 We are now recording. Well, good afternoon everyone, and thank you for being here today. Welcome at our event conversations with strategy featuring today, Dr. Neil Menvin on research and think tanks. My name is Eleonora Natale. I'm a lecturer in international history at the Department of War Studies. And before introducing our guests today, let me spend a couple of words on our event series. Conversations with strategy is a monthly appointment that offers students at war studies the opportunity to meet and ask our visiting fellows about their research and career paths from former diplomats to intelligence analysts, journalists, TV servants, and policymakers. Our visiting fellows will discuss their career journey and they will provide tips and advice on their chosen profession. They will discuss the lessons they've learned and offer insights into contemporary strategic challenges. The discussion today will be followed by Q&A and conversation with students. So for all those of you who have joined online today, please use the chat function on Zoom. I will monitor it and let you in the conversation. The event is recorded. So it will be available online in our website. And now let me introduce our guest. Here with me we have my colleague, Dr. Natasha Perth. She's a lecturer in international peace and security. She's an expert in Russian security matters and international law. And this is our special guest and visiting fellow Dr. Neil Melvin. Neil is director of international security studies at RUZI, the Royal United Services Institute. His current research focuses on emerging international security dynamics in key regions like Europe and Eurelia, the Gulf, and Middle East, East Africa and the Horn, and in the Pacific. His recent publications have focused on the new external security politics of the Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean and the Black Sea region. Prior to joining RUZI, Neil was director of the Armed Conflict and Conflict Management Program and then director of research at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. He had senior advisor positions in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Energy Charter, the European Union, and he has been a consultant for the United Nations. Neil has also had positions at the Center for European Policy Studies and Chatham House, as well as several universities. He also defiled from Oxford University. He has been visiting fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University and the Department of Government at LSE. So thank you so much for being with us today and I leave you the floor. Thank you very much, Eleanor. Hi, Neil. Really good to see you in person. Really great to also meet Eleanor in person. So what I wanted to ask was obviously you're working in the think tank world now, but as we just heard from your biography, you know, you've actually had a really, very varied career. And when I first met you back in the 1990s, I can't remember quite which year, but in the mid-1990s possibly, you were still in academia. I think you were then working on your postdoc at LSE and it was very much focused on Russia, the Russian diaspora, Russian regions. And so obviously you then moved away from that world. But how, if you like, was there a particular reason for you to move from academia into the think tank world or did it just sort of happen or tell us something a bit about how that process actually worked? Well, thanks for this. I'm delighted to be here. And it's great to be visiting fellow kings. It's really a privilege, but in response to your question, I think it's a combination of, well, strategic issues in line, I think, with the theme of this, but also personal developments happening in life. So I very much started out in academia and my main interests were Russia and Soviet space. But I got interested in very contemporary issues that the Soviet Union fell apart. In particular, this issue around stranded minorities, to say the name, minority communities have suddenly found themselves outside their home states. And in particular, I was looking at the issue of the Russians. We've already seen in the early 90s that what happened with the former Yugoslavia. And then of course, there was a concern that something similar might happen with Russia at that point because they were calculated at 25 million ethnic Russians or larger linguistic communities. Big questions about national minorities, particularly in the Baltic states, it's only in Latvia, in Latvia, there was a face even becoming a majority community there, large parts of Kazakhstan, Ukraine, of course. So I spent a lot of time working on those issues, initially at a Chattanova house, which became involved in the organization for security and cooperation in Europe which was set up or transitioned from being a Helsinki process to being a CSE and then the OSCE around that time. And one of the mandates in there was to deal with national minority questions where they risk becoming an issue of interstate security. And there was a dedicated mechanism that is the High Commissioner of National Minorities. So I started consulting for the High Commissioner and the first woman of the Max van der Stool former Dutch Foreign Minister, a very distinguished person and very active in precisely these areas of conflict prevention, trying to develop solutions to majority minority problems, focus on a security agenda. So it wasn't human rights were important, but their course, they were structured around the security issues that we were focusing on. And really at that point, I transitioned from being an academic, I was teaching at the University of Leeds, Russian conservative issues, very much in the war area. And I moved to work in this mechanism for five years where we were doing a lot on Baltic states, Moldova, Crimea issue, we helped negotiate the first economy status on Crimea which until the Russians annexed it in 2014 was the basis for managing sort of federal ethnic relations around Crimea, lots of work in Central Asia around similar issues to the Uzbek minority, which is kind of dispersive across the neighborhood in some Kazakh style, in some Uzbek style, Pajak style, very interesting work in Turkmenistan where we had very close society and still very similar issues. So that was sort of, I think the point I moved from being an academic full time into other areas. And then the personal part is while I was working for the OCM, I met my wife, who's a Swedish diplomat. And then of course you have to look to combine two careers and we chose I think the path that we would really try to follow her career in terms of moving. And I would then have a more flexibility to pick up some opportunities around that. So this is where I think I've moved from working in policy community in Brussels, quite a lot of work on it with the energy charter similar to the OCM, but on energy security, European Security Hall of Africa, where I retooled a bit, looking at some growing geopolitics around that. And so that becomes an issue, how many two careers and children are going away. And I thought actually that up until recently years my CV was going in a lot of different and contradictory directions because I worked on Soviet space, on the Middle East issues, let the U.S. Iran dialogue or anti-CTO for some years and then all of Africa. And then suddenly of course the job at Russel came up which was international security, which actually brought all these different things together. So there was a certain serendipity I think. And then suddenly your career which was made for rather personal issues, sometimes jobs appear that bring it together or perhaps you followed your in particular interests. And that was the way the world was going as it turned out. Yeah, that's interesting as well if you, if we think back over to the kind of long delay if you like your career in the sense that you began with looking at the Russian diaspora and so on in Russian regions. And I imagine there was then a point perhaps in the late 1990s and early 2000s where these issues didn't seem to really fade somehow and significance and importance. I mean, you're talking about are you this issue of autonomy, Crimea, 1990s and so on. And so were you, if you like, surprised or had when these issues in a way resurfaced, I guess, not too long ago was I mean, Crimea, but also in other areas. And then the whole idea of the risky near and so on is kind of soft our project. I mean, have you were maybe working in other areas then at that point. So how did you, did you think, were you surprised or did you kind of see some kind of pattern emerging? Yeah, I mean, I don't think I was surprised by the timing perhaps, but I mean, the fault lines of these issues were laid down with the break of the Soviet Union and the subsequent failure of the Why the European Security Project, which I'm just saying in the late 1990s, that became clear that on the Western side, there was a large winter expansion agenda, which was, you know, I worked in the mechanisms that were developed to span the East-West divisions both on the security side of the sea but also the energy charter. So I saw it in both those areas that there was a push as the EU and NATO enlarged to minimize those organizations. And of course, the Russians felt that. And they, you know, for example, I think when Baltic States joined the EU, the national minority issue was no longer accepted by the EU to dealt with in the OEC framework and struggled to make sure the national, the high-commissioned national minority still had a role, but essentially it took it away from the OEC for a large degree. Of course, the Russians, that was a key issue. And so they began to also lose interest in those mechanisms when they turned to other issues. So of course, then it became the fault lines that we had worked on in the 1990s. Everyone knew what they were and they haven't gone away. I mean, Transnistria is unresolved over two and a half, two and a half, two and a half, three decades later. Acrazi and South Asetia, Crimea from the beginning. I mean, that's to say I worked on that as an autonomy issue in 1995, 1996, I think it was. And we saw already what the issues were there. Don Bass, the same thing, I mean the whole language issues. So these were the questions I think were there and we thought it was a transitional mechanism. Once those broke down, of course, we've seen them come out in full force and this is now the reality of the security questions. Yes, I mean, that's interesting to look back and I mean, I remember as well, that there was that sense in Russia that the CSC and then later OSCE was actually going to become this kind of pan-European security architecture, if you like. So I mean, how much to what extent and you're obviously talking about all these issues that essentially have kind of come back to haunt us in multiple ways. And as you say, connecting back to Yugoslavia, perhaps Yugoslavia as well, there were a lot of parallels there, so do you feel that there was a way in which had that European security architecture remained in place or been, if you like, institutionalized somewhat differently? As you say, there were various ways in which it came to play a different role or less significant role. Do you think that we would sort of perhaps not have not be facing some of the issues that we're facing today had that organization, if you like, I don't know, had that security architecture actually really being instituted in the way that people, some people included, some people in Russia felt that it should have been? I mean, I think it was very difficult. I mean, looking back on it, it was probably very difficult to find a solution because in the legacy of the Cold War there was a big power in us, in reality, of course, once the Russians thought we were going to have a Vancouver to plant a bus stock, security architecture, in which they would be a leading voice, that's great power in that. And of course, I think they were willing to accept some aspects of the human rights and mobilization agenda around that. But from the Western side, of course, they weren't willing to let NATO be subsubstituted to that. And so once we got to that point, it was very difficult to find a way forward. Plus, you had, of course, many of the countries who had been part of the Soviet bloc and saw this as an opportunity to escape. I mean, obviously they had been oppressed and occupied with a feeling. And so this was a chance for them to break free and they thought that was the opportunity and so there was that coincidence of interest. I think it was, and the Russians, gradually through the 90s, you could see that they were feeling this power imbalance is that their expectations didn't match. On the other hand, their country was in a very bad shape. Disorganized, possibly on the verge of breakup itself on these regionalism issues. Desperate war in Chechnya, feeling that loose nukes. So it was sort of, I think that relationship became very difficult. And then Putin came into that mix and of course began to change it. And I think, I mean, now, of course, what we see is, I think we're beginning to see this, is that European security as a concept itself is now being contested. You know, European security was forged, in my view, anyway, in the sort of Cold War environment when Europe was the center of geopolitics. Once Russia stepped away from that project, that was the first step. Now we're seeing other steps. And European security is in transformation and shrinking. Enlargement seems to be dead now, despite the ambition. We've seen that in the Western Balkans, this is the neatest place they're not going to join, but perhaps they're not. Turkey, UK is now left, the EU. So there's a movement now in which, and of course, also what we're seeing is that European security is being defined by a debate about Indo-Pacific. Oh, it's just about to turn. So, I mean, the parameters of what European security is, I think is shifting very fast. And in Russia, we're just creating a European security program, partly to examine, and I'm going to try and leave it on the UK thinking front of those Brexit, but also because looking ahead, it's very hard to see what European security may look like in 10 years. I mean, it may not be NATO or the EU. We don't know exactly what the parameters are. I mean, that's a bit radical thinking now, but I mean, you can see that there's a lot of movement, a lot of coalitions of the will emerging outside to peel off European security. OSCE is probably on its last legs, still going on in some areas, but I think we'll press back. And so that's a question to me, I think about what this all looks like. That's really interesting. I think also, in some ways you could, I suppose, argue that European security was for a long time in a way defined this RV, the Soviet Union. I mean, obviously that's another question whether it was actually part of Europe. I mean, and obviously had the bifurcation of Western and Eastern Europe, but then this idea of a kind of larger Europe and then the whole question of whether Russia became part of that and actually Turkey, as well as you say, of course, Russia is now, has its idea of a kind of greater Eurasia, which is supposed to be a kind of condominium of the Eurasian Economic Union within Russia and the former parts of the former Soviet space in tandem with the Belt and Road Initiative, although I don't think that China actually talks about greater Eurasia, the greater Eurasian partnership it's kind of a little bit of a fantasy, I think, perhaps that Russia indulges in, but in a way, we're all having to define ourselves much more now in relation to China and the rise of China. And so that does leave that whole European project in something of a, I don't know what the word is, limbo or quandary, and as you say, obviously the whole idea of this tilt to the Indo-Pacific, which obviously has been also rolled out in our own integrated review, but actually, it has raised so many questions in so many countries about where Europe is going. No, I think it's a very interesting time to work with international students, it's very difficult time, it's also quite worrying, I think, I mean, my lifetime of obviously there's a lot of optimism, idealism, say at the end of the program, or I think we're entering a much more worrying period now. Many more actors, we talked about a unicode world ending, I'm not sure they're there yet, but as you said, Russia has now broken out to the post-Soviet space, I've seen that since 2040, the annexation of Crimea, the presence in Syria, military base in Syria, supposedly setting up military base in Sudan, playing a bigger role in East Mediterranean, but it's not just the Russians, Turkey is now pursuing in many ways independence or the security policy of those two members of NATO. Golf actors are becoming much more important, and I saw that in the whole of Africa space. So I'm joined, Lucy, is that Qatar, UAE, Saudi, are big investors, but also looking to play a larger role in historic areas as they view it, you know, just to Saudi coast, and also you see Japan, China, South Korea, the military presence in the whole of Africa, the entrance to the Red Sea. So these areas I think that we saw as a southern flank of Europe are no longer just that, there's many other people and the definition of European security, I think it's being pushed in East Mediterranean now, no longer just a European space. And we've seen that even this recent deal between France and Greece on around ships, but with extra security guarantees beyond NATO, and obviously focus on a NATO member, Turkey. So I mean, this is a very different world, even 10 years ago, I'd say. So this is the UK, how we navigate that is a challenge. There may be some advantages, of course, from being outside the EU, because there is a flexibility and a fluidity and having some successes. Perhaps the Orca Steel, the UK's become an observer to the Cassian very quickly and trade issues and so on, but what now is the balance and priorities between these traditional European questions and the Russia questions fundamentally? And these other ones, this is I think going to be an issue we have to work through. And others are struggling too. Yeah, I mean, when the integrated review came out, there were a lot of people saying, well, it's all very well to talk about tilting to the Indo-Pacific, but shouldn't we really, shouldn't the heart of our sort of security strategy really be Europe? And particularly now, defending against Russia? Yeah, I mean, that's the language, and of course there's a lot of critical boosterism around global Britain, but I think you can begin to see the skeleton of the UK approach, which is a much firmer focus on the Franks, so Northern Europe, Mediterranean, a much more maritime engagement around these things, this joint military forces, CF, and hanging off relations with other European countries around those frameworks, which again, go beyond NATO and outside the, so in the Northern Europe case working with Sweden and Finland very closely now to non-NATO members in a mechanism that's UK defined, so even though Europe is the core, and NATO is very clearly identifying and integrated review as the focus, UK I think is also doing not unlike what France has done with Greece, this is the way things are going, and of course countries are looking to how they can secure their security when they're not sure where the US is going. The EU has big ambitions, but it's not, suppose it's seemingly able to deliver on security and defence, we'll see you next year, but that actually pans out, and this I think in the current reality is the dad cap and formal prohibitions of states, so Brexit, I think a lot of focus on Brexit, but I think Brexit maybe historically, and I have a story in here in the panel, when you look back on these things, I wonder whether Brexit will be seen to be part of a larger movement that's beginning to happen, and these bigger shifts in international security around the rising in the Pacific, not a shift of interest back towards Asia historically, and the pivot by the US, these are all factors that maybe Europe, the core of the security, they will move now, and I think these are the kind of tectonic forces maybe beginning to move around our understanding of what security means in the European space. Yeah, sure. I mean, that puts me in mind of, with Amitabh Acharya talked about a multi-plex world, not multi-polar, multi-plex, but like going to a multi-plex cinema, and choose what screen to watch, if you like, there could be 20 different screens to watch all these different films on, and the idea that essentially, we don't really, okay, we've obviously got NATO, but I mean, essentially, we don't have these kind of durable set-in-step alliances, that there are these kind of shifting alignments, and they are maybe more like alignments rather than alliances. Yeah, and you want to be in the crowd, let's go into the IMAX 3D. Exactly. That's the challenge very much. Not the 2D. Exactly, yeah. No, and this is, I think, a very interesting moment, but of course, we also want to preserve what was important on the solidarity and the close ties, which was the core, and is the core of European relations. So, I mean, the EU obviously is a very important actor, it's not a big ambition, so that's another dimension of the UK, I think, to look at in this case, very difficult at the moment, but what we're not sure is what this all looks like going forward. I mean, there's a lot of status quo momentum, but I think we need to do a bit more strategic thinking about what the vision is. Can't be anymore, I think, the Paris charter idea would lead to Europe hold, and so on, because things are moving beyond that. Another thing, I mean, again, coming back to the UK, it's been interesting because the integrated review, if that's one of the first European countries to really start to think about it, the French course would be there as well, but it's not, I mean, I think for me, an interesting point in that was it's not just about defending the rules-based order, which became a bit of a mantra, which is a very reactive status quo position. The first time I said the UK has to start to move on to the front foot and be more assertive, look to deter more, be unpredictable. And so you see that in relation to Russia, when the UK has, in a way, whether we're focusing on the tilt, the specific UK's pivoted against Russia, but clearly in the North and in the Black Sea. And it's leading, I think, and we saw this British frigate, Defender, which sails through Canadian territorial waters are out of the ground, quite primeal. And that was, I think, perhaps the first time there's been such an explicit pushback to what's been going on for the last 10 years. Now, this is why I say there's the danger now because we now have both sides beginning to move on, returning to a more deterrent-based, active deterrent-based concepts with all the risks around escalation, misunderstanding that can come from that. Yes, and I don't think we're gonna see a scenario playing out like the final scene of James Bond, but for those of you who haven't seen it, it's a bit of a strange incident that plays out there. It seems to bomb one of the courier lines. Yes, exactly where, well, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the film. I think, as my son said, this is a last-ditch attempt with him to reclaim its status as a global power. No, it's always also in the flex, I think when you can see that is it's a kind of, it's also a synergy of the evolution of the bomb thing with the ends with a very old-style, baddie inside a sort of giant base. But also there is this geopolitically-contested island with Russia and Japan and the UK sort of in the mix. So I think there's a certain relevance to where we are in terms of our own traditions, perhaps. Maybe they've been reading them to go to the US. Yeah, obviously they've been reading them to go to the US. And the Lucy website of course. Of course, sorry, the Lucy website. So just, I mean, I'm not sure how we're doing for time. Yeah, yes, yeah. Oh, good, yeah. So, I mean, is it about two years you've been in Lucy now? Yeah, so I started just before the lockdown. Yes. And yeah, again, it's an interesting time because Brexit was just about to happen after a long period. Yeah. I think UK policy was not, I don't know if that's true, it's on Brexit now it's started something else. Then of course, like everyone went to work online. Yes. Which from a think-tank perspective, I think it's been quite uninteresting. And something is difficult in some ways, but also it's forced us to rethink what we did. Yeah. Because Lucy, as many people know, it's linked to this historic building in Whitehall, obviously the foreign office, Lucy was started by the Duke of Wellington in the 1830s and others to look at military science. And I think, you know, suddenly going online, we've had to think who's our audience? How do we engage with the audience? Is this an opportunity to also have a much more diverse discussion around security, not just a sort of Whitehall focus, London focus conversation or a UK focus conversation? Yeah. Because suddenly you can have events online where you can reach out all over the world. Of course, my team, which is the international team, we've been looking for security to be able to actually engage directly in India, South Korea, Africa, Middle East without having to travel. Yes. But also to reach audiences. Yeah. Again, outside their capitals. Yes. It's been a very interesting way to think about how you do them, how you think how it should work. Yes. In this time, before we started a very clear model of traveling to events where experts and officials would show up in quite closed rooms, but perhaps it's a chance to also democratize a bit the discussion around security and bringing communities who perhaps not felt that we received their institution, what this conversation was about then. Yeah. So that's been, I think, a very liberating part of COVID and what actually, for us, do we think similar numbers to issues? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think in academia, it's been a similar thing. I mean, obviously now we can go back to in-person conferences, for example, but certainly for young researchers, there have been some benefits to be able to be online experience. But also, as you said, you build a much more diverse audience and also more diverse panels. I mean, I certainly know that some of the panels I attended at RISC in the past year, for example, you had the one on the Russian Far East and then you're able to bring in people actually from the Russian Far East, you wouldn't normally obviously be able to do it. No. And I think, I mean, this is my team, again, this is something very important, is that we can actually bring the conversations taking place around the world into the London Sea. Yeah. So that we don't, and obviously this is a bit of a bubble sometimes in the transatlantic community where we're telling ourselves how great we are. And so on. And it might not, well, it's important to engage with others, partly to have a discussion about how you perceive, but also to have these conversations. And so it's also been interesting, I think on what's happened a lot since Brexit is a really strong desire to engage with the UK on dialogues about how to have a relationship with the post-Brexit UK, and so it's in a big demand from Japan, Australia, India. And again, I think this, you know, moving online has actually made those conversations easier. Yeah. It can happen more regularly. It's easier now to travel at long distances. So it's actually been quite a useful way for us to hear how the UK is perceived in different parts of the world. So could we have a check sometimes? Yes. With some of the conversations in London? Yes. Right. So Sarah, do you feel that Roussin has enlarged its membership or, I mean, has it attracted younger people to Roussin? Do you think by virtue of being able to be online? Well, I think that's been an opportunity, yeah. I mean, because you've been to Roussin events, I think it's, you have a pretty diverse workforce. That's been a huge success. It's brought in a range of people with expertise from gender to gender balance. We've made progress there. We now have commitment to have some gender balance of all our panels, for example, as a policy group of Roussin, so we don't end up with lots of men. Of course, our traditional constituency has been Ministry of Defence. So we've also started discussion about how security can be also diversified in terms of our audience. Because obviously, sometimes our events will not very diverse in terms of the audience. So that's big as you can't really necessarily alter that. But I think we can promote a wider interest in Roussin. So online events, we can target more young people, different ethnic communities, people outside London. Yeah. And that is a big challenge. And also, I think, as I mentioned, we had a very good event, I think, where we brought in people from Iran, experts, to talk about how Iran views. Yeah. I think it's a very important thing to agree with them. We often don't. But just to hear the perspective and to hear why, not to the view, but also what is the reason. Yes. I think we don't often get that. We may get a headline view, but to understand why countries have particular interests in Roussin, is very important. Then you know why what it is underlying. Most countries, they have a reason to what where they are. It's not just that they are values clash or something else. Yeah. So now we've just started in the European security program again to try and keep these conversations with our European neighbors. Also, as I mentioned, I think it's a very important thing to be aware of. Some other. Yeah. So now we've just started in the European security program again to try and keep these conversations with our European neighbors. Also, active. Yes. I think it's very dynamic time. So that's separate from international security. There that's. That's the program. It's a new regional program launching on the 14th of this month. To recharge on European security. Yeah. is to try to understand some of these changes we spoke about at the beginning, to engage with European partners, I think in a third of course, is to say where does the UK powers is controlled now on these issues. So we have India-Pacific programme, Russia and Eurasia, MENA, Africa and Europe, which is quite a new thing, I think reflects the recent, it's very thematic in the past now, we're having a lot of more geographical, mutual security focus. Although even that is becoming more complicated because I think many of these European, even East security regions were defined around a Western-centric world. So you can see the Middle East and parts of the whole of Africa are interacting in a new way, which isn't just African security and MENA. So as these things change, I think we may have to reclassify some of these security spaces. That's very interesting and I think for example, when you look at say the Belt and Road initiative, I mean in a way that's not really about regions, it's just a global idea. And as you say, in these regions in any case, they're quite the kind of orders of these regions, if you like, if you're just thinking about it, they're kind of imaginary, if you like kind of geopolitical imaginary with that space, I mean they're all kind of seeping into each other and overlapping and I think as we say that's happening much, much more. And those borders are often the contested ones, we see that in Asia, is it European security or is it Euro-Eurasia? Yeah. So Gulf Africa, you go to talk to the foreign ministry in India or South West Asia? Yes, exactly, so it depends on where you sit. It depends on your views and the linkages I think, and as Asia rises, of course those linkages will reshape, they're already reshaping. Yes, yeah, so it's a very exciting time really to be doing what you're doing. No, I think, I mean I saw the audience, if you're a student now, of course it's in my advice, I think is also what we're going to need is people who know these regions, people who know the history and understand them, we've moved away from that often. It's just funny to hear you say that, you know, because for me, perhaps as well coming from an area study's background, you know, we were kind of being tossed out with the garbage, you know, when the Soviet Union collapsed, so instead of, you know, we don't need area studies people anymore, you know, and there's that kind of big swing away from all that, and it feels like now the pendulum is sort of swinging back a little bit. Yeah, I mean in my team I can see that, it's a very diverse team, and it's people who speak Farsi, or you know, Mandarin, or whatever it is, that's the kind of expertise that you need to start with, because then of course it's very important to build up your analytical international relations and politics, but I mean this party, maybe why also I moved this bit away from academia is because you could see that in the 90s, there was a strong push on comparative politics and decoupled from cultures and histories and languages. I mean there's a merit of us to that kind of approach, but I think we're seeing now that perhaps we may have gone a little bit too far with the license on some of these formal methodologies, maybe to this doesn't really help you understand what's sometimes really happening. Yeah, that's very true. Dave, this was absolutely fascinating, thank you so much Mila and Natasha for such a rich conversation. Let's see, we have questions from the public, so for those of you who are online please leave your comments and questions in the chat, and I will read them, otherwise do we have questions from public here? Yes? Thank you so much for the conversation. I have a question regarding the career, as an MA student in most of these aspiring to have a job research position in Ntank, what do you advise us to do in order to get a position in Ntank? Is it like trying to build a portfolio, writing as much as writing or connections? Yeah, I mean if I reflect on my time, the big changes I've seen when I started out is it's become much more competitive in the Ntank, there's many more Ntanks, so there is a career track there, but the competition has grown enormously, issues around fundraising have become very important, and I think there's a lot more focus on creativity, so it used to be that of course people expected to write a lot of non-reports, now that's not really the case, people want very snappy things, data visualization, so I think that there's a set of skills beyond writing now about how thinking about things, but I've also said I think having experience in my area anyway, experience in other countries or on the issues working in government or the MGO sector, because I think going straight from an academic background into think tanks, there's going to be less of that because you need to know how governments work, how policy is made, because what ultimately think tanks are about is impact, it's not writing a great report, it's not what it's going to read, you need to have your creativity, the ideas, but also know how that can feed into policy making processes, so I think it's, you need quite a range of skills and a range of experiences, and my career in a way I sort of see a bit of things you can do, you probably won't sit in a think tank for your whole life, it won't be a 30 year career, you might go in for a few years, and then on the basis of that go into some other area, get some experience out there and then come back to a think tank, which I want to think about that and try and impact, so I think it's not a job for life in a sense, very few people I can imagine, it's going to be much more about moving between different areas, now of course I'd say there is a career there, but it's not going to be very predictable necessarily, perhaps that's true for many things now, so I think it would be, once you finish your master's degree, if you can get another opportunity to work in international organization or an organization working on your issue of interest, then I think it's easy to come back into think tanks from that. Thank you, we have a couple of questions in the chat, so someone is asking here, bearing in mind the more complicated geographical sense of security, would you recommend that undergraduate and master's students specialize around the particular themes, for example cyber security rather than a particular region, is there a possibility to combine both perhaps? I mean I think you can, I mean obviously some of the strongest people will have range of those skills, at Rusey we're organized into mostly thematic teams, so for example we have a cyber team, which is extremely busy at the moment, because obviously this is becoming a huge issue and the UK is discussing whether it is a cyber power and what that means, so there's a big debate in government I think about this and you may have seen in the news there's a establishment of a new national cyber center that explicitly will be involved in offensive cyber, but then we're also, I mean that team is also working with my team on how the UK can work with other countries and what capacity-building issues and how that can also translate into positive UK relationships with friends and allies, with other partners, so you know I think if you've got, if you've got the knowledge about other countries, but also as a strong thematic focus, that is probably the best combination because then you can work on these issues in different ways and so I mean obviously there's a lot of emerging security issues, cyber and all the issues really in movement now and indeed of course another big change from when I started is the concept of security has become so huge, it used to be about state-to-state consciousness, actually going back to that, we have teams working on wildlife trafficking and traditional military science areas, terrorism conflict, eranicalization, criminal justice issues, migration, so in all this now under the security route in a way it never was used to be, the Chatham Hours they have health issues which perhaps today is understandable but in the concept of security, so I think also you have to think how what is your approach to the issue, is it a security frame, climate change? Yeah I mean some people have been critical of that of course, you know Edward Newman and others of course you know we've talked about you know the dangers of you know making everything about security, I don't know what you think about that. Yeah I mean I think it is, I mean it's become difficult to prioritise and so we actually are going to reflect what happened during COVID and we obviously COVID or pandemic preparedness was a UK priority and I remember people were rather proudly talking about how the UK had one of the best preparedness in the world ahead of this but of course it turns out it was a priority but not the top priority. Yeah so it's um yeah this is I think one of the risks now is that everything is securitised and so everything is important at the same time and then it becomes very difficult to have these discussions about where your resources go. Yes I mean there is a danger that you pull yourself too too broad and there was an interesting discussion a few years ago where you shouldn't even have a discussion about threats but you should just have a discussion about flexibility in governments to be able to respond to a crisis because you couldn't you can't really predict what is going to be the threat. Yeah what's going to be most important is your ability to respond quickly to that and reorganise and bounce back. Yeah there is a defined set of things you're ready for almost inevitably things that come along will not be on that list. Yeah and so I think there's some merit to that as well in this world with everything being securitised. I mean I think once we've seen that as well with the UN security council you know the number of things that are defined as a threat to international peace and security you know which is all very well but then you know what are you going to do. They see that with I mean with mandates for peace operations I mean they become so huge that everything you do anything about peace operations between cyber security intelligence you know against organised crime and doing traditional peace building working on gender issues and human rights and post-conflict justice and then trying to solve the conflict then of course it becomes a big shopping list where it's very hard to perhaps deal with conflicts and so perhaps we may have seen peak comprehensive security. We can't disagree with comprehensive security but practically it becomes very hard to deliver it in a meaningful way I think. Yeah thank you. Speaking of theft we have a question like from Kun which country in European and pose the greatest security factor in the UK, China or Russia? Yeah that's a difficult one. I mean I think I mean directly of course Russia is very clearly number one security threat and we see that every day there are efforts to have incursions either online or even planes and ships and submarines and this is it was an active threat and quite worrying trend. I think a very tough situation there. Down the road of course I mean China is I think very far away from the UK but the UK is coming more involved in the region. China is also coming to us in terms of now it has a larger world, it's the largest navy, you've got port and Djibouti and so it's got a very close relationship to Russia. It's not on the access to strategic alliance yet but nonetheless of operation on the security side and others going ahead. So I mean I think it's starting to see a shift there. I mean it's going to be interesting I think looking ahead whether Russia continues to be the main threat as China rises because Russian-Chinese relations may also evolve and China becomes more powerful. Russia has to make a strategic choice there. So I think it's I mean I would see that's where we are. I mean the trajectory seems quite clear. UK hasn't yet clarified what its security posture is towards China. Caught in this I think cooperation and competition and threats dynamic. Does the orcus deal mean that the UK is engaged in a deterrence relationship in the Indo-Pacific with China? I'd say not at the moment. But of course if there is a major conflict in the region it now makes it that much harder for the UK not to become part of it. So there is stepping into that space and still it's not. There are Article 5 latest type of relationship around these issues but there is a hardening of those security relationships. Thank you. We have another question in the chat from Giovanna about I think it's relevant to anyone who is seeking a career with China. She's asking how important is the academic background? How much would you value someone with a PhD compared to someone who spent that time working in NGOs, dash organizations or private companies? I think it's I mean I think we have to look at the individual when that's normally the way we do it. A PhD can be very helpful. It can also mean that the person has a very academic track and I mean that's more what they're focused on. So it's I think you have to go through the interview process and make sure that is the right person qualifications, academic qualifications are a very good gut. Still I think it's the main guide point for us but it's not an automatic qualification I would say. I mean some people are are even suggesting I think it's too far that we do blind recruiting. We don't look at anyone's qualifications at all but we set them tasks and just to see how people respond in a creative way to particular tasks and we put on that basis because of course some of the most creative people may have actually struggled to go through the university and find out for their best reasons but I think we still in I think it's still very much to be looked to what the cover letter and to be the one the most important actually is often the cover letter. I mean I begin with that have they dropped a very well written thought through cover letter that's also concise. My advice is do not go over one page in your cover letter absolutely. You want it in there is it focused on what the job is about to make sure your experience links to the job so again I'm sure you're very proud of having a PhD I wasn't mine but you know that it has to also link into what the what's required for the position and then of course it's a experience that's going to also be very relevant here so you're going to want people you can also bring in the perspective I think of having perhaps worked in different environments. Okay, thank you. I'll wait for a couple of minutes more to see if we have any final question from the audience. I want to practice to ask you what do you think is the most challenging aspect of working here think back you know because often students they have a very big idea about the line so I was wondering if you had any suggestion any advice about what one should expect you know what's surprised you about that maybe you wouldn't expect something particular. I mean I think personally the toughest one is fundraising I think that's I mean that's become it's become a very important aspect of what we do so people can have very creative ideas but to turn that into something that you can persuade people should be funded and also to know have the networks that you can get the idea into a funder which is why I say it's very important I think to have experience not just because you practically know what to do but also you have these broader networks in which you can know often when you get support for your idea so a big part of my job has become a managerial wall of 24 7365 funders now Lucy has actually been very successful we've grown a lot and there's some tension here but of course you're only as good as your last project and so we have to continually be searching out funding there is no core funding so you know and this this I think is it's a very tough job for researcher because they have it's not just about sharing your opinions and being in workshops and writing nice things it's this really hard graft of staying ahead of the agenda into what is coming how can how can I find a unique angle on that someone's going to say actually this field is coming what we need to know more about it so it's you don't have a lot of time to reflect and perhaps you can value the university to the end of think more deeply that may be the environment for you but it's of course it's exciting because you're constantly on but I think that aspect has changed a lot yes perhaps coming to universities as well but particularly now in the think tank environment and it is so competitive yes because again there used to be think tanks that was chatting house now NGOs do work and consultancies do universities do it so even what the space and competition around ideas has become much more dynamic I would say and we'll see what happens with COVID because of course we had an idea also the think tank being a physical thing it's Lucy it's our building we're meeting our building we have access to the white hall scene because we're there now of course anyone can set up online think tank and invite senior UK officials to come on to Zoom calls and so the opportunity there for startups or perhaps it wasn't going to be recently set up yeah council for geo strategy exactly so I mean all this the space now for a new dynamic so I think yeah but again you need to have funding for it yeah can I just briefly ask about the funding issues and obviously in academia we also have to not as much as you but we also have to you know raise research money funding and that does lead to that question you know who are you writing for you know that question that comes up in time to time you know I you know he who plays the pipe of course the tune essentially you know do you you know to what extent and what escaped that sense of having to kind of write with that particular audience of mine or you know by the person with bank role in a particular project you know there's one always writing then you know with that audience or funder in mind you know to what extent you feel that you can be independent still as that raise issues yeah well when Lucy is an independent think tank and it's governed by the charity commission so yeah there are statutes and requirements around that and so also there's this transparency process so we have a list of funders which is available as an ethics process around fundraising so our trustees have to approve new funders and so we often do quite a bit of you know thinking through this is the right unknown yeah but think tanks of course also are not sort of outside looking in on issues you know of course so Lucy is a it's a transatlantic British think tank so I think we reflect that broad view that of course there's many different perspectives in that and we reflect I think that we don't there's no Lucy view on anything but of course we do I think have a transatlantic sort of perspective on issues and and post Brexit I would say there is a feeling that we should perhaps reflect a British perspective more and then so maybe a bit of a shift in the often there was a European think tank view for the Europe okay and I think now that you seem an integrated review the first step towards a debate about what the UK national interest is in a much better way that has been really since perhaps the 1980s when used to have even less yet in my recruitment it's become an interesting issue because we used to recruit security people yeah but now you can also perhaps sometimes you have a British background understand the British world a bit more and when I was starting out there were some British foreign policy but they've all disappeared into this sort of European policy world so you don't really have often it's often not a base a very strong expert base on some security issues that has a UK sort of outlook but don't have to be from the UK but unless you understand how the UK's position of these questions so that is going forward of course we're going to need more of those people if government has that yeah universities it's not so strong and see if the PhD is coming out and people have written about you know European police issues in the Balkans or something like that yeah they haven't written about how the UK should address the Balkans going forward yeah interest so you may start to see some people coming your way with those more specific national PhD research reports let it go fantastic thank you so much for this very very very interesting conversation thank you Eleanor and thank you all for joining us I will see you hopefully next month with our next conversation and you all have a good day bye thank you thank you both