John Sopal (4:31)

So let me ask you about the UK where you co led the Strategic defence Review that was unveiled last year. How ready is Britain? In what state are our defences and armed forces if Ukraine wants to buy our weaponry or whatever, is there the stock, is there the ability to step up?

Fiona Hill (4:55)

Well, we can't do it individually and I don't think anybody is suggesting that we do because everything that we're talking about is a larger European or European members of NATO effort plus. So that's what we're always talking about. But look, if we think about the situation since 1989, the UK always anticipated after that particular point that it would be fighting alongside the United States and expeditionary wars, which is what the United Kingdom did in terms of Afghanistan and Iraq and, you know, other Special Forces type operations. You know, obviously we've, you know, played a very important role in the high seas, particularly in the high north and the Arctic and elsewhere in the North Sea, you know, working with our counterparts there. But we'd always thought of ourselves as being more of an expeditionary force and also, you know, taking advantage of our global bases. And we'd never anticipated until really what we start to see in the war in Ukraine, that the homeland would be vulnerable. And frankly, you know, what we've seen, what all of us have seen over the last four or five years should force a reassessment. And one of the main things that we said in the Strategic Defence Review was that we should have a national conversation about the situation that we're in now. And we haven't really had much of that because, I mean, the real risks for the UK are not that tanks are going to appear over the Suffolk Downs, I think you see them coming from quite a while. But it's drone attacks, it's sabotage operations, it's attacks on critical national infrastructure, the kind of things that we've seen happening on Ukraine. And maybe it wouldn't take drones going after all of our heating and energy plants, but, you know, we have one pipeline, for example, that brings, you know, 70% of gas imports coming from Norway. And it was the Ukrainians that blew up Nord Stream with a group of divers. It wouldn't really, unfortunately, sadly, take too much to sabotage that pipeline and then forget the winter fuel bill scandal. I mean, most people won't be having any gas coming. You think about what happened with London Heathrow Airport when one of the transformers blew. That could have been sabotage. It wasn't, but that kind of episode, what happened in Spain where, you know, their grid failed, I mean, again, wasn't sabotage. But all you can see is exactly how easy it is to take out pretty much 90% of the basically services and the technology that we rely on. So we have to start thinking about how we harden all of this. It's not just about, you know, how many troops do we have in the army, but a mindset. And the Ukrainians themselves were incredulous. You know, four or five years ago. They didn't believe also that Putin was going to invade because most people thought that why would he I mean, that was ridiculous. You know, of course he wouldn't do that. And Putin himself wanted a special military operation. So nobody can actually believe that the worst will happen. But we have to get into that mindset of the worst could happen, and we need to prepare ourselves along with others.

John Sopal (7:54)

So you listen to Keir Starmer, and he has trod ever so gently with Donald Trump. He still asserts that the special relationship is special. The Five Eyes agreement and the interoperability between US forces and UK forces. Is America still a reliable ally to the UK does NATO Article 5 still exist?

Fiona Hill (8:21)

Only, I would say, in strategic nuclear terms, because, I mean, Trump, again, getting back to what we were talking about before, he takes that very seriously. But in terms of conventional military, the United States has been saying every which way it possibly can for a long time as well, not just Trump. I mean, Trump has just been ruder and blunter and more direct about it. But if we go back decades, if you go back to Kennedy, for example, or you go back to Barack Obama, who was very polite and nice about it back in 2014 when there was the summit here in the United Kingdom, in Wales, for NATO, which is already around the time that Putin has seized Crimea, they're basically saying everybody's got to spend more because the United States is not going to be footing the bill anymore. And I think the big mistake was made here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and, you know, other NATO countries, Canada included, was this kind of sense that the United States had made some decision for the ages to basically be constantly be paying for everybody else's security. And they absolutely hadn't. They just weren't being very clear about it. So probably this should have been renegotiated, you know, back in 2010 or 2009 when, you know, for example, Europe signed when the UK was still part of it, the Lisbon Treaty, and became more of a political geopolitical entity. And that would have been a good time then, you know, to have a big conversation about, well, what's the implications of all of this? I mean, I know that many European countries were not then part of NATO, Sweden, Finland, et cetera. But I mean, Trump's view, and why is he wrong, is that once Sweden and Finland join NATO and there's almost, you know, Britain's obviously crushed out of the European Union. But if you've got more of this overlap between EU and NATO, why isn't it that all of these European countries are not paying more for their defense? And he's just finally saying, we're just not Paying for it. And now in terms of then being a reliable partner, that is very tricky because, I mean, Trump, and this may all sound weird to people, he actually likes Europe, but only in the, you know, the kind of the way that, you know, he thinks about royal families and, you know, kind of his own links to it. But many of the people around him absolutely do not. I mean, you all heard Signal Gate or at least read, you know, Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic's, you know, reprise of being inadvertently included into this big signal chat about what was happening they the Straits of Hormuz with the Houthis and what everybody was saying about Europe. That's what they feel about it. I mean, when I'm sitting in D.C. all the time, people are saying scathing things about Europe and I'm sorry, the Minos as well in the uk, I mean, occasionally, you know, they kind of start, you know, kind of being a little kinder. But generally the whole feeling is 80 years of, you know, basically the US underpinning security is over.

John Sopal (11:06)

And what does Europe do, do you think? Do you believe in Europe's ability to band together? I mean, you know, take Spain or Portugal, do they going to increase their defense spending because of dangers to the high North? You know, the people have got very different.

Fiona Hill (11:22)

It's going to be difficult. But there are different Europeans, right? I mean, so you said the High north, the UK has a leadership role and the Jeff, the Joint Expeditionary Force, which was kind of set up as a way of were coordinating with Sweden and Finland when they weren't in NATO. Now they are in NATO. All those countries are NATO members and there's a coordination body. And you find if you talk to the Swedes, the Finns, the Norwegians, the Baltic states, Poland, which isn't in the Joint Expeditionary Force but is kind of coordinating, these guys are all really serious. The Poles are spending pretty much 5% of GDP right now on defense because they're really close. I mean, admittedly you said the Spanish and the Portuguese, not so much, but you've got a whole host of other countries who are right there and are really thinking very seriously about their security. The Danes are infuriated about what happened over Greenland. The Canadians, who, you know, previously were not that interested in building up their own defence, have got really angry about the whole 51st state discussion. They're actually seriously talking under Mark Carney, not just about from his Davos speech, having different economic relationships, but also kind of working more closely with European partners in NATO to rethink their security. And I fear The UK is going to get left behind because the Germans, they didn't de. Industrialize. They've still got all these factories there. They're not competing in the same way as they were in car manufacturing. They're raring to go to build these factories back up again to do something else. You heard Friedrich Metz, the German Chancellor, talking about this at the Munich Security Conference. I was just in Switzerland 10 days ago. The Swiss, they've got a really serious defense manufacturing. They're neutral, but they're thinking this is a great opportunity for Swiss business. And the same with the Norwegians. The Swedes and the Finns have never let their guard down. The Finns still have conscription. And I asked one of the heads of the Finnish military why they didn't stop conscription, you know, after 1989, because they said, well, we'd never get it back again. And we never let our guard down with Russia because, you know, 1939, after we'd been independent for about 20 years, the Soviets invaded and we always thought they'd come back again for another bite.

John Sopal (13:35)

I'm going to ask you one more question before I open it up to all of you, which is this. If Keir Starmer were on the phone to you now, I mean, he may have already been on the phone to you.

Fiona Hill (13:45)

No, he hasn't already.

John Sopal (13:46)

All right, okay. If Keir Starmer were on the phone to, you know, what would you tell him he needs to do as Prime Minister?

Fiona Hill (13:52)

Get a move on. It's as simple as that. I mean, in terms of the. And look, it's not so easy, is it, because of all the politics and everything as well. But we need some bold action in terms of Strategic Defence Review. You know, we had it published in June, but it was ready, you know, basically this time last year. And there was all these conversations across Whitehall about, you know, the UK having to really kind of step up and meet the moment. But it inevitably, you know, got bogged down in discussions about, you know, obviously financing and also the larger politics and people being worried about talking to people, you know, about the state of affairs. And I don't think that, you know, the government should be frightened of talking to people. We did some focus groups and some citizens assemblies, you know, busy getting people together randomly who lived, you know, near bases across the country. And people got it. They understand that defence spending was for insurance immediately. They didn't want to spend loads more on defence, but they understood what was happening. And I think people are much better informed than perhaps the government knows. The other thing is People need to get outside of London. I mean, I'm from the Northeast. I was shocked by how little people ever go out of London, you know, honestly. And I mean, part of it's, you know.

John Sopal (15:05)

So you're saying going to Watford doesn't count?

Fiona Hill (15:08)

No, it doesn't. And I mean, we actually, our folks groups didn't go any further north than Lincoln. And I kept saying, you know, Lincoln's not very far north. No offense to Lincoln, but, you know, there's a lot more country. And I think you've got a. It's not a big country. We're the size of Oregon. And I know the trains are not always on time, for God's sake. But look, you can get out across the country, you can go and talk to people. And I think if you meet people where they're at, which is you do with your podcasts and, you know, you did, you know, kind of previously in your role, people are pretty well informed and they want to be talked to, they want to be engaged. And I think that that would make the politics of this a lot easier because it's not just a question of, you know, are you going to cut this and that to get another cruise missile. It's about this mindset. Critical national infrastructure, are people going to be prepared? The Finns, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Danes, there's all kinds of other people around Europe who are already doing this. And we just got to get ourselves back into that kind of mindset that it's not a safe world anymore.

John Sopal (16:03)

Would you also tell Keir Starmer to toughen up in the way he deals with Donald Trump?

Fiona Hill (16:08)

Don't pander. I think the other thing is you've got to be careful, obviously, publicly, because as we know, Trump doesn't take kindly to insults. So there's no point in engaging in, you know, what the Americans say is a pissing match in public with him. But just don't pander, you know, and you know, even if you're trying to manage it on the surface, get on with what you have to be doing with Planet B, C, D and E, it cannot just be plan A to try to manage Trump all the time, because he is completely and utterly unpredictable.

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John Sopal (18:43)

Right. I'm just going to give you before we get the first question we ask you, we did a bit of polling on whether Russia poses a real threat to Western Europe and I can give you the results of that. Now those who thought yes, it directly represented a threat was 39%. Yes, mainly through covert or hybrid attacks. 55%. So 94% think Russia is some kind of threat. No, Russia is overstretched. 2% not sure. 4% so I think it squares pretty much.

Fiona Hill (19:20)

See, everyone's well informed.

John Sopal (19:21)

Yeah. With your analysis because I mean Russia

Fiona Hill (19:24)

is overstretched, which also pushes them more into the hybrid attacks. And we've got all these sabotage operations going on so you can just bet, you know that they will do more of this.

John Sopal (19:34)

Right?

Fiona Hill (19:34)

I mean look, they just used poison frog dart, you know, poison frog darts on the navalny after, you know, polonium. I mean, the first basically dirty bomb was poor Alexander Litvinenko here in London. I mean, you can just imagine that somebody sitting around there thinking of other horrible, nasty things. I should never have drank that water. You didn't do that now. Right. But the horrible, nasty things that they can do to people.

John Sopal (19:57)

When I interviewed the President, they had a cover with the seal of the President of the United States.

Fiona Hill (20:03)

Yeah, I only took a sip off.

John Sopal (20:04)

Yeah, no, you know, they're that concerned about it. Right, let us open it up to questions, please. And we're gonna. Those who are watching online have got sent in questions. And also, if you're up in the cheap seats, that's rude. I know you're not in the cheap seats, but there are microphones, I think at the front there. So if you want to kind of line up by microphone, they're all there. Then can we have the house lights up? Because I can't see a bloody thing in here. There we are. Oh, you are there. Thank God there are people here. I thought there was nobody here. I didn't realize it was like this.

Fiona Hill (20:36)

Yeah, I could have just.

John Sopal (20:38)

There's a gentleman right behind you there in a black jumper. I think you can. And if it. And if you could be a question rather than a statement, I'd be really grateful.

Audience Member 1 (20:47)

Firstly, thank you very much. You painted a picture that the world I, As a mid 60 year old grew up in is over. Couple of questions. Firstly, you mentioned about the increasing independence of the States. At a conference about a decade ago, I was asked, will the United States remain united in 25 years time? The answer then was about 70%. Yes, 30%, not sure. What do you think the state of the United States will be in 25 years time?

John Sopal (21:21)

Thank you very much.

Fiona Hill (21:22)

That's a great question.

John Sopal (21:24)

I wish I thought of it myself.

Fiona Hill (21:25)

Yeah, I know, exactly. Having just been in Switzerland. Switzerland. That was actually one of the conversations at the conference that I was at as well. Because, you know, think about Switzerland has a very weak central government and all of the emphasis is really in the cantons. And you know, Switzerland isn't so big, so it tends to, you know, work fairly effectively. And one of the people who was at the Swiss conference was from the American Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland and said that just in the last few months they've had five delegations coming from individual states in America. The first time ever basically to think about setting up their own representations in Switzerland. So that's just again, one swallow doesn't make a spring going Back to what I said before, but it's also already a sign that the states are starting to think, look, we're going to have to act differently given what the federal government is doing. Because what Donald Trump is doing is treating also many of the individual states also with the same kind of treatment, tariffs and, you know, all kinds of negative actions as he is doing to allies and adversaries alike, you know, on the world stage. And that is having impact. So I am, you know, basically asking myself this same question that you are. Could we very well see this loosening of the central government with more. I mean, a lot of people in the United States have always been in favor of this. Federalists, for example, always believe that just like Congress is the main locus of power at the federal level, but the state should have all of the power. And, you know, that would then mean that the federal government, you know, becomes, you know, really weaker and weaker. So we're having more of a cantonated, or is that what you would say?

John Sopal (23:06)

Cantonated?

Fiona Hill (23:07)

Cantonated.

John Sopal (23:09)

That's a great question.

Fiona Hill (23:11)

Cantonized or, you know, kind of busy. A much looser United States that, you know the very best out of this, rather than really having the secession that some people positive, a California or a Texas. But you are already seeing that the United States is not a regulated body. You've got all kinds of different laws and, you know, all sorts of statutes across the states. You know, it's getting looser and looser. And, you know, the more that the federal government gets eroded, the more likely you are to see this real loosening.

John Sopal (23:40)

So let me just take this question from online, from someone who's watching online, which is from Stella, and thank you, Stella. Do you think the Trump presidency is an aberration or does it show us something permanent about how power now operates in the United States?

Fiona Hill (23:56)

No, I don't think it is necessary. Just given on what I've said that it's going to be permanent. What it might have done is done permanent damage to the presidency and to the kind of whole idea of a centralized government to, particularly when there are various states who feel that they're under attack as well. It's done permanent damage, I think, to that idea of an America with a common purpose and a common vision. And that's going to have to be worked out. There are all kinds of books that are being published in the United States now about fractured nation, that sense. Of course, America isn't really a nation in that traditional idea of a nation state, but there was this sense of common values and There still are, but really, Americans are going to have to put that back together again. If you actually do a lot of polls for common good, which I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with, it operates here in London as well, which is kind of think tank that does a lot of polling for people to figure out what the general views are. In all of their polls, they see a majority of Americans be the Republicans and Democrats wanting a more unified country, but it's not obviously going to be unified by the presidency. So they see a lot of desire there for an America to come back together again, but it might have to come together from the bottom, from the grassroots, by groups of states getting together again. And, of course, that's the lesson of 250 years ago. It's so ironic that we're talking about this now because, you know, 250 years ago there was just the original 13 colonies and everybody else gets added on later. So are we going to end up again with groups of states reforging an idea of the United States? I can't answer the question really at this moment because we're going to have to see how this all plays out. But I think the presidency has been done a lot of damage by Trump. I said Putin there, but sometimes I wonder, is there a difference? But, hey, right.

John Sopal (25:51)

I think there's a question there.

Fiona Hill (25:53)

Hi there.

Audience Member 2 (25:54)

Having read your book, there's nothing for your here. How do you think education, which is obviously something that's really important to you, how do you think educating young people in politics, in an age of social media and manipulation, how do you think that can be improved, or how important do you think it is?

Fiona Hill (26:14)

I think that's a great question. Thank you very much for asking it. And I think it's really taking conversations and discussions to kids in school as well, and I think a lot of that is happening. I was just recently in my role at Durham University at a conference of headteachers in County Durham, and I was really impressed by how much the teachers were getting together, you know, to start to think about, you know, kids from age 13 onwards, about having more conversations in class, more exchanges across schools of best practices to start to talk to kids about, you know, the state of the country and the kind of conversation that we'd have to have about what does it mean to be a citizen. I mean, in America, that's called civics, but we've never really, you know, had that same thing in the kind of curriculum in the uk, and obviously it's dropped in the United States as well. But there's just, again, that kind of sense of how you engage, I think, you know, students at a younger age. It's no good just waiting till sixth form, I think, really starting, you know, at age 13, you know, for example, when people are really starting to form their political views and, you know, really encouraging kids to engage in that kind of conversation in the classroom and beyond, you know, bringing people down. I mean, I remember, you know, very vividly, you know, we still had money for school trips when I was 13, we came down to London to watch the Houses of Parliament, for example. I'm not sure that gave us the best idea because everyone's yelling and screaming at each other, you know, at the time, as they still do. But it was. But it was still, you know, really fascinating to think that we were part of, you know, something a lot larger. So I think, again, getting groups of teachers, you know, working with think tanks and, you know, civil society, civic organizations of this is pretty critical.

John Sopal (27:51)

Yeah. I mean, I've got to. I'm going to plug our podcast. But one of the joys of doing the podcast is that I kept on being told that young people weren't interested in politics or what was happening in the world. I just don't think they were interested in the way it was being presented to them conventionally. And actually, weirdly, you know, we're getting a lot of people who are doing their GCSEs and contacting us and saying, well, what about what? We heard what you said about this, but what about that? And it's just fantastic that you can have that engagement as well. But I think I was also, years ago, a trustee of the Citizenship foundation, which was all about this idea of, you know, a civic education. And I actually think that, you know, kind of media literacy is one of the critical things, actually, not just for young people, but radicalized older people who are going down rabbit holes and suddenly coming up with batshit crazy theories of what is truth or not. But anyway, I'm not here to answer

Fiona Hill (28:47)

questions, but in getting things like this into schools as well, media literacy, I mean, there's all these movements at the state level in the United States. It's just why I was saying that. But local level, you can't do it all from London, you know, so, I mean, getting people out, working with head teachers across the country, I think a lot's happening. You could do this in the devolved authorities because we've got, you know, default authorities, not Manchester, Midlands, the Northeast, you know, Greater London, a lot of the academies, the Schools, you know, doing all of this anyway, school podcasts. Just the more that you can engage people, the guilds are doing this, delivery companies in London, but you just get it out across the country.

John Sopal (29:21)

Right, another question from down here, from lady there in the white jumper. Hang on, hang on. Wait, wait, wait for the microphone. Thank you very much.

Audience Member 2 (29:29)

Hello. Have you got a sense of what ordinary Russians feel about the situation?

Fiona Hill (29:36)

What is going on? Yes, I do, actually. I mean, I was in a conversation with a whole group of colleagues today, many of whom who are actually on this very topic, who you can still do polling, you can scratch algorithms and, you know, various telegram and other social media challenges, channels in Russia. Look, a lot of people are keeping their head down, but at this particular point, I mean, given the casualty rate in Russia, I mean, we hit 1.2 million casualties in Russia, which is just astounding. I mean, about 2 million overall. I mean, you think of all the displaced people from Ukraine, but, you know, this. In terms of people seriously wounded or killed In Russia, it's 20 times the number of people killed when it was the Soviet Union. Afghanistan, 20 times is just Russia, you know, which is a fraction of what the population of the Soviet Union was before. So at this point, there's a good chance, particularly if you're a Russian outside of Moscow, St. Petersburg, that you know, someone who was seriously injured or, you know, or killed and, you know, kind of, again, you know, so a lot of people know that this war is out there, is affecting. Is affecting them. But there's still a lot of support for Putin, you know, so that he's the symbol of the state. There's now this kind of feeling that the war's gone on for so long, that there has to be some kind of victory, you know, for Russia. They want the war to end, but they don't want to have any consequences for it. They don't want to be like Nazi Germany and, you know, kind of basically the end of the war and have to have reparations or trials or they don't want any blowback to come to them. And so that's is really kind of what's difficult because you're not getting pressure from the Russian population to particularly end the war. The other thing is that the Russian military is almost a mercenary force because you're getting these, you know, really substantial contract payments to the military. In fact, you know, if the war ended, the members of the military wouldn't get paid at that kind of level again because Putin's trying to get more people into the military because he, he's now had more losses on the battlefield in the past month than he's able to recruit into the military. And so a lot of people in the far flung provinces of Russia are benefiting from these payments. So it's become very complicated the longer the war's gone on.

John Sopal (31:49)

But just to follow up from the question, I was listening to our national treasure, Steve Rosenberg from Moscow, which is incredible.

Fiona Hill (31:56)

Steve and I were in Moscow at the same time when I was a stud student, and he's still there. It's incredible.

John Sopal (32:01)

Yeah, he is a national treasure and we're fellow Tottenham fans. I mean, this part of North London, I'm keeping my head down at the moment after yesterday. But he was reporting from out, kind of out of Moscow. And, you know, people are seeing that there are effects on the Russian economy and the, you know, the costs of raw materials are going up and there's inflation and people are struggling. Are you saying there is no political pressure on Putin?

Fiona Hill (32:28)

Not yet. No, not yet.

John Sopal (32:30)

And do you believe that?

Fiona Hill (32:32)

I mean, there could be. And all I just say to everybody is there's always shocks to a system. And, you know, Putin himself, you know, who knows, right? I mean, right now he seems like he's fine, but he's already into his 70s. You know, he stopped doing quite so many dangerous things as he used to before we were talking about, before the horseback riding and, you know, microlighting and all the rest of it. But look, anything can happen. And I think, you know, that's kind of the point that could easily be a shock to the system because, I mean, really, this war is still about Putin's mentality and his bloody mindedness, basically, and his determination to go on until Ukraine capitulates. Because right now he still thinks it's more likely that Ukraine will capitulate or getting back to what we said, that Trump will force Ukraine to capitulate, than it is that the pressure that is there, and it is evidently there, will really mount sufficiently, either from the public or from the economy or anything else for him to stop.

John Sopal (33:25)

Fiona Hill. Brilliant. Thank you very much.

Mia Sorrenti (33:36)

Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by Hannah Kaye and it was edited by Mark Roberts. For ad free episodes and full length recordings. You can become a member over@Intelligencesquared.com membership and if you'd like to join us at future events, you can see our full program over@intelligencesquared.com attend. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.