← The Monocle Daily
Loading summary
Transcript74 lines
- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 7 April 2026 on Monaco Radio.
- [00:06]
B
Is US President Donald Trump's threat to destroy Iran serious or just more fire and fury bloviating? Why is U.S. vice President J.D. vance so concerned about a parliamentary election in a small Eastern European country? And when should a country deny entry to a foreign visitor, however many records they may have sold? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now.
- [00:30]
C
Foreign.
- [00:41]
B
Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Tina Fordham and James Rogers will discuss the day's big stories. And we'll hear from Leiden University's Damian van Paivald about his new book chronicling the eventful history of France's foreign intelligence service, the dgse. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Tina Fordham, geopolitical strategist and founder of Fordham Global Insights, and by James Rogers, Associate professor of International journalism at City St George's University of London. Hello to you both.
- [01:25]
D
Hi, Andrew.
- [01:26]
A
Hello.
- [01:28]
B
Well, for a start, we should allow you to do your, you know, bring and buy bit. You both are metaphorically, or shortly will be pushing carts full of books that you are hoping the people will buy. James, you go first, as yours is available.
- [01:41]
D
Thank you very much.
- [01:42]
B
And there are events.
- [01:44]
D
There are events. There are a couple of events coming up, two quite different ones which I'm quite looking forward to, but I think will also be quite challenging. On Friday, I'm speaking at the British association for Slavonic and East European Studies conference in Birmingham here in the uk. And then next week I'm talking to the Chiswick Calendar Media Club, which a media discussion forum in West London. So two quite different audiences. Both hope for opportunities to talk to as wide a potential readership as possible. My book is, I was just going
- [02:10]
B
to say that title again, is the
- [02:12]
D
Return of Russia and it's a concise political history of Russia and its relations with the west since the end of the Cold War.
- [02:18]
B
And listeners, I've read it and everything, it's very good. Tina, I have not read yours yet, but it isn't out yet is my excuse.
- [02:25]
A
Well, it's out in September and James and I have something in common, which is that we both kind of cut our teeth as foreign policy types in Russia in the 90s. My book is called Mad World. It's aimed at a business leader audience, but it's really for anyone who's trying to make sense of the times that we're living in. And it's a geostrategy survival guide for leaders. And we talked about one of the themes that I encounter inside boardrooms and indeed with every friend I talk to, which is for all of us of a certain age, these are especially bewildering times because we grew up during the Pax Americana and, you know, the post Cold War era and everything was supposed to turn out better. A lot of people are still waiting for those days to return and I fear that they will be disappointed.
- [03:14]
B
Well, that does introduce neatly our first item, which is Iran, where whoever is presently in charge apparently has about another seven hours until the expiry of the latest of however many deadlines it now is that US President Donald Trump has imposed for a deal since the present war began 38 days ago. The or else Trump has attached to this one is, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. Although the same characteristically coherent social media post also said maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen and God bless the great people of Iran. No praise be to Allah this time, however. James the always fun part of attempting to divine the internal monologue of President Trump. Is any of this serious or is this just an update of a certain refrain from his first term, which was fire and fury upon North Korea, a country he said I will totally destroy?
- [04:15]
D
Well, I think there's also, I mean, there is somewhere in there there is a sort of sense of a normal kind of diplomatic approach to these things, in which in the sense in which there is a threat against the leadership of the country while trying to make peace and say this is not against the people of the country. However, the threat to destroy a civilization is extremely blunt and as a number of people have pointed out today could amount to a threat for genocide.
- [04:40]
B
Well, indeed.
- [04:40]
A
So more than that, a catastrophic event possibly involving nuclear weapons.
- [04:47]
B
Well, this is clearly what he wants people to at least contemplate, Tina but is the trouble is that the world is now so used to this sort of stuff from Trump and we've had one term and one interregnum of it, we've had nearly a decade of this sort of stuff echoing in our heads that people do kind of tune it out?
- [05:05]
A
Well, they do. And certainly in my world, which involves talking to a lot of institutional investors, there's a term for it called taco, which is Trump always chickens out. And so a lot of people I Mean, quite nervously, I might add, are saying, well, is it another Taco Tuesday? One of the possible explanations, or circuit breakers might be, is this another opportunity for the White House to juice financial markets and then call it off, where some people put big bets on polymarket and profit? I mean, at least that might leave the world in less of a dire strait than it is right now. But what also worries me, it's not just what Trump said in those tweets. JD Vance today has backed it up with further remarks, talking about weapons that haven't been used before. It's all quite alarming and rhetorically, it's hard to climb down from, you know, from this kind of a height. Where do you go from here? What revolutionarily could happen? Trump said also that they gave guns to people in Iran and, quote, other people took them. It is a place that we've never been before and an administration that uses this apocalyptic language in something that is like the madman theory of Richard Nixon on steroids.
- [06:29]
B
I mean, but so far, at least, James, the Iranians do not seem to be buying it. Indeed, the Iranians. And again, we don't really have any idea who is in charge and who is making the decisions. But whoever it is seems to they're behaving like they have an advantage here.
- [06:46]
D
Well, they are, because they're sticking to these demands that there be an end to bombing. The bombing doesn't restart. And however this is settled, Iran still has some control over the Strait of Hormuz. That, of course, is Trump's demand in order for him not to unleash destruction on a civilization. And so far, you know, the Iranian regime has lasted much better, I suppose, than Trump himself and his circle ever imagined. We're more than a month into this, and there's no sign of them backing down. Yes, they've suffered colossal damage, but there's no sign that the government may have been decapitated, but it's still functioning.
- [07:20]
B
We have heard these reports today, Tina, of US Strikes on Khag Island. This is this little outcrop near the top of the Persian Gulf which is hugely crucial to Iran's oil exports. Exports rather. Does that seem like something the Americans have done? Because it's an escalation and it is a. It's an available option. Or could they potentially be softening the ground physically, literally and metaphorically and politically for a ground invasion? And if they are thinking that way, is the American public like to be likely to be terrifically enthused about that?
- [07:58]
A
Well, let's be clear that any of these kind of options on the menu militarily are incredibly high risk. And let's also remember that every American president going back to Jimmy Carter, who of course had to deal with the hostage crisis, will have war gamed and worked with the Pentagon looking at the options, and all of them decided not to do it, not to undertake the kind of military operation that would need to happen to dislodge this regime whose main goal is survival. But before I get onto the point about the US Public to just pick up on what James was saying, there is every chance that not only does this regime not collapse, but that they up stronger. They did not charge for the use of the Strait of Hormuz, but instead of reparations, that's not something that they're likely to let go of anytime soon. And a lot of countries in the world who rely upon the traffic through the Strait, I reckon, are going to be a lot happier paying that toll than dealing with a global energy shock that turns into a global depression. So between their newfound control over the strait and using it as a toll booth, plus that their missile projection capacity is back up. So whatever has been said about decimating that is untrue. Not only are they surviving, they might end up stronger. And that takes us back to that discussion about how does Trump claim victory from what might be a tactical win, but strategic blunder.
- [09:34]
B
But just to go pick up on that point about American public opinion, we did hear last week Senator Lindsey Graham is a massive enthusiast for all of this, Aerily comparing Khag island to Iwo Jima, neglecting to note that Iwo Jima was about 1200 kilometers further from Japan than Kag island is from Iran. Or also that 7,000 Marines died in a month trying to take it. But would the American public be all that enthused about ground operations?
- [10:02]
A
Well, if you look closely at the data, the support for the war, quite separate from the use of ground troops, you know, broadly tracks support for President Trump. So we see this a lot in our era that these kinds of policy measures are quite, you know, explicitly linked to support. Trump has, yes, the lowest approval ratings of any US President at this point in the term, even lower than during his first term. But we also have to remember that, you know, for people who are thinking about what happens in November midterms, Democrats are still massively Underwater about negative 30 points. So if you're trying to read the tea leaves on US Public opinion, no, the war in Iran is not popular. Ground troops, the use of ground troops, even less popular. And for MAGA Republicans, for whom involvement in foreign wars was, you know, was a real kind of centerpiece of their support for Trump, they are feeling betrayed.
- [11:03]
B
Just finally on this one, James, before we move off it, and trying to be constructive, slash optimistic. If, as has been posited relatively regularly since this started, President Trump just decides he wants it all to finish. He's bored with it. This isn't working and it's no fun anymore. Does he actually have an off ramp from where he is now?
- [11:24]
D
Well, not an obvious one because I don't think he ever expects to be in this situation. I mean, I think it's also instructive to remember that as early ago as the 1st of March, just when this was first starting, the Washington Post pointed out from there US Intelligence sources that US Intelligence agencies saw no immediate threat to the US Mainland in the coming decade from Iran. And so the strategic purpose of this war, I mean, was a little unclear from the start. I mean, yes, to get rid of the regime, but there was no sort of plan afterwards and there was no clear case that Iran was a direct threat to the United States. What it has done, of course, is to make oil prices go relatively through the roof and make the cost of living much more expensive in lots of places, including the United States. And I don't really see how President Trump can close claim victory unless and until he can bring the oil prices somewhere down below where they were on February 28th.
- [12:13]
B
Well, to Hungary now, where US Vice President J.D. vance has been complaining about foreign interference in Hungary's election. While being a foreigner interfering in Hungary's election. Vance has taken Air Force Two to Budapest to stand alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who, if polls ahead of Sunday's Election Irony Guide, may be seeking alternative employment this time next week, possibly in a jurisdiction with which Hungary has no extradition treaty. Orban, who listeners of distinguished vintage may recall being the fresh face of a new liberal Eastern Europe, circa the fall of the Berlin Wall, is now somehow both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's man in the EU and NATO. Here is some of what Vice President Vance had to say is that the
- [12:56]
C
bureaucrats and Brussels, those people should not be listened to.
- [13:02]
B
Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people. James, why is J.D. vance doing this?
- [13:13]
D
I think because he's hoping to shore up Mr. Orban's constituency ahead of the election. And I think also it's an opportunity for him, as we've just seen this afternoon, to have a good swipe at the European Union on the international stage. So I think, I don't know if he's going to win Mr. Orban many new votes, but he may at least guarantee him some more support from the ones that he's enjoyed in previous years. And as you say, you know, Mr. Orban does enjoy this curious position of having great relations with the United States and also having offered to help President Putin in any way last October.
- [13:48]
B
Well, is this actually likely to work, though, Tina? Because this, I mean, James has sort of alluded to this, but this is what strikes me as peculiar about this. I struggle to imagine the Hungarian voter who is sitting at home thinking, well, I was kind of on the fence about voting for Mr. Raban and Fidej again, but now that JD Vance has turned up and told me I should do it, I shall be hastening to my polling place.
- [14:14]
A
Well, you are quite right. There is every risk that Vance's endorsement not only doesn't help Viktor Orban, who I once had lunch with in Budapest before he went over to the dark side, but backfires. You know, Vance also visited alternative for Deutschland Alice Weidel last year after the Munich Security conference in his, you know, speech to end all speeches. And that didn't help the AFD very much. And I would go a little bit further and say there's some reason to think more broadly about whether the European kind of populist far right has hit a ceiling. But the outcome of Hungarian elections. And Hungary is only a country of, you know, 9 million people. Let's compare that to Iran with 92 million people. Matters a lot for the European Union, because as one of you alluded to, there was some tape, wasn't there today, with Orban describing himself as a mouse to Putin's lion. And Hungary, Slovakia, both serving Russian interests. But let's also remember that in Romania there was massive Russian election interference. Indeed, millions spent.
- [15:26]
B
Moldova as well.
- [15:27]
A
Yes. But it didn't work. So these interventions can really backfire.
- [15:32]
B
I just want to follow up quickly, Tina, on your lunch engagement with, I'm sure, a much younger Viktor Orban. What is your view on what happened to him? Because I have raised this question, having not met the fellow myself, but I've raised it with various contemporaries of his and various current Eastern European politicians. Their off the record views are, I'm gonna go with unflattering, but what do you think's happened to him?
- [16:00]
A
Listen, why people go into politics is a mystery to me because even though I'm a political scientist and look at these kinds of developments, why does somebody cross over? I Mean, it certainly worked well for him. He's been in power for 16 years and the stakes are incredibly high. I mean, the risk, of course, is that he and his compatriots end up in prison, which is all the more reason not to look only at the polling numbers, because Peter Magyar, Magyar meaning Hungarian, of course, his Tisa party is far ahead. Can the elections be allowed to stand? Can the result be allowed to stand? Will there be interference or something else? Will the European Union, if Orban stays in power, for example, deprive Hungary of some of its EU subsidy payments or change the voting? That's why this matters.
- [16:59]
B
James, is it as weird as it may seem that pro Russianism, pro Moscowism is even a thing at all in Hungary? Because there will be Hungarians preparing to vote this weekend who can remember as children, Red army tanks in the streets of their capital. You would think they've told a few of these stories to their children and grandchildren.
- [17:18]
C
You would.
- [17:19]
D
And I also wonder how much in Hungary, as indeed in any other country in the world, you know, standing in foreign affairs really counts in domestic elections as well. So I think there's a question there about J.D. vance intervention. And yes, I mean, but I think, you know, if in terms of, you know, memories of 56 and so on. Yes, but I think there's also a sense in which, you know, and in certain, you mentioned Slovakia, too, in certain parts of Europe and indeed even within the eu, then Putin, his attempts to portray himself as some sort of defender of what he sees as traditional conservative values does wash with a section of the electorate.
- [17:56]
A
There's another small angle as we think about this part of Europe where history repeats and rhymes and all of that, and that is the fact that there is a Hungarian minority in Ukraine. And this is part of, if you think back to the Austro Hungarian empire, the sort of Greater Hungary appeal. And it's part of Orban's shtick about Ukrainians interfering in elections. I mean, they've actually said that Ukraine is interfering in American elections, so everything is quite topsy turvy. But he does, does use this Ukrainian minority, sorry, Hungarian minority in Ukraine to justify his blocking of the loan to Ukraine and everything else. But again, Ukraine, like Iran, may actually end up, perversely in a stronger position after these challenges.
- [18:49]
B
Well, to Russia now, and a big hello to our listeners who have found a VPN which hasn't yet been blocked and are therefore still able to tune into this prestigious current affairs sync symposium, the Monocle Daily. In recent weeks, the Internet has become decreasingly available in Russia even. Indeed, it seems, especially in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other big cities, the regime usually tries to spare as much privation as possible. Most, if not all, foreign messaging apps have been banned along with already walled off social media platforms. And rolling blackouts of all Internet services are ongoing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said that these measures are, quote, all related to the need to ensure security. But whose, James, how far are people in Moscow, do you think, from turning on their televisions and just seeing Swan Lake on every channel?
- [19:40]
D
Well, they're pretty fed up at the moment. I mean, the stories from quite reliable Russian news outlets that I follow saying that, you know, people being advised if they're trying to buy something in the shop to go down to the bus stop because the city, the Internet, apparently the WI fi on the city transport system continue to function. So people were sent out of the store, unable to use wireless payments and we went down there to make their payment, then came back and got their goods. I mean, it's also really important to point out, despite we might think of in the last century and the Soviet Union, Russia being terribly backward, Moscow was a super high tech city. It's super connected. I mean, I remember mobile phone ownership. Smartphone ownership in Moscow in the first decade of this century was over 100%. In other words, lots of people had more than one device. It was super connected. So it's a massive headache for people. This is the way that they live their life. After some, some years away from Russia, I went back for a visit in 2019 and everything was on apps and everything was really transformed.
- [20:41]
B
Tina, does this look like indications of a regime and particularly a leader starting to take fright at their own people?
- [20:50]
A
Well, Putin notoriously has always been worried about what happened to Muammar Gaddafi, for example, and his undignified end, and been very concerned about this. It does appear that Putin saw the Mossad operations inside Iran and realized that whatever measures were being taken for his security might not be enough. And by extension has deprived all of Russia to this tech, which made life bearable in a country that's otherwise become pretty isolated. It's questionable whether he can do that forever. But let's also remember that the war in Iran has been a gift to the Russian treasury because it's driven up oil prices. And on the other side, they're facing real challenges as Ukraine gets bolder with its targets. And people in Russia are starting to feel this because there was a refinery in St. Petersburg that was targeted also in the Russian Far East. So those under the kind of the COVID of the war in Iran. Ukraine is being bolder, too. So Putin will be contending with a lot of challenges.
- [22:05]
B
It's a question that people have been asking for, well, more than four years, James. Arguably several centuries, that is, what does it actually take to get the Russian people to turf out those in charge? I mean, we have seen in the last four years, at least, that it's going to take more than somewhere in the vicinity of 1200 12, sorry, 1.2 million casualties in an entirely pointless and unnecessary war. Ironic though it would be. Is it possible that inability to summon an Uber might be what gets people into the streets?
- [22:39]
D
I don't think so. I don't think there's any sign, really, of any major change. It will. I mean, I think what it will do. And you've mentioned, you know, Moscow and St Petersburg in particular, which normally the authorities try to shield as much as possible from reminders that the war's going on. And people I've spoken to have been in those cities over the last couple of years said, you know, you really wouldn't notice. The only one thing you notice is that there are more army recruitment posters than there would be in normal times. But apart from that, there's no discernible difference. So I think it will take a lot more than that. And we have to remember as well that the only opposition that Putin faces, if indeed he faces any at all at the moment, is to the right of him, which is a bit hard to imagine sometimes, but it is even more strident nationalist voices who think the war in Ukraine is not being prosecuted sufficiently rigorously. So I think he's pretty safe for now, but this is not going to help. You know, you mentioned the war. There's examples in Russian history. You know, the war in Afghanistan was a contributory factor to collapse of the Soviet Union, as was the First World War, to the collapse of the Russian Empire. So we're not there yet, but all these things can combine. But as I say, I don't think. I think, to answer your original question, I think it's going to take quite a lot more for any sort of political change to come domestically.
- [23:45]
B
Well, here in the United Kingdom, listeners who had been looking forward to seeing the American rapper variously known as Kanye west and Yee, at London's Wireless Festival in July will have to make alternative plans for that weekend. The entire event has been cancelled after West's visa was pulled by the UK's Home Office on the ground that, to employ the official language, his presence would not be conducive to the public good. This is in reference to a years long history of anti Semitic and or pro Nazi outbursts for which west has recently apologised and or tried to blame on a bipolar disorder and follows the abandonment of wireless by several sponsors who decided on reflection not to associate their brands with the headliner. Tina, is this the right decision? And if it is, should it not have been made sooner?
- [24:34]
A
Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about this as if I were, you know, on the risk and compliance and the corporate affairs team for those sponsors. It feels to me like they woke up a bit late to this idea. I mean, Kanye west does have a song called Heil Hitler and then it's ended up getting placed in the Home Office's remit having decided not to issue him with a visa. Unfortunately, I mean, the timing isn't good for the Prime Minister and for the government which is doing a lot of important work right now, in actual fact, convening other European leaders and Gulf leaders on what to do about reopening the Strait of Hormuz. So I think it's unfortunate timing and it's a reminder that we seem to be stuck in this feedback loop on free speech and culture wars which people like Elon Musk really use against us. By us, I mean Britain.
- [25:32]
B
Well, I mean, I think it's, I think at least, James, it's reasonable to note that, well, the UK government, for example, has no power to infringe Kanye West's freedom of speech. He's entirely at liberty to say and record and think and do as he pleases. It's just one country saying you can't do it here. But is the problem always going to be that you can't, at least as far as I can see, you can't specifically codify where the lines are. I was taking a look earlier at the list of people who have at one point or another being banned from the United Kingdom. It includes Fred Phelps, Chris Brown, Sally Barisha, Lil Wayne, Louis Farrakhan, Marco Milosevic, Richard Spencer, Edward Snowden, Martha Stewart and Git Vernon Builders.
- [26:14]
D
Right, well, there we go.
- [26:15]
A
I mean, what I meancap wasn't that.
- [26:17]
B
No, they are, I think, technically, actually citizens of the United Kingdom.
- [26:21]
A
Oh, they're Northern Irish. Right. But they had a free speech problem.
- [26:25]
B
But again, yes, they did, but they, they were prosecuted under laws governing it.
- [26:30]
D
I mean, I think the most surprising thing about this, and Tina sort of suggested this in her reply too, that this is, you know, this is a commercial venture. Right. And I just don't see how you could not foresee this happening. If you're starting to think about well is this going to look good? And then suddenly your sponsors pull out and then suddenly. I mean the organizer of this festival was quoted on the BBC have sort of seen which way the wind was blowing. They decided to. But as I say, I think it's the, the invitation itself in the first place was rather surprising because I mean it's. The events which followed were all foreseeable.
- [27:00]
B
I think probably it is one of those what could possibly go wrong conundrums.
- [27:04]
D
And the answer is quite a lot. You know, when you have your initial planning meeting or however far in advance you plan these festivals, you know, so
- [27:10]
A
somebody didn't do their homework. It's.
- [27:14]
B
Well, I mean I, I rather suspect, Tina, it wasn't so much that they didn't do their homework, it's just that they thought that the attendant controversy would sell them some tickets.
- [27:23]
A
Ah, well, you're the milk of human kindness is, is not part of your, your, your.
- [27:29]
B
Well, not in this particular case especially because I put it to you, Tina, that it, it's somewhat petulant of wireless to cancel the entire event. I mean other prominent musicians are event.
- [27:41]
A
Well and we can't explain what their decision is but petulant. Or maybe it wasn't selling very many tickets after all.
- [27:48]
B
Also, also possibly that case. James, just in conclusion, were you planning to attend?
- [27:55]
D
I was not, but I suspect I'm not the target audience.
- [27:58]
A
I think any of us are the target audience.
- [28:00]
B
Tina Fordham and James Rogers, thanks both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, it is a truism of secret services that they tend only to make the papers when they do something wrong or when something go wrong with the thing they were doing. In the history of espionage, there have been few operations less explicable or more appalling than that undertaken by France's DGSE, the Directorate General for External Security, when in 1985 it sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland. It is also a truism of secret services that their triumphs are less publicized, which makes writing a book about them a challenge. It is one which has been risen to by Damian Van Paival, Chair of the Intelligence and Security Group at the Institute of Security and Global affairs at Leiden University. His new book is the A Concise History of France's Foreign Intelligence Service. I spoke to Damien at Midori House earlier and began by asking how easy it was to find information on a secret service There's a lot about secret
- [29:00]
C
services that is publicly available in the media, of course, but that tends to be tainted in one way or another. Quite sensationalist sometimes. There's no real archives of the dgse, but there are some, a couple of boxes here and there that are available in the French archives. Otherwise you really rely on other types of documents, parliamentary hearings, for example, trying to meet formers or find interviews of formers. And eventually with time. I worked on a book for four or five years. I found that there was more there than what I thought and certainly enough for a book.
- [29:33]
B
I want to come shortly to the DGSE's present and its future. But speaking especially as somebody who grew up in Australia and is old enough to remember this, I do have to ask about the most infamous episode of its past. This was in 1985, and the DGSE somehow talks itself into blowing up Greenpeace's ship, the Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland Harbour, resulting in the death of a Portuguese photographer. Did you come away from researching that particular bit any the wiser as to how something like this even happens? Because I understand that in any organisation stupid ideas get had all the time. Lord knows I've had many myself. But you would hope that in an organization that size, operating with those sorts of responsibilities, somebody further up the chain of command would have just said, what are we doing?
- [30:20]
C
I mean, it's not purely self inflicted. Yeah, the operation starts with a request from the President. I doubt that the President said blow up the Rainbow Warrior like this, but the President might have said something like, we need to do something about Greenpeace and just figure out what the something is. And then from then on, the director of the agency follows the order and asks the operators to come up with multiple plans, what should we do to try to prevent Greenpeace from interfering with French atomic tests in the Pacific? And there's quite a few options. Even in his memoirs, actually, the Admiral Lacos, who was in charge of the DGSE at the time, mentions that they had considered messing with gas tank of Rainbow Warrior so that it would just stay moored and could not kind of move away. They had considered stopping the boat while it was at sea. They felt that was quite a bit dangerous. And they end up deciding, and it's true, it's a bit crazy to just set mines on the ship. So they send frogmen that put two mines on the ship at night. One of them detonates and is not supposed to sink the ship. It doesn't. It's there as a Warning everybody from the ship, Greenpeace and so on, kind of move out of the ship, go in a safe spot, but that photographer, Mr. Pereira, goes back in the Rainbow Warrior to get his material. And then a few minutes later, the second mine explodes and sinks the ship with a Pereira in the ship. And unfortunately, of course, he loses his lives. Many mistakes are made by the Opera and a couple of them. So there's a reconnaissance team that is sent ahead that is being arrested by the New Zealand police because they're just acting suspiciously. And then from the investigation, it just looks like they're trying to get in touch with the headquarters in France and everything kind of unravels. French government says it's not us, but the weight of evidence becomes such that they have to revisit what they're saying and acknowledge that it was their decision. The Defence Minister has to resign. The head of the agency, Admiral Lacos, also then has to resign. And in his memoirs, Lacoste explains that he takes ownership for the error. But he also says that they felt pressured and they didn't have enough time, they were not given enough time to consider planning quite carefully to do sufficient reconnaissance to consider all the options carefully. I think perhaps that's how he felt, but obviously he was unable, and other senior officers were unable to step back and just look at how disproportionate the action and how risky it was, of course, compared to what they were hoping to achieve. Eventually, in a UN settlement, France had to pay back money to New Zealand. I think it's the first ever terrorist attack in New Zealand on New Zealand soil, and that's from the New Zealand perspective. And France had to do a repayment. There was a big arbitration at the UN level. Some of the money eventually went back to pay for Rainbow Warrior 2, which is still a Greenpeace ship to this day.
- [33:05]
B
You write in the book that the dgse, and that's obviously a regrettable example of it, has, as you put it, prioritised operations over a analysis. Is that something that they think needs to change as the nature of the threat evolves? Perhaps more to online menace rather than real world menace?
- [33:23]
C
Yeah, it's a good question. I think it's more of a cultural thing for them. It depends a bit on how you define analysis. For them. What they do really is more operations. They're coeur de metier, as they would say. What they really do at the core is operations that means gathering information that diplomats can cannot gather through special means. And they try sometime also to change the world to influence the world through unacknowledged means to do covert actions. And that sets them apart from people in the Quai d', Orcet, people in the Ministry of Foreign affairs in France that are the usual place where a policymaker would go for analysis on another country. And that's a bit different perhaps than in some other countries. So they do consider that they do analysis to an extent, but they're really into operations. And that's, let's say, a decision they make also based on their limited resources. From their perspective, at least, we have limited resources. 7,000 people working for us, let's say more or less 1 billion budget. We cannot do it all. We're not the United States. So we will focus just on some regions of the world where we know we're stronger and we will focus on what makes us completely different from say a think tank, a magazine or a newspaper covering global affairs, as well as the Foreign Ministry. So they don't really try to do this kind of analysis. That is a bit deeper, perhaps they might do analysis, but in that case it would be kind of very short term analysis and more based on the special sources they get access to.
- [34:46]
B
That was Damien Van Pauveld speaking to me earlier. His new book is the A Concise History of France's Foreign Intelligence Service. That's all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Tina Fordham and James Rogers. Today's show was produced by Christy o' Grady and researched by Josefina Astrad Nagla Gomez. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.