 Good morning. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. I am Mark Urban. I work for the BBC. I've covered conflict Well, pretty much for 35 years. So I've seen a fair bit of it close up. I've also written a number of military history books and I am on the board of the Imperial War Museum So that's who I am if you don't know me I think what we're going to do with this first session is really look in quite a sort of detail way at the war And it's effect on European defense. That's the main aim of what we're trying to get out of this first session so we'll start off by sort of Getting a sense of where we are and then going on to you know, how does it end and what are the implications then for Europe? Because I'm going to be shamelessly populist in my instincts I'm really determined to give you your 30 minutes of questions. So I will I'll try and limit my questions to the panelists To just under 30. So hopefully that will give you guys a chance to ask your questions or a decent number of you So without further ado, please join me in welcoming our first panel Yeah, Tim off to the end. Yeah, Siberia Well So For I will do the introductions first on my left is will Jesset who was in MOD for many many years involved in drafting defense reviews military planning at the highest level then General Sir James Everard Armored Corps cavalry officer, I think by by Formation and instinct then involved in commanding brigade in Iraq and later on Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, which for those of you unfamiliar with the shape system There's a lot of alliance management in that job. So fantastic to have you here as well James Professor Helen Thompson Professor of political economy at Cambridge author of a fantastic book Disorder hard times in the 21st century Who will I think give us a lot of insights on geopolitics and the way that will play out in the coming months and years And then finally Tim Marshall formally a colleague of mine in the diplomatic core of correspondence or whatever you would call us author of all sorts of fantastic books on geography and Interstate relations in general and somebody who's been trying to make sense of these Developments as they've been going on. I'm gonna go left to right here. So Let's start with you will I mean, I guess looking at what we've seen in in the past two and a half months Is it to an extent sort of good news and bad news for Western defense good news in the sense that Are approached things like combined operations or the fusion of intelligence and those sorts of things Looks to be much better than that of the Russians Bad news in the sense we'd run out of ammunition in two or three days Well, I Suppose I'd start off by saying, you know, you got to put this crisis into context and put defense planning into context So you go all the way back to the 2010 strategic defense and security review Where we were saying, you know confidently no major state threat at present No state currently has the combination of capability and intent Needed to pose a conventional threat to the territorial integrity of the UK. So 12 years ago We then stepped through a series of events Russia invading Crimea in 2014 We take account of that in the 2015 review Where we get back into, you know, state-based threat to it being a big deal All the way through to the 20 21 Integrated review where we're saying Russia continues to pose the greatest nuclear Conventional military and sub threshold threat to European security. So quite a quite a journey. I think over 10 years And that manifests itself in what we're planning for So in 2010 we're planning to be able to rule more to brigade of forces through Afghanistan Because that was what was on our minds and international terrorism is a thing by 2015 we were back to war fighting at scale being the kind of thing we needed to challenge and then as you say Mark, you know We're now into, you know complex multi-domain operations against, you know, aggressive state-based tactics and that manifests itself doesn't it in the way that You know budgets capabilities plans come together. So from taking 8% out the defense budget in 2010 We then start to increase the budget from 2015 onwards and then there's the huge influx in 2020, you know the 16th or 24 And I put it that way just to kind of put this thing into Historic context and to say that over the last 10 years 12 years We've been building we've been rebuilding our defense planning. We've been rebuilding our defense capabilities It's over three sort of headmark joint forces that we were asserting we would build in 2020 2025 2030 I would contend have most of the right characteristics associated with them, but your point I think is well made it's something James and I'm just talking about to say This needed this needs and needed to happen more quickly than it currently has So the reasonably well documented Shortage of munitions, you know has been a thing for several years and it's not just munitions It's it's fighting vehicles, you know, etc. etc. So there are clear capability shortfalls But if you put this into the sort of, you know, the historic context I would say that we have built the capabilities that we would require By and large if this crisis continues to unfold Thank you very much will General I mean I look at this what we've seen and In a sense a reminder of the first and second world war artillery the big killer Shocking in a way, I mean I reckon at least 20,000 military dead probably double that civilians level towns But I wonder for you what are the standout Impressions of this sort of reemergence of of state-to-state warfare in Europe and and how do you interpret what's happened? Well, it is a you know really my New York Times this morning. There was a Ukrainian major describing It was a war of position and a war of artillery and I think the big lesson you take is It's what you're drawn to new ways of warfare. The old ones don't disappear and that is a is a challenge and You know, I could talk to NATO and we know to don't have a formal approach to Ukraine because Ukraine's not a NATO member indeed You know NATO would say that Ukraine's not a crisis because that allows them to use the peacetime plans and measures they have to cohere Alliance activity. I think they've got some very good plans for the future that we could you know We could talk about if you like But you know when it comes to Ukraine with currently I think observers, you know giving them enough Not to lose not enough to do much more with and we'll see where it goes, but I think the big point is that You know the pattern of war hasn't changed and when you look at things like the integrated review Which was I think pretty widely applauded in the Alliance for its intellectual rigor They didn't always like the punchlines, but they you know, you would think that we now had to go back and revisit this not just in the light of Ukraine but the lessons learned from Afghanistan and indeed NATO's future plans for the deterrence and defence of the Atlantic Alan I mean a lot of people put the emphasis on economic action To both to avoid this the threat of sanctions are now to sort of end it on terms That would be to Russia's disadvantage. I mean To what extent do you think that's viable and to what extent do you think the underlying geopolitical realities energy and all the rest of it Will dictate the outcome Well, I think we have to think have to distinguish between two different things here where energy sanctions are concerned Or perhaps even three different things the first of them is is that I think that Putin has been Taken aback that there have been any energy sanctions at all So the fact that the US and the UK Made a relatively quick commitment on to cut out Russian oil and the fact that the the fifth round of the EU sanctions included an outright coal ban But on the other hand he might have been shocked by that But I don't see any evidence that this is actually changed any calculation that he's made during the course of the war so then the question would become if the EU really can put in place an oil sanctions agreement and There's not such an agreement yet The discussions have been on going on a long time and if you listen to the language of the Hungarian government over the weekend You wouldn't be particularly optimistic that the agreement is coming Soon but if that were to happen would that make a difference And I think the difficulty here is is even at best. We'd be talking about trying to phase out all Russian petroleum products and that crucially involves diesel only by the end of the year so how does that sort of change anything over in the immediate term that allows Russia the possibility of improving its Capacity to export more petroleum products to Asian countries the shipping costs of that but the quite considerable extra shipping costs are quite considerable from the the Russian Point of view it seems to me that the only thing that could really deliver would be something that was Quick done quickly would be an immense shock not just to Western economies, but to the entire world Economy and citizen we'd all have to be prepared for that and That I think has the possibility of changing or at least making Putin Reconsider on the other hand that the counterpart to that would be well if he's going to do that They would also have to come off quite quickly and I don't think that They would have to come off quite quickly as well because I don't think the world economy can withstand it And the sacrifices that would be required for very long I think there is a medium term to long-term issue though Which is the way in which it is the sanctions and the atmosphere around the sanctions has made it much more difficult for Western oil companies total energy is accepted to stay in Russia and that that will have an impact Because Russia's future as an energy well leases oil producing power depends on developing alternatives to the Western Siberian oil fields, which are probably peaked in terms of their Output and they need Capital Western capital and technology to do that particularly where the possibility of developing shales concerned And it's not so clear to me that the Chinese and Japanese companies could provide that and then we're willing to stay So if we think of it as do these sanctions make Russia's Energy choices much more difficult in the medium term. I think very much so today thus far changed the course of the war I think no Thank you very much Tim. I mean, I guess one factor in that is that Western Europe is plumbed in to Russian energy with your Geographical hat on to what extent Do you think geography will define how this current round of fighting ends and basically It will be inevitable that a certain level of both commerce and other types of interstate relations With Russia whether Putin stays or goes will have to be part of what comes out of this Geography underpins this I think it's the best example and it will Partially determine how it how it ends The background being I mean I start by looking at the geography of a situation Layering on the history and then laying on the politics and then I think it comes together and the real experts drill down So the geography of Russia no warm water port Crimea Flatland in front of it Ukraine and Belarus and Poland It has been invaded through that direction For so many times over so many centuries and genuinely does fear. I think wrongly There's no justification, but it genuinely fears it and that's the deep background to it It under someone like Putin cannot allow a vibrant democracy which is looking westwards in Ukraine So that's that's the geography of it and then there's this history of them being invaded And the low water mark for Putin was probably 1999 Kosovo We were both there And it was Putin who whispered into Yeltsin's ear in 99 said get yourself to pristina And they came down from Bosnia and made themselves a player I think that was the point where the tide stopped coming into Russia and they started pushing back out And when you look at everything that is done on foreign policy, it is about pushing back out from Moscow not just in front of them, but also Further round to Well, actually 360 degrees they've been trying to push back out and in 2014 they could only give themselves a small buffer zone And guarantee their warm water port which the lease was up in 2042 And they've spent the last few years preparing to push that Tide further out and then to everybody surprised they've come a cropper Now as for the geography of it now Again, the military experts will know more but they struggled because through the pre-apet marshes It was boggy that it was only frozen for a short period of time general frost was back in fashion and had a vote Now with the tank battles in the south It's flatter harder ground and there's going to be some very tough fighting And overall the Americans I think when they went to cube Three weeks ago Lloyd Austin went and at that point I thought I saw a shift The Americans have gone from Containing the situation and managing the situation and giving the Ukrainians Enough just to manage. I think they've made a strategic decision to now inflict a serious defeat upon Russia And I think the Liz trust his speech Last week to the mansion house Put Britain on that same page And this is again part of geography At the biggest picture the Americans have always intervened when they see one big dominant power Trying to dominate the continent of europe if it looks like it's going to do it They step in They've done it again Absolutely well, I mean, I just wanted picking up from Tim's point They're almost about sort of war aims I mean, it's still relevant to this question is how does it end and the west and to what extent the west is willing to just carry on Fueling Ukraine in its desire to retake all of its lost territory even If that includes Crimea, I mean, is that a realistic and wise It's even for western countries to commit themselves to well It seems to me that we've got a, you know, that there is still a need to try to reconcile What Ukraine is looking to get out of this What British politicians and Other western politicians are saying what's being said in the EU what's being said in NATO It doesn't seem to me to be something a quite reconciled at the moment and it's important. It's important that there is The best possible alignment on on that because you know, it is the You know the Ukrainians, it's a lenski who's going to have to go to the table and do a deal And there's a you know, there's an issue associated with this isn't that mark which is You know the the growing risk of some sort of escalation of the crisis as you know As Ukraine does begin to so you know push back at that order You know, we've all been Reading haven't we the kind of you know the nuclear doctrine the nuclear policy that's that's been that's been coming out the increasingly assertive statements that Putin and others have been making And measure that against the kind of the language on you know, what is existential for Russia exactly Tim's point and you got quite an unhealthy mix of issues there Which do require it would seem to me, you know greater clarity than we have currently got about You know the reconciliation of western and ukrainian ends In order to see some sort of ends to this When do you think that Gets untangled or or or or sharpened? Because an attack on Crimea is I mean if that's what the Ukrainians want to eventually press the press want to do is a real Red line for Russia, isn't it? It is now as far as they're concerned part of Russia Yeah, I mean so so I don't see how and when this does become untangled particular. I mean We were all weren't we you know listening with interest to the speech this morning That doesn't seem to have gone anywhere particularly new. No, that doesn't you know, that doesn't add very much to this We've heard Zelensky being You know increasingly been bold and I think by by what is happening But I don't think we've yet really heard At least recently, you know, what's his what his goals are some weeks ago They seem to be you know potentially more limited than perhaps they are becoming General um You said in your first answer the old Ways of war have shown us that they're still very much Part of the way that states when they collide will try and Resolve huge questions like this. I just wonder just picking up on what well We were discussing with will about the possible Ukrainian reconquest of lost territory firstly Whether you think they can are they capable of doing it? Uh, and whether if they're not some kind of stalemate does inexorably lead towards a negotiated outcome um Well, it comes to that. When does this get untangled? I don't think it gets untangled until the current phase of the war stops I think putans generals will still think that they can win in the east and establish a new Our front line along the river nipah secure the south, you know, and That would be their start point. I think for that But I I look at the evidence and I don't think that they can achieve that without escalating significantly conventionally or potentially You know some form of nuclear escalation, you know tactical newt not not massive newt, but again I think for Putin. I mean that would represent for me a failure at the grand strategic Level, I think the consequences would be hugely negative and so I hope he doesn't he doesn't go there But I think you know that we're at the start of a of a long war for Ukraine and a new Cold War for NATO I don't think That russia would allow crime here to be retaken. I think you know That's just I know people talk about it. It just seems very very Difficult to me and when it comes to end states, I mean I We probably get a vote in in the west because you know, we're we're supporting them so much But in the end, I think it has to be Ukraine that decides whether the end state is the status quo ante or Or something more or less than that but I don't think that can be decided until Until we have a sort of pause in the battle at the end of this phase And Helen if if that does happen say at some point later in the summer or something like that You were talking about the facts of life as far as energy are concerned the fact that there isn't any easy Answer to this There's been a lot of emphasis in the EU on looking for alternative sources of supply To what extent have those things delivered by the end of summer or the end of the year and to what extent Does the energy dependence still define the outcome from a western point of view? I mean, I don't think that there's Any way of changing the energy situation and the energy choices by the by the end of the the year and If you want to look at the the factor that one factor that tells us this most clearly at the moment, it's diesel And diesel prices diesel prices and gasoline prices are pretty much completely separated On each other and diesel prices Are now at their at their highest ever Level and that is true despite the fact that the price of crude oil Is about 70 dollars a barrel cheaper than it was at the previous height of of crude oil in the middle of 2008 Then when you throw in that diesel is the fuel that basically keeps the supply chains of the world economy going Through shipping and trucking that this is a massive massive Issue I think in terms of alternative Supplies and the situation for european countries particularly where gas Is concerned is What we need to understand is that once germany next year Or i'm at a point of view. Hopefully next year is able to Import liquid natural gas. So it's able to to it to import seaborn gas and move away um from pipeline Gas from russia, which is a very significant portion of a steve. It's gas imports. That is going to be a pretty massive shock to world gas markets because There has not been a World gas markets in which germany does this And 2021 had already seen a huge shock to Natural gas markets because china's demand for gas imports went up 20 percent in 2021 Causing huge price shock both for europe and for asian countries europe for those Countries that were importing liquid natural gas so I just don't think we can Under estimate how difficult this energy situation is now that doesn't mean that we should just say Okay, we can't you know have objectives. We in the west can't have objectives We're not supportive of ukraine, but we must do so with open eyes About what the energy consequences of what we're doing are and then have strategies for dealing With that and that's probably going to me, you know, like looking at you know Significantly reduced energy consumption Thank you tim, I mean We've been talking a bit about Does this stutter to a halt? Later in the summer or later this year And I suppose What I sense is is in the west a lot of people Yearning for signs that either putin will be finished by this and overthrown Or in some ways so weakened You know, I suppose it's the lord austin line that he never thinks of doing anything like this again, but I wonder to what extent Regardless of of what happens to putin personally the geopolitics And the underlying attitude in russia Will mean that the threat does not disappear Or even that a leader worse than putin in the sense of being more nationalistic and doing what the army thinks is necessary To subjugate ukraine might emerge. Yeah, just as um Trump did not come out of nowhere the conditions of it produced him and just as when she and modi have Disappeared the himalayas will still be there these underlying things that we discussed at the beginning Are still in place whether it's putin or not putin now if there was a genuine Like a Czechoslovakia situation after the fall of the wall Where you get someone like Vaklav Havel emerging and leading Czechoslovakia and now the two countries into democracy liberal democracy Then russia could take a different turn, but there's been no Period in russian history when they've really had civil society Especially once you moved outside of the two main cities They've never really had democracy. So I don't see what would produce a Havel in russia So consequently take putin out to the picture. You might get a temporary A temporary solution But I don't think there is a solution to this as longer as russia is the type of country that it is and that is manufactured by its geography And and its history and I personally think this will go on all year I think the economics of it are very just as equally as important if not more important than the military And it never finished after 2014 There's actually been fighting constantly for the past a year more than that now So Basically, it doesn't finish until russia changes and russia isn't changing um I'm going to open this up at about eight miles to Fulfill my commitment to giving you guys half the session in terms of questions So what I want to do in the last portion of this is be in a sense more detailed Literal about lessons for western defense And maybe start off well with the idea of kind of revisiting defense reviews I mean I was in Kiev until a couple of days before the war started There was a day when the atms weren't working one or two other things happened And people said oh, yeah, this is the cyber attack And then they were back on in three hours And I said I thought to myself is this it Is this what all these experts in various departments and think tanks have been telling us about For years is this but have we not seen it? And those other types of warfare that have been very much emphasized in the latest review Should we be just pausing a little bit and thinking about You know numbers of missiles we've got or numbers of f-35s a mass I suppose is the crude term Before investing quite so fully In those I guess non-kinetic or or other domains Well, I think cyber, you know doesn't hasn't featured as widely in this crisis as many of us expected to Of course, we won't necessarily be seeing, you know some of the behind the scenes things that are happening inside But you know and of course it's a relatively new domain, you know, it's still developing as a as an art So I don't think we have yet seen enough to conclude that, you know, cyber hasn't had a role won't have an increasing role as as we go forward But I think you're you're you're a wider point about the need To run a rule again over where we got to in the latest review feels to me to be right I heard Tony Raddick and David Williams from the mo d doing a thing at the ifg a couple weeks ago Well, I thought that they were actually quite measured and was sort of saying, you know, it's too soon to rush into this But you know, this is it's all very well to run through the series of reviews that I described You know using a set of planning assumptions that we might be in a big scrap This is now changing. We're not yet in a big scrap, but the situation is a lot worse In terms of stability and security in europe than we were expecting So I think it does require, you know, and james will speak to this looking again at Some of the choices that were made on platforms numbers of platforms as you say, you know, this has been very largely missile war hasn't it We've known for a long time that munition stockpiles are low You know, we're scrambling now to to make some more to make some more But as you say, it's also about, you know, whether the the platforms that we're developing Developing bringing service are the right ones This debate about mass I think is really interesting and really important A lot of people I know are moving very quickly to say huge mistake to reduce the size of the army to where it is And you know, we must begin to recruit a bigger army from from now on to which I sort of say, well, maybe They've not yet proven And picking up a world's description of this as a missile war Um does Investing a huge amount in a carrier that has to be really quite close to the enemy coastline because of the range of its aircraft Make sense to you now general or equally tanks or equally manned aircraft the things that in the way Define the culture of our armed forces those prestige platforms. Do they look vulnerable now? I mean it's I was done in portugal last week at striking force nato looking at the lessons They learned from integrating the harry s truman into the nato Order of battle. I mean, you know these are our class based in the a dramatic which are striking targets in Estonia, I mean they make a huge difference. And so, you know, you definitely need aircraft carriers As I made the point, I mean these new ways of walking at work of warfare are right just you you can't forget the old ones you need troops to season whole ground you need troops for urban fighting and you need huge quantities of artillery and rocket ammunition And I mentioned earlier. I mean, I think the integrated view was was people liked its intellectual rigor They just didn't like the punchlines, you know Configuring to operate below the threshold of warfare and returning to to war fighting at graduated witness a modern division in in 10 years and of course a reduction of combat power to nato which which Doesn't make sense I think given the fact that our leaders have signed up to a new concept for the deterrence of defense of the euro-atlantic area And I'll just you know, it's based on a very simple idea, you know that In order to deter you have to unambiguously demonstrate the ability to Defend the defense requires you to who control geographic areas and the domains of warfare civil change So it's a very simple idea, but it needs Combat power to make it to make it work and huge and expensive of course, Helen. You've been very Direct about the dependencies diesel fuel The gas infrastructure the other things that mean, you know with one bound Europe cannot be free in this sense I mean To what extent can you be prescriptive and say what would help? What should Europe as a collective be doing in the coming months to try and change the calculus Well, I think that the the energy transition is obviously part Of this But at the same time we need to understand the ways in which the The present tense situation with fossil fuel energy is itself A constraint on the energy transition because very high fossil fuel energy prices Meaning that the imports for the energy transition for green energy are more expensive than they would Otherwise be and nothing that's happening with the war Changes the in some sense the physical difficulties of the energy transition It doesn't in itself provide the technology breakthroughs that are necessary where storage I'm concerned. I mean the thing that I think in some sense is positive or encouraging about where we now are on the energy side Is is that I think all illusions that people have had about energy and its importance or denying its importance In every respect of shattered it shattered geopolitically Because nobody's any longer going to say that dependence on russian energies of no geopolitical consequence You know, you didn't need too much. I think paying attention to this to understand the ways in which putin was deliberately Creating reinforcing European energy dependency through the last couple of years So the last couple of decades and the way in which he was using the pipelines for that I think that nobody can any longer have any you know illusions about the fact that there are some structural reasons Why the prices? Oil and gas and perhaps surprisingly coal were actually as high as they are and that was true in the autumn before The war came and I also don't think anybody can any longer Think that you can kind of separate out those energy issues from the energy transition that what everybody has to do All governments have got to do is find a coherent energy strategy that deals with all aspects of the energy situation As a whole and and I think that the space for doing that is greater that you than it was before the war Because minds have been focused. Yeah, tim. I'm going to ask you one last question and then we'll throw it open Which is I mean you you don't just do geography. You do all sorts of aspects of human interaction. I'm just I'm thinking about lessons and do we change things and At times in this it's occurred to me that putin Going for professional armed forces was in a way a massive self-own Because he now faces this dilemma. Do I have to mobilize the country which he's politically very reluctant to do and our western Countries, I mean we see now ukraine able to mobilize literally hundreds of thousands of people We look at finland and say well the great thing about finland Is they have a system where from a standing army of 22,000 they can go up to hundreds of thousands and indeed poland Is trying to have a sort of hybrid system Um, is there a lesson there even for a country like this one, which traditionally doesn't Engage in prolonged continental wars and think it needs Lots of military, uh, man and woman power. No, no, you think it's not it doesn't really expand No, because and this takes us back to cyber The mistake by putin is not that he doesn't have a conscript army It's just that they have used the army that they have incredibly badly Talks about it. I saw some footage the other day of some tires on One of the armored vehicles had ussr on it They're using tires of 40 years old to fight a war in 2022 That's one of the reasons they're losing not because they don't have a conscript army It makes sense for finland and the Baltics. I think lithuania has conscription now Reintroduced it a few years ago. It doesn't make sense for us and going back to cyber because that's part of this answer I think they haven't used it because it's held in reserve They are very good at it But so is ukraine, but also so is the united states and increasingly the uk And I don't know the degree of plausible deniability we could have But there is a price to pay for fighting cyber war in the longer term We are in this movement where mass is still important I suspect mass will always be important But mass is increasingly controlled by cyber and anyone who doesn't put money into that is going to lose Great, thank you Do we have roving microphones? Yes, we do on each flank The gentleman at the back on this side was the first person I saw raising his hand So let's let's open it up and we've got very much. Hello mark. I'm david loin former colleague from the bbc Now now visiting senior fellow here at kings And I want to go back to a comment that will jet it made right at the beginning about the Pivot from afghanistan to state on state warfare In this last decade and of course the attack on crime area in 2014 came Coincidentally with the end of nato combat operations in afghanistan And I wonder if we're in danger in moving towards tanks and And big mobile armies, which armies feel very comfortable in training for in losing the lessons of afghanistan And losing the lessons of counterinsurgency and these complex interventions Which we've fought over the last 20 years and may well have to fight again Is that directed? It's principally it will but I'd like to hear the general's comments as well. Yeah Well, so we we spent a lot of time didn't we thinking about What happened in afghanistan and what went well and what went badly and you know, let's bear in mind You know how it ended and let's be realistic about you know, what sort of conflict it was But you know james will will recall just how much effort went into thinking through The lessons that we picked out of the successful parts of the counterinsurgency operations so kind of you know very strongly I think embedded into British military doctrine and certainly informed all the work that has happened since So the the big policies that get most focus Out of the most recent reviews are you know, but the white papers themselves But it was an integrated operating concept that was published as a preview to To the integrated review and the command paper That are that are in many ways the most interesting and they do as as you've said mark, you know take us A long way into you know sub threshold And you know gray zone and cyber and space and and all of that but that's not all they do I think those documents are actually quite sober about the sorts of conflicts that we'll need to get into and they don't They certainly don't Expect that we're not going to get into Further, you know difficult counterinsurgency style operations into the future I don't think that they're immediately foreseeable, but I don't think they're ruled out by them So I think the picture is rather better than us, you know simply forgetting the hard One hard-learned lessons about of Afghanistan It does feel to me like the essence of those has been incorporated into into that update on doctrine, but So start with the return to collective defence and big armies I mean, I think these armies won't fight The way that that armies have been fighting even as we're seeing, you know at the moment I mean, this is the era of multi-domain operations. I mean, it's not yet working as we wanted to but But we will get there and you know, what you might call distributed mission command in the old days as a tank command If you penny package your forces People would condemn you but now you penny packet to Survive and you're given huge autonomy and you don't concentrate Force to kill the enemy you concentrate fires to kill the enemy And I think it's interesting that how do we judge progress in this? Well, we judge it by the land that is seized and is held And to seize and hold land you need large numbers of troops and to maneuver troops around the battlefield in a way that they Can win the fight and survive still requires combined arms groupings Just cleverly used so we will we'll screen with drones and clear with artillery You know your distributed mission command much smaller Packets of forces, you know all these all these ideas are Are in the process of being delivered, you know the third division last year with an america experimenting on many of these things And cyber, of course will bear big part and there's a very good if you haven't seen it Microsoft open source report on the use of cyber in this campaign and there has been significant use of destructive cyber By the russians against the ukrainians and chatting to a ukrainian the other day He described that you needed a can do attitude And I think that is quite interesting that can do attitude has made it seem to us as though there hasn't been any cyber But there has there's been a lot. It's a very good report But it just tells me it's not quite the decisive arm that some of us hope it is going to be On lessons learned afghanistan. I mean, you know, I think there are lots to learn there I think in capacity building in particular and there's a very good NATO report that's just about to get a production Which sort of says that capacity building in support of fragile You know Sovereign states doesn't work very well I would have thought david that all that investment in hunting terrorists A fusion of intelligence I style all those other things Is one of the paybacks for the war on terror if you look at the number of russian generals Who've that's the point that those skill sets get built into your model for collective defence and war fighting It was it was a 20 year campaign and we didn't know in 2001 Any of the lessons that we knew in 15 years later, and I just fear that we might be losing some of those more complex lessons that aren't As technical but they're about your troops on the ground and counterinsurgency and how you work how you fight wars among the people My fear Suzanne Raine who's sitting in the midst right in the center in the most hard to reach position for any microphone Thank you mark. Suzanne Raine. I'm a visiting professor at Kings and also With mark on the board of the imperial war museum. I have a question about capability. We talk Particularly at the moment about material as a capability and about building material capacity And obviously in the middle of the war, that's the thing that you see But the bit that sits behind that and arguably before that Is the decision-making capability and decision-making capacity? and part of that is Actually built into the integrated review in a way, but also you could argue that It's at the heart of some of the things that will was talking about about do we have the best alignment in europe in terms of What we think we should be doing next and if you're talking about deterrence deterring russia You have to be thinking how do we how do we alter? Putin's risk calculus. So so all of that is essentially about how we think And how we project our thoughts in an incredible way So i'd be really interested in your views on what more could be done to improve Decision-making capability and capacity In the uk but also very much in nato and in europe so that we can really affect As helen was saying, you know, we haven't seen really anything that we've done In the economic side yet change how putin's thinking. How could we how could we improve that? thank you You'd like to I'll have a jump in initially And say, you know, I don't know as a matter of fact, you know where the decision-making is being done in the uk On on this, I assume Very largely through the nsc or some sort of small group of the nsc Where you would need to bring, you know, everybody together including very importantly the the energy component of this And in the national debate that doesn't yet seem I think to have featured You know as widely as as maybe we should expect for the reasons hadn't spoken about but It's how you then sort of the point i was getting to on war aims, I suppose Is how do you then align that better, you know across western nations because Again, james and I were talking on the way in and saying, you know, there's been reasonable. I think american leadership on this But you know, you've had american positioning You've had something different in the you've had something quite different in in nato and something different here So there doesn't really seem to be A multinational multilateral forum in which you're really bringing together, you know key um decision makers To talk about those big issues the kind of you know the war aims and all of that You know, you're still doing g7. You're still doing all these kind of groupings But they're at this stage in something that's important as this One would have thought by now there would be a kind of a bespoke piece of International machinery and maybe a bespoke piece of national machinery Maybe there is maybe there are both but I can't see what they're sort of contact group Helen did you want to come in on the deterrence point? I mean clearly put him was not deterred because he didn't believe the threat All I would say is this is I think where the energy sanctions are concerned The only possibility to change the calculus is something that's very drastic and very quick um Because anything that allows russia a longer period of adjustment, which means essentially Replacing European market share with a higher Asian market share. I think At least allows him to think that the risks of continuing are worth it What we have to understand though is is that anything that would change is calculus in terms of the size of the energy sanctions and the immediacy of them would be a seismic shock to the world economy and you have A number of of developing countries in the world that are already on the precipice where a set of issues around fuel and and and food are Are concerned so to take that as the option and I'm not saying it should be ruled out But there has to be a strategy for what that What that that means To now I have no idea how these things are thought about in the people of making the decisions in the in the In the uk, but I slightly worry that it can be seen that the decision-making can be So what's the way of putting this not sufficiently focused on the worldwide consequences Economic yeah, so that's not a contact group, but with an element is is what's needed to sort of heart but with a an economic element as well as a Strategic and political element Next question. Yes, the woman there Yeah, we've just about Hi, my name is Christine Chang. I'm a lecturer here in the study in the department of war studies and I have a simple question for you um Do you think military escalation is basically Inevitable and I ask that just with a bit of background framing. So The way that I see this playing out is is basically that Putin is backed into a corner He this has become essentially an existential fight for him And then on the NATO side it has also become we have turned it into an existential fight Both for ourselves and also for Putin And it's obviously an existential fight for ukraine. There is now no incentive for anybody to back down That whole structure of of peaceful negotiation has fallen away now It feels like we're in for a very long insurgency as some of you have already indicated But is there a peaceful way out? Is there a different way out? I know that's a really hard question But I'm I'm hoping to Some of you can imagine a different way out because I personally can't and I'm looking for a little bit of hope here Tim Johnson give hope the moment you said it was a very simple question. I thought now it isn't There is a way out. Sure. And it's compromise But that's in short supply We saw when Erdogan and Bennett and Macron and others were Trying to put together some sort of compromise deal about three weeks in The the vague outlines of what could be achieved And that would be something along the lines of February the 24th, which is a bit of a problem for Putin But if you can manufacture it If you can lie convincingly enough That he got something out of it You could go back more or less to February 24th He definitely keeps Crimea various beautifully crafted worded statements that allow him to sell something But that's the only way and no I'm not hopeful Um I think Putin is in trouble as we said as you said I think when Finland and Sweden joined NATO he's even more trouble because You know, he is trying to stop NATO expansion and partly has has failed So I think in Ukraine his any way out is to Escalate I don't think NATO are yet caught in that trap. I think NATO Haven't needed to make a decision yet You know, it's not a crisis for NATO at the moment and building up to the summit in June. I think they will Form an opinion and give it and and you know NATO spent a lot of time working on the decision making come back to you Already a question in decision making at the speed of relevance is a it's a big subject And actually although we all take about it When you look at the evidence every time they are presented with an immediate challenge, they make a decision You know, it's pretty good. I think our challenge though is the fact that many people have never Been through this before you know understanding the theory of deterrence I mean people are terrified of provoking Putin But if you if you're not prepared to escalate when you deter you can't you know So I think it's education of our leaders is one of the challenges But I think you know NATO haven't had to make a decision yet. As I said, I think when the current phase of the war Runs its course You know, I think they can then decide what its strategy is going to be Yeah, I suppose the other potentially difficult conversation in NATO In terms of the sort of compromise that you were talking about Tim is at what point does pressure get put on Ukraine? Yeah, not not to accept The permanent loss of Either way, yeah, I mean there'll be pressure on Ukraine at some point either way Yeah, yeah, and certainly in The days running up to the war in Kiev I had a lot of resentment that Schultz and Macron had tried to put pressure on on Zelensky to concede something in Donbass or somewhere else. So even the idea of it was was really Violently opposed I think in Kiev at that time and of course since then they've Achieved extraordinary things. Um, this gentleman here had a question. Uh, yeah, I think he's raised his hands I don't know. I can be held guilty favoring this side of the room and the other microphone wielder has had no actual battle experience yet, so Ah, there's someone there But let's yeah, so we're this one first and then Neal Collins, I'm a financial journalist. Um, I have a question for professor Thompson um I think that Attacks on Russian oil and gas Where the proceeds are paid to the IMF Would mean that there's no never going to be a shortage of it but it would start to produce a Very substantial sum which could be used for Rebuilding Ukraine It would demonstrate How much of the world has prepared to Pay up for Russian gas and also gives a huge incentive to find alternative supplies and It wouldn't matter if the whole the whole world didn't join in if the major western Countries did That would be sufficient. I think at the moment you can buy Russian oil at about a 35 dollar a barrel discount from the world price Which gives you some idea of the amount of money that could be available Uh, and best of all it would make Putin absolutely furious Well, I mean, I definitely think there's got to be you know creative thinking Because I We both I think agreed that the the supply side of it particularly in in the short term is really really Difficult. I think though you still got to be really clear about what your objectives are with this I mean there'd be one thing to say, okay We're doing this because it will when peace whenever it comes Or relative peace finance ukraine's recovery, but do you think that that makes any difference? To pusing calculus right now. I mean it can infuriate him without changing anything in his strategic judgment About what he's Doing and I think the question still has to be is Oh, you know western country is really serious about energy sanctions actually as Something that changes Putin's calculus And if so that needs to be like thought through in terms of what the implications are for the For the world Economy now I'm not saying that finding some extra money for ukraine Financing it for the future is is in is insignificant I'm just saying I think it's a secondary question to whether Any of us think that energy sanctions can actually change the outcome of this war Yeah, another another ex-calling mark What are we learning? Well, what a straight question? What is the optimum size of a deterrent force that we're going to have to deploy if we presume that the Conflict gets frozen in place the russian army remains something like what it is russian armed forces What what size do people think a nato force is going to have to be and in the context of that What are we learning about the way the ukrainian system works? That's who you've got reserves paramilitary national guard and professional army interoperating Are any lessons emerging from that early though? It is um, it's a very good question. I think As nato now move to implement this new concept that I've talked about It's accompanied by another bit of work called the new force structure work, which Tries to much more cleverly integrate The forces of all the allies, you know at the moment people contribute forces to nato and they keep perhaps a A separate bit for themselves. The idea here is that Actually in large parts your forces are part of the nato response So I don't think we know the answer to that question Yet Particularly because of course we now recognize in the future that that you can have significant effects in individual domains be they maritime strike a strike, you know Space targeting all these sort of Things so it's a very good question. I think I would have thought there'll be an answer in june If it's if it's requested, but probably not until then and what you learn about About ukraine. Well for this sort of war You learn that the combined arms grouping is still important and it's very interesting to see some of their tank brigades Have three tank regiments and three artillery regiments You know, you know weight of russian ukrainian Yeah, the weight of artillery that they can bring to bear now, of course cued Shooted a sensor very quickly by drones is Has been the battle winner as someone said, I mean n-laws javelins. Yes, they're having an effect, but what's really killing people is artillery So we need more of it Thanks paul um Andre Adamson um x on forces now work in defense industry. I'm wondering um what the panel Or the extent to which they think that this is an opportunity to recalibrate the relationship between The armed forces and governments and industry. I'm thinking particularly in terms of partnerships We're between the customer and industry on setting requirements Weapon stocks and and dynamic stockpiling that sort of thing and also Atch used towards sovereignty of defense r and t and how much of that we ought to be outsourcing and how much of it should be sovereign. Thanks It seems to me that the answer to to all of that is there in the fairly recently published defense and security industrial strategy I think the need is simply now to get on and and and deliver that Because the questions you're asking kind of, you know our results the hills aren't they? I mean for as long as I've been doing this, which is you know 30 plus years We've been talking about the need for stronger More strategic more trustful relationships between government between the department the armed forces and defense industry And I think you know realistically one has seen quite a lot of progress against that But the fact that we're still publishing things like the industrial strategy and saying there is need to more Need to do more on this, you know demonstrates just that point Um, of course, there's you know, there's big machinery being built in government to do to do this now I think that the this crisis will accelerate the pressure to do this much more quickly as you were saying earlier Mark and this is kind of you know In in munitions in particular, you know, we're now having to kind of go very very quick on this And very much like urgent operational requirements in previous campaigns We're rather good at doing this when we really need to do to do this We're much less good at doing it when there's not pressure on it So surely a big part of the answer is to you know, capitalize on what we're learning Out of what's being done in the context of this current crisis And applying that logic straight away to doing exactly what you're describing um Time is almost uh Run away from us, but we're going to take two Last question two final questions We'll take them both at the same time and and then we'll we'll field those two questions. So please Hi, I'm Ian Matheson a retired former foreign service officer, pretty foreign service officer My question really is about Uh, the future of russia. Um, I was struck by tim marshall's gloom about this Which I think most of us would probably share to some extent But it does make me think the title Is really a title that asks the defensive view of against putin or against any likely successor to putin and I wonder Really if that's a realistic end Um, I'm sorry the ukainian ambassador's not here, but I'd like to know what the ukrainians think the future of russia is I wonder if they're ukrainians in the audience Who could tell us that but there might be scope for a little bit more optimism and a little bit more um, sort of creative policy making about how to deal with russia in order to Will the ends that would be better than most of us are now expecting um The cold war as I remember cold war one ended much much more suddenly than people at the time Expected and I don't think we should rule out that changes could happen very quickly I just wonder if any on the panel know What the ukrainian view of the future of russia is Okay, great questions. Um Yeah, uh, robert tyler from new direction the foundation for european reform I just want to ask the panel very quickly about resilience Obviously, we see in the defense concepts of countries like poland and the Baltic states a huge emphasis on this by example in latvia's 2020 Defense concept They even outlined the role of the church the government universities and primary schools All right, why in the west do we not have a sort of similar All right. Well, let's um, should we do russia with him and then we'll see see uh, because we've got about three minutes Uh, I live in hope but not expectation of things getting better um I was with the ukrainian ambassador last week Because he was kind enough to ask me to host the charity event where zolensky's Fleece was sold for auction for 90 000 pounds Oh a quicker side on that one Boris johnson was there as well and I was supposed to be introducing him and this was election night And he'd swapped in was supposed to come on the stage within two minutes Speak for two minutes and go But zolensky we couldn't get him up for 20 minutes So boris johnson is standing there now. You know his life. It's in lived in 10 minute chunks I think it says an awful lot that he stood there ruffling his hair for 20 minutes Uh was patient enough. I don't know. It's a sort of anecdote, but it does show you the resolve And the the relationship sorry briefly on that well try to be brief on russia Again, you just look back at the geography in the history look back at what happened after the cold war Why are they going to change? I hope they do as for resilience I think nato is now again back in fashion found its raison d'etre I think that schultz will look at macron's strategic The resilience and think it's not going to be very resilient So I think germany if it's going to spend this 100 billion which it says it is Will spend it mostly within the nato framework and that is aimed Sadly, it's not aimed eastwards its defensive shield is against his eastwards Just great. So I think on on russia. I mean I deal with the ukrainian military. So I mean At the moment they're very in the moment. So the any good russian the dead russian and Perhaps more refined views will come over time. But but I I don't know and on resilience, of course again You know nato leaders have signed up to some pretty Hard nose, you know resilience objectives and enhanced resilience objectives in recent summits Actually, the uk resilience doctrine is very good. Well, how far down that line we are. I don't know But I think it is interesting. I mean tim alluded to this me uk don't tend to educate their populations on the true nation of the threat unlike perhaps finland and Sweden and estonia which makes I think delivery of some of these things much more difficult Thank you all very much indeed. So we are out of time for this session. There is a 20 minute break now We hope that we may have the ukrainian ambassador with us, but we certainly have another great Session to follow after 11. So I look forward to seeing you all back and please join me. Thank you