secondly, when we're looking at our own defence capabilities to recognise that, just if you'd simply take the case of the UK, in one of what has been I think one of the most significant UK interventions geopolitically for a long time, hence that the UK was to the fore in trying to support Ukraine even before the war began, has been important in organising the donors group, is that the donations are really important. The arsenal of democracy role turns out not just to have been a 1940-41, but is relevant now. The ways that you can support other countries are many and varied and that's something that we're going to need to think about. I think that argues when we're looking at the aftermath of this, not to get fixated on a particular scenario for future war, but to have the broadest base of capabilities available and to be able to use them in such a way as to respond imaginatively to crises as they develop. Lastly, diplomacy. Diplomacy has been really important in this war, in pulling the Allies together, in keeping a focus in supporting Ukraine, in demonstrating a willingness to explore alternatives to war, but it hasn't solved the war. It hasn't produced an answer to the war and it may not. It's quite possible that this may come in right at the end, but the idea of some grand peace deal in which everybody goes away with a bit of satisfaction doesn't seem to me to be very obvious at the moment. But it is a reminder of the importance of international politics, of the role of diplomatic activity and of alliances. In the end, what holds alliances together is not just geopolitical interests, but values as well. And the importance, despite all the things and the many things that may divide the countries of NATO with their domestic politics and their attitudes to the EU and each other, in the end there is a common set of values which to its credit Zelensky has understood and played upon, which is a reminder of why in the end not only is it possible that Russia can lose this, but why it's actually important that it does. Thank you. Just before you go, thank you for being a patient audience. We have some final words from the fathers of the feast, the head of the School of Security Studies, the principal of King's College London and the chairman of reaction. Over to them. Thank you for your attention this afternoon. Okay, thank you very much Adam and many thanks to Laurie and to our students just before that for helping us draw to a close the afternoon in such an insightful and impactful way. We've had some great speakers today, some great discussions and I'm sure we've all gained new insights into the ongoing war where it's all headed, the longer term implications for Ukraine and for defence in Europe and international security more broadly. So we're just going to give you some brief remarks here and some brief thank yous. I think Ian mentioned this morning at the start that we had six weeks to organise this event, starting back in, what does that put us into early April or whatever. And Lord Swarbrinian came up to have a chat with myself and John Gears. And I think to pull this off within 42 days of the decision to go for it has been no mean feat. And everyone I think organising today across the two organisations clearly deserve a good round of applause. So there are many people to thank from across reaction and across Kings. On the reaction side there has been literally an army of people involved but let me thank those we at Kings have worked with most closely. Ian Martin of course, Lord Salisbury, Nicole Gray, Consha Olivia Archdeacon and Steve Moore. There are others but those are the people that we dealt with most closely. It's been very rewarding working with reaction over the past few weeks and I hope it's not the last time that we do so. Perhaps an annual event on the defence of Europe would be good or something on the future of NATO I think an earlier speaker mentioned as well. On the Kings side, many thanks to my co-conspirator John there in the front, John Gears. And to Lizley Elland, our school comms lead who never never flaps and her great communication team. To Julie Weldon, our faculty comms lead. To Emma Hardy, the college on the college comms side. Hilary Brifer at the Centre for Defence Studies. Ruth Denton with Kings venues and Alan Gilbert and the entire Kings security team. We also need to thank the speakers of course, especially the Secretary of State for Defence. Ben Wallace who's now gone off to Washington and the Ukraine Ambassador Vadim Pristako. The interviewers are guest compares, Mark and Adam and you the audience of course. Without the audience we don't have events like this. Watch this space I think for future events on this and similar topics. So many thanks for coming for helping to make the conference such a success. I'll leave my comments there and hand over to Lord Salisbury Sir Robert please. Well when you were brief but comprehensive and I'm not going to repeat the list of facts. I think perhaps one thing you'll allow me to say is that behind as is well known every good woman there's a good man. In this case behind every good man there's a good woman. And we mustn't forget Fiona Martin not only for doing so much to make this work but also putting up with the vagaries of our husband throughout the last 42 days. Fiona it's been a pleasure to watch you at work as always. It has been a great pleasure for us at reaction to be able to work with you in and all your team. It's almost as though we've been working together for years instead of merely for six weeks. And I'm delighted that you agree with us that it would be a shame to throw away what is clearly a winning formula. And we accept with the greatest of pleasure your implied invitation that we should repeat this performance perhaps thinking about the future of NATO at a future date. And if we have as distinguished an audience then as we've had now and say successful a group of speakers then this will be the beginning of something really really great. So I would like to echo of course everybody's and all the thanks that you've uttered today and above all to you the audience who made this such a success. It's been a great pleasure to be here and thank you to Kings for being such splendid and admirable partners. May I just add one other thing it would be odd for a commercial organization like reaction not to give itself a puff and certainly even order for the chairman to fail to do so. But we thought that this was such an important subject and that the timing was so important that in spite of our extraordinary struggle to break even we have done this on a noncommercial basis. And I hope that if there is any surplus from today's events that we will at least have a modest sum to give to a Ukrainian charity nominated by the Ukrainian ambassador. And I was particularly grateful to him for coming as well as course to the Secretary of State. Thank you for your kindness. My name is Shiddish Kapoor. I'm the president and principal of King's College. You might be wondering how many people does it take to close a conference. But look the reason I really wanted to be here because I couldn't be here for most of the day other than Sir Laurie's speech. And I remember it was about six weeks ago a win when you called and the principal's office gets a lot of such requests. We'd like to organize a conference. So I thought all right he's probably talking about summer of 2023. So I think it is remarkable but quite fitting for what is needed here that we've been able to move so quickly and particular thanks to our partners reaction. And perhaps it was you who prodded us to move so quickly. But the one thing I'm reminded of is some of us who are old enough would remember that when the Berlin Wall fell there was a little aphorism that was going around the end of history as people said then. And I'm reminded as someone else wrote that on the February 24th history is back with the vengeance. Who would have thought that we would have needed to assemble like this in a hurry to talk about the defence of Europe. But I'm pleased that we could. And I think this is where I'd like to acknowledge that even though we've been able to come together for six weeks we've been preparing for this for 60 years. The fact that we can convene scholars and expertise of this level is not an accident. It is the work that was started by Sir Michael Howard ably taken forward by Sir Laurie Friedman. And it is because of the depth of that work and the comprehensiveness of those connections that we could be here that we could talk about this. But I would like to add another element. Of course we could just have been a very good policy or a think tank. But we're more than that. And I think what has also happened here today and I certainly got a brief glimpse of it is the declaration from our students. And the thing that touched me about their declaration as I read it were two aspects. One they reminded me who sort of a middle generation here is that they had grown up never knowing war in Europe. And that's something to reflect upon. But the other thing that the declaration ends with saying is of course that today we are preoccupied with with the Russia Ukraine war. But it doesn't take away the main challenges and realities of the 21st century which probably likely will still remain climate change failed states and perhaps the accelerated and coming great power competition that is ahead of us. This might just be a catalyst that brings all those things forward and makes them all the more important. But I'm pleased that we could get together and discuss this. Many people have been thanked but perhaps not you, Wynn Bowen and John Gerson. And also my special thanks to our partners at Reaction Ian Martin and Lord Robert Salesbury. Thank you to all of you. Thank you to the audience. You may also put a special shout out to our venues and security who had to go the extra mile to make this event possible especially with all the VIPs who showed up today. And with that may I wish you a very good evening and for those who are invited a reception on the eighth floor. Thank you very much.