 So with a bit of luck a few more people will have been able to join us So welcome one and all. Thank you very much for for joining us here. My name is David Roberts I'm an associate professor here at Kings College London in school security studies and one of my roles as it was to run the regional security and development theme Which gives me a purview over the fantastic scholarship people in the school, PhD students lecturers, associate professors, professors the whole gamut looking at something to do with regional security and development writ large and we are joined today by two Super colleagues of mine. I'm very pleased about that The broad title of what we're doing today is looking at the russian war in in ukraine And the issue of what has changed and what hasn't changed I suppose that the central impetus there is to try to fathom whether You know, this has been such a momentous event in contemporary history really and I think or at least I worry and I wonder whether there is a attention whether there's a propensity To over extrapolate The seismic nature of some of these issues and changes And so this is what a loose thread in the background of what we're doing here I think is trying to say what has changed and what might not have changed what might be slightly more lessons of Lineages of continuity if you will something like that Thank you to the comms team. I should very much add at kings without this without without that nor those will be happening and that's most appreciated And Unfortunately, Sofia we can't join us. She's got covered like me and my whole household here But nevertheless, we have I guess they're too fantastic speakers that we'll get on to in just a second Very brief housekeeping first thing the questions will be through the q and a function If you drop your questions in there, they'll pop up here And with a bit of luck we'll get round to all the questions at the end. We'll have both presentations q and a at the end Secondly, it's important to note. Of course. I'm sure you probably know this but this has been recorded and indeed Livestream to youtube so keep that in mind First off, we'll have a professor tracy german. Uh, who's a professor in conflict and security And security security to the department here at kingsloz london tracy will speak first And tracy will take some big handful Approaches and questions and reflections looking at the macro situation Russia nato and the concept of stability Straight after tracy. We have rob lee senior fellow in foreign policy research institute The rich ureja program and the phd candidate in the department of war studies So please have rob here as well very much and rob will Have look at analyzing the conflict As much as anything the scorecard as it might be for defense analysts what was right What we sort of mistook a bit and i'm sure rob might speak a bit a bit a bit about open source intelligence and the role But it seems to be playing um, I can say after that we go to questions and answers but To kick us off. We have professor tracy german. So tracy. It's pretty much straight over to you. Thank you very much Thanks, david. Um, and thanks for the invitation today and for organizing the panel And I believe we're the last in today in the security studies conference So well done to all those who've made it all the way through Today's panel really focuses on change. Um, I've been asked to focus on the macro level on the strategic level things the impact of russia's invasion on Russian NATO relations being the central kind of issue i'm going to look at but some of the other broader european security and other changes that You can see occurring as we speak um But also some of the issues that have stayed the same and I think the issues You know big issues that have stayed the same are far more global in nature than regional I'm going to focus much more on the regional but some of these big global issues such as the enduring nature of war and conflicts within international relations And the interconnected nature of different levels of security Russia's invasion of ukraine. I think it has really brought home the complex interdependencies that we see between national regional and and global levels of security I think demonstrated most clearly by the impact of food security Something that You know has been an issue from the very beginning There have been warnings since russia first invaded ukraine that this may well become a huge issue And we're beginning to see the ripple effects now across, you know, middle east and africa And this could you know have much longer term effects Downstream and I think these are as I said some of the more enduring Issues that have come out of this war But I've been asked really to look at some of the things that have have changed and what what has changed and I think When I sat down to think about this, obviously, I know there's been a lot written about that the Seismic shocks that the shifts in you know global order, etc But actually when I sat down and thought about it, I think one of the fundamental changes has really been in western understanding particularly euroatlantic understanding Of some of the key issues. So it's about understanding rather than actually, you know, some of the The action that may or may not have taken place. So big changes in you know Euroatlantic understanding of the threat of war of thinking about european security order And obviously a hardening of views of the threat posed by russia and all of this is very western centric I think this invasion has been a big wake up call for the west Perhaps less so for other parts of the world and other regions Obviously russia's invasion of ukraine marked the return of war to europe Um, it's been more than two decades since we saw the end of conflict On the european continent and so I think From a european and actually brought a western perspective one of the first lessons one of the most significant changes we've seen It's been that state on state war is still possible in europe And I think that has been a very significant shock to the system for many european leaders in particular As I said that the wars also provided a clear delineation of the threat posed by russia Um, and I know roug's going to talk more about the military side of things And I I think one of the the key debates that's come out of all of this is, you know views on russian military capabilities and whilst there has been a dramatic shift I think in particularly western views of russian military capabilities What hasn't changed it's been a long-running tendency to to exaggerate or overemphasize their abilities to say that either the russian military are Are brilliant, fantastic or that they're rubbish um, and there's been a Lack of middle ground really since the end of the cold war and since 1991. So I think that is an interesting Change but one that's not You know too too different In terms of threat perception Um, it's very interesting if you look at kind of euro-atlantic views of the threat from russia and the threat to international security They're now far closer actually to russia's Views than they have been for a long time And you think the russian belief that it's been at war with an aggressive west since 2014 um russian unhappiness with Stabilization of the international system by western actions and a shift from partnership and cooperation to a very transactional relationship and all of those things which have really kind of Shaped russian views of the international system since 2014 are now really kind of dominant in western views as well Particularly with regards to russia and I think that is an interesting change What has you know stayed the same in this respect as russian views of NATO And russian views of the international strategic environment which in the 21st century have been shaped to a large degree by NATO and its operations um And vice versa russia's actions in ukraine have been shaping nato's view. So there is this kind of um There is a relationship and a mutual kind of relationship between their threat perceptions But there is also a fundamental divergence at the heart of the relationship between nato and russia And that's rooted in the alliance's focus on values in particular liberal democratic values um And mosco perceives there to be a threat from an enlarged Alliance that not only has overwhelming military security in terms of numbers resources technology But also in terms of the liberal democratic values that it espouses that by the heart of what is both a military and a political alliance um and We see time and again references in the russian narrative to the threats posed by these um These apparent values and if anyone was listening to putin's speech on the night of may this year We heard in making reference to western attempts to destroy russian values and culture Which have been traditional Of themes in the russian rhetoric for a number of years now this idea that russia is under attack not just militarily But also culturally from the spread of values And what is interesting is that western policy makers have been using similar language framing russia's invasion as an attack on western values and I think perhaps, you know Some of them are coming to the party a bit late They've perhaps not fully grasped the need to have you know their own houses in order with regards to liberal democratic values adherence to them But it is important this idea of values in the relationship or the non relationship at the moment between russia nato and the west more broadly um That brings me on to my second point regarding change and the impact that the war In ukraine is having and has had on the european security order Which has changed in ways that we really haven't seen since the end of the cold war We've seen nato displaying a political unity that to be honest, it has surprised many Something you know this idea nato cohesion been doubts about it for a number of years now So this sense that the unity that we've seen has been welcome a welcome surprise We've seen nato deploying part of its response force activating defense plans um allies have strengthened their presence across the enhanced forward presence The four existing battle groups have been bolstered um And it's also committed to the deployment of an additional four battle groups in in some of the Eastern European countries romania, slavakia, hungary and bulgaria. So we've seen nato really you know bolstering its own defense And the u.s. Has really you know made it clear that it is committed to the defense of europe And there have been debates about this since the end of the cold war um But it has been you know unequivocal. I think in its commitment to european defense deploying troops, etc And I think that has allayed concerns that have existed about whether the us And its focus was really on the far east and china rather than european security So we've seen you know a significant change there um defense spending obviously by european allies um As demonstrated and you know backed up this political resolve and obviously germany's decision to Bolster its defense spending um and improve its defense modernization has been the most significant change there i think with very little disagreement across um across the alliance and then I think One of the most significant changes in european security and european security order has been Finland and sweden applying for nato membership After a long history of non-alignment and new chat neutrality. Um, they have Decided that actually the security guarantees offered by nato membership Are important to them at the moment and that the russian threat Means that this is what they're seeking Now there's still a long way to go in this and I know there's an awful lot of debates still going on But I think that this is one of the most significant changes we've seen In the european security order. That's all though focused on nato. We've also seen changes terms of the european union Um in terms of the money that it's been forwarding and using to forward weapons to ukraine The sanctions imposed by the european union, which have really I think strengthened the the collective defense that nato You know has been putting forward so the fact that nato and the eu are working together is Also, I think very significant. Um, there's been so much talk but actually seeing these two kind of coordinating Together to tackle these challenges and threats. I think is you know an unprecedented step and shows the unified front from the, you know, euroatlantic area but I think You know, I've been focused very much there on europe And the european security order of the changes there, but beyond that what changes have we seen and particularly with regard to russia And I think when we look at russia's position And its power Yes, um, it has very significantly changed within europe But actually outside of European continent and and that's certain kind of countries in the asia pacific Actually, we've been seeing it seeking to expand or continue to expand its influence. Um across africa and the middle east And I think moving forward. These are areas that you know need to keep an eye on because you know We've seen in recent years russia taking advantage of power vacuums that you know By us western withdrawal or missteps or quite frankly inaction in these areas and kind of Seeking to increase their own influence parts of the world as western kind of interest has diverted elsewhere Now obviously in terms of africa russian interests Largely have been legacy soviet kind of contacts and links there And the interests have been traditionally economic, you know focus for example the arms trade energy strategic cooperation But I wonder if moving forward we're going to see russia looking to kind of actively seek new partners increase market shares elsewhere Markets that are not covered by the sanctions regime imposed by the west And I think you know that is potentially an area we could see change Moving forward We've seen if you look at the numbers even before the invasion It's you know been working with over 20 african countries on a range of projects from nuclear power plant construction to uranium projects Seeking to you know gain access to port facilities The Horn of Africa all of which is you know, not just economic but also about power and influence And I think this is where it's important to remember that moscow's opposition to You know the spread of western liberal values the predominance of u.s power within the international system Actually find support from a number of states around the world who who share similar views So a lot of the change that we've seen and a lot of the unity As I said We have to be careful about being too western centric here. And I think That's kind of one of the areas I think as I kind of draw to a close This you know a number of questions really spring to mind and you know This gap between a change in understanding and genuine transformation will we actually see genuine transformation will Western political unity continue to hold as we see for example continued rising prices as we see the kind of Middle to longer term economic impact outside of russia begin to really hit What is going to be the impact on that kind of political unity that has been strong till now Will western indian unity really endure over time? and you know As that initial kind of shock from the invasion in february begins to fade Will we see certain allies begin to kind of Row back Were you see the possibility of for example re-engagement with russia being focused? um being positive I I do wonder there How long this unity will hold? um particularly with That the kind of looming specter of an energy crisis across europe um Not just rising prices, but um, you know these attempts to To remove Reliance on russian oil and gas that is going to make life very uncomfortable For populations across europe and I wonder if that is then going to feed into You know government policies moving forwards. Um, and you know Questions about what the war means for stability and those countries bordering russia Particularly those seeking closer ties with the west Those states that are basically Caught in the middle Countries such as georgia. Um those they've said they they want closer integration With euro-atlantic into great institutions But everything seems to have been parked at the moment and it will be very interesting to see what happens moving forwards So a huge number of questions really And some big handfuls to to kind of discuss I think in q&a, but I'll leave it there dig Thank you so much. Um most appreciated. Um, I've got plenty of notes there myself Rob over to you if you're good to go Great. Well, thanks for having me. Um, so Yeah, you know david give me a lot of space to kind of talk about the conflict So I guess I'll hit a couple things up front. Um, you know Tracy mentioned some of this as well, but one is, you know, wars are still an issue in international relations It hasn't gone away. There have been a number of recent interstate wars. Um, you know, some of we I think you will kind of Overlast 20 maybe 20 years or so thought that wars were less likely to happen It's still an enduring element of the international system. Some of we should be used to Wars are still very unpredictable. And so, you know, as much as Um, you try and kind of figure out what russia would do how a conflict go It's very hard to predict this and it's important to always kind of remember That, you know, we when we watch war even with with with open source information, which is greater than we had, you know Previously, there's still a lot of information we don't have it's always difficult to make assessments of of what things are going on What things we know what things we don't know all those things of that nature Um, another one is, you know, I don't think much this war has been at revolutionary I think it's really been there have been some incremental changes new technology But really it's it's things we've seen before in previous wars Um, and a lot of that is not surprising. A lot most of the equipment being used is, you know, pretty old equipment as well And most of the tactics are are pretty The the way the war is gone is kind of easily explainable based on, you know, the principles of war all the things we we know about Um And you know, it also is an element that just uh, I think the way this war is kind of conceived designed Shows that, you know leadership decisions Um, there's often poor assessments of how wars would happen Leaders often think wars will go better than they expected Um, and you know a lot of times I think wars begin on a kind of unfounded assumption or or unrealistic views of what would happen um So I guess we took a scorecard. Um You know a lot of foreign Russian foreign policy people didn't think this war was going to happen and I don't know what the percentage would be if we make a call but probably it was majority and um And you know, there's good reason that think it wouldn't happen because we look at the pattern of When Russia's used multi-force under Putin, um, this uh, this a time frame generally makes sense There's typically a kind of external time sensitive catalyst a drill Russia response Um, same thing in Syria and Georgia and Ukraine in 2014 There's always some kind of event that led Russia to think believe that it had to respond or else, you know Bad things would happen for its position. Um, in this case, you know, clearly Russia was not happy with with the direction Ukraine was taking but There was nothing as that pressing that he had Russia had to force the issue in February I think that you know, when I was looking at why I thought Russia would win the war Um, I thought that the the timing was going to get worse Russia if they waited Ukraine would get long-range missile systems award become more difficult. Um, and that the relative balance power would shift towards Ukraine more But there's nothing we're pressing that made Russia have to intervene now Except in the fact that I think they thought that with with President Zelenskiy in charge They weren't going to have significant kind of uh, for progress on employee immense agreements and other things of kind of negotiations they wanted to achieve um So the one thing I would say is it's some of the people that thought it was going to happen We're more of the kind of defense focused people and I think a lot of that was just it comes back to Um, kind of traditional defense analysis, right? So a lot of the women the cold war the kind of counting tanks, you know information That kind of stuff became relevant again, right? And I think when I stopped being cool, you know decades ago, but a lot of that is very very important I think it's actually a bit of a weakness in um, maybe because some of the defense community Um, because we had always really good Soviet colleges, so many defense experts of the cold war Many of them are tired now and many of them were very focused on you know counting tanks counting You know divisions making assessments looking to all the information. I think we we've maybe lost that extra tease up to a little bit and so you know when I was looking at at um The build up there are a few things that that led me to think of what would probably happen One was to build up the spring and it was cool for coercive purposes and it was not routine It was it was designed to try and use coercion Um, and and I think I thought the goals behind that were to kind of deter certain things going on in Ukraine And it kind of native cooperation Ukraine and you look at the events that happened in the summer Um, the opposite happened, right? So we had the hms defender incident Um, that was a week after the he saw it between Putin and biden You saw increased NATO arms exports to ukraine including from us uk elsewhere Um, and then you saw the first tv2 a turkish uav strike in the downbox in october They always think kind of uh You know were elements that kind of led rush to believe okay, you know We tried to use coercion in the spring to maybe achieve our goals that didn't happen So now you know, we're going to do it one last time at this time where they kind of threat, you know attached to it Um, and you know when you look back at at the bill of spring Initially took a shogi who said that all that equipment would They moved equipment from the 41st combined arms army base in Siberia He said at the end of that exercise in april that it would remain behind the zopla exercise that happened in september And then it returned back to the Siberia. Well, you know, we saw as the zopla happened We didn't see that equipment leave and that you know again told us something about okay This is a it's a change in russian military posture. Why are they doing this? You start looking at other things they create a new contract reserve system in august that appear to be rushed through this borrow system This is kind of more some more Reserver system of what we're using in nato militaries We saw additional equipment being moved. We started seeing District level assets so s200b missile defense systems 207 malka peon um heavy artillery systems only in a district level Um, we started started seeing high-level electronic warfare systems all these things we expect if russian with the war All the combined arms things they'd go they would bring we were seeing that moved from from very far away All that kind of stuff was very concerning and then in the in the bill to build up We started seeing russian national guard unit being units being moved We started seeing tactical markers being put on vehicles the fees those things all that was you know It was all warning signs basically anyone the defense focus saying okay These are steps that look like they're preparing for war and he's obviously saw them starting to To spread units out across the border and and especially you know the weeks leading up to the to the war Um, they started emptying out the big assembly areas. So we we saw it um And uh near the borders to kind of small attack positions right on the border, you know 10 15 kilometers away Again all that kind of as you know, basic defense analysis says okay Something's here. Something's happening. Is it not normal? It's not routine And when you when you look at the the rhetoric coming from russian officials And you tie these kind of defense movements to it to okay Well, this tells us that you know a conflict is either likely or very very possible And it's not something we we normally see so in that regard Um, I think having a defense kind of background was useful to interpreting this Um, because there are certain you know defense details that were kind of unmistakable About being different and unique and not being normal and even though you know, the It didn't meet the pattern of kind of previous use of russian force other Putin Always kind of things were so abnormal that you know when you put it all together It kind of sends you a different kind of signal and my view is that After this bill that had happened After the russian middle east demands That the response had been from from us from the uk from other native members Had been additional arms exports to ukraine have an additional support to ukraine And so if russia had pulled back and hadn't gotten the cup to war The lesson that would have been learned in washington and london would have been our arms exports was decisive We need to double down and provide even more support and as not a lesson russia wanted to learn And so all this kind in my view kind of pointed to okay a conflict is kind of more likely than not at this point So all those kind of things um I think defense analysis kind of helped out with in terms of the war went and has gone so far a lot of it surprised me And so I you know, I got a number of things wrong I thought the most likely thing that russia would try and do is would be Because it was it was clear um, you know in beginnings for in the build-up that the issue was ukraine's political orientation So it wasn't it wasn't um trained by per se. It wasn't you know this part of getting the donbas It was how do we Change the the political orientation of ukraine to one that is you know Either a vassal state or one that is neutral, but not one that is hostile from russia's perspective Um, and and you couldn't do that from a lot of different build-through operations That's why kiv was is you know the offense of the kiv kind of made sense um But russia surprised me was I thought compelence would be the better explanation because when you look back at Previous times russia's military force. It was a question of okay. What what template do we apply to the situation? What what makes the most sense in my view 2008 in georgia was the most kind of similar situation Um, and I thought a more aggressive ambitious version with you know more ambitious political goals Will be used by russia the more capable military alert. Obviously a larger scale um Instead russia kind of adopted a very kind of surprising plan at least my event in my opinion that um violated many principles of war It it deviated from russian military doctrine It um, was very very different to the previous conflicts russia had fought recently and it was very unrealistic The the the assessment of the manner of resistance of ukraine was completely unrealistic the political goals Were a maximalist and they weren't limited and it was surprising because prudent has a pretty good record of using military force Typically, he's he sought relative limited objective political objectives that military force could achieve And then was happy to kind of you know walk away from these conflicts early um with that kind of you know Success without trying to conduct a large-scale occupation I don't think that's typically the goal. Obviously we saw it on down boss We saw in cramia, but I don't think the situation in down boss since 2014 was with a with a uh wanted to achieve And now you know russia find itself in a large-scale war of occupation And it's you know legitimate question how sustainable this is But anyway, I thought it was very surprising. I think the the My kind of argument of what happened Is that this was less kind of a military operation and more of a you know special Military operation and that it was it was a significant involvement in intelligence. Um, I think the fsb probably put a Key role in planning the operation. I don't think the russian military officers put a key role in in developing it I think that is more likely, you know What one thing we know is that the the plan it was conceived in extreme secrecy They made extreme effort to compartmentalization Senior officials in the criminal that didn't know about the war until the day of or you know two days prior or three days prior in the security council meeting And that makes sense if you're a kgp officer makes sense of an fsb officer If you're a military officer you realize if you're trying to execute a war this complex this you know 75 80 percent of of russia's kind of the titanic groups a huge share of the ground forces You have to tell people ahead of time they're going to do something because if you don't the war is not going to work out very well Any military officer knows um any you know anyone who's taking part in a Italian kind of exercise knows how hard it is to do the simple things And if you don't plan if you don't train for it It's going to be very very ugly and you know we saw that begin this war where you know so many russian Use the banded vehicles they couldn't they couldn't maintain they couldn't support Um didn't make very much military sense It was I was wrapping my head in the beginning of this war about what happened and now they can the best explanation is that um You know instead of looking at georgia or you can't train 2014 is the template that russia applied to this It's better to look at 1968 in chikosvakia Look at the 1979 the russia intervention so via the intervention in afghanistan that that was what russia Kind of the basis of what russia was trying to achieve in this operation and of course there are obvious You know the difference is there right now in both cases You were either a country that allied the soviet union So instead of needing to destroy their militaries You know in both cases so you can just rapidly move forward to the end It was in both cases the kgb played a very key role in kind of planning executing the operations You know it was a military operation But it was kind of more of a kind of policing type operation to you know to to enforce Or to to influence kind of put orientation of allies And it was bizarre because it seems though people from one thought this was going to work and you pray Are a country that has been at war with russia since 2014 Well, we we know how many ukrainians have died fighting How many ukrainians have joined the military since then to fight to to to defend their kind of country And it's remarkable that russia's leadership thought primea was the You know more similar thing to apply than say the fight in the donbas about the kind of resistance to ruin his stuff All that was very surprising to me and in terms of the defense analysis I think a lot of people like me got that part wrong because we thought There the the plan would be more realistic that it would make more sense and have better appreciation of likely ukraine resistance It didn't have that and you know in my view I thought the initial phase was going to involve a lot of russian Folks on on degrading or destroying the ukraine military. I thought it'd be a heavy use of fires or artillery Kind of traditional strengths of russian military. They didn't do that Um, you know, they had a very different plan where they basically drove to cities units were very quickly You know, it was in combined arms operation Always are the issues very very different from what we typically look at in training exercises Very different than one what russia has done in a lot of these recent wars We're now seeing some of those kind of things in the fight in the donbas It looks more like what we expect to the russian military But it was very shocking to the first few weeks where it was something very very different what we expected so in that regard, you know I um a defensive analyst, I think Um, we some of us got the initial thing right that russia would go to war And then the way russia fought was quite surprising and in my view I think they they chose a a poor strategy You know the the the Components, I think made more sense. I think in all likelihood russia would have more successful They if they'd chosen chose a different strategy than what they did adopt and so all that's kind of coming to keep in mind um One of the questions is you know, we look at the way the war is gone How much this is a result of poor strategy? How much is the result of a poor military or not very good good military? Um, that's going to be a key question for you know a number of years It's going to be a no doubt the key question. I'm going to deal with for a while um I think one of the things that's important when we do lessons learned There are a lot of articles coming out in march or early on about you know, did we exaggerate the russian military? how do we get it so wrong and The I was a little bit more reticent to kind of jump in yet because a lot of information you don't have We don't necessarily know everything and of course the war was early All right, and so we're and we're seeing some adaptations now from the russian military. We've seen some changes um There absolutely are our significant weaknesses that were that were exaggerated. I think electronic warfare was one communications issues The ability of russian air force to do the suppression or defense Destruction of any of the air defenses All those are significant issues personnel issues One of the big ones and I wrote an article about this two weeks ago Is that russian Was able to increase the number of its permanent renaissance battalion tally groups by basically cutting the size of them and so they went from a you know a table organization of um, you know about we're usually roughly about 500 each polarized rival battalion Down to 345 about 350 and then even those battalions they were often two-thirds trying to complete invaded ukraine And so personnel issues have been a huge issue Recruiting contract servicemen has been it's very evidently a big issue Um, and it's an important thing to kind of you know keep it away from this conflicts So there there are a lot of interesting weaknesses that we've seen in my view though It's important to not draw too many lessons for the first two weeks of this war because it really isn't how the russian military trains the fight And I in my view of while we saw what we saw was that the russian military did not play a key role In planning or developing this operation. I think they were basically given order You get to execute this operation. It was an operation that made sense to intelligence officers Not one that makes sense to the military officers And so it's important to not try and extrapolate too much from what we saw in the beginning of the war to how russian might fight some jobs, right? This is not necessarily how russia would fight nato Um, you know it with a different political leadership that had more realistic goals They may have fought it very different ways Well, it's important to kind of not assume this is exactly what the russian military does and how they do it And I think that's that's a really important Take away We talk about oscent dive into this for for a little bit. Um It's so it's a very important issue. I think a lot of intelligence are realizing how important is It's very useful for governments because instead of having to kind of question about, you know Do we declassify information to make it public domain? Now most of the information is public domain and maybe there's little things you can declassify to kind of provide more information When doing the public public discussion The role of commercial uavs social media smartphones commercial satellites all that is is massively changed You know the way way we can observers can can watch wars even from a few years ago, right? Even 2014 conflict with with ukraine A lot of those things did not We're not around and also this the competency of of open source kind of intelligence kind of investigators There are a lot of people now who learned about how to do this from from ukraine 2014 or from syria And now are applying it to more recent conflicts and kind of are a better better able to explain things that we're seeing One of the things really important to note though there are a lot of limitations and so You know one you'll you'll see videos in urban areas or see videos where a lot of people live Because the more people there are more likely likelihood something gets recorded and put on social media If you're an area that that it was less people around a few people around like by the donbas and the current fighting You're going to see less videos. So you there's always an issue of when you'll see videos Just because you're not seeing videos or something does not mean it's not occurring Um, even when you see videos or something it's sometimes people jump to the wrong explanation. So Um early on some people were saying that russian aircraft were flying by themselves They weren't they weren't operating pairs and that might have kind of signaled something about how russian air force operates In my view that was an incorrect View of what was we're seeing a lot of videos. You might only see one aircraft But maybe that's because the person videotaping Or I saw the first aircraft by the time they get out their phone They could only do the second one or because the other aircraft's doing something else But I thought it was kind of a jumping to inclusion that wasn't supported by the evidence And and always when we see open source information it's important to say or question What are their explanations? Are there are there better explanations for what we're seeing? You know, how confident we say this is showing this or is this kind of, you know, possibly showing something I think it's really important to ask us to remember But you know with the explosion of kind of ocean accounts Some are much more credible than others. Some are more discerning than others Um information false information spread very quickly. Um, it's I think it's The other issue is that a lot of the really important information of this war or the build up Um people who were following us through open sources knew about things before Often the uk u.s. government would would acknowledge it and would then pass it to news agencies And so a lot of times in the build up, you know, we'd see some in your time saying so-and-so with the russia militant in the border And it's like, well, here's a video we saw four days ago publicly that showed this and so, you know It's things that kind of behind the curve a little bit there Um, it really is important. I think there's a real expertise to being good at it I'm not that that graded it myself. There are a lot of people who know the geolocate things very capable that you know Things that I can't do that well um But it is really important not to jump the conclusions about things and I think that's happened a lot and I think That's one problem is that um Instead of kind of waiting for more information to come out Realizing that we're always seeing kind of a small part of the war where a lot of data We're not getting or the issues of the data we're getting I think sometimes we're jumping the inclusion saying we we we can be more confident about what's happening Based off this kind of poor data Without kind of understanding that that it's not that's like telling us everything we think it is um, and then one last part So it's already been a debate about how revolutionist wars I think some people have already written about that, you know, there's a fundamental kind of change of warfare or combat um In my view, we haven't always seen anything that that revolutionary there was some interesting developments I think the development of the the amount of us intel sharing with Ukraine has been a notable thing that maybe we haven't seen before in this kind of You know the the amount of uh time-sensitive information for targeting purposes um starlink this uh spacex kind of satcom apparently is having a very dramatic effect on allowing Ukraine to to have good communications at the at the front to to basically withstand Russian-electronic warfare or cyber things that you know, otherwise they may not have been able to do that was a kind of I think significant development um And we've seen your commercial uavs a plan a really really key role now at squad levels We're seeing crowdfunding from from both Ukraine and Russia up with ascending units, you know, dji mavic uavs It's they're integrating at low levels It's playing a very key role in fighting at dom boss and a lot of these these these battles You know these different units are throwing up a bunch of uavs A lot of them get shot down and then they have to have enough to keep sustaining that kind of fight but it's a huge advantage to having them and I think that that has changed In a significant way as well. It's really important to to remind Um, but when you look at a lot of the the main things for this war, you know Artillery is killing the most people right? It's the main housing producing weapon. That is not something new Um, most of the artillery being used for those sides is Soviet era and most of it is using unguided emissions So, you know, that none of that is really a Significantly new development. Now the amount of uavs means it facilitates artillery strikes You mean more accurate about it, but ultimately the system being used. It's not a huge change Um, and sort of uavs uavs are playing a really key role. They're very important But we're not seeing uavs, you know replace manned aircraft yet There's we're still still seeing man fighters helicopters all those still playing a key role uavs are not in positions that to to kind of supplant them yet They're they're mid playing more of a kind of complementary role and that's you know, I think some of you suspect we'll keep seeing for a while um Tanks a big question, you know every war now we win those tanks is a great question about when our tanks are obsolete Um, I don't think they are I think it's a data interpretation issue And it's another issue I think that people jumped the kind of too many conclusions about the beginning of this war and what it told us And so, you know from you know open source data Russia's lost a lot of tanks But probably more than half of those tanks were abandoned and so they weren't necessarily destroyed in combat They may have been destroyed after being abandoned But the but it was a lot of the issues of tanks in my view is an employment issue And a lot of those employment issues are things have been known for a long time So russian tank units went into ukraine without sufficient infantry to support them without sufficient dismantling to support them That left them vulnerable to small anti tank teams Not that's not something a new development Right that put them at risk when they went to urban warfare because they didn't have infantry to support them That's not new and then they're very logistically heavy. Um, so they require a lot of logistic support Um, that's been known for a long time as well And when russian invaded because units didn't have enough warning They they a lot of these tanks right away broke down and basically the crews left them alone Does that tell us that much about you know whether or not tanks useful in modern warfare? I don't think so. I think basically we know tanks are vulnerable to to light infantry and anti tank teams If they're not supported they're they're vulnerable in urban areas. They're vulnerable If you if you give logistics problems all those are things that you know Someone in survey war two probably could have told you wouldn't be that big of a development. So, um That's a bunch of different things. I kind of I kind of jumped into It's a really interesting world watch. There's a lot of things that are that are interesting to note But I think most of us, you know, we explain ukraine successes We explain rush failures. It's it's a lot of very kind of traditional things what they're what they're doing right or wrong It's principle warfare things we've already already known and a lot of those explanations don't really require Any kind of new conceptual terms or framing? Um, and if anything, you know You know, it's just the same before, you know, the russian military we swing between saying it's very very capable or very incapable I'm always in the middle. I thought we we made a huge kind of Exaggeration during the grasp of doctrine idea and the hybrid warfare focus that we're saying russia can do all these capable things But in reality its performance in the donbass of 2014 wasn't that impressive Um, and then you know, look, we've seen the fact that russia decided to convey large scale conventional invasion of ukraine Kind of indicates that hybrid warfare, you know, if you use that term wasn't working for them, right? All those got other other non-lethal forms were not achieving their goals and they thought we need to use a massive conventional military superiority to achieve our goals and it didn't work out perfectly Um, so anyway, a lot of kind of lessons learned about this, but I'm very much of the view that We shouldn't kind of kind of look at the russian military as a paper tiger. We shouldn't kind of say it can't do anything Um, we saw a very kind of unique kind of beginning of this war It tells us some things it doesn't tell us other things. It's important to kind of keep that in mind Rob and indeed tracy. Thank you so much. Um, got a couple of questions that come in I've also got a couple of thoughts by myself. I might just kind of skip around Um, this is much of a question for you tracy picking up on one of the issues that you raised. I mean sort of Trying to have a think about russia kind of going forwards. I'm interested in Domestically as it were now we none of us have crystal balls and it's an opaque kind of a Issue to see into of course, but what is you know The common etariat a scholarly kind of assessment though thus far Of kind of put in position if you will given the Great number of failures that we've seen now, of course, there is a russian narrative here I mean, please feel free to sort of respond with a bit on the russian narrative about, you know playing down the failures. I'm sure but you know energy markets, you know trying in some trying and failing but trying to sort of Switch away from russia the potential accession to nato as you mentioned russia a german defense spending going through the roof I mean these comparative at least I mean these are some structural issues here That really cut against any put in kind of narrative that things have gone well. So I'm interested in Yeah, how that is how we how we are trying to grapple with that issue at the moment And you interestingly bring up foreign policy and the idea of new partnerships and the likes for russia And I thought I would just offer a very quick quick thought on kind of the view from the middle east on this and that You know russia used to have this reputation of you know They would do what they said and say what they would do You know, you might not like their policy people on the arab side of the gulf didn't like their closeness with iran and vice versa But russia was seen as At least it is consistent. It had a real strength in that consistency and while that Tenor of consistency might still be there I think that The view of russia has taken an immense ding. It's taken a really significant hit recently by the Stunning levels of of kind of failure Exhibited there and so that's something interesting to push into the mix as well when it comes to the russian global role The amount that they have deployed their military in the near abroad and further afield, of course In the past kind of 10 15 years, you know, it's been quite consistent But now presumably they will quite struggle to even do these sort of large-scale deployments Um, and so again, so domestically, I'm interested in your thoughts there if you could reflect on what the literature has to say and Yeah, if you think what when I mentioned about sort of the foreign policy that makes sense I'll be interested in your thoughts there and rob Yeah, I mean, thank you. It's really interesting as well um You offer a lovely nuanced case trying to look at Kind of the effectiveness of the russian military as it were not jumping to to very large conclusions and I liked if i'm not wrong you almost sort of Suggested that the fundamental core is the intelligence almost the deep Centralized nature of the way that the mission was crafted seemed to lead to sort of poison it the entire thing from the beginning to some degree But how does that fair with A lot of critiques that come out that talk about You know the role of russian society the the conscript nature of the russian armed forces um I don't know. I mean, you know the the trotsky quotes here the army is a copy of society and suffer smallest diseases Usually the higher temperature, you know that quote. Well, i'm sure and so what about those critiques that intimate there's something You know that those critiques are seen to have been validated By russia's poor performance. How do we sort of measure it all kind of going forwards? Um tracy and then rob and then we've got a couple of questions that come in as well. Thank you so much Thanks, so this issue of of putin's position and how some of these You know these issues that I talked about you know german defense spending for example nato enlargement fit Or don't or counteract his narrative um, I think on the one hand um everything that has happened since the invasion Has reinforced putin's narrative. Um and the narrative that he is, you know Pushing within russia and I think this is where we have to remember the issues over Where people are getting their their news their information from in russia and There's a generational split to some degree um older generations still rely on you know on television, which is you know, if it's television you're talking about state dominated media or print which again, um, you will be getting the state narrative It's become so much harder to get hold of other sources of news But in terms of putin's narrative this sense that russia is under existential threat This a narrative that he's been pushing for a number of years Everything that has happened since um, they invaded Is you know enabling him to go look I told you. Um nato is seeking to to enlarge further. Um And you know, he's he is able to spin it in that way He's made the threat worse though is is my thought. Well I'm over wrong. Please tell me yes from our perspective, but you know Yes, but it's we're talking about narratives here and this sense of how you view the world um, and There are some who who will you know believe this narrative that You know russia is under threat that doesn't mean that it is true But there are some who believe that there are many who don't um, and there was um, there was an interesting thing the other day about polls in russia opinion polls Because obviously there's been a lot that you know opinion polls. Well, look his popularity is sky high again, but I mean this is I'd forever say this when You know with regard to opinion Kind of polls in russia You have to be very careful because if in a country like that if someone comes up to you with a clipboard or rings you up And ask you what your view of the incumbent is you're not exactly going to come out with a lot of negative It's not as if if you gov rang you here You might give an honest opinion of our current prime minister Maybe not, but yeah There's more likelihood here. I think then in a country like russia in terms of the economics of all of this Yes, he faces some challenges. Um You know russia is a hydrocarbon raw material exporter Um dependent on those receipts the flip side of that is the very high prices are serving them very well I don't know enough about the economy richard connelly writes. Well, that's written some excellent stuff on this but actually he's talking about how Fat that you know, they had restructured their economy post 2014 to protect themselves So it was more insulated than if this had happened. Um, you know before um 2014 it was they had Moved to import substitution. They've started developing their own thing. The issue here is that I'll go back to this point that it is an exporter of raw materials It doesn't manufacture goods that other people want and that is a problem moving forwards and they ask You know losing access to a lot of technologies that it needs And I think rob probably knows more about this the technologies it might need To rebuild some of its military capabilities that perhaps it no longer has access to that is an issue too. Um, I think And and that then ties to your point about relationships outside of europe, you know middle east North africa sub-saharan africa Arms exports arms sales it was, you know, is the world's second largest exporter What has it, you know, the performance of certain bits of russian kit in ukraine done As an advert, you know, russia was very proud of some of the bits of kit in and how it performed in syria and it, you know Yeah, I talked about the syria being a great advert has ukraine perhaps Done damage to you know that we might see certain, you know countries rowing back, but I do think there are still countries, um across africa who you Will continue to develop relationship with with russia because you know, like relationship with china it comes with few strings attached Yes, quite Thanks so much, uh rob One of the things I just wanted to ask you rob, um, if you could fold it into to it's my already broad questions So many apologies, um You know the the the vaunted russia cyber You know apocalypse, you know the cyber capabilities Didn't really transpire I feel I Perhaps i'm mischaracterizing this of course, but I think there was a great assumption that you know Very very significant ew capabilities at the very least might be brought to bear early on Knock out god knows what and make things easy. So how did do we know? How that never quite transpired is that again, just us slightly misinterpreting in the beginning But um any sort of general thoughts we appreciated on those issues. Thank you Yeah, so That's one of the things it's a big question on that one, right? So we don't necessarily the best data obviously ukraine's Um command and control was not significantly disrupted from what we can see obviously, you know, they always had communications. They always had um, you know, they've been able to use uavs or the things that nature um, so so Cooley ew and cyber did not play a significant role as I think we expected Cyber would they did use cyber in the beginning. Um, I think it had an effect on Some of those sets out on network. I believe I I I I I I missed the information But other things that are known, you know, so starling the political articles recently talked about the role it's played that basically has been able to Adjust and because of its nature is that it's encrypted nature that russia's had struggled to Um disrupt it and that that's played a very key role Whereas we have seen of course she is using a lot of electronic warfare in the dumb boss uavs are becoming more difficult to operate them um That there are other issues with with communications. And so without starling, you know Mario ball or the parts of the front they would not have communications right now Or they'd be relying on something like cell phones which can be tracked and targeted So that that could be playing a key role. It's gonna take us to I think some time to really have a good assessment of that Um, but yeah, I think the other element is, you know, we probably did exaggerate some of the capabilities here Um, and you know, it's it's certainly worth, you know mentioning why We got that wrong, but also why maybe the intelligence, you know, community got that wrong since, you know EW is one of the things where it's really hard to assess from open sources. So you kind of throw a lie on You know, we're a number of cases where russia's used EW in syria It's it's affected us aircraft or other things there And so us officials would say, you know, is disruptive is having effects They would mention this kind of stuff But it's hard to kind of make an assessment from the source saying this is the kind of, you know Performance who would have it's one of those things where it says, okay Well us defense officials seem to think it's effective and or it does make a priority of it They do air use of different areas. Um, I think in the beginning of the war It's probably an element too where because they didn't plan it in a very good to find them's way They probably didn't have a EW great EW plan to say, okay, you know, we'll have to be able to jam kind of communications here or here Maybe on a tactical level, we know the issues there So probably a combination of things right not not well integrated into strategy Probably some technical dependencies and probably some new adaptations that that that put a roll And apparently I think us has said that I think the NSA is putting a key role kind of Um pre-empting some of these cyber attacks of what it was going to do No one they were going to take steps it kind of mobilizing against that So again, but a lot of this is just, you know, this is what appears to be kind of hard to make a strong assessment now um You know in general It's it's it is legitimate say question about the Russian military in general how it performs You know one of the things I was making I think the plan was developed by people who had not served in military because a lot of the The the the way you can see a bit or go about it Would it make sense for someone who's served in the military understanding how militaries operate? However, Russian the Russian military still exudes plan, right? So it still says officers still exudes plan There were probably things they could have refined better and the Russian military. They did not refine nearly as well Um, those were all issues the Russian militaries in particular not will design the handaway kind of little warning war because They the the manning enough issues were greater than send us military maintenance issues It was not maintained a kind of readiness. Um, and then look we see units, you know Even used based in Moscow the first tank army supposed to use as elite unit It's right where shoy-gu grass ball on right they should be able to supervise this kind of stuff Then we found that this unit was one of the worst kind of units of the Russian military Well had big it some of the biggest manning issues equipment huge issues Always are the kind of problems and it's unit right based right in Moscow And so, you know, someone comes back to we're talking about the threat to Putin or other people, you know Who knows how we'll go? Who knows if people will blame the right people? But ultimately it's a question of shoy-gu grass ball have been in charge for 10 years Um, they were put in charge of Putin and this is a system that Putin has You know designed developed and allowed the kind of foster and then units based right in Moscow Right not very far from, you know, the russian military headquarters Um have huge huge issues right and these are clearly issues that have been going for years Um equipment issues personnel issues all things if you wouldn't supervise if you checked on them and inspected them You might be able to find out that these problems it didn't so who do you blame for that? Well, you presumably you blame the senior leadership. Um, same thing with the btg figure, right? That was a thing that sir could show you gives out It was one of these indicators saying this is how the russian military progressed since 2012 so that took over, right? We had a limited number of permanent friend news back then now we have, you know, 168 bdgs And then we find out. Well, okay, they got there by uh, by cheating right by cutting these battalions down And the battalions they've introduced into its war were were less prepared for war than they would have been if they had fewer bdgs They wouldn't better off having say 120 then 170 bdgs if those are fully formed bdgs with with, you know Full squads with full everything else. Um, and so again, it comes back to well, who's who's fault is that? You know, it's senior leaders. It's a senior leadership issue of these problems and allies are are You know problems that they said they were fixing during the uh, social cover forums um sugar came in he he kind of Pushed back in some of those forums. He kept some in place But it's a legitimate question of did he make the right calls back in 2012 2013? And then also, you know It is it makes sense to have leaders in charge of this law, right? Is it better Most military is like the rotate commanders every two three years You get a new set of eyes when you come in you inspect how things are being done You start to look at you you question the way things are being done and say why are we doing it this way? Is that makes sense? Is that a really, you know a bad idea? Well, last 10 years we've got we've had these senior leaders of russian military And they allow these kind of you know huge issues to develop So it comes back to who do you blame for this and You know, you could you could either blame budin who's been in charge for this long Or do you blame the senior officials of the russian military for allowing these issues to develop as well? It probably a lot of blame to go around but you know, it's a certain it's a it's a good question to ask Thank you. Just briefly a question a question each from the from the floor as it were marcello asks Rob, I guess Why hasn't russia used its entire military power in ukraine? Will it happen? So question the premise of the question if you will but if you've got any thoughts on that that would be good If you can answer that then tracy, there's another one in the question and then so i'll come to you just afterwards. Rob So russia has the most part used most as military power All right, so the invasion force was about 75 percent of its if it's permanent ranius bg's were used in addition They brought in rough russian already a russian national guard You know oman riot police as well as a kind of swat and spetsnaz units all those were deployed They also mobilized people in the in the donbas separate areas All the force to be used and basically even since the war began They didn't pull the remaining bg's they could from elsewhere from you know areas like clitting grad from from the chigastan From of kazi as i said, yeah areas where we were really sensitive areas So that they basically had deployed basically the entire russian ground forces that you know the forces that is useful Right some elements. You don't necessarily need you know more of but in terms of the motorized rifle tank maneuver units They deployed all of them all the naval infantry units have been deployed all of them are taking casualties Vdb's been basically almost completely deployed as well That you know, so basically they don't have much to rely on at this point They're still using missiles. I say clearly still have enough cruise missiles to fire them every few days or so Um, but in terms of the ground component It's it's pretty used up and so they don't have enough to rotate them And that's why they're doing this kind of this this covert Mobilization, they're not deploying constructs that they deployed some in the beginning But you know, they found out they deployed them that they were sent back Um, they are you know providing these kind of mobilization contracts where they're bringing guys in you know They raise the maximum age and they're offering, you know, financial benefits to go to ukraine for a month or two to fight um The issue is you know, some of these guys got out of the military 15 years ago and a lot of them were conscripts They they we weren't they didn't really weren't that well trained the first boys and now they're not well trained Now they're older their issues, you know, if you you mobilize a guy who's 40 years old You put them under, you know the charge of a 22 year old lieutenant Big issues come with that right? So all these issues And and you know, also a lot of the the manpower line on our mobilization of guys of men from the Lohan's goodness kind of a separate areas. Well, you know, these aren't necessarily trained guys either So you can use them to defend, right? I mean, it doesn't take that much to train to defend an area But for offensive operations takes a lot more and so what we're seeing it right now in the war Is all the units that russia has available to really do offensive operations They're being used in the donbas, right? And that includes um, lnr dnr units includes vogner includes different private military Organizations includes the russia military elite units includes everything. They're throwing them all in there Um, you know, they're making incremental gains. We'll see how far it goes not not clear But the problem is they are committing basically everything they have from the russia military And then they're mobilizing guys who were not in the russia military before And are not necessarily that well trained either. So they there isn't much left they can do You know short of, you know A significant escalation in other ways, but they are committing basically every ground force component they have Thanks, I suppose a question we haven't got on to we don't have time is about sort of nuclear Escalation and what does this means for nuclear doctrine and discussion but for another time But um, tracy the final word perhaps. So there's a question here to sort of slightly rejig it So you you've mentioned that there is something of a divergence between russia and the west when it comes to values and the likes Which I think makes kind of sense, of course But the question is what can we do about that now? Is there any way we can Carl has put the genie back in the bottle, but How can we Ameliorate the situation such that we are not on sort of permanently diverging or even just completely parallel Value-laden paths. I mean any ideas in the final So that's a great question. Um, I don't think I've got any um, you know amazing solutions here, but I think one thing That the west and I'm talking broadly here the west could do And one of the reasons that you know countries like russia have got so angry It is this sense of double standards in hypocrisy and the fact that you We like to espouse these values and you know tell states that they should be adhering to them, but sometimes perhaps Not necessarily um having our own houses in order. Um, for example, or You're not abiding necessarily by international law and you know russia points to NATO's operation against former yugoslavia in 1999 operation allied force Um, as well as the invasion of iraq in 2003 as prime examples of where you know The us essentially led um operations that were potentially not legal under international law In pursuit of you know, be it protection of civilians humanitarian intervention, but you know iraq was slightly more ambiguous, but I think That is you know something that we have heard a huge amount about in the russian narrative and from other states over the past decade or so And I think moving forwards If The west you know really sees its values now being under attack. I think it has to start really kind of being white than white And both domestically and in their foreign policy and Yeah, I I still think there is potentially a lack of understanding amongst policymakers that what Goes on at home and how for example politicians behave can impact outside of their own borders And you know states do watch Yeah, that would be my thoughts on that Thank you so much and that brings us to time pretty much So tracy and rob. Thank you so much. You've been very generous with your time and insights Really, really appreciated. Thanks for the questions And I hope Sophia gets well soon from covet. Thanks again to the comms team as I said for sorting all this out and I don't know that's enough. Thanks