 moderate our panelists. It's an honor to have today my professor Matthew Adley and Professor Heller with us. Again, thank you to believe in this project. And without further ado, please, General Oatesh, the floor is yours. Hello, everyone. Good morning from Brazil. Afternoon for Londoners. I am Major General Oatesh, Head of Academic Department of the Brazilian Defense College. It's a great pleasure for me to welcome you all to our webinar. The main idea of this event is to address simple questions that most defense policymakers struggle with daily, such as how can we plan better for defense under uncertainty? Are we the most effective we can be? How do we connect defense planning to national security strategies? This event is part of a successful partnership between the Brazilian Defense College and the King's College London School of Security Studies. We also have institutional support from other universities and research networks, such as the Brazilian Air Force University, Procade Astros and Pro-Defesa Defense Economics Research Networks. I want to take this opportunity to thank a lot our panelists, Professor Matthew Utley and Dr. Hillary Briffa. I also would like to thank the organizers, Professor Peterson Silva from Brazilian Defense College, Mr. Rafael Lima, PhD candidates from King's College. Lastly, I wish for an excellent discussion for all the participants. Thank you all and please visit the Brazilian Defense College at the first opportunity in Brasilia. Thank you very much. Thank you, General. Thank you very much, Rafael. Thank you. Thank you, Peterson. Thank you, General, for the open remarks. We're now going to start with our panelists. Thank you very much for accepting to be part of this fantastic discussion we're going to have today. I look forward to the insights that the talk will give to Brazilian defense planners and to everyone interested in the topic. First, we will start with Professor Matt Utley and then we're going to have Dr. Hillary Briffa. First, Professor Utley, if you'd like to share your slides and start thanking you, you have the floor. Thank you very much indeed. I'll just ask the other panelists to turn out their video and mute themselves during Professor Utley's presentation. Sorry. Well, thank you very much for those introductions and it's a great pleasure to be participating in this webinar today. The title, if you like, of my brief presentation is the Past, Present, and Future of the United Kingdom Defense Reviews. By way of an overview, I'm going to talk about certainly what we in the UK think of as being a defense review, make some observations about the historical performance of UK defense reviews, and then attempt to explain UK defense reviews in the context of the present. Finally, I'll look at areas of path dependency that in my view act as a barrier in certain respects for countries to engage in foresight activities and effectively to prepare for the changing character of conflict. So what is a defense review? Well, certainly from a UK perspective, a defense review can be summarized as an attempt to recalibrate or reformulate national security defense policy, i.e., the country's place in the world. Secondly, the strategy, the means by which it implements those policies and the means by which I mean money, personnel, material, etc. It's fair to say that if we look at the United Kingdom, there have been two types of UK defense reviews. The first of these might be called a scalar review, where budgetary crises precipitate a reduction in commitments leading to strategic shrinkage. And the second is a structural review where we see strategic alignment of defense in the context of change requirements because of the changing character of conflict. If we look at the UK over a long term, we can see different overarching methods and narratives at work in different areas of defense reviews. Not surprisingly, during the Cold War, the emphasis was threat based and in the context of a single adversary in the Soviet Union. We then, at the end of the Cold War, see a philosophy of capability-based defense, characterized by the 1998 strategic review. In other words, working on the principles that capabilities mattered and we saw the development of jointerry and cooperation between the armed services. All post-1945 UK defense reviews have been allied based, in other words, relying in the UK's case principally on security guarantees from the United States via NATO. We then, from 2010 and to about 2020, had a risk-based approach to thinking about capability based on probability and impact, creating tiers of risks that might be considered to have been threats to the United Kingdom. And in the 2021 integrated review that came out not that long ago and that forms the basis of current policy, we see a return to a threat-based posture and a threat-based narrative, essentially identifying Russia and China as the significant threats to UK and Western interests. Question arises about how well Britain does defense reviews. And unfortunately, when we analyze defense reviews, major shifts in policy over time, we see a recurring problem. This slide may not be very helpful because it's always difficult to describe a cyclical process. But if we can start with step three on the bottom right, the process begins with a new defense policy. It's announced and many times it leads to cuts in defense expenditure. We then go to step four, where the original policy becomes derailed, partly because of economic problems, but also diversion to conflicts or engagement in conflicts that were not originally envisaged in the new review. We then see delaying tactics whereby nobody really wants to acknowledge there's a problem, but in order to make those kind of efficiency savings necessary to keep the budget in line, the tendency to slow down major armaments projects or reduce the number of systems to be purchased, which in and of itself contributes to the budgetary problems of defense. And then we have a period of reflection when the circle repeats itself. So overall, British defense reviews generally fail. It's not if but when. I'm now going to make some remarks about seeking to explain the performance of UK defense reviews, looking at the notions of past, present and imagined future. And here I'll be talking to work that I did with colleagues in 2019 in the reference that you can see in the slide. Essentially, the sorry, do bear with me a second. We can identify a series of drivers of policy both in the past and the present. Firstly, if we look at the United Kingdom or try and understand how the United Kingdom thinks, it believes or has his ideational view that it's a great power, a status and has the status of a world class military capability. It's effectively a residual great power. So it's not a superpower, but it has enough power to view itself as a state that has regional and significant global influence. Part of this is based on the notion that it's a tier one military power, having an independent nuclear deterrent ability to project conventional military power on global scale, balance forces across the full spectrum of maritime and land capabilities and the possession of a domestic defense industrial sector capable of producing and developing military capabilities at the state of state of the art. British policymakers have had enduring choices and trade offs in policymaking. And these really have revolved historically on whether the UK's contribution should primarily be on land, ensuring stability in the European continental mainland or the sea through a maritime strategy, or whether threats to European security should be prioritized over military interventions elsewhere, so Europe being a focus. Debates of surrounding whether the special relationship or so called special relationship with the United States should take precedence over defense cooperation with European allies. And also the appropriate balance to be met or obtained in terms of investment in nuclear strategic forces at the expense of conventional forces. The resolution of these enduring choices in policymaking as the status quo power can be summarized as follows. Firstly, the commitment to preserving the US led post 1945 international order in the face of revisionist powers. The centrality of NATO as the primary provider of UK and European security as a hedge against Russia and the commitment to a UK global maritime strategy based on global power projection. So how have these been resolved? Britain has these contending imperatives, so what approach does it adopt? And what we can say here is Britain can be categorized as a status quo power. And it's responded to recurring defense dilemmas through a process of incrementalism or muddling through the problem. Successive governments have done this to keep their options open in reaction to constant changes in the international environment and the budgetary resources available to fund the national defense effort. A consequence of that has been that the UK has made little more than incremental and limited forms of change to the higher level ends or objectives of UK defense policy, the ways or the strategy with which that is conducted and the means in terms of the instruments which are necessary to achieve the ways and the means. And what we've seen therefore as a consequence of this incremental approach is that British defense policy is characterized or strongly influenced by path dependency. Muddling through incrementalism and reactive status quo goals in UK defense policies are drivers for continuing what we've always done rather than forms of radical change. And a conceptual explanation for this can be found in the new institutionalism approach to public policy analysis, which places an emphasis on the role of history in driving public policy choices. In the case of the logic of appropriateness for the UK, it's largely around the unchallenged assumption that Britain must and will remain a great power, a tier one defense power and as a consequence of that we see very high degrees of continuity. Why does that incrementalism occur? Hopefully I've discussed that aspect, but what does that mean for the interests of those involved in leading or managing defense, the politicians and defense actors? Well, they all have relative benefits to gain from staying on the same path and not changing capability radically. They're often electoral gains for politicians in reaffirming the preservation of the UK status as a tier one defense nation. For military leaders, this narrative provides justification for the retention of assets, personnel, equipment and so on. And these incentives for defense actors mean that past trajectories remain largely unaltered over time. So I put it to you that the Ministry of Defense's view of future conflict can be interpreted as a path dependent consequence of current and previous policy and force planning assumptions. In other words, the defense is locked into a particular set of assumptions when it comes to policy and force planning. The problem as we know about thinking about the future character of conflict and preparing for it is the tension between two entities. On the one hand, the future character of conflict, as we know, is inherently uncertain and unknowable because conflict is neither linear nor constant. But on the other hand, there's a pressing imperative to forecast and plan for the future by predicting the possible character of such conflicts on the basis of some form of rational linear and reductionist forecasting and long-term force development to mitigate or at least in hope of mitigating conflicts unpredictability. If we look at the UK defense establishment's approach to resolving this dilemma, we can identify three fundamental elements. The first is that the British MOD spends a lot of time and effort developing a long-term institutional vision of the potential future of character of conflict. This has been developed by a specialist cell called the Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre in the UK or the DC-DC. This really forms the basis or the principle level guidance for future MOD force and wide capability development. The second element is the MOD's force development planning cycle intended to prepare the UK's armed forces for possible future operating environments. In military capability terms, the funded force forms the centrepiece of the MOD's long-term planning system and its baseline for analysis of the future operating environment. The third element of the MOD's attempt to resolve the dilemma is the recognition that the future operating environment is likely to be characterised by changing complex environments which will necessitate institutional adaptation through incremental change to tactics, techniques and so on, as well as innovation that will often involve large-scale changes requiring a mix of doctrinal structural and technological change. On the face of it, these institutional arrangements in the MOD suggest that the DC-DC's authoritative high-level analytical concept of the future operating environment guides long-term defence planning in the design and development of the UK's future force. An alternative perspective is that the MOD's long-term planning cycle shapes the long-range forecasts of the future operating environment rather than the other way round. Firstly, the assessments assume that current overarching ends of UK defence policy to protect the UK mainland overseas territories to shape the international environment by promoting UK interests and contributing to the international security and stability, as well as responding to crises by projecting military power overseas to maintain international security and stability will all remain relevant in the future. Secondly, its vision is predicated on future continuity in the overarching strategic and operational defence concepts, the ways by which current UK defence policy ends are to be achieved, primarily through NATO in order to generate sufficient mass to deter the most dangerous threats and to undertake expeditionary operations. Third, the DC-DC's vision assumes long-term continuity in the military capability or the means developed to achieve the policy ends, namely that the UK will remain a tier one defence power capable of projecting military power on a global scale through balanced forces across the full spectrum of maritime air and land capabilities. Our findings suggested that the MOD's resolution of the dilemma of planning for an inherently unknowable future can be understood as a path dependent outcome of historical contingency. That is baked in ideas about Britain's place in the world and decisions made in the past that underpin dominant ideas and decisions that influence current and predicted future ends ways and means in the UK, in UK defence. In doing so, our findings echo work elsewhere, John Armstrong's work, which recently, in terms of the US Armed Forces, suggested that how the US understands future war is in turn a reflection of how it organises its long-term defence planning procedures regarding the means of defence policy. So the real problem, certainly for policy makers and officials, is how to break this self-reinforcing cycle. For all the value of horizon scanning and blue skies thinking, and there's value in these activities, as Eisenhower pointed out, existing path dependences are sufficiently strong to militate against any significant changes to the UK's general direction of travel. To put it bluntly, even if the MOD's horizon scanning developed a new course for the UK, any significant deviation from the country's current trajectory would probably be dismissed as impractical and unimplementable because it would challenge the vested interests and ingrained values of key defence actors. Thank you for your time. I won't take questions at the moment, but I'm very grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to speak. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Matt, Professor Utley. Now I give the floor to Hilary. Thank you. We'll be taking questions after the two presentations. Okay, thank you very much. Can I just have confirmation that you can see my slides? Yes, we can see it fine. Okay, thank you very much. Well, I'll open by saying a very big thank you to the Brazilian Defence College for having me speak today and to my colleagues at King's College London for organising this discussion and to Professor Utley for his opening remarks, where he focused predominantly on a domestic plan. I'm going to be incurred the diamond in relation to relations with small states to try to get us thinking a little bit differently about ways of doing security and strategy and who we could work with. So I've titled my talk, Defence Planning and National Security Strategies, Time to Think Smaller. And I thought I'd kick off by telling you a very quick story that I think will set the scene for what I'm trying to get across today. So bear with me. Once upon a time, there was a lion who captured this poor mouse and this mouse was begging for his freedom and said, please, please set me free and I promise I'll repay the favour someday. And this lion founded hilarious how this tiny creature could promise to help someday. And so he found it so funny, he said, okay, I'll let you go. And he went on his way. And then the next day, following this discussion, hunters laid a trap in which the lion became entrapped and hearing his cries for help, the mouse nods through the ropes and set him free. And the reason I'm starting with this story is because I really wanted to establish from the outset that all states have unique capabilities and something to learn from and something to offer the international system. And this is why, although much of our discussion about strategy and foreign policy and how to do national security tends to focus around the lens of how to relate to China or the US or these giants in the international system, I'm hoping to offer you a different perspective about what we can learn from and adopt and how to work better by working with smaller partners who don't get enough of the same attention. And this is very visible if you look at the UK integrated review in which countries such as the US or China are mentioned are almost 30 times and many small states hardly feature. And I think this is an oversight that could if remedy could help us think about how to achieve our goals by involving more diverse partners and thinking about doing things a little bit differently. And so why am focusing my talk on small partners and states you might not already be thinking about as often? Well, small states are located in every region of the world and they actually comprise the majority members of the international system. In fact, 108 countries belong to the forum of small states at the United Nations. And so if we are only thinking about international relations and national security and defence planning in relation to great powers, this is actually the anomaly and we're only thinking about how to relate to a very small number of states in the international system. And in fact, the majority of states that we need to work with and that and that have partnerships and pursue our goals with are actually members of the small states grouping of states in the international system. And so I'm going to try to do three different things, which is I'm going to try to show you what countries like the UK can learn from small states. I'm going to try to show you what small state and how the UK can advance its own interests by helping small states. I'm going to try to show how Brazil can learn from the two of them as well. And I'm happy to address this further in questions. But the first thing I want to get across is that when we study small states, we often start from a position of vulnerability. Trying to understand what are inherent features of the state that make it susceptible to coercion by others or to having structural problems. And there are many of these things which once you study them realize are inherent to the state and can't necessarily be changed. For instance, a dependency on trade, a dependency on international partners, economic openness, export concentration. And that might lead some people to become a bit pessimistic and say, you know, how can they actually advance their interests internationally. And this is where we introduce the concept of resilience, which is the idea of bouncing back or withstanding shocks. And the difference between the two is that vulnerabilities are often inherent and permanent. It's the nature of the state. But resilience is something that can be nurtured. It's the policy choices. So being things like good governance and market efficiency and social cohesion, reducing instability. If the vulnerability is that you have to trade and have to have an open economy, then who to trade with and which partners to work with is a subject is something that can be nurtured. And I think for both the UK and Brazil, it's important to understand themselves, what is inherent as a vulnerability? What cannot be removed no matter what we do, but then in what ways can we build resilience in our own national context to overcome these vulnerabilities and actually nurture the policies to move forward and secure our ends. Now, Professor Adi talked to you about the complexity of the international system in which the UK is currently operating. And I thought I'd expand that view with a bit of insight into the geopolitical picture. And so just a few examples of what's been happening between September and October, just most recent in our very recent memory. We saw that in late September, European Commission President von der Leyen gave her State of the Union speech, and she talked about the need to reduce the EU's exposure to Russia and China and to build greater independence in areas of strategic priority, such as the net zero transition. At the same time, we're seeing the US imposing new export controls on technology flows to China, and it's recently introduced very aggressive financial incentives so that it can locate more of its semiconductor supply chain within its own borders. And meanwhile, China also continues to try to build independence in a range of domains and to reduce its own exposure to the West. And all of these forces have, of course, been accelerated through the pandemic, which is still having an impact on many economies and in many states. And we're approaching winter, so we might see even more of the effects of that still lingering in our societies. And again, of course, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So what we've seen is actually in the West, because of this, there's a greater hardening of a unified approach in response to Russia's invasion and more coherence around China. But once we expand the view, the view from large parts of the global South and every and many other places when we take away this Western lens, if we look at Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, many parts of Asia, the view is very different to that we see in the in Europe and the US. And I will explain what I mean by this. So we assume, and here I want to tell you a famous proverb from South Korea, where they say that a shrimp breaks its back in a fight among whales. And it's to describe its geostrategic position in between China and Japan, and the idea that when you're caught between two larger states, we assume that smaller states are going to have very limited room for maneuver and are going to be crushed by this polarity. But this is a misconception in many ways. And so we actually find that many states and many non-Western states don't actually want to choose between one pole or the other. And I want to introduce you to the idea of strategic hedging, which to use the Southeast Asian countries and as an example, they have to have economic and diplomatic ties with China. This isn't going to change. This is inherent to the functioning of their systems. But it doesn't mean that they just accept the ascendancy of China in terms of political or military alignment, and many foster partnerships with other countries such as the US, Japan and others in order to balance their relationship. Because just joining one side or the other, bandwagoning or balancing, is not always economically wise and might prove risky. So we're going to see, we have seen historically and will continue to see many states preferring to choose a middle position as a more strategic option. And we can see this not only in Asia, but in any region where relationships are susceptible to change. So for example, in the Gulf region, you see a country like Oman, which works to the GCC to balance the Iranian threat, but also doesn't challenge Saudi authority and tries to have relationships with different kinds of partners. And historically, we could see this happening at the height of the Cold War. And I've put this picture of the USSR and the US arriving like Santa Claus to the Gulf states promising dams and steelworks and bridges and all sorts of things to support their development, but also in order to receive their partnership. And by navigating these kinds of relationships and not tying yourself to the mast of one side or the other, it can actually be a very lucrative and very successful approach for many states navigating an uncertain international order. And we're seeing this play out in terms of ASEAN and this relationship with the US and China. And I also raise this because I want you to think carefully when we talk about things like the One Belt One Road initiative or we talk about the Chinese tour of the Pacific region and conversations with countries such as the Solomon Islands or relationships with countries in Africa and the development of partnerships there. Think about it not only from the perspective of the countries approaching those states, but what do the states being approached want themselves? What are they looking for to secure their own interests and not just assuming that all states share the same strategic starting point or will build relationships based on the same kinds of values? And I think a really good way of visualizing this more recently is in September when a decision had to be made at the UN on whether to allow Ukraine Zelensky to address the General Assembly. And you can see of course a coalescing of the views of many states, but you can also see several states that have ASEAN or that want to keep their decisions based on their national priorities as well. And I think what this shows is that we are unlikely to see a bipolar system and a bipolar operating environment in the way we saw in the Cold War, but rather the geopolitical picture today is going to be much more about informal groupings based on issues and thinking about what issues do we want to prioritize and which partners can we work with rather than having very rigid frameworks of alliances in the way that we might have seen in the past. And so now I'm moving into the second thing that I want to offer. We've understood the geopolitical picture. We've understood how many states are actually positioning themselves within the contemporary security environment. And I want to share a couple of examples of strategies that small states often adopt within this environment to progress their own interests. And we've given some examples of where the UK has actually been successful in adopting very similar strategies. And maybe it can raise some questions for how Brazil can also take a similar approach. This is not to say that the UK and Brazil are small states themselves, of course, but that they can perhaps learn something from these approaches to apply in different areas of strategy making. And I will give some examples in the slides that follow. So the first is that because of a need to compensate for some of the inherent vulnerabilities that I spoke about earlier, Professor Baldr Thorhalsen from the University of Iceland has developed a theory called shelter seeking, which explains that small states are often dependent on the economic, political and societal shelter, societal referring to knowledge exchange and ideas and technology and innovation that might not be indigenous to the country, provided by larger states, but also regional and international organizations. And the UK likewise benefits significantly from collective security approaches through the UN, through the Commonwealth, through NATO and with the new addition of new member states with Finland and Sweden exceeding, but also through its relationship with the European Union. And even though, of course, that relationship is changing, it is still one that will remain particularly important. So thinking in the Brazilian context, how are we using and leveraging international organizations to compensate for some of the missing links domestically? How can we use those avenues of collective approaches to achieve what we're trying to do? The second one is that where for a great power the intention is often to be a state to be reckoned with. For smaller states it's often about being noticed and seen in terms of being particularly expert in an area or by being able to turn their weaknesses into strengths. So to give you a couple of examples, small states are often the mediators or what I've called here honest brokers in conflict. This ranges from Malta serving as the UN rapporteur on Palestine to the Norway Oslo Accords and the UK has seen success in this area. For instance, UK diplomat Martin Griffiths currently serves as the UN peace envoy to Yemen and deploys much of the knowledge from the Northern Ireland peace process. And another approach is to serve as technical experts. If you can't be the global leader in everything, choose your niche. Choose what are the areas where your state is going to be particularly prioritizing itself to advance. It's it's domestic goals but also it's position internationally. So the UK integrated review sets out the ambition for the UK to become a science and technology superpower. For instance, perhaps Brazil being in with such leadership in the Amazon, could that be the area to focus on given the huge interest and importance of the climate emergency that's ongoing at the moment? And we've got COP 27 happening right now. And you've seen many small states being particularly good at this like with Estonia and its leadership in the governance. So thinking about what is our niche, how can we how can we really go forward in those areas? Another way that small states often try to get there, what they want done is by harnessing international law and working diplomatically through international institutions. So Michael Bayless, an academic says that world orders are created and sustained not only by great power preferences, not only by what great powers want to do, but also by changing understandings of what constitutes a legitimate international order. So this is a picture from Gulliver's Travels, the children's story where Gulliver goes on an adventure falls asleep on an island and these tiny people known as Lilipusians tie him down to the ground and he wakes up in and out. And the idea here is that the behavior of other actors can be constrained if states are successful at turning their interests into international law. And so to what extent is this a tool that we are considering in our planning and our processes? And I'll give you an end if this is done in the UK sense, we could see an integrated review that there's very much an emphasis on the laws, rules and norms to manage international cooperation and competition in part as a direct message to states that are viewed as not complying or that have different, are they trying to challenge the established norms? For instance, you know, Russian territorial incursion into Ukraine to give name one example. But the important thing with this is also that it has to be underpinned by legitimacy. So I'm currently running a project on small states as maritime powers. And one of the case studies by Dr Beckstraiting at Latrobe Asia talks about how Timor-Leste actually brought Australia to the negotiating table about maritime borders when Australia initially did not want to discuss this because they weaponized its rules based rhetoric against them. And so Turnbull had said that transparent rules need to apply to all the big fish, the little fish and the shrimps. And so Timor-Leste said, well, you can't say that to China and then not negotiate with us. And so small states are actually finding ways to weaponize this emphasis on international law. So there could be ways for other states to do that. But you need to make sure that if you are pushing for open rules and society and so on, that you are walking the walk and not just talking the talk. So to come towards my conclusion, I know I've only got three minutes left. I thought I'd give some case studies and examples of ways that you can Brazil can assist small states to address your challenges, but also learn from small states by thinking smaller. And I'll give you four quick examples from non-traditional security threats. The first is that in about supporting to address your challenges, we see, for instance, that Guyana is experiencing rapid growth from offshore oil, whilst at the same time, but Belize has put a moratorium on offshore oil because it's prioritizing environmental conservation. So the question I would ask is, can Brazil and the UK, which hosted COP26 last year, work with smaller neighbors to facilitate sustainable development, especially since the climate emergency doesn't know borders? And then if they're doing this, how does this tally, for instance, with the UK expanding offshore oil licenses in the North Sea driven by the current energy crisis? So these are the kinds of questions that these states are going to have to grapple with. And on climate, we're seeing that the UK can actually exercise a lot of what I call convening power, giving the Pacific, hosting Pacific small states forums on access to concessional finance. It's an opportunity to host dialogues and to be in the conversation. Can Brazil also exercise convening power by bringing states together? The second is that within the UK, one of the nation's whales is the only country in the world that has put the protection of future generations into law. So there is good practice within the devolved parts of the larger states. And so my question is, can the larger states find a way to scale up tried and tested approaches? And the same thing could come if we look at learning from small states in the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Uruguay managed to keep community transmission low, despite the fact that it didn't have obligatory lockdowns. So can we look at the ways these states have succeeded and see whether we can implement strategies at the state level to have an impact then scaling them up at a larger level. So really looking at them as laboratories of innovation. And the last one is again on the COVID-19 pandemic, a brilliant example looking at Finland is that they build resilience because once a month they hold a monthly security committee with the chief of the border guard, the police commissioner, various senior figures, but also representatives from business and NGOs. And they work in a model called comprehensive security where they work with civil society organizations, business leaders, and so on to talk about issues of national security. So then when a crisis unfolds, everybody knows each other. They're used to working together. They can hit the ground running, whereas often in larger states, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. So how can we take similar models and scale them up? That is the question. So on my final slide, I'd conclude by saying that studying the UK and Brazil's relationship with small states and the opportunities this poses for strategizing allows for a more holistic understanding of the international relations of these countries. It gives us new opportunities for partnership and learning from different ways of doing things and not just doing them the way we always have in the past. It foregrounds non-traditional security threats like climate security and not only our hard-powered military approach, and it reveals different opportunities to create norms and strategies to address vulnerabilities. So maybe we can't do something just by ourselves, but we need to work through international organizations. Maybe it will give us new knowledge, skills and expertise and innovation that we can scale up on a larger level. And most importantly, it shows us that the world is not binary, even if we do talk about, for instance, US-Chinese strategic competition today, but actually it's a much more dynamic and fluid international strategic environment in which we need to be operating and conducting our planning within. So thank you very much for listening. I hope this has given you a different way of thinking about things, and I look forward to the questions. Fantastic, Hilary. Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you, Professor Matt Adley as well for the presentation. Both give us a lot to think about, and actually I myself have a bunch of questions, so I'll try to, if I can, I'll use my power as chair to do two very brief questions and also see if Patterson also has a question. And then after our very quick points here, we'd move to address the questions from the Q&A, if that's okay. So yeah, as from my questions, I have two, if I may, one to Professor Adley and another one to Dr. Hilary. Well, Professor Matt Adley, considering the element of the role of the path dependency and the vested interests in defense planning that you have very well presented in your presentation, what would you say can be the key critical success factors for military organizations that aim for transformation or organizational change? I mean, how to work around the vested interests and the path dependency to look for transformational change in military organizations. That's what I was thinking from your presentation. And as for Hilary, well, this is also, you give us a lot to think about, like especially because when we look into the Brazilian case, Brazil has often been working not only with larger coalitions of small states, but also with South America, with a bunch of South American states as aiming to build like a regional cooperation and so on and so forth. But a lot of this literature on regional cooperation, especially in defense and security, also present a limitation, not only in efforts in general, which is how can a country on the size of Brazil that has sort of like a middle power capability actually provide effective financial and political benefits to smaller states, whereas in comparison to states like the US or China and so on and so forth. So a lot of Brazilians efforts to provide regional cooperation tends to fall apart from the lack of financial and political capability to support these states' interests. So that said, how do you think a state like Brazil, which would consider like middle power or intermediate level state, can actually balance the lack of financial and economic and political capability with a possible strategy of cooperating with smaller state either in its region or beyond its strategic environment, you know, if that makes sense. And so I'd like to open also to see if Paterson has a question and then I'll let you guys address those and then we can move to the four questions we already have in the chat. Okay, thank you again for your presentations. I have a question particularly for Professor Atlee. I would like to know your point of view. What would be the initial steps for a country to develop a national security strategy from scratch? I know that a lot of countries have national defense strategies focused on the military instrument, but how would you, how can I say, point out some best practice for a country willing to develop a national security strategy from scratch? Thank you again. Okay, so now Professor Atlee and Hilary, you have the floor. Okay, well thanks for your question about path dependencies and the notion of transformation. And the underlying question that we need to think about is what constitutes transformation? What constitutes incremental change? And this is a perennial problem in the literature on military innovation. You know, how do you define what constitutes meaningful change? And how do you define that? And as a consequence of that, different analysts might come up different answers to that question. So there's an area of contestation around all of this. And I suppose where I sit on that issue, certainly looking at the case of the UK, it seems to me that the overarching pattern that we can see is what I would describe as incremental change, often dressed up in the form of transformation. The notion of transformation often derives from assumptions about revolutions in conflict and therefore the need to respond and react to those kind of transformations. We saw that with the so-called Revolutionary Military Affairs thesis that emerged at the end of the so-called First Gulf War in 1990-91. And it's also evident in current UK thinking about configuring national defence around a notion of multiple domain integration, this idea that if you can make the armed services fuse almost, not combined but fuse in an era of fourth generation technology, then somehow this will have transformative implications. I'm always skeptical of the notion that there is a silver bullet that somehow forms of change can occur that somehow alleviate all national defence concerns and create inherently battle-winning or battle-deterring capability. Where I sit on this, I think, is really that we see a lot of continuity associated with the introduction of a new so-called transformatory or transformational change. If we just look at the UK currently in terms of the outcome of its integrative review, this multi-domain integration idea has a logic to it. The idea that if you're able to combine technology, the different domains of land, maritime space, cyber, etc., this will lead to much better transformational change. And I think history tells us that when we look back on such moments, we're actually seeing large amounts of continuity in terms of where defence expenditure is placed. The continuation of technologies that were perhaps, or new capabilities that were started 10 years ago, whose relevance might be less salient now in the operating environment. I could go on a lot further on many of these points, but I'm mindful that we have a certain amount of time and you're trying to share. So maybe if I could leave your question there, hopefully that will have done some justice to your question. I don't know, would you like me then to address the second question around national security strategies, or should I let Hilary have a go first? I mean, you could move forward, Professor Atley, and then Hilary will have all her questions at once as well. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, on that second issue, the creation of a national security strategy from scratch, I think we have to work on the assumption that states, or I'm working on the assumption, shall we say, that states very rarely get the opportunity to do anything from scratch. If they are thinking about creating a national security strategy, and that raises questions about how we define or choose to define what security means, what reference objects we're talking about, etc. I would argue that they're always going to start from the starting point they find themselves in. They may have emphasised the military, there may be limited integration or cooperation between the military and let's say overseas service or foreign officers or some equivalent of that and a range of other actors that have or are relevant to national security. I mean, I suppose my response would be that often there are incentives for the military to look to create doctrines and approaches and align those with the notion that there are other governmental actors that are also relevant to national security. But I think typically we get forms of cooperation, but generating true synergy in a national security strategy, aligning all of the interests of the various organs of government that see themselves as having roles in national strategy is very difficult. And the problem here really I would say is this. As we all know, I think certainly in countries I'm familiar with, you have government organisations with a national security role. They get given a budget. That budget cascades down within a bureaucratic organisation. There are incentives for those organisations to maximise their budgets. That's a hypothesis anyway. And when we talk about fusing a national security architecture with an associated policy, it seems to me that as an organisational theory I would say it would be very difficult to do that because it's difficult to change incentive structures if you're trying to create a fusion, a horizontal fusion between different national security agencies, obviously including the military. So I suppose the answer to the question is that the pursuit of greater efficiency and effectiveness through greater fusion and cooperation of national security actors encapsulated in a national security strategy is a good thing to aspire to. And I think certainly in my own country, the United Kingdom operates in that way. But it will always deviate from an idealised model in my view, where somehow this approach of the military working with other government departments and even with allies and other related security actors, it will always be suboptimal because of where the starting point is. Trying to do that from fresh, you're effectively just as we say in the UK, you might say the same in Brazil, rearranging the deck chairs. Maybe I'm being a little bit controversial, but we are kind of talking together as a group on I don't think there's any harm perhaps in attacking some orthodoxies. I hope that did justice to the question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Atley. Gives us a lot to think about. And so now, Dr. Hillary. Thank you. Altair, your question, Rafael, about what kind of assistance Brazil can give to smaller actors? And then if it's okay, I'd also like to give a comment on the national security document question as well. So I think it's an important thing to remember is that there are different types of shelter that states can provide. There's political shelters to support administratively and support. And then there is military shelter, of course. So thinking of collective security like NATO is supporting with the provision of military instruments and tools and equipment and all that kind of thing. But there's also societal shelter, which is access to knowledge and innovation and expertise that might not be indigenous to the country. I'll give you a very small example, but if you want to be a vet, a veterinarian in Malta, you cannot do that because the course doesn't exist. You have to go abroad to study this. And it's often the case with many small states that certain knowledge or certain skills aren't indigenous. And so you need partnerships to develop that capacity. Now in the military context, this might be joint training, joint exercises. We host through King's College on the academic provision for the Royal College of Defense Studies, which brings senior military and civil servants from around the world who will come to the UK to learn from the way of doing things here or the way of academic experience of doing things. So I think it's about recognizing that assistance can take different forms. It's not always about the biggest monetary contribution, but in what ways can states support each other in other ways. The second would be remembering that it can be issue-based, maybe saying a state shouldn't have to or doesn't need to provide everything for another state. Of course, that's the case. Maybe it's choosing particular issue areas in which the expertise of the state can actually be beneficial and making that the basis of a very successful partnership. And the third would be even if Brazil can't necessarily provide everything itself and should, again, shouldn't have to. But it does, I've talked quite a lot about using international organizations and collective security approaches, and Brazil has a much bigger voice often in these fora than many small states do. So in what way can it exercise what I call convening power and bringing others on board to advance their interests and actually supporting partners in that way. So I think those are different ways that don't just have to depend on the biggest army or the deepest pockets, but actually will still allow the ability to connect what we're trying to do in different areas through other means. And if it's okay, I'd like to also comment on the question about how to create a national security strategy from scratch, because I've actually been quite involved in conversations about the UK integrated review, which was the latest version of what we consider the UK national security strategy. And to give you a bit of insight, I think the main thing is that this needs to be a long term vision. You know, that goes beyond an electoral cycle, but then it's also important that as the UK national security advisor Lovegrove at the time said that it's a living document. So it sets out the principles, but then the day to day achievement of how we're going to go about this is open to adaptation and flexibility and very regular review, because obviously you cannot, it's not a crystal ball that predicts the future, but actually sets out, okay, what is our approach to the world? Where do we see ourselves going in the future? And then in very practical terms from my conversations with the people who wrote this year's version, you know, they talked about looking at the electoral manifestos as a starting point, what has the government promised to achieve, speaking to senior ministers, also the prime minister, because much of it is shaped also by the prime minister's priorities. And then once they had a draft, they would red team it, so they would ask different parts of government to look at it and pick it apart and see where it can be improved. There was, and despite me saying that there was all of this emphasis on what the ministers want, what the prime minister want, they were very open to external engagement. So there was a call for evidence that had 450 written submissions put forward by academics, various stakeholders. So they had a lot of ground that they covered in nine months, but one of the things that they said was a bit of a missed opportunity is that they also wanted to do more in focus groups around the country with people of different ages and young people in order to also get those views. And it was very difficult under the COVID pandemic circumstances. They didn't know if there was going to be a spending review. There was a lot of uncertainty around the process that made that aspect difficult, but if you speak to the people who wrote the integrative review, they think it's a missed opportunity because there's a big focus on social cohesion in the review. And so of course, the more buy-in you can get, the more that this will be a national security strategy and not only a kind of an esoteric document that reflects the perspective solely of the authors who put it together. So I think those are just a few suggestions if you were sitting down to do this. And of course, doing a bit of horizon scanning to try to see what's on the near horizon. But ultimately, if it's something that's going to survive beyond a presidential cycle or beyond one administration, it really needs to be thinking longer term about where the country wants to see itself in the world. And then as the guiding principles and then have that flexibility to review annually or periodically as this complex international environment around us changes. So I hope that's helpful as well. Thank you, Hilary. Yeah, that is really helpful. Yeah, you've given a lot of a lot for us to think about. And also, I was checking the Q&A and we currently have 10 questions, which is quite a lot. People are very interested. So what I'll do, I'll try to gather questions into like chunks of three or four questions. And then, you know, I'll make them in three by blocks of three questions. And we'll see, we'll try to answer and to address them as much as we can. And if we can't address everything, I'm so sorry, because we're limited by time and but we'll certainly try to try to get them as much as we can. So the first question we have is from Tamiri Santos from Cranfield University. And she asked Professor Adelaide directly. She has a few questions. So since when exactly has the UK defined incrementalism within the defense reviews? And what is your view regarding the 1998 SDR? Was this review also mostly incremental? And lastly, what are the major scare of changes necessary for the UK to face uncertainty more accurately? And if so, how to break incrementalism and defense policies? I think this was sort of addressed in a way, but it's a good question. Also, we have a question below from Gilles Villan-Lopez from the University of the Air Force in Brazil. He's the coordinator of the postgraduate program there. He's asking directly Professor Adelaide. As you pointed out, the UK currently pursues a threat-based defense policy rather than a capability-based one, as the one Brazil is currently pursuing. What are the main implications of this strategic shift for the UK in a post-Ukraine war scenario? We have also a question directly to Hillary. My question is regarding resilience, which you mentioned as possible contribution to coming from small states. Could you elaborate a bit more on what is your view of resilience and what contributions come from this trade? I'll gather just another one from Carmel Negrão from the National Defense College in in Brasilia. So he's asking to both professors. The US launched an initiative at the meeting of defense ministers from the Western Hemisphere called the integrated deterrents as means of protecting the region from extra regional threats and combating transnational crime issues. I asked what would be the understanding of this concept in a European security context? So I'll stop with these questions and I'll then move once you guys address that we can move forward. I'll just ask and fortunately to try and ask you very kindly to be as brief as possible on the answers so we can try to address as many questions as we can. Thank you. So would you like me to address the questions that were directed at me as briefly as I can? Yes, of course. I think the first question was since when has the UK become an incrementalist or has adopted an incremental approach? If I'm correct, yeah. I think my answer to that question and I may have caused a misunderstanding. I'm not suggesting that the UK establishment would describe itself as incrementalist. I'm saying it can be characterised as incrementalist. And the reason for that really, I may not have articulated it very well, but this idea that Britain has this series of what seem to be perennial drivers or considerations in defence policy that are connected to its notion as a residual great power. And its way of managing those, the continental commitment versus a maritime commitment, et cetera, et cetera, has tended to involve incremental changes in each of those substrategies, the salience of which has ebbed and flowed depending on the nature of the external environment and threat perception. So it's really, I'm describing it as a way of decision making rather than a deliberate strategy of decision making. And we see that, I think, occurring in the UK's responses to changes in the international environment. It hasn't ditched any of those major planks, if you like, or tenets of its approach. So I'll leave that there. I think the related question was about the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. Which, so I talked about two types of defence review, a scalar review. Oh, dear, we haven't got enough money. So we have effectively to look to, well, we'll maintain the same goals, but we'll reduce the resources that we have available to it. And quite clearly, the 1998 Review was a response. It was Britain's sort of considered response to the end of the Cold War, in effect, where we see a strategic review that can be considered as such, I think, given its analysis of the changed dynamics and circumstances. So what we had seen there was effectively a period where Britain downsized to realise a peace dividend from reduced defence expenditure. And I think it is fair to say that the development of the concept of jointery and expeditionary operations did mark a deviation from how things had been done before. But at the same time, I think there were some features of that review that pointed to continuity. In other words, the extent to which different parts of the military were diluted, in some respects, in terms of reductions in number. I don't know whether I've done that question, any justice, but hopefully those thoughts are of interest. Now, the third question I wrote, I wrote down, but can't read my own writing. And that's what happens when you get old like I am. So it was something about more... Let's see. That's probably the question on integrated deterrence. Yes, yes, the integrated deterrence question is... Yeah, I'll just reread it. It's saying that the US launched an initiative and the meeting of defence ministers in the Western Hemisphere called the integrated deterrence as a means of protecting the region from extra regional threats and combatant transnational crime. Carlo Negrell asks if what is the understanding of this concept from a European security perspective if there is an understanding in that? I put my hand on my heart and say I don't know enough about this issue to be able to comment, which is an honest answer. But what I will do as a consequence of this webinar is go and make sure I'm up to speed on those issues. A final question I had, I think, was around the main implications for the UK threat-based strategy for the post-Ukrainian war. Well, a lot here really depends upon what happens ultimately and what the post-war scenario might look like. I think it's arguably too early to predict that, or really to do too much speculation. But I mean it would seem that the war in Ukraine has increased pressure in the UK to think about its commitment to NATO and effectively its continental strategy. And so that might have implications for levels of investment in land forces against the backdrop of an integrated review that has arguably seen an increase in the salience of the maritime dimension of the Royal Navy in terms of carrier battle groups and that sort of thing. So I suppose what I would say is that this has seemed militarily aid to Ukraine. And it seems reasonable to assume that under any settlement with Russia, the UK is likely to maintain again in the form of military aid rather than sort of proxy warfare or anything like that. And interested in ensuring its army is able to adapt to a more continental, an increase in the continental elements of its national strategy as it were. Thanks. Thank you. So now Hilary. Sure, thank you. I'll try to give my answers quite short, but basically the first question was to say a little bit more about this idea of vulnerability and resilience. And like I said, it's about recognizing what things are inherent. You can't change, but you need to account for. And by accounting for them, you develop that ability to bounce back or withstand shocks. This would give you examples of what I mean by things that can help to build resilience. It's putting in place policies that can reduce instability, that can improve the workings of your market, that can improve political governance and oversight, things that can promote social development. These are all things that can be changed and nurtured to policymaking. They're not things that are inherent to the state. And so it's about identifying which levers you need to pull and adjust in areas of the economy, social policy, defense policy and so on, to be able to better overcome inherent limitations that you just can't change. Things like your geographic location, what natural resources you have access to, the fact that you have to trade with others. You can't change these things, but then who to trade with or how to use your location in a way that develops, as Professor Utley said, maybe a land strategy or maritime strategy or an environmental strategy. These are things that are very much open to negotiation and which show why states that have very similar size or history might then go on to develop in very different ways. So thinking about what do we need to do to turn those inherent vulnerabilities to shore them up. And then the second question, I'll take a stab at the integrated deterrents one, which is not to say that I know the view of all of Europe, but just to give a sense of how I think some of the discussions we're having here in the terms of understanding it, is that when Colin Carl, who's the President Biden's Under Secretary for Defence and Policy, had talked about this concept. He talks about it's integrated in terms of all the domains, so conventional nuclear, cyberspace, informational, and also across the different theaters of competition and spectrums of conflict, like high intensity warfare to grain zone warfare. And I think this was very much the incentive behind the approach in the UK, which talks about first the fusion doctrine and the multi-domain integration. It's very much the idea that of having your different levers working together. And I spoke in my presentation about Finland's comprehensive security model, where you could think of Latvia, what they call total defence. So the idea that you need things working in synchronicity and to be thinking about these not just in individual silos. And their idea there is that our critical infrastructure has to be more resilient. So it comes back to this idea of resilience so that you can write out early attacks or not have to move forward to defend allies. And I think the second thing that's important to take from this is that, and I think the way discussions in you do see this is that the US has really reinforced that it means being integrated across allies and partners as well. So working with the whole alliance system as part of deterrent so that adversaries know they're not just going to take on the United States, but actually they're taking on a coalition of countries who are united in protecting the international order. And you can see very much of this discussion reflected in the conversations Finland and Sweden have had about exceeding the NATO and the idea of banding together. And so that's just a little bit of, I guess, two ways of understanding this approach that I can't tell you whether it sounds like things in Europe we're already doing anyway and they've just given it a name in the United States. And then do you want me to address any of the other questions in the chat or should I come back to you Rafael? If you, I think we're going to address, we're just going to read a few more and then we'll give it back to you guys. So now, Paterson, I think you want to read a few from the numbers. The first, the first question is from Aaron Dawson from King's College of London for Professor Utley. Can you think of any states which are successful in overcoming patch dependence and defense planning to better configure their forces for contemporary security threats and build on Dr. Briefer points? How, if at all, does this capacity vary between small and large states? So these were Aaron Dawson questions. I'm going to read now the question from Meg Pangoli from the University of Leeds, two questions for Dr. Briefer. In your opinion, in terms of small states, does size matter in the digital age? And the second one, can big states in your opinion learn from the concept of smallness or smallness plus is smartness? And last, the third question now is from Cornel Pessoa from the Brazilian Center for Strategic Studies. And I think it's for Matthew Utley, which difficults an army with no current experience in conflict can perform a transformation. So that are the three questions that we are addressing right now. Thank you. Forgive me. I didn't catch the first question that you had. You asked me. Could you possibly repeat it again, please? Yeah, from Aaron Dawson. Can you think of any states which are successful in overcoming pet dependence in defense planning to better configure their forces for contemporary security threats? Okay. Thank you. Yeah. The answer to that is yes. So if you think about or talk about past dependencies, there's an acknowledgement that what you can have are sort of critical junctures where paths can change. I mean, there's always change. It doesn't necessarily need to be radical change. And there's another slightly different theoretical position, which is around this idea of punctuated equilibrium, that you do get sizable changes as a consequence of shocks. And so I think we can look historically to states that have undergone quite major change in their configuration. It could be as a consequence of losing a war. I mean, if we go back historically, I mean, you'd see post-Second World War or Germany as an example of that where you see a complete change admittedly enforced upon Germany as a consequence of a punctuation of this equilibrium. So there is a way of avoiding incrementalism and path dependency, but it can often be to do with what we might describe as shocks. And a shock could include losing a war would probably be the best example of that. I don't know if you'd like me to say more on that point, or if that sort of clarifies or provides a meaningful answer to the question. I think that's good. Yeah. Okay. And the second question was, can an army win with no prior experience? Okay. That's a very interesting question. Well, I suppose it can't be an army without having some prime military experience as in forming itself as a military organization. So I think we can presuppose that that states that have armies will, if they have an army, there must be some infrastructure in place, there must be some defensive capability, and there may be doctrines and a whole range of other things that would be necessary conditions in order to create an army that would be able to behave professionally and competently in terms of what might be described as military standards of operations. So I think if we think of it in those terms, then I think it also depends on how we define experience. I mean, you might have armies that have developed their there for territorial defense. They haven't had any experience in fighting, they've spent a lot of time simulating different conditions and training and those sorts of things. I mean, they, how they would fare if they were involved in conflict or the extent to which they provided deterrents would probably be case specific. So I therefore think that, you know, to be defined as an army, an army must have the ability to behave like an army in terms of being able to deliver the kind of capabilities for land forces that are required, even if they haven't used them in anger. Perhaps I believe it there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Now, Hilary, do you, would you like to address the other ones? Yeah. Sure, sure. And I know we're short on time, so thank you for the small bit. Maggie, thank you so much. That's a brilliant question. And so first part asked, does that size matter in the digital age? Well, first, it definitely reduces power asymmetry, of course, because you don't require the same kind of infrastructure in the digital domain. In fact, small states strategies are much more geared towards services or things that don't involve a lot of physical material resource. And you can see many small states strategizing in this area. Estonia is one of the world leaders in e-governance. The NATO Center for Cyber Operations is based in Estonia as well, but many small states trying to make forays into blockchain as an alternative currency, really trying to capitalize on and get first mover advantage in the online space. But at the same, you know, and a strength of that is smaller states are better able to serve as laboratories of innovations to try new things, because if it goes wrong, well, they can course correct more quickly. But if it goes well, then they can, these can then be scaled up by other states. So often a lot of new innovation does tend to come from these spaces. But I don't want to overstate the way that this has affected asymmetry, because there are still limitations. So they still need the resources to undertake that kind of innovation. And not all small states are at the same level of development. They have recourse to that action. Second is you still need some elements of physical infrastructure and many, you can see many small island developing states in the Pacific and Caribbean, struggling to get pipe electrical cables and to really connect many remote areas to the digital domain. And the third is that small states still remain disproportionately more susceptible to attack some critical infrastructure. So for often they haven't managed to patch up cyber resonance in quite the same way. So you can see this with the attacks by Russia and Georgia, cyber attacks, attacks on Ukraine as well. So I don't want to overstate that this has been a panacea, but certainly it has given small states an opportunity to exert more leverage in this space. And the second was about whether big states can learn from the concept of smallness or smallness and smartness. I think that was fundamentally the goal of my presentation. And I've written a couple of essays. I actually wrote one on our Centre for Defence Studies releases a series of essays about the UK integrated review, analysing it from different perspectives. And mine was about the view from small states and what the UK can learn from them. And I wrote a separate round table for HNET about what the US can learn from small states as well. So maybe I can circulate these afterwards if people would like to read more. I think that's ultimately my goal is to show that it's not only about their question, what can we give or support them with, but what can we learn from them as well? There are many good ways of doing things and many best practices that perhaps could be scaled up with due consideration for how to do that. Thank you. Thank you for this, Hilary. So we're a bit short on time. So I'll just have just one last round of questions and then we can head towards the end. So we have a question here from Ghost Lopez from the Air Force University again. He's asking about the China cooperation with the South American and African countries. He's asking if we should see this proximity from two other countries as a foreign threat or as an opportunity to strengthen ties last throughout history. So I think that's interesting when he mentioned the case of Guinea-Bissau in Africa when he was there and he saw a bunch of people working in China and from China the same happened in Brazil. And moving forward we have a question from Augusto Teixeira from the University of Paraíba. He says that formally Brazil has a process in which our defense policy and strategy goes from the Ministry of Defense to the Parliament and has the President's approval. Nonetheless, the military that rules the MLD has massive autonomy and there is little civilian oversight. Is the Brazilian case in which a defense review process is more misguiding than an actual process that counts for ends, and means? Sorry, I didn't really understand. Is the Brazilian case a process of the I think he's asking if the defense review is more misguiding than actually a guidance, more like putting together different interests than necessarily a guidance? Being that the case is our defense review more fiction than real if we don't have expected effects that coordinate it from all the three branches instead of just being a collection of views from these services. And there was one last question from Commander Lobbs Jr. but it wasn't really clear to me so I'll just skip that. I think I understood it so I'll address it as well. Right, okay if that's the case that is brilliant. Okay so we can move, you guys have the floor now. Okay I'll go first this time I'll be a professor at the last words and you're already can have the final words. So the both questions are really about the relationship with China and small states. So on the first one, should we be suspicious or see it as an opportunity? I just thought I'd share one last anecdote which is that in 1978 after the Cold War, Molta's Prime Minister Mintoff was being accused by the Americans that Molta would fall too far on their Libyan influence because they were asking the Libyans for financial help. And a few eight years before that the Americans were worrying that Molta would fall too far on their Soviet influence because they were also trying to get some help there and the Prime Minister Mintoff said you know they're always thinking we're going to be swallowed up by somebody but they never cared that we were in the belly of the British. And so are we are we concerned you know about this because because it's what we have to think about really what the desert look at why are we concerned is this support that these states are seeing really a problem or is it meeting infrastructural needs that nobody else is providing. If it is something we're concerned about and there could be many reasons why that might be the case what are we offering instead you know because if you look at the Cold War experience when Molta went to Libya or went to Algeria it's because they asked the French they asked the British and they didn't provide the support the country needed so what do we offer instead that is not just saying agree with us because we have these these views and these values but also because we can meet the needs and the support that you're asking for and then I am certain that the preference will then go towards you know states that uphold norms and transparency in a way that is beneficial for these small states which then comes to the point that Newton-Lopez Jr was asking about you know he said we're not going to be in a multipolar world which is what I mentioned in my speech and he said but how do we balance saying that we respect others and others views but we don't accept them right that's his question how do we say okay you can have different opinions but also we don't accept some of these behaviors and I think that's the that's a really important question that we need to be thinking about so obviously rhetorically by making it known by making it known through international organizations and voting patterns through bilateral visits but again by offering alternatives I think is a really important point if you don't want states moving in the direction of partners that we consider do not uphold our values how can we how can we give them provision to come more towards our way of doing things in a way that is not just about opinion and beliefs but it's also about many of the material concerns that many of these small states have and again I think that there's a you know there's an uphill challenge because many of these states are post-colonial states and that do have a certain baggage and a history but this is where a state like Brazil could be helpful in stepping in in places where maybe the US and the UK aren't viewed as as positively or thinking through why we need different partners in different contexts so I hope that that also gives a little bit of insight to that question as well and professor roughly I'll pass to you okay thank you if I understood correctly the second question that was being referred to was effectively about our governance organizations in national security in Brazil and the the role of the Brazilian armed services in setting the the content of the strategic defense review or what or it's or it's equivalent and I think the observation was made and forgive me if I've misheard anything so but there was a concern that this might be this is this arrangement or system might be sub-optimal in some way or problematic okay I mean I think my my answer really or my view sorry my my observation would be that I mean if something that something that probably differs in all states or most states is the the nature of civil military relations to maybe similarities in certain regime types that exist around the world but we expect sort of unique factors to have shaped civil military relations and it could well be the case that the position held by the the armed services in Brazil reflect a theme I've been talking about before sort of past dependency kind of model and obviously Brazil has has recalibrated its defense and security over time and it could well be that in that sort of trinity between if you like the politicians the military and society that the Brazilian model simply works it works because it's worked before it may look sub-optimal because of some of the arrangements but I think it's a point maybe that here here you touch upon which is you know if things work then you know they probably keep keep they maintain that kind of kind of kind of trajectory because it requires something major to to recalibrate to create a recalibrating effect when it comes to civil military relations so I've not really spoken about Brazil at all because I don't know enough about the details of it but they would see I mean hopefully that I don't know British perspective or Western perspective or or might might might or just my perspective for that might be of interest or or have done some justice to the the question so thank you. Thank you professor Etli, thank you Hilary as well for the for the presentation and for the questions I think we now should head towards the end because we're a bit too late on that but I'd like first of all to thank you for the both of us for taking the time and for such fantastic presentations and I'm sure we have a lot to think about we have a lot of insights from this presentation and yeah I hope this is just at the beginning of a cooperation and maybe we'll be able to lure both of you into more Brazilian studies maybe for a Brazilian and the Latin American security studies and and also trying to make a bit of an advertisement here we are also this seminar this webinar is also helped also by the Latin American Security Research Group that we have here at War Studies now and also it's we're trying to gather all this interest in Latin America here and in the war studies department as well and both depends on war studies. I'd like to thank you to thank also our partners at the Brazilian Defense College especially in the name of General Tesh who is who's who's made his opening remarks here thank you very much for our partners here, Petrocin, who's worked side by side with me putting this together and thank you very much for everyone who's attended everyone who sent questions and hopefully we were able to cover most of them if not just you know email us and we'll try to forward them to the panelists if that's the case and Petrocin would you like to say final question final comments before we end? Just thank not only our finalists but our audience and I hope that this is the first step of a more global partnership between King's College London and the Brazilian Defense College. I would like to thank you also the Brazilian Air Force diversity partners, the PROCAD and PRODEFILES Research Networks here in Brazil and again thank you all for these events especially Professor Matthew Etley and Dr Larry Brifis it was an honor to to learn with you thank you. Yes thank you very much everyone once again thank you Professor Etley thank you Dr Brifah and yeah so this marks the end of our webinar and I will stop recording right now and now end the session so thank you very much and have a good afternoon everyone have a good lunch people in Brazil and I hope to see you soon. Bye.