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Iran: The Latest
‘Strategically appalling’: Britain’s greatest military expert on Trump’s Iran war
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- [00:04]
Venetia Rainey
The telegraph.
- [00:09]
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- [01:42]
Lawrence Friedman
Strategically, this has been pretty appalling. I mean, it's been an operation launched without proper preparation, without thinking through the risks. A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
- [02:01]
Venetia Rainey
If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt
- [02:05]
Lawrence Friedman
you down without apology and without hesitation.
- [02:09]
Venetia Rainey
And we will kill you.
- [02:11]
Roland Oliphant
We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran, and we will not join offensive action now.
- [02:18]
Lawrence Friedman
Today, President Trump says Iran's supreme Leader,
- [02:21]
Venetia Rainey
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the attacks.
- [02:31]
Roland Oliphant
I'm Roland Oliphant.
- [02:32]
Venetia Rainey
And I'm Venetia Rainey.
- [02:34]
Roland Oliphant
And this is Iran. The Latest. It's Thursday, March 12, 2026, and the 13th day of the Israeli American war with Iran. Today we'll be speaking to Lawrence Friedman, the emeritus professor of war studies at King's College and one of Britain's foremost strategic thinkers, about where he thinks this war is going.
- [02:54]
Venetia Rainey
But first, let's go through a few quick updates. At the time of recording, we've had more cargo Ships attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. These ones apparently by Iranian explosive drone boats. Now our listeners will be familiar with that. That's part of that troublesome fast boat element of the IRGC navy that we've been speaking about. The price of oil continues to yo yo it past $100 again and then came back down today. And that's despite the International Energy Agency yesterday taking an unprecedented step of rele most amount of government oil reserves in its history. To help calm the oil price shock that we're seeing, they released around 400 million barrels of emergency crude. That's a third of the group's total government stockpiles. We've heard today from the same agency that this Iran war is causing the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. So that gives you some sense of just how significant this is becoming for the global economy.
- [03:42]
Roland Oliphant
Another development to note today is that a preliminary American report has found that the US Was responsible for the deadly strike on an Iranian primary school on the first day of the war. The February 28 attack in the town of Minab, which is near the Strait of Hormuz, killed at least 150 people, mostly children. And it was the result of a targeting mistake by the US Military which was striking a nearby Iranian naval base, according to the investigation, which is ongoing. Sources briefed on the findings told the New York Times that U.S. central Command set the coordinates for that attack using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. This initial American finding finding is the official confirmation of open source reporting that had already pretty much established that the Americans were probably responsible for this bombing, including by the Telegraph. And Gareth Caulfield wrote up an investigation looking at the evidence pointing at American involvement earlier this week. It also, I must say, matches the assessment of locals who I managed to speak to last week who said they assumed it had been an American strike. We will link to both of those stories in the show notes and we'll be coming back to this story because of course it's obviously the the worst single mass casualty event involving civilians since the war began. Probably one of the worst single mass casualty civilian events in any American war in the Middle east over the past few decades. It has, as I'm sure listeners know, attracted a degree of controversy. We will stay on that story.
- [05:16]
Venetia Rainey
Just a quick note for tomorrow's episode we'll be doing another review of the second week of this war. Roland will be hosting that. If you've got any questions that you would like answered, please send them in. You can email them to us on battle linestelegraph.co.uk or comment beneath the show on Spotify, Apple and YouTube. Now let's get to our interview. We're going to be speaking to Lawrence Friedman, Emeritus professor of War Studies at King's College London.
- [05:42]
Roland Oliphant
He's been described as Britain's greatest living academic strategist and has had a career at what has been called the coalface of national security debates, including as the official historian of the Falklands campaign and a member of the UK inquiry to the Iraq war. His latest book is called On Strategists and Strategy. Here's our conversation. So one of the questions I'm going to get to later on, I think, is that when we booked you, we already thought the world was in an extraordinary strategic moment and wasn't it in important to talk about it. And now this thing's blown up and it seems even more extraordinary than it was. I suppose the top question, from your perspective, you know, as Britain's greatest living strategist, from the Western point of view, do you think this war on Iran makes strategic sense?
- [06:30]
Lawrence Friedman
I think it's very poor strategy. So strategy gets used in two different ways, things that are really important and world shaping and just how you go about your business and how you achieve your objectives. On the first way of looking at strategy, you can ask questions about Iran, its international role, the mischief it's caused over the years, tyrannical nature of the regime and so on. I think, would it be a good idea if it fell? And you say, yeah, maybe it would. But when you go to the second question about how you go about it strategically, this has been pretty appalling. I mean, it's been an operation launched without proper preparation, without thinking through the risks. We're now at a situation where even if the Americans decided to stop it, it's not clear the Iranians would, because they've got the Western world's economy in a mess and there's no quick way of getting out of it, because if you want to make shipping in that part of the world dangerous, you can do so probably for some time. So in that sense, I think this is going to be of great strategic significance, but not in the ways that necessarily that the administration intended.
- [07:46]
Venetia Rainey
You've got a new book out at the moment on strategists and strategy, which we've been reading and enjoying. It's a collection of essays that you've written over the years on your substack, and it talks about lots of different things strategy, tactics, learnings from the Iraq War. Ukraine. But one thing that we were really caught by was you were in involved in the drafting of Tony Blair's famous 1999 Chicago speech, which has been widely interpreted since as advocating for foreign interventions, which is a characterization I know you disagree with, and setting the framework for the Iraq invasion. And you set out five tests, which I know came across slightly differently in the final speech. But let's go with what you originally drafted. One, are we sure of our case? Two, have diplomatic means been exhausted? Three, is there a plausible military option? Four, are we ready for the long haul? And five, would the intervention serve the national interest? I was wondering if we could just run through those five tests and see how you think they apply to this Iran war. And perhaps if you wouldn't mind just giving your sort of brief answer first and then expanding, I think the good
- [08:45]
Lawrence Friedman
tests, the rationales given by the US Administration as to why now why the test of imminence was passed don't stand up. I mean, said there's a case for taking on Iran, but that wasn't particularly the only case they made. Diplomacy was underway at the time, so the negotiations were interrupted for the war.
- [09:08]
Venetia Rainey
So diplomatic means had not been exhausted.
- [09:09]
Lawrence Friedman
You don't think they hadn't been exhausted? Certainly there were military feasible things you could do, but they didn't necessarily take into account the things that the opponent can do. And I don't think they thought about the long haul at all. I don't think it meets the tests.
- [09:23]
Venetia Rainey
What about the fifth one? Would the intervention. Who's national interest? I suppose whose national interest?
- [09:28]
Lawrence Friedman
It's an international interest. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing is you can always make a case. It's the most flexible of all. I mean, in the case of Iraq, Blair took the view which you can see, I think it's still his view at the moment, and certainly you can see in much of the commentary of the UK response to this war that at all times the UK should stay close to the United States. That's overriding strategic interest is to keep the special relationship in good order. I think for the United States, it's not clear that they thought it was important to take out what was supposedly already obliterated nuclear assets, take out missile assets, take out naval assets. The president talked about regime change in his announcement. Netanyahu talked about regime change. Like you could argue the world US would be better off with a different regime. But that's extremely difficult to do. It's far harder than just taking out military assets. And if the regime stays in place and if the oil price stays closer to $100 or even higher for the rest of the year, then you're going to be the president's going to be hard put to explain why this was in the national interest.
- [10:41]
Roland Oliphant
I was wondering then if we look at how the war has gone so far, we're on day 13 now and I suppose it kind of plays into what you've said already. But given that the Iranian regime is still there, given that they've imposed enormous economic costs and thirdly, since as a kind of bonus to them, an unexpected bonus to them, America seemed unprepared for those economic costs, do you think they would be right to think that they are ahead in this war? I wouldn't say winning because who knows how this is going to go.
- [11:16]
Lawrence Friedman
Well, I mean, they've done two things. First, so far they've survived. And secondly, they've left not just the United States, but the west, the Gulf states, with a conundrum about what do you do about the disruption to see passage in the regions, not just oil, but oil is obviously the major thing. Now, my view is this regime is doomed in the long term because the economy is in a complete mess, services don't work, people are disaffected and over time that will undermine. They'll just find it very difficult to govern. But at the moment they've strengthened themselves and of course they've got a windfall because their oil's getting through and they're getting the price. The Russians and the Iranians so far, those who've benefited economically from this. So they're certainly not losing. They've lost a lot of assets and they've lost a lot of their leadership. But we should, you know, we should have known from the experience of Hamas and Hezbollah is you can keep on decapitating and they've got reserves. So neither Hamas or Hezbollah cease to function as organizations. They're both depleted and battered, but they haven't ceased to function. And that's the case of the clerical regime effectively now, the Revolutionary Guard, the irgc, who's basically running the country now, they can't govern in peacetime, particularly effectively, but at wartime they're fine and they want to keep this going because they will have a bargaining position eventually if the allies aren't able to find a way of opening up the Strait of Hormuz and stopping random attacks on tankers and oil facilities.
- [13:00]
Venetia Rainey
Why do you think the regime is doomed in the long run just simply
- [13:03]
Lawrence Friedman
because they can't govern? People are desperate. Inflation before the start of this war was 50%. Basic services, energy, water, were not working properly. They only survived earlier this year by shooting tens of thousands of people, reportedly those numbers, and maybe making pretty blood curdling threats to their own people as we go along. It's a mugs game to try to say it's got a month or two months or two years.
- [13:31]
Venetia Rainey
Do you think this war has extended or accelerated its demise?
- [13:36]
Lawrence Friedman
Hard to say because it's helped the regime in the sense that a lot of Iranians was almost looking forward to this moment. I mean, they thought the blows against the regime from the Israelis and the Americans would do the trick. First, that hasn't happened. And second, and they're not strong enough to take on the regime by themselves. And secondly, you know, it's not very pleasant being bombed for 12 days and we've seen some pretty tragic hits that have taken place. The school kids that were killed and so on, they may at the moment be feeling more isolated and a bit more patriotic in their own way over the longer term. One of the consequences of this is that the regime is more isolated in the region. The other Gulf states are pretty furious that they've been attacked in this way as well when they were trying to stay out of it.
- [14:31]
Roland Oliphant
Can I flip around the question I asked you about the Iranians feeling their head? And I know you say this is pretty poor strategy. We've seen from the allies, from the Americans and the Israelis, on the other hand, no one's going to look at this and say, God, the US Military can't do the job. They are clearly broadcasting that they're way ahead of schedule and the targets they're hitting, they've achieved aerial dominance over Iran. It's kind of an extraordinary military effort. And it's also clear that that's not something that any other military could possibly have done. So how do we square that, that incredible battlefield performance with what you're saying?
- [15:09]
Lawrence Friedman
I think it's sort of a split screen, isn't it? There's a number of different wars going on at once. There's a war to take out all of those assets. And if the Americans just wanted to say Ukraine, hard power is diminished by 80% or whatever number you wanted to give, they could do. So they've got command of the air, they can hit what they want and they have done. The second war is to change the regime. The regime's still there because hitting these targets doesn't take down the regime. Now there are reports that they're starting to attack some of the Revolutionary Guard. Well, they have been attacking Revolutionary Guard installations from the start, but maybe, you know, they can pick off roadblocks and things like that. That might make it easier for an uprising to take place, but that's quite a complicated thing to do. But so far, that war hasn't been won. There's a third war, which is the war against shipping tankers, oil facilities, airports, whatever, in the Gulf. That war they're sustaining. How long they can sustain it, we shall see. But it's not easy stopping them. Over time, I think it'll be possible, but over time, the international economy might have suffered greatly. And there's a fourth war, of course, which we're not talking about much at the moment, which is in Lebanon, where, again, the Israelis have got command of the air. They can do what they want. They're hitting lots of things. But the point about strategy is to relate what you can do militarily to political objectives. It's not just about what you can destroy, it's also about what you can achieve. And there's no lasting achievements in place at the moment.
- [16:53]
Venetia Rainey
I think that's a really interesting point. And I know one of your essays in your book talks about strategy versus tactics. I wonder if you could explain the difference between those two, using America's war here or Israel's war in Lebanon, if you prefer, as a concrete example for the layman.
- [17:07]
Lawrence Friedman
The point is, and you find this a lot in organizations, not just in the military, is people these days tend to think strategy is really the big thing. If you get your strategy, you write, everything else follows. And being purely tactical tends to be disparaged. So my example is you'll get vice presidents for strategy. In organizations, nobody's a vice president president for tactics. But if you actually watch events unfold at each stage, you see tactics being absolutely critical. Tactics is how you implement what you're trying to do. Now, if you can't relate the tactics to your larger strategy, then you're showing how operationally brilliant you may be, but you're not actually achieving what you need to achieve. So you think about the future with strategy. You move forward with tactics. And I think what we're seeing in one of the wars, I spoke about impressive tactics, destroying Iranian assets in the other war at a complete loss to find the tactics about how you open the Strait of Four moves, how you reassure shipping, how you deal with. With Iranian drones attacking Qatar and UAE and Saudi and so on.
- [18:25]
Roland Oliphant
The Americans did have an operation in the late 80s, the later stages of the Iran Iraq War, to get shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, and that involved engaging the Iranians at time, I think it was called. Was it Enduring Will or something? I've forgotten the name of the operation. Are you able to talk about that and maybe what the lessons are from that? And one of my questions is, wasn't there a book on a shelf in the Pentagon that told you what to do in this case?
- [18:49]
Lawrence Friedman
So that operation came about because Iran was attacking Kuwait, Kuwaiti oil tankers, because they couldn't get it to Iraq. This is part of the Iran Iraq war. And it was a reflagging operation. So Kuwaiti ships were to be reflagged as American. And it was a problem of mines more than anything else. And unfortunately, on the first day of this, an American warship was hit by mine and actually had to use a tanker as a bit of COVID to get through. Then, of course, one of the big differences is that the UK provided a lot of the mine countermeasure ships then because we had quite a fleet and they helped with that operation. So it was actually quite a successful operation. The UK has just withdrawn its last mine countermeasure shipped from the Gulf. So we're not contributing to that anymore. And the problem now is more, I mean, it is mines. There are some that have been released. I think mines are easier to detect now because of drones and so on, but missiles and attack drones are less easy to find. So we've already had quite a number of tankers hit. That's far more than happened in 1988. I think the operation.
- [20:02]
Roland Oliphant
I think we've even got a figure, just the total number of tankers that have been hit in the past few days.
- [20:06]
Venetia Rainey
I think we're at 16 now since the start of the war.
- [20:09]
Lawrence Friedman
This is serious stuff. So it's not just a question of insurance premiums. I mean, it's a safety question. You're not going to get your crews to be brave in those circumstances. So they've actually got to find a physical means of protecting the ships. I'm not sure what they can do about that. I mean, it may be, you know, the next stage is looking at Car island or something like that is more escalation to take out or capture even Iranian assets. But they've got a real problem on the hand. And at the moment you've also got the difficulty as the Americans are fighting in their way. The Europeans, Canadians and others are now looking to their own means to do it. So it's not even properly coordinated at the moment.
- [20:52]
Venetia Rainey
We're going to take a short pause now, coming up after the break. Why are politicians so bad at military strategy?
- [20:59]
Lawrence Friedman
Foreign.
- [21:04]
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- [22:30]
Roland Oliphant
Welcome back. You're listening to Iran, the latest from the Telegraph, with me, Roland Oliphant and Venetia Rainey. We're speaking to Lawrence Friedman, the emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London.
- [22:43]
Venetia Rainey
You worked on the Iraq inquiry, and your book contains several essays about the mistakes of the second Gulf War. A lot of people are calling this the third Gulf War. I'm wondering. There are obviously a lot of dissimilarities, but I'm wondering what lessons you think America, and I suppose to a lesser extent the UK have learned from Iraq. In terms of the prosecution of this
- [23:01]
Lawrence Friedman
war, the answer is none. I think when we started the Iraq inquiry, I kept on being asked about lessons. And, you know, the obvious one is don't do it again, or at least think through what you're going to do. The long haul is the key issue. And I think this is, I mean, this is different in a number of ways from Iraq 2003. You can point to similarities in how it came about, but it's different. One of the big differences is that the administration does not want to send ground forces. You can see from Russia and Ukraine. Sending in ground forces doesn't mean to say you will necessarily get your regime changed. But in 2003, they did. Saddam Hussein was toppled. They then found a very different, difficult to put something else in its place. They thought to Iraqis they wouldn't want to go back to Saddam's time. So in the end, they did get a better sort of government than the one that they had before, but that needed troops on the ground. We may end up at some point with that. But, you know, this is a country of 90 million people. You're not going to control that with a few thousand Western troops. It would be an enormous effort. And I. I just don't think they can do it. I mean, they may think there are small targets, that there's some small things that can be done, but you can't go to Tehran and take over the capital. It goes back to the Chicago 5 points. The preparation for the long haul is critical with the war, but what happens time and time again, and not just with the west, because it happened with Putin as well, is you become so convinced in your superiority of your armed forces and so contemptuous of your opponent that you believe that they will collapse at the first push, that you are bit at a loss as to what to do when, after the first sort of deadly blows, the opponent is still standing. And the requirements for a long war are very different to a short war. You've got to pace yourself. You tend to be much more innovative in tactics, which is the reason why Ukraine, having been through over four years, has probably got more to contribute than any other European country to solving some of the tactical problems we're now facing in the Gulf.
- [25:21]
Roland Oliphant
You talk about strategic fanaticism in your chapter on Ukraine. You have this quotation of fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you've forgotten your aim. And you say this is what Putin's guilty of. Do you see a similar thing playing out in Iran?
- [25:36]
Lawrence Friedman
I think the situations are different because it's a land war in Ukraine. And you have the same problem, is that once you've started a war, you've added another interest which is not losing. And I think for Putin, at different stages, when he could have withdrawn, accepted, so let's say a tactical defeat or even something more, but something that was recoverable, he doubled down, he went in harder. And you can see this in September 22nd, for example, when Russian forces had been pushed back quite a lot, he put the country on a war footing, he mobilized more, and it's been going on ever since, but he still hasn't worked. You know, the point I make about in that particular essay is in 2013, when it started practice, which was when Ukraine was about to assign an association agreement with the eu. Putin had in Russia. Putin had in Ukraine the most pro Russian president he was ever likely to get. Yanukovych was his candidate, yet he'd systematically undermined him because he didn't want him to sign this association agreement. In the end, the agreement wasn't signed, but Yanukovych ended up running away because of the uprising in Kyiv. And then instead of trying to come to an accommodation with the new government in Kyiv, he seized Crimea. And then he encouraged uprisings in, in eastern Ukraine. And then when they didn't work, he sent in Russian troops and so on. And the thing just keeps on going. Now, I don't think that's the same with Iran, because I just don't think the options are there for that. But I do think that some pretty drastic measures may end up being taken if they don't get a grip sooner rather than later on what's actually going on with shipping.
- [27:39]
Roland Oliphant
When you say drastic, are you talking about.
- [27:42]
Lawrence Friedman
I mean. I mean, I'm not talking about nuclear or anything like that.
- [27:45]
Roland Oliphant
That was going to be my question. Are we talking about tactical nuclear weapons?
- [27:50]
Lawrence Friedman
I don't think we're talking that. But you're talking about potentially seizing Iranian facilities in some way. It certainly got to improve defensive measures quite quickly. But then you've got this question of actually stopping drones and missiles being sent. Now, over time, this may happen. You know, they haven't got unlimited stocks. And for the Iranians, there's going to be a question of whether there's a point where they feel they can get some sort of accommodation. It'll be difficult with the local powers, if not necessarily with the Americans, that will allow them to call it off. I mean, it was going to be embarrassing for the Americans if at one point you've got envoys from the Saudis and the Emiratis going to Tehran to try to negotiate a deal.
- [28:38]
Venetia Rainey
We were talking earlier about how Russia is arguably one of the biggest winners out of the Iran war. Surging oil prices, dwindling munition supplies that will inevitably impact Ukraine in the end. Do you agree with that assessment?
- [28:52]
Lawrence Friedman
Russia has got a windfall. The Americans have, you know, given up by easing sanctions, allowing them to sell more of their oil. The Indians will take more, the Chinese will take more. So in that sense, the Russians have been helped. I think the Russians actually are in a mess in Ukraine at the moment. I mean, they've been on the offensive for over two years and it's just sort of almost Run to the ground. The Ukrainians are doing more of the attacking in some ways at the moment. I don't want to overstate that. But even if their budgetary position looks a bit better, it's not great. And their economy is still in a mess, so it does help the Russians. I don't think it's decisive in that regard. Although, again, the longer this goes on, the more that could change, just because of the divisions that will develop within the West. I mean, the Trump administration has got itself in a mess here, quite a serious one. The sort of hubris with which they approached these issues should have been a bit dented by now. And that may help Ukraine, and they may acknowledge that Ukraine is actually more helpful to them than Russia, but we'll see. I suspect at the moment, Trump will resent the idea that Ukraine will help him get out of the jam.
- [30:10]
Roland Oliphant
It sounds to me like what you're saying, that the implication is that the main kind of priority for Trump then is in a way not to fall into Putin's trap and not keep on doubling down and making things worse and maybe understanding when to stop if he can. We've seen signs of that in his rhetoric, saying that, oh, it's nearly complete, and a suggestion that maybe he'll step back.
- [30:28]
Lawrence Friedman
I think Trump would quite like to stop. He'd already started to blame other people. I mean, telling everybody who was advising him that this was a good idea. His problem is that he could declare a ceasefire tomorrow when the Iranians might carry on. That's where it becomes difficult. And he's got nothing particularly to offer the iron Iranians except to stop. So as soon as he does that and the Iranians carry on, the Gulf states can be pretty irritated if they're still suffering and the Americans have pulled away. So it's not simple bringing it out
- [31:01]
Roland Oliphant
to the wider world and in the kind of counterintuitively parochial route of asking about Britain and Britain's stance here. You talked about that, that calculation Tony Blair made in 2002, 2003, where he decided, look, the overriding British is to be as close as possible to the Americans. Certain things flow from that. We just have to be involved in this. Don't talk to me about all that other stuff that just has to happen. In this case, it looks like Keir Starmer has, well, at least initially, kind of shied away from that route. And there definitely seem suggestions from some quarters that he was mistaken to do so and that he has, as a result, damaged the special relationship by initially refusing that request. From the Americans to be involved. What's your view on that? Do you think he's handled it well, or.
- [31:51]
Lawrence Friedman
I think he would have been in a lot more trouble politically if he'd got in with the Americans. You know, last year, Trump's first year of his second term, Starmer put a lot of effort into trying to stay close to Trump in ways that clearly many of his own supporters found difficult. And I think he did it because of Ukraine, and I think he was right to do so. I think it's got harder. And I think the big break was Greenland, because it was just impossible to ignore a threat to an ally of that sort, where you're actually threatening aggression against another European state that's part of NATO. And I think that at that point, it was always going to be hard to put things together again, plus the tariffs and so on. So I think there's no obvious benefit from just sort of agreeing with everything that Trump said. And in this case, you know, we would have then faced the consequences as we did in 2003. We would have provided targets to hit back at now, you know, if it's for the right cause, you accept that Starmer was right, that it's not clear you can achieve regime change from the air. And the position shifted only to the extent that we will support the Americans in trying to protect their allies now, as in the Gulf, which you have to do, I think, now, and whatever you can. But that doesn't mean to say that we're still parties to try to topple the Iranian regime. It's not going to be easy. But, you know, the idea that we've never fallen out with the Americans before on any of these issues is not the case where you go back to Suez in 56 or Vietnam in 65, even in Bosnia in 93. Deep divisions between the American and British and French governments on that. You know, I did the official history of the Falklands campaign. Margaret Thatcher was furious with Reagan for not giving her full support and tried to do a deal with the Argentinians at the start of that. So, been here before, and I think we'll get over it. There are trade offs. I don't think Starmer made the wrong decision here.
- [34:06]
Roland Oliphant
What's your view, then, on the future of that strategic relationship? I'm kind of leading up to kind of the big question that was hovering over us when we booked you in, which was about Greenland and the future of NATO and so on. I mean, the Tony Blair rationalization for being as close to the Americans as possible and the rationalization that I think we've heard a lot of our disgruntled American listeners get in touch to make this point is that, look, the relationship is so one sided in terms of what Britain gets out of this and that realistically, Britain is not in a position to go it alone and to break the kind of umbilical cord that now exists between us and the United States in security matters. If that is true, how do Britain and other Western allies in that position navigate this new world?
- [34:52]
Lawrence Friedman
I think there's two different levels. I think there's one level of just natural continuing cooperation, five eyes and intelligence. For example, I talked to a number of people in the intelligence community. They say it's all just going on as normal because the Americans do get a lot from what we provide as well as what they provide to US nuclear F35s. All of this, I think, is there and if it was all suddenly taken away from, there would be a problem, but a problem for the Americans as well, not least in contractual obligations and so on. So that I think will continue. What has already started to happen is the Americans are not leading NATO in the way they did. The assumption is that the Europeans do much more for themselves. Now, that's not just Trump. That's been going on for at least since the Obama administration and probably and really before as well. Americans have always felt the Europeans don't do enough for their own security. And now we're being forced to do more. And that's going to be expensive. But I think it's generally accepted in Europe that that makes sense, even though it's not easy to do quickly. So that with Ukraine, for example, I mean, the Americans give nothing to Ukraine now and the Europeans now give a lot, including us. And the Ukrainians continue that. They're managing in a way that people wouldn't necessarily have thought would be the case in January 25th. So I think that's underway. That's an important strategic shift and will continue because in the end, the big strategic issue for Europe is still Russia. And really seriously, the Europeans ought to be able to cope with Russia not wholly on their own, but with particularly in conventional sphere, largely using European assets. So I think that shift is underway. And part of that is a question which has come up because of the Gulf. If our focus is on our own region, what is it that we do elsewhere? Because under Biden, there was pressure for us to be part of this sort of anti China or containing China strategy in the Indo Pacific. Now the Trump administration didn't seem particularly Interested in us being involved in that or having a say in that. And anyway, it's not clear if they're as gung ho about going for the Chinese as they appeared to be. There are these quite a few important shifts underway, and the net result of that is the United States is less important in European security. Not unimportant, but just less important.
- [37:42]
Venetia Rainey
Given that fundamental shift, that divergence in priorities between Europe and America that you've just outlined, how long do you think NATO can survive?
- [37:51]
Lawrence Friedman
Oh, I think NATO can keep going. It's quite hard to disband institutions. Native Americans decided to walk away, which Trump apparently expressed an interest in in his first term. Yeah, I mean, NATO's founding treaty is the Washington Treaty, so that would be difficult. Trump has not said that in his second term, and I don't think there's any particular advantage. It would be very unpopular indeed. The Senate passed a law forbidding it, so I think it'll keep going. It becomes very different. Different balance, balances of power within the alliance. A lot of things done in Europe are multilateral, trilateral, bilateral, without involving the whole organization. Talk of the coalition of the willing, for example, to support Ukraine isn't a NATO thing, but I think the alliance itself is a useful thing. There's no particular gain to anybody by disbanding it. So, again, it may not do as much as before or in the same way, but I suspect it'll still be there. And you've got to remember that the Trump presidency will look very different, I expect, especially after what's going on the last few weeks in January, when he will almost certainly have lost control of the House.
- [39:06]
Venetia Rainey
You mean after the November midterm elections?
- [39:08]
Lawrence Friedman
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:10]
Roland Oliphant
So, Lawrence, you've got yourself quite a reputation, but it's quite an odd thing. I mean, I'm just reading the back of your book, which I think is a fair description. You've had a career spent at the coal face of national security debates. You're our greatest living academic strategist, our preeminent military historian and strategist, Britain's big thinker on these things. I'm wondering, though, because you've just outlined a bunch of massive strategic blunders that politicians have wandered into. Why does this keep happening if there's people like you out there writing it down in books?
- [39:44]
Lawrence Friedman
If only they listened. There's a number of things that go on, and I spend quite a bit of time with people in government, and they don't always make mistakes. It's important to be aware that some things we get right or some things start off badly and we recover. The number of conflicting pressures on government I can write about what should we do about Ukraine, but a government that's trying to work out what to do about Ukraine is also now worrying about the Gulf, it's worrying about housing, it's worrying about the state of the economy, it's worrying about a number of things and they're trying to balance them and they have trade offs that I'm irresponsible, I don't and unaccountable. I can say what I like and people may point out that I got something badly wrong, but that's the worst thing that can happen to me. You know, if you're in government, you've got different responsibilities so you become aware of the conflicting pressures and how hard it is to make some of these decisions. With the current war, I find it irresponsible. I mean, I and this is an American irresponsibility rather than a UK irresponsibility because they didn't think through what could happen, what could go wrong. And I think that's a very common mistake is to is to be overconfident. Once you've made up your mind that you're going to do something, something be overconfident of success and then surprised when you know, to use the cliche, the enemy has a vote and they decide it goes in a different way.
- [41:16]
Venetia Rainey
That was Lawrence Friedman, Emeritus professor of War Studies at King's College London, and he has a new book on strategists and strategy out now.
- [41:23]
Roland Oliphant
That's all for today. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, that was Iran the Latest Goodbye Goodbye.
- [41:33]
Venetia Rainey
Iran the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph, created by David Knowles and hosted by Me veneeshireney and Roland Olyphant. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following around the latest on your preferred podcast app and if you have a moment, leave us a review as it helps others find the show. To stay on top of all of our news, subscribe to the Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatchers newsletter or listen to our sister podcast Ukraine the Lake. Latest we're still on the same email address battlelinestelegraph.co.uk or you can contact us on X. You can find our handles in the Show Notes. The producer is Peter Shevlin. The executive producer is Louisa Wells.
- [42:13]
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