 Good afternoon and welcome to our return of geopolitics webinar. You're very welcome to join us at the Institute of International European Affairs. My name is Daniel Bryan. It's a pleasure to be joined by three fantastic speakers to discuss this topic this afternoon. First speaker will be Vice Admiral Mark Miller. She's just just retired as the chief of staff of the Irish Defense Forces from London. We have Dr. Ulrich Franka, who is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and from Washington DC. We have Dr. Thomas Wright, who's director of the Center on the United States in Europe and a senior fellow in the project on international order and strategy at Brookings Institute. Welcome to join us this afternoon. Many thanks for for coming and contributing and without further ado, Mark, could I ask you to open for us please. Okay, just a thumbs up if you see me there, or you can hear me. Okay, I suppose the, I'd like to approach it just from three points as to where we've come from, where we are and where we're going and to say about Europe in particular, and is the remarkable piece we've had for over 75 years and that's built, not just on the work of Robert Schumann and the development of the economics security of the EC and the EU, but it was also developed by our relationship with the US and initiatives in terms of the Marshall Plan and the EU recovery program after the Second World War and the continued interest of US in Europe was significant at 75 years, notwithstanding the fact that we've had the Balkan Wars and the fallout from that, but things are changing on that side and I think a number of about two decades, three decades ago Europe was 25% of global wealth. In about 20 years time we'll be down to just over 10%. And that means the powers are changing. I think the second piece that is changing in context of where we are now is the actual shift in US interest in the context of multilateralism and in particular during the Trump administration, the, I suppose, rising evidence of unilateralism and a disengagement from Europe and the penalties associated with that to some degree, some recovery since the Biden administration but nevertheless signals were sent from that. I think the third reality is the where we are at present is a general decline in global peace and security, according to the Global Peace Index, we've had that decline over the last 10 years and we just look around Europe at present. We have three wars on our borders, the Ukraine war, which I'm sure we're going to talk the full scale hybrid war, which I think the UN have an underwritten estimates of 14,000 dead and that and now we have to build up in terms of Russia on the border of Ukraine. We've had the multi proxy wars in Syria, and they still rumble on to some degree. We have the civil war in Libya, which is in the stalemate, and that's not to mention the instability across Africa, in particular across the Sahel in areas like the Ramadhan, or the Malai border area of Mejia, or the Kino Paso, or Nali. We also have I suppose the, the change in economic landscape, and that's, I think the biggest indicator of the powerships, which the Belt and Road Initiative in terms of China, it's, I suppose prediction that it in some are suggesting that China will be number one, India number two, US number three and EU number four. And this just coming back to the language of unilateralism coming from US is also complemented by a frustration with the US in terms of Europe's coherence on its approach to defense and security. And the sense that some, if not many European states are freeriding in terms of the investment in defense of others. And I put Ireland into that category at number 27 of 27 in terms of investment in defense and security, I've said it many times, what do we know that the other 26 don't know if they're willing to pay more for defense and security in the EU. There is also, I think, and this is probably an interesting piece is the growing desire of the European Union to learn the language of power. How many analysts will say that it doesn't have a strategic culture to learn that language of power? No, it doesn't have the capabilities. But we see initiatives such as permanent structured cooperation. We see European Defense Fund and we see the annual review defense mechanism that is there. But there is this issue whether Europe can learn the language of power or not is dependent on other areas. And I think perhaps the most significant is the energy dependency that Europe currently experiences. It is absolutely dependent on imported energy. And for instance, it's dependent on 40% of its LNG from Russia. I think about 30% of its crude imports from Russia. And that's driving fragmentation at this moment in the context of as Russia flexes its muscles. We've had the uncertainty of climate breakdown and the penalty associated with that. And I think we have on sectors as well, such as we've seen in the last week, Russia's indication of an exercise in Ireland's exclusive economic zone, five days of an area, which is a roughly 5,000 square kilometers, the size of Waterford, Wicklow and Dublin, in which Russia said it was going to come into a sovereign state and carry out a live firing and a rocket exercise, unprecedented, provocative and unacceptable. Just looking to the future, I see a few drivers, obviously. And I've mentioned the rise of China, the Belt and Road Initiative and how we position in that, we see the activity of Russia. For Russia to become stronger, it doesn't necessarily mean it has to become physically stronger. All it has to signal is make Europe look weaker. We have the complexity of the security environment I've mentioned. I think Africa is something that we all need to be conscious about. A growing population cluster is a regular migration. And this difficulty in terms of the penalty of trying to break down and what that will mean in the context of our desire for carbon neutrality by 2050. But this all hinges back in an area that I think, Dan, we spoke about briefly just as we came on here was the issue of European desire for strategic autonomy. Canada achieved that because without the language of power, without the ability to speak with a language of power, it would become more and more an unfair in the context of the world affairs and then find itself increasingly marginalized. I'll leave it at that. Many thanks for that. Mark, just a quick follow-up question to you. What do you attribute the Russian change of plan to at the weekend? I think Russia is just sending a signal. It sent a signal that it could do this. That signal was very heard by everybody. It doesn't matter whether it did it or it didn't do it. The fact that it had the audacity and the power to speak with that language. And I think the other piece was a broader signal that it could involve Europe. We could have activities on our Eastern frontier in Ukraine and simultaneously an exercise on a Western border in the Northeast Atlantic. And that basically is a capacity to actually be active throughout the 27 EU states as well as I think showing Posh and how I suppose isolated. Ireland is post-Brexit. We are, as I've described this, a lone Sentinel in the Atlantic, separated from the rest of the European Union. So it was a signal. And I think that was the important piece. The signal was more important than the actual activity. Great. Okay. Just remind viewers that they feel free to put the questions that come to mind at any time using Q&A function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. So from Cork to London, Ulrike, welcome to the event and welcome back to the IIEA and look forward to your perspective from London and German perspective. Thank you very much, Dan. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so I'm speaking from London, but I think I'm primarily here to talk about the kind of continental European or kind of EU view and the German view. And I thought I'll just kick us off with kind of two main points or observations which are relatively general, if you like. And I'm sure there are kind of specific questions about both specific countries position at the moment and the kind of current challenge with Russia and that we can go into when it comes to, when we come to the Q&A. So yeah, so the first observation I wanted to share with you and it's very much in line with what we just heard Mark saying. And that's that I do worry that Europe or rather the European Union really has a problem to recognize the geopolitics and power politics and power political struggles are back and we struggle to find a common position. The thing is what we need to realize is that the European Union, for better or worse, really hasn't been made for this. It hasn't been made for kind of geopolitics and power politics. In fact, it's kind of been made for the opposite. The idea was to create EU so that inner European political, power political struggles could be overcome and the EU was brilliant in that regard. We don't have kind of power competition between France and Germany anymore to speak up but it wasn't designed to be a geopolitical actor in its own right with regard to others and it wasn't designed as a foreign policy actor. It also just benefited massively from the United States kind of shielding it from a lot of problems and security issues in particular for the last 30 years or so. And so I think it's really kind of not in the DNA of Europe. In fact, it's the opposite of the DNA of European Union to address issues in this mindset. And we have these 27 countries with very different approaches and I must admit as fascinating as I personally find neutral and non-aligned states, I do also worry medium to long-term how the kind of, it's six kind of special status states if you count in Denmark, which is neutral but has an opt out of European defense and how these six states within the European Union will kind of position itself within a European Union that is at least trying to become more of a geopolitical and indeed a kind of defense and security actor, which indeed is kind of the second part of my point on the European Union. So I said, it hasn't been designed for this. So this all looks bleak, but at the same time there was definitely some movement. There's definitely some effort of changing this. You've all heard the speeches about the geopolitical commission, European strategic sovereignty or European strategic autonomy. We have the strategic compass that is currently being being prepared, this kind of fundamental document that is trying to bring the views of the 27th together and come up with a more coherent foreign policy strategy. So within the EU, there's definitely a kind of a realization that that more needs to be done, but this is going slowly. And I say this as someone who was kind of positive and optimistic when it came to that, but it's going rather slowly and the challenges are now. And just to reiterate a point, I thought that was really important with what Mark said about the kind of loss in relative power. My colleague, Jeremy Shapiro, just had out a piece that I thought was really eye-opening. And I say this as someone who works in this field because he just looked at the kind of power balance between the United States and Europe, United States and EU plus and the United Kingdom over the last 10 or 20 years or so. And he really showed how Europe is losing its power in every sense of the world, word, sorry. So it's not just kind of defense and security, which we're all aware we aren't the biggest power, but also economic power. Since 2008, relatively speaking, Europe has really lost economic power. And it just shows that we are getting weaker. At the same time, we're trying to do more and the challenges are becoming bigger. And that's a kind of dangerous combination. I also wanted to briefly touch upon Germany just because or mainly because over the last week or the last two weeks, the world I wanna say where allies have been really incredibly critical when it comes to German foreign policy in the context of the Russia-Ukraine NATO conflict. And don't get me wrong, I'm critical of the German foreign policy too, but I must say that for Germany watchers, none of what this current government has been doing so far should come as a surprise. Because if you like, there are kind of three central tenets to German foreign policy. The first is that, you know, the diplomacy, communication and international law is key. This is really where all international disputes should be solved or how all this international disputes should be solved. Always keep open communication channels and this is really kind of the one solution to everything. The second tenant of German foreign policy is the importance of the economy and economic relations and trade relations. In the German mindset, this kind of matters more than anything. If you have good trade relations, you're unlikely to go into conflict. So having trade relations, having links to other countries, having gas pipelines to potential opponents is a way of keeping kind of communication channels open and this really is a general belief. And it is seen as mattering more than, you know, defense capabilities. In fact, I thought that there was a really great hole. I mean, there are 62% of Germans who say that in international crises, economic power is more important than military power. So even in the context of an international crisis, the economic power trumps military power by, you know, massively, it's a big majority. And then the third kind of tenant of German foreign policy is that the military and, yeah, all things military are evil and wrong and not even really a possibility of last resort or an even of last resort, just kind of generally not something that we should be working with and that we should be thinking of. I mean, again, just to throw out another poll that I thought was really quite striking, only 24% of Germans say that under some conditions, war can sometimes be necessary to achieve justice while over half 51% say that war is never necessary. And again, like this was really formulated in the most sort of in the broadest way possible of saying, no, and there's some circumstances to achieve justice that may be in some context and most Germans say, no, never. And I think this is also something that we currently see with Rivaresha Russia. So yeah, just, you know, I've been playing this role of kind of Germany explainer in the recent weeks and thought that maybe that was helpful for your audience as well. And just as a kind of last sentence because that's also something I've been thinking about quite a bit when it comes to Germany. In a way, I mean, I said that with the European Union, the this kind of rejection or let's call it ignorance of very power politics is maybe too slowly but still maybe changing or their efforts of changing that. In Germany, I'm not so sure because I'm worried that the next generation of thinkers and people and foreign policy makers is almost worse prepared when it comes to these challenges. And the main reason for that is that not only did we grow up in this mindset that I just described, but we also grew up in kind of 30 years or so of extreme geopolitical calm and geopolitical peace. So the whole time basically after 1989 and after 1990, the end of the Soviet Union, we had roughly 30 years of geopolitical calm, geopolitical peace were completely shielded from the geopolitical competition that I would argue is actually the more normal situation. And so we really struggled just to understand what's happening now. And so I look at Russia, I look at actually what is the bigger challenge with just the rise of China and China becoming this more dominant actor. And I really do worry. I mean, both about Germany as the strongest country in the EU and the EU in and of itself. And yeah, I don't quite, I am aware that I basically described problems rather than the given solutions in a way the only solution I can really come up with is to kind of keep talking, keep challenging our own convictions and our own mindsets and kind of looking at the world as it is and then realizing that the realities unfortunately don't conform to what we would like the world to look like. I very much sympathize with everyone who says there shouldn't be any military confrontation. We should live in a world where everything is done through international law and international organizations. And all for these things, it's just that it doesn't seem to fit with the current realities. And I think this is something we definitely need to discuss more in Brussels, in Berlin and I guess also in Ireland. Thanks and one that I'll definitely want to ask all of you but Ulrich while you're there and it comes to mind, the escalation of the situation between Russia and Ukraine or more specifically Russia, to what do you attribute that? Could the change of chancellor in Germany be part of it? I know trying to understand the SPD's views on Russia can be particularly complicated, but there's a certain sympathy towards Russia and the SPD that may be stronger than other parties. Is that correct? Is the change of chancellor one factor or any other factors that you'd care to mention in terms of that escalation? Yeah, I mean, this is the kind of why now question, right? So I think that maybe on the tactical level of Vladimir Putin is looking at these elements, a new government in Germany and indeed a party government. Merkel has left, I'll get to the SPD in a second but it is true that they have their own kind of Russia problems. We have the election campaign in France. We have the whole Brexit situation which kind of weakens Europe. We have in London the internal domestic issues, although I have to say that the Johnson government has been able to kind of overcome those while still pursuing a quite coherent foreign policy on Russia, I would say. We have in Sweden minority government very weak. There's also elections coming up. So you have all these elements and maybe on a tactical level, this kind of influences Putin's thinking to some extent. It's kind of hard for me to tell. But I think on the kind of more strategic level, I don't think this matters massively. I think in the end it really is the fact that Vladimir Putin wants a different security architecture and security situation in Europe. He's not happy with what we currently have. The way I understand it, he wants Ukraine to be within the sphere of influence very clearly and under the influence of Russia. And so I think, yes, it would be better if we had a very strong government and a very strong chancellor at the moment in Germany. If in the US the situation was different in all kinds of places, there could be a better situation but I don't think this is particularly important. And just one sentence on the SPD because you asked this specifically. So the social democrats, so we have a three party coalition in Germany now and the social democrats lead this coalition and then Olaf Scholz is the Chancellor. And he has been very absent from the current Russia crisis. Very interesting. He left a lot of room to the foreign minister from the Greens. He's actually giving an interview on this tonight. So I'm very curious what he's gonna say. It's true that his party struggles with the relationship to Russia. There are more so-called Putin-Peshteya, Putin understanders in his party than I would like. This is the party that kind of started North Stream 2 and everything that that entails. That being said, again, I don't think that that is, it's not decisive. It's part of the mute music. It makes everything more difficult for this current new coalition. The situation is tricky because Russia is one of the things where, between the three parties, there really are differences in view. One party actually wanted to end North Stream 2 completely, like things like that. So it's definitely a fake foreign policy challenge for this government and they would have preferred to not deal with this so early in their time in office. But yeah, it is what it is. And in the end, it's part of the puzzle but it's not decisive, I put it. Thank you. Thank you for that. And from London, we go to Washington. Tom, you're again, welcome back to the Institute and the floor is yours. Thanks, Stan. And it's great to be with you all. So I just start, I just want to make three points, but I just start where we left off with the question of why now? I think another way to ask the question is, why not now? I mean, this has been a longstanding grievance and I would say ambition of Putin, not just the drift as he sees it of Ukraine to the West, not just interacting with NATO, but also obviously back in 2013 with the EU, the fact that his own actions have turned the Ukrainian people more away from Russia, made them more skeptical, much more skeptical and even hostile towards Moscow and more open to the West. So there's a piece of that there. There's a piece of his frustration and opposition to European security architecture where Timothy Gardner asked yesterday sort of identified as the Helsinki sort of approach that Europe is composed of independent sovereign countries with equal rights and he has more of a sort of influence model in mind. There's his sense, perhaps, that is the US attention that's focused on Asia. That maybe that creates a bit of an opening and let's not forget that this year is a 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union and something he called the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. And that is something he had wanted to reverse in some way. So I think that we don't need to look very far. There are questions about tactical timing and the like, but I think it's a broader scope of ambition. He's 69 years old. He's been in power for 21, it's 21, 22 years now. If he's going to accomplish this as he perceives it, he probably needs to do that in the relative near term. This isn't something he can come back to in 10 years. It's probably not something he would trust to give to a future Russian leader. We would not think it's as capable as he is. So I think it's, it is a breakthrough with the past. It is not just business as usual for Putin. They have never taken the number of troops that they've taken from the Far East and put them on their border with Ukraine before. They've never abandoned the deniability that they've maintained in the past to the extent that they have on this occasion. Remember the little green men of 2014 were not in that world anymore. So this is a force built up to invade and occupy at least the Eastern part of Ukraine. It's a force designed to topple the government. It is, I think, unprecedented really in Europe in the post-Covor world. And I think it is about the type of world that we're going to sort of live in in the future. So I think this is a very significant crisis. I think if there is a full-scale invasion, I think that could destabilize Europe in really profound ways. And I worry a lot about it sort of dragging in other actors and having a sort of contagion effect, not in terms of Russia continuing to invade other countries, but more with the type of destabilization that we've seen in the Middle East, with Syria, just if you have a conflict of that scale, things are going to happen, I think, that are negative. And it's obviously more broadly a part of, you know, his near sort of revolutionary view, I think now that something fundamental has to change in the European security architecture and our desire to basically keep things roughly the way they were with some enhanced consultation and enhanced multilateralism of Russia. But, you know, there's very little appetite, I think in the rest of Europe, for sort of a yolt of spheres of influence type system. So I think that's sort of where we are. Just a word on the US role, you know, it's interesting that this administration came in, I think focused on issues other than Russia, like one could have imagined them coming in, wanting revenge for the election interference in 2016, you know, very focused on Putin. They did not do that. They came in really making China and foreign policy for the middle class, their top priorities. I think they wanted a stable and predictable relationship with Russia, you know, as they put it. But why that is important, I think, is that when they began to sound the alarm bell in November about the threat of an invasion, this wasn't something they were looking for, right? This is not a repeat of 2003, where in some ways it was confirmation bias, like they were going out and cherry picking intelligence to conform to a policy that they already had. They're quite the opposite, in fact, they did not. I think, you know, this was not part of their, you know, overall sort of foreign policy sort of to confront Russia, you know, over Ukraine. And that, I think, you know, gave them sort of a bit of a extra credibility, you know, in this regard, and they did manage, I think, to convince European allies of the sort of gravity of the threat. I think that did catch Putin by surprise. I think he thought he would have more time. He thought that the West would be more divided and perhaps than it was. And they, I think, have done a pretty good job of remaining sort of focused and making this sort of a key priority. So I think in terms of the pivot to Asia, you know, there definitely is a rebalance over the longer term, but this is really a reminder, you know, that the US, especially on something that's fundamental as a major conflict, you know, in the middle of, you know, at the heart of Europe, that this is something that the US will have a continued role on. I think the United States would like to see Europe play a bigger role, will be very supportive of the EU doing that. But right now, there's really very little substitutes for sort of US leadership on it. Like Germany wants the US to lead. Others, you know, Eastern Europeans want the US to lead. Macron, I think, envisages a large world for Europe, but recognizes, I think, that there's not, that it's not really possible in the way he would like, you know, at this moment. So I think we are seeing, you know, that sort of traditional US role play out. Finally, Dan, I would just say a few words about what to do. I mean, I think as a base case right now in invasion is probably the most likely outcome. I just think everything is sort of pointing there. You know, one could say it's a bluff, and the hard thing about distinguishing a bluff from the real thing is that there's really nothing, no evidence that could emerge that would falsify the bluff hypothesis short of Russia actually invading, right? Because you could say, well, everything they're doing is just making that threat more credible. But I think when we're looking at sort of the granular, you know, details and the rhetoric, I think that's the most likely, you know, outcome, probably sort of 50, you know, just probably north of 50% probability. There's a couple of things missing. I think the pretext is missing. We haven't yet seen from Moscow, you know, the short-term justification for why the talks have failed. That could happen very, very quickly. So that's one big thing to watch. But I think our sort of task is to try to figure out how to dissuade him from doing this, right? How do we prevent him from going down this route? And I think there are sort of three sort of pillars to the strategy. And I'll just very briefly, you know, mention them. The first is, I think there needs to be a reframing of this entire crisis. So it's not just about NATO relations with Ukraine and NATO expansion or even European security architecture. And it is about the right of Ukraine to exist as a sovereign country, you know, the fundamental principles in the UN Charter, the principles regarding, you know, how countries, you know, preventing countries from acquiring new territory or annexing other territory. So I think that is important because it is about that, I think. And also I think that's less fertile ground for Putin, right, than Putin's actions that he's threatening would be a fundamental violation of the UN Charter. There would be a real radical change in international relations. And that I think is something harder for him to defend than, you know, this is a dispute about NATO's sort of relations with Ukraine. So that I think is the first piece of it. The second piece is to try to convince him that if he takes this path, he's irreversibly damaging his own security environment as he perceives, right? So if he chooses, you know, the invasion option, things will be much worse for his security interests. And the announcement today from the, you know, U.S. Department of Defense that there will be a deployment of troops, additional troops to Romania, you know, into Poland is the part of that. Finland possibly joining NATO is a part of that. The talk about possibly arming an insurgency is a piece of that, the economic sanctions piece. Obviously it's a piece of that, the technological export controls another element on chips. So I think all of those together could sort of paint a picture, you know, that he will be damaging his own interests if he does this. And then the final piece, which is very important as well, is the diplomatic track, you know, to have a really sincere substantive diplomatic, you know, element that provides all France if he would like to avail of them. And I think the administration and the European allies have done a pretty good job of outlining that within the red lines that they have. So, you know, not no sort of major sort of changes in terms of transition to a spirits of influence system. But yes, the recognition that Russia wants a conversation about how to, you know, about changes and reforms to European security architecture, that's something, you know, that the U.S. and its allies will engage in if they want to reinvigorate the conventional forces in Europe treaty or have inspections on a reciprocal basis of missile sites and the like, or guarantees about no missiles in certain places. And again, on a reciprocal basis, that is a conversation we can engage in. So I think having that, and that is something more, I think, than they have had before, like a real substantive negotiation in a relatively compressed period of time. So let's say a year, 18 months, rather than having it going on forever with no real outcome. So I think if you package all of those together, Dan, you know, if you have the reframing to make it a little more difficult for him to do this in the court of global public opinion, you have the high costs that will be imposed if he were to do this. And then you have the off-ramp part where there's a real diplomatic option. It's possible he may be dissuaded from doing it. He may still do it, in which case then, you know, we're in a very different world, I think, the day after. But I think it will be such a catastrophe that is where it's sort of going big in all three tracks now to try to change his incentive structure. I'll finish up. Good, and I suppose one of the questions we have is the landing zone, diplomatic landing zone for this issue. I think you've covered it well. There might come to both of the speakers on that one. A couple of other questions, which I'll put now that we've got. Tom, Mark's earlier point about Ireland's specific position and the free-riding issue, is it one you agree with and how is it perceived, if at all, on that side of the Atlantic, is it simply that we're just too small and not significant enough for people to really worry and they say, okay, somebody wants to free-ride if they're so small, that's okay. Yeah, look, I mean, in all truth, I don't think it's sort of high up in the agenda in terms of the US wanting sort of Ireland to change its position. I think the view similarly with Finland and Sweden as well is if a country just changes its mind and wants to close a relationship, the US would engage with that. I don't think anyone's trying to sort of force or pressure anyone into it. I would just say though, the new travesty debate obviously is a lot of standing debate. People have very strong sort of feelings about it. I think rather than discussing sort of the principles of it, I think one alternative way to sort of approach the discussion is to say, what problems does Ireland have in the security domain maybe that it didn't have before and then what are the options to sort of solve that? So on cyber crime and cyber attacks, that's clearly a problem. There needs to be a way to sort of deal with that. Perhaps on having some surveillance mechanism in the maritime domain, to have more information flow about what Russia or others might do, maybe that's another element. And so what are the options to try to address those, especially in the technological sphere, which of course Ireland has a huge part of now. And maybe that can be done without a fundamental change in doctrine, maybe it can be done in other ways. But I think looking at it as a problem solving exercise will be sort of a good, maybe a way of actually dealing with the challenges that are there while avoiding some of those pretty divisive discussions. I don't think there's a huge appetite for sort of fundamentally changing the overall, the country's overall sort of foreign policy worldview. Probably not politically achievable at the moment anyway. Mark, maybe continue with two questions from the audience. Jim Geary asks, how should Ireland contribute to European defense? What military defense capacities, capabilities should we be investing in? And a second one aimed at you, Mark from John Bigger. Ireland has tended to argue that the main purpose of the EU's common security and defense policy is to provide the capability for out of area, peace building and peacekeeping operations. Some others would prefer to develop capabilities for the defense of the EU. Do you consider that recent developments should prompt us to reconsider our approach? I think it's very timely questions. And I think the commission on defense forces is about to submit its report, but we have traditionally prioritized, I think our commitment to the United Nations and our almost 70,000 members of our defense forces who have served in various missions in the last 60 plus years. What the reality is that we are shifting in the context of a greater understanding of our sovereign domain. And there are five dimensions to that. There is our land, there is our air, and there is our maritime, but there is also space and there is cyber. And our capabilities in the latter two are very weak in fact on space, I think almost insignificant. And yet a sovereign state is actually responsible for any activities in the space domain generated within its jurisdiction. So you can't ignore that. And I think that's somewhere that I hope the commission will look at. In the maritime side, where we're significantly weaker, then it would be traditionally expected of a maritime state. We don't have a subsurface surveillance capacity. And yet, two dimensions that we know have been in the news in recent past, the issue of submarine activity and submarine cables. And the idea of critical national infrastructure and actually addressing those means there are capability requirements if we're to be able to deal with those. And the cyber piece I think was on the news today, the idea of us actually wrapping with that in a cross-government manner. That is something I think in the context of our reputation or dependency on FDI and foreign direct investment. And our ability to actually have a more robust cyber defense infrastructure in the state. We've seen the penalty in terms of the attack on HSE. And we can expect to see more of that. And I suppose, but overall, in the context of investment on defense, iron is number 27 of number 27 in EU investment defense. I asked the question, what do we know that the other 26 don't know to give them a sense of a feeling that need to invest more? Ultimately, investment in defense is about your insurance premium. Sovereign rights that are not upheld are more imagined in real. And we've seen the vulnerability of our sovereign rights in terms of a maritime domain where effectively the Russian Federation was able to declare it was going to annex 5,000 square kilometers of Irish sovereign jurisdiction where we have sovereign rights associated for five days. That's unprecedented. So I think there's been a wake-up call. The HRVP has said in the past, the alarm bells are ringing and Europe needs to learn the language of power. Well, it can only learn the language of power if it actually changes towards a strategic culture. And it also must acquire capabilities that it doesn't have already within the 27. And it doesn't mean replicating and duplicating with NATO. I think just complementarity with NATO. The Brussels effect is actually a powerful capability in itself. So what Europe can bring in the EU together with NATO and the integrated approach is a palette of options in terms of the application of power. That's what the coherency we need. And I know some people will feel it's a long and slow road, but it has to start somewhere. The Grover strategy is the journey. I smacked it out. Strategic Compass has done the, if you like the intelligence assessment, we now need to look at the capability neighbors that will allow the EU to be able to stand up and actually utilize power in an effective manner. Thanks, Mark. Ulrike, we've got a couple of questions that I might put to you. One from Cahill Brewer. He talks about, he's a number of questions, but let me just put one aspect. He talks about the UN, United Nations, the Security Council, and he wonders whether the power of veto, the permanent five members have, has that lived its useless or could even be a barrier to improving global peace and security? That's one, and then sort of more specific coming back to the Ukraine situation, Bill Emmis asks what kind of landing zone there could be for a diplomatic compromise. He also does mention, I think it's worth saying, that the falling apart of Yugoslavia in the 1990s led to 140,000 debts and that European officials at the time said it was Europe's moment and it turned out not to be. He makes a point which I think is certainly worth making in terms of conflict in Europe in the post-Second World War era. So maybe Ulrike, UN, a relevant some hot sort of landing zone there could be for a diplomatic compromise in Ukraine. Right, the easiest questions. I mean, very little to add on the United Nations, I think. I mean, in a way, the UN and the UN Security Council, I mean, it works as it was designed. I think there's very little point in kind of complaining about veto power since that's how it was supposed to work. But to be honest, I mean, the UN just hasn't been playing a really important role. I mean, certainly not in the current context current conflict that we're seeing. So, I mean, especially Germans would love to see the UN as this kind of place where all kind of differences in interests and all conflicts get resolved, but it isn't and it certainly is particularly difficult when we're talking about conflicts between the veto powers. So yeah, I don't think I have a good answer to that other than that's probably not the place where this will be done and can be done. On the landing zone, I worry about this because I don't... So I thought it was really interesting what Thomas said and yeah, I kind of refer to his ideas and we've just had the kind of lead answer from the US to the Russian demands that seemed quite reasonable. But I mean, it really depends on what Putin really wants. If he genuinely wants to change the European security architecture and he basically wants to move from a kind of house in key Paris idea of, you know, where countries are free to decide who to align with and not align with and are sovereign, et cetera to a more kind of Yalta model of spheres of influence and the big powers being able to tell others what they can and cannot do, that's unacceptable for Europe. You know, it really should be unacceptable for Europe and NATO. So if that's his demand, I don't think there's a landing zone somewhere between that, like that just doesn't work. The same with this idea of withdrawing all troops from NATO members kind of back to the borders of 1970s, these kinds of things that Putin's demands were very maximalists. And so if that's what he really wants, I don't think there's a lot of compromise there. If this is about engagement, arms control, respect as unclear as it is, what that's exactly means, if he basically just wanted to reassert his importance of Russia on the European continent wanted to be at eye level with Joe Biden, all of this, and which he's largely gotten. And if his goal in the end was to undermine European and NATO unity, I think he's also already achieved that, which we are ourselves to blame by the way, but I think this may have been part of his calculation as well, if that's that, maybe it will be enough to kind of come up with some kind of, yeah, means of communication and arms control, et cetera. But I really struggled with coming up with a landing zone where I say, okay, this is acceptable from the European side, and I think it's acceptable from the Russian side. So unfortunately, I'm quite pessimistic on that. And just a point on Yugoslavia, because I saw this in the comments. And of course, I mean, no one is saying that nothing has happened since 1989 and there has been peace in the world. I mean, that's not the point, or we're even peace in Europe. My point and the point of others who have made this observation is that we've had a period of kind of geopolitical calm where we just didn't have these kind of big tectonic shapes of one power coming up, the other power coming down, like that's the point. It's not as if there was complete peace and no conflict whatsoever. We also had the 9-11, where the terrorist attacks all over the Western world, there were a lot of wars, of course, going on. So just to be clear on that, but we didn't have this experience of kind of, yeah, tectonic changes in the geopolitical landscape. And I think that's what's kind of missing in our, I mean, my generation's experience. Mark, I think you wanted to just come in on that particular point. Yeah, and Ulrike, thanks for answering that question. I saw it there myself and I wasn't making the point. I think our point is notwithstanding the Balkan Wars and the reality, they were a terrible tragedy. And the reality is that the European Union has been good in terms of peace. And the institutions have delivered a significant amount in that area, but things are changing now. And we now need to remodel how we're going to move forward. And I know neutrality has been mentioned in terms of one of the questions there. And I think we could spend the whole debate on dealing with neutrality, but I'm always taken by Garifus Jordan's piece, I think he published in The Times in 1999. It's online if anybody wants to read it, about the myth of neutrality. And I think he lays a pretty bear there in terms of what we see and suggest is a principle of neutrality in Ireland, actually is a happenstance. It's an accident. And in reality, I think the institutions within the EU give us an opportunity to look at how we move forward in the context of the future. And I do think strategic compass, the global strategy, PESCO card, they all point us in the direction whereby there's going to have to be a neutrality and a multilateralism in terms of how we develop capabilities within the EU. And we have to do that with an eye on how our relationship with NATO also develops. So there's a journey there, and nobody's saying it's going to be perfect and some could be pessimistic about it, but we actually have no option but to move along that journey. And I think the final point is, there are, I suppose, dormant articles there in terms of solidarity and mutual assistance. And we have to see how they play out into the future. They're enablers. And this is a world where by no individual stage within the EU or in Europe can uphold its sovereignty on its own. That's a fact. So it's about a multilateralism. It's about mutuality and it's about solidarity. And I think those discussions have to be held. Thanks, Mark. Just a comment from Alan Dukes, a long-standing member of course at the Institute. I just have to quote him, Putin should be told that the era of consolidating, quote, spheres of influence died with the death of empires, that's Alan's view. But it didn't. I think this is exactly the problem. I share the sentiment. Like we have this, I know this so well from Germany and from all over Europe. We definitely have this idea of like, this is all in the past and this is obsolete and there's all kind of great power politics and military confrontations and all of this. This is clearly, so last century. The problem is just that, we may have moved on, but maybe the others didn't. And so, again, I very much sympathize with this idea of, haven't we gone past this and isn't this, yeah, obsolete and aren't we more enlightened than that? But if you're the only kind of enlightened and whatever entity and have moved on and everyone else hasn't, then you still have to deal with the world as it is than rather than you wanted to be. And that's exactly the challenge. Thank you. Let me see. Donalor Rollicorn, I suppose, I'll come back to you in a moment, Ulrike, but I'm gonna go to Tom. Here's two questions. One, which I think you'd be probably best qualified to answer Ulrike in terms of German investment into Russia post-89 and has that affected the interests of Germany vis-a-vis Russia? His other question is directed towards you, Tom. And let me see if I can bring it up. He picks you up on the fact that you mentioned Putin's age, 69. And he wonders, does his age actually mean he doesn't care about world opinion that he's actually more interested in advancing his own agenda domestically, something of an extraction, and also his views, as Donal mentions, in his sort of greater ruse, the stuff he's been writing about, which is available online, Putin's own words in terms of Russian history and where what constitutes a core of Russian civilization. You want me to start? Yeah, Dan. Yeah, I mean, I do think that is a, a thing with him. I mean, if you just think of it sort of, this way he's been in power more or less for over two decades. I think he feels like he is the measure of his counterparts. He does, I think, have this longstanding ambition to reverse as much as possible the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has always had a particular place in sort of Russian history. That's something he has most recently, obviously in July in that now infamous article, essentially written about questioning whether or not Ukraine is really a country at all. So Ukraine is a big prize for him. It's a big prize for Russian nationalism. I don't think he particularly cares about the core of global public opinion. I don't think he really cares about the European reaction as long as those costs are things he thinks he can manage. So I think he's willing to pay a very high price to accomplish what he wants. Whether or not that price is infinite, I think is the question we're gonna figure out, right? And so maybe the price can be made so high that he will be dissuaded from doing it. But I don't think we need to go all that far to find an explanation for why he would do it. Just in terms of the diplomatic landing pad, I mean, I think there is a lot of wiggle room. The big question is whether or not he actually wants North France or if he wants to go in and get the whole prize as it were from his perspective. But the US has already, countries have already committed to Minsk too. There's differences in interpretation obviously, but there is a previous commitment to that. Ukraine, there is an open door policy for NATO, but it's not as if Ukraine's about to join NATO at any time in the immediate future. So again, that's something that's a bit ambiguous, one would assume Taylor made for diplomacy. And there are the architectural questions, which I think is a substantive piece there. I just don't think any of that is enough on its own, but I think we need the other components as well. A very quick follow-up, Tom. We only got a few minutes. Coordination between Russia and China on all of this? Is it any going on very quickly? Yeah, there is some, but I think the Chinese have sort of expressed some sympathy for the Russian position. Putin is going to the Olympics, I guess soon. So he should be in Beijing, but I don't think we're not gonna see, I think real coordination and material support. We also won't see China doing anything to really try to stop Putin from doing it. So there are different interpretations about whether they really want it to happen. I expect they probably don't, because it would bring a lot of heat down, but they're gonna let him do his thing, I think, and give him some rhetorical backing. Okay, Ulrich at that point about Germany's influence. And also could I follow it up? That issue about Germany was very prepared to sacrifice its auto exports, which Brexiteers believed would be core in Russia, in Germany's position on Brexit. How does that fit that Germany was prepared to put its strategic interests of European unity ahead of its commercial interests from Brexit? How does that fit with Germany's broader policy towards Russia? Right, and that in two minutes. Okay, so number one, economic relationships between Russia and Germany have always been important, and by the way, not just after 89. Even throughout the Cold War, there were, for example, gas pipelines, very much with this idea of kind of keeping communications open between the East and the West. So yes, this matters. However, I'd say there's one element of this that matters more than everything else, and that's indeed the gas. Somewhere between 30 and 40% of German gas gas come from Russia, and that's a real dependency. And that's one that hurts because if there's an issue with these gas pipelines, Germans freeze and the economy goes down. So that's a problem. The other economic links, as important as they are, Germany has shown since 2014 that it is willing to forego these economic profits because Germany has always been supportive of the EU sanctions, which it, to a large extent, carries. Like a lot of the elements that really hurt for the Germans here. So it's a bit of a mixed picture. There are dependencies that matter, but it's not as if Germany is aligning in any way with Russia because of economic interests. On Brexit, the Germans really care about the European Union, really, and they really think Brexit is a terrible idea. They are reacting emotionally to that. And I'm not surprised that Germany was willing to sacrifice economic gains on that issue. I'm not sure whether it's exactly the same on Russia and the big question, the really big question, is going to be exports to China because here it really, really hurts. If the Germans aren't export to China anymore, if we're talking about sanctions, et cetera, that's going to be a big issue for the German economy much more than anything we've seen with regard to Russia. So that's really going to be the test case. OK, look, final question to you, Mark, bringing it back home. There's a question from Tom Connolly about spending on EU defense projects. I'm not sure if that's correct, I'm sure it is. But he says, we are weak on all fronts, especially air and naval power. Russia is certainly aware of this. Should, would it not be more important to look after our own defense forces if we are neutral? I'm not expert enough in exactly where the money is going. Pesco and those type of projects are about common interests development, whereby the actual outcome is bigger than the sum of the parts. So we should not all be creating the same types of technology in silos. It's better to actually have a collaborative approach in terms of developing capabilities. There is, of course, then certain states that will have greater strength in other areas. And just if I could just take the opportunity, we have to finish up at one point. I think Noldor put a point in about Sun Tzu, when he said, right, the issue, and goes back to Ambassador Pan's point, which he took us up on, saying that Europe is weaker. It's not about Europe being weaker. It's about Europe being perceived to be relatively weaker than Russia. And that's what Russia is doing. It is actually to exercise power and building on the point I think that Ulrike raised there on energy. For as long as Europe is dependent on Russian gas and crude, we will be in a difficult position. So I think for the next couple of decades, we're going to have to follow Limblom's modeling true to come to a point of truth. And the point I made on Sunday in the time was, we have a remarkable opportunity in Ireland in terms of offshore renewable energy, possibilities in terms of being able to actually mitigate that energy dependency. Thank you all for joining us. By apologies, there are plenty of questions and points that were made by the audience that we just don't have time to get to, but we've already gone a minute over. So apologies for that. But look, most of all, thanks to our three speakers for really giving succinct and rich comments on an evolving situation. And thanks again for joining us again. All of you have been with us before. Look forward to having you back again. Thanks a lot. Have a good afternoon, everyone.