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- [00:02]
Lyn O'Donnell
Every day, the world presents you with hundreds of headlines. What do you believe? Who do you trust? The Financial Times cuts through complexity with clarity, accuracy and global perspective. Its journalism is guided by independence, not agendas. That's why leaders in business, policy and culture turn to one trusted source for facts, for insight, for what matters next. Source FT Read more and subscribe@ft.com.
- [00:36]
Stephen DL
You.
- [00:37]
Chris Chermack
Are listening to the Monocle Daily, first.
- [00:38]
Stephen DL
Broadcast on 25 November 2025 on Monocle Radio.
- [00:42]
Andrew Muller
Will US President Donald Trump get his Ukraine peace deal in time for Thanksgiving? Will there be any takers for soft power outreach from Iran? And the United States Secretary of Transportation wishes American air passengers would smarten themselves up. I'm Andrew Muller. Monocle Daily starts now. 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, Lyn o' Donnell and Stephen DL. We'll discuss the day's big stories and we'll hear from the author, David Marsh, about his new book, asking if Europe as a political construct can survive, and if so, how. 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 Lyn o', Donnell, columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, and Stephen DL, Russia analyst and regular Monocle Radio contributor. Hello to you both.
- [01:52]
Stephen DL
Good evening.
- [01:53]
Andrew Muller
You have both been travelling, which we will discuss. Lyn, first of all, seeing as how you pulled the real hardship posting here. Rome. How awful.
- [02:02]
Lyn O'Donnell
I'm still getting over it.
- [02:04]
Andrew Muller
Well, pace yourself. I mean, I know you spent a long time in Kabul, but this is. This is. This is really rugged.
- [02:12]
Lyn O'Donnell
I know. I really took one for the team.
- [02:15]
Andrew Muller
Was there any particular reason why you went? I mean, not that anyone needs a particular reason to go to Rome or indeed anywhere in Italy, which is never a bad time.
- [02:23]
Lyn O'Donnell
I went to do an interview with somebody and I'd lined it up over a course of weeks and had even been invited to lunch. And when I got there, having spent time and money to get there to interview him specifically, he reneged.
- [02:39]
Andrew Muller
Ah. And so you found yourself thinking, God, I'm in Rome with nothing to do. Woe is me.
- [02:44]
Lyn O'Donnell
How grateful. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the blue in the sky was bright and hurt my eyes and the food was just, you know.
- [02:54]
Andrew Muller
Oh, inedible.
- [02:55]
Lyn O'Donnell
Inedible, you know, so I had to keep eating lots of it to make sure that it was inedible.
- [03:01]
Andrew Muller
Yep. No, ghastly. I can hear the heart. You did I was not familiar with the phrase happy hour in the Vatican, but this is apparently a thing.
- [03:13]
Lyn O'Donnell
Well, it was a thing I did. I'd never been to the Vatican Museum before, and I walked through the, you know, gallery after gallery with such an astounding collection that they've obviously been building on and looting for 2,000 years. And then at the end of it, I had a happy hour aperitiva in the Vatican.
- [03:35]
Andrew Muller
Awful. Awful. Stephen, can you improve on this tale of hardship and suffering? You have been to Warsaw, which, as regular listeners will be aware, I do myself think is actually still one of the undersold destinations in Europe. It's a genuinely lovely city.
- [03:51]
Stephen DL
Yeah. But this time wasn't entirely tourism. I went to see some Ukrainian friends because a couple of years ago, the Canadian Ukrainian diaspora set up a school for Ukrainian refugee children just outside Warsaw so they wouldn't have to study online. And so these friends of mine were there. So it was lovely to see them. And here this was. But this was a really sort of poignant moment. On the Sunday evening we were in the center of Warsaw and we went for dinner in a Ukrainian restaurant, in fact, called Mimosa. And looking around and I said to my friend, I said, God, what's up with all these Polish guys? Because there were two women over there, three women over there, a group of four women over there. There seemed to be lots of groups of women. He said, no, no, no. He said, these are Ukrainian women. And it was a real little vignette of what the war is doing because of course the guys can't get out of Ukraine, but the women have got out. And he said, they, you know, they have their own society's own life. You know, they, they do each other's hair, they do each other's nails or whatever, they. And they. It's like a society within a society. But I thought it was quite a sad moment, but interesting too.
- [05:05]
Andrew Muller
Well, we will start in Ukraine and the prospects for peace therein. By way of illustrating the desirability of this, six more people were killed last night in Russian strikes on Kyiv, three by Ukrainian strikes in the Russian border regions of Rostov and Krasnodar. Various diplomatic conclaves are presently discussing a 28 point plan proposed by US President Donald Trump, which Russia quite likes, and something similar pitched by the eu, of which Russia appears less fond. It is reported in the last few hours that Ukraine has lit upon an amusing loophole in the US plan and agreed to cap its military at 800,000 personnel, that is to field the sixth largest standing army on earth. Stephen, this is curious, this one, because this leapt out at me the first time the 28 point plan was published that, you know, Ukraine's military will be limited to this, frankly, colossal number, number of soldiers. How is it possible that like nobody else spotted this?
- [06:04]
Stephen DL
Well, I think the original plan in the 28, 28 points was 600,000.
- [06:08]
Andrew Muller
That's still pretty big, comfortably the largest army in Europe.
- [06:13]
Stephen DL
But if you think that there are currently over 700,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine plus there's the reserve, plus, you know, back in Russia, so it's still not as big as the Russian army. But yes, I mean that would be a sizable amount. But I think Zelensky and the Ukrainians generally are playing a very cautious game, particularly having seen the way that Zelenskyy was treated earlier this year, the first time he went to the White House. They, like many others around the world, I think, unfortunately, are sort of sucking up to Trump and sort of trying to, to keep him on their side. And of course the other thing with Trump is, you know, whatever the last person says in his ear is what he'll rep. So he's already flip flopped after the 28 points, saying, well, you've got till Thursday, that is two days from now to agree to it and then at the weekend, oh well, you can have a bit more time. And so Zelensky doesn't know what Trump's going to say. No one knows what Trump's going to say next. So he's having to be careful. And I think he's having to say, well, yeah, we'll agree to some of these points. But if you look at the full 28 point plan, it was undoubtedly written in Moscow, whatever the Americans say, no NATO membership, no foreign troops stationed on the soil. This strange idea that any aircraft would be stationed in Poland, well, there are already, it's called the Polish Air Force, those points. I was just appalled and I thought if this really is going to be pushed down Ukraine's throat, then, you know, what has this war been about? You know, Russia going back into the G8 and it's all going to be business as usual. Kaya Kallis, the European Union spokesperson for foreign affairs and also of course, former Estonian Prime Minister. I mean, she is always worth listening to. And I heard her being interviewed. She was, it was broadcast today. She was interviewed yesterday and saying, no, Russia's not going back into jail. How can you talk about business as usual? When Russia unprovoked, attacked Ukraine, has caused untold damage, has killed thousands of well, if you killed soldiers and civilians, hundreds of thousands of people, you know, you cannot just brush all that under the carpet and say, we're going back to business as usual. So it's. We're in the hands of the Americans again, which I think, you know, Europe really does need to get its act together.
- [08:45]
Andrew Muller
Well, which does prompt exactly that question, Lynn. Does Europe and Ukraine need to be in the hands of the United States? Because this is not. It is not new information that the current US administration is somewhat erratic and whimsical, or that it is, at best indifferent to the fate of Ukraine. Are we at the point. Are we indeed past the point at which Ukraine and its European allies need to figure out a way to just essentially lock the United States out of this, just to decide that we are Europe, we are a superpower, we will defend Ukraine.
- [09:20]
Lyn O'Donnell
But I've been asking myself that for years and thinking I must be missing something, because I just don't understand why it hasn't happened. We saw the rush, remember the rush hour rush of European leaders to Washington after the meeting with Putin earlier this year, and just a panic that belies a weakness and an obeisance to whatever transactionality Trump has in mind. And I can't help thinking that Europe is constantly betraying its own weakness and possibly its disunity in decision making. And America seems to believe, and therefore have by the power of its own belief, all the cards.
- [10:11]
Andrew Muller
Stephen, you correctly point out that Ukraine is being very cautious. It strikes me that they are trying to find ways to say no without actually saying no. But one of the ways in which they are saying no is that President Zelensky is reiterating that he does see territorial concessions as a red line. He doesn't want to hand over any amount of Ukrainian territory to Russia. Obviously a perfectly reasonable, understandable and moral and legal stance to take. But where we are now, is that, strictly speaking, a realistic one? If, and I realise this is a big if, Putin does have any ambition of ending this war, he needs something to show for it. He needs to go back to his people and say that this last three and a half years of colossal expense and pointless slaughter has won us the great victory of, you know, a bit.
- [11:00]
Stephen DL
Of Ukraine and a particular bit. This is very specific, that he has to be able to go back. If there's some kind of, I'm going to say ceasefire. I don't think this is. We're nowhere near a peace deal, but if there was some sort of ceasefire, he has to be able to say that, look, we've got Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea, because these a couple of years ago were put into the Russian constitution. So the Russian constitution now says that these are parts of Russia, even though some of them are currently under occupation by Ukrainian forces. So anything less than that means that he loses face if he turns around and says to his people, look, you know, look what we've achieved, because he hasn't achieved even the minimum. And those Russians with longer memories are the ones that haven't been driven mad by the propaganda, might remember that in February 2022, he was saying that he would be in, his troops would be in Kiev in three days and take the whole of Ukraine within a week. He has failed dramatically in that. But he's not afraid just of losing his position. He's afraid of losing his head. We know from rumors, not more than rumors. I mean, stories that have come out of the Kremlin over the years that he watched over and over again the video of Gaddafi being lynched in Libya. And he sees Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, you know, these to him, that's absolutely terrifying. His biggest fear is not NATO, it's not America, it's not Europe, not China, it's his own people. And that's what this bund, this uprising from below. And statistics Show apparently, that 5% of a nation rise up, be it the Russian Revolution 100 odd years ago, be it the French Revolution, that is enough to overturn things. So that's what terrifies him most of all. And that's why he can't just back out at this point. He can't draw the line where it is now without those four territories, plus Crimea being a part of Russia, because.
- [13:03]
Andrew Muller
Otherwise he has lost, well, to the United States now. And yet further suggestion that the text on the plaque inside the Statue of Liberty's pedestal, the one with all the stuff welcoming the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breath wretched refuse of your teeming shore and so forth, may need rewriting. The administration of US President Donald Trump is to review the cases of all refugees admitted during the term of Trump's predecessor, President Joe Biden, which is about 230,000 people. By way of contrast, Trump recently set a cap on refugee admissions for the next fiscal year at 7,500, a record low and a record low which will mostly focus on white South Africans for some scarcely imaginable reason. Lyn, a lot of those 230,000 people will of course, have come from Afghanistan, a place you covered for many years. How do we imagine these 230,000 reviews are going to go.
- [14:01]
Lyn O'Donnell
Reviews of their status. I don't. Well, I think it's probably going to go quite well for the Trump administration. The ICE guys who look like Ninja Turtles have been really deployed for purposes of instilling terror in people. And it's worked. But. But as we've seen with 2 million Afghan people who've been forced back into Afghanistan from Pakistan just this year, they're going back to nothing. And there's a lot of transaction, that word again with the Taliban authorities by governments in Europe, Germany, Norway, Britain, I know would love to follow suit. And it's all about deportations. And there is a well worn past now between Washington D.C. and Kabul for that purpose. That this anti immigrant policy, if you like, mentality that prevails in American politics is really all about sending people home. And people I know who are in America are terrified of it. Absolutely terrified, because there are people who will be sent back to their deaths.
- [15:20]
Andrew Muller
One of the many reasons, Stephen, that this is nonsense and we can see how this is going to go. We're familiar with the scaremongering template by this point. But it is the case, is it not, that almost nobody, certainly nobody native born, is more thoroughly vetted than somebody who has been given refugee status and allowed to stay in a new country?
- [15:42]
Stephen DL
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, Lyn knows Afghanistan very well. And just the thought, and I went cold when you said that from the UK as well, that people, these are people who helped the British. Whether or not you think the British army should have been in Afghanistan, the fact is they were there and some people helped them, they were translators, they helped them with all sorts of things. And actually to send them back to their death, that is unbelievable. And it goes further. So if I can sort of take it in my patch now, I don't often express sympathy for Russia these days, but there are Russians now in America who also risk being sent back to Russia because they left not just to avoid being conscripted, but they left because they protested against Putin, they protested against the war, they are known to have protested. And they may not face death, but they will certainly face prison if they go back. And this, you know, I too am lost at seeing any kind of logic in this. You know, these are also. Because certainly in the case of the Russians, those who've left tend to. It's a real brain drain. You know, these are very bright people. They would love to be working and actually, you know, helping America, helping the country that they're in so, you know, the idea of sending them back to imprisonment just makes no sense on either side.
- [17:10]
Andrew Muller
But as Trump is far from the only broadly populous leader in recent years to have figured this one out, Lyn and this is, it always just seems such an easy win because you can point at these people who look different and maybe speak a different language and, you know, pursue a different faith from the majority. It's easy enough to whip up scare stories about them, as we saw, you know, infamously during the last presidential election campaign with the, the idea that small town Ohio was being denuded of its domestic pets by Haitians barbecuing them. All of which was absolute nonsense. But. But has anybody yet figured out how you win the argument against this? Because what is also conspicuous by its absence is politicians on the other side of the aisle standing up for these.
- [17:55]
Lyn O'Donnell
People, which I really don't understand, because the system in America is such that benefits, unlike in some European countries, benefits are very short term. And so people have to work and make their own way and then start contributing almost as soon as within months of arriving. And so they are contributing, contributing to the economy and, you know, they're making money and they're buying things and, you know, they become active participants in that society very quickly. And as we're seeing with, you know, the people who are being sent back in ice raids to Mexico and other South American countries, the ground labor, what is a hard labour or unskilled labour, is being denuded. Nobody's picking the fruit, nobody's stacking the shelves, nobody's cleaning the gutters. People who are looking for refuge, as they have done in America for, you know, a couple of hundred years. It's been a place where people can go and feel safe from torture or autocracy, whatever it might be. Everybody is suffering. Those people who are being sent back to whatever they're going back to, and, and the economy of the country that they're being forced out of, and nobody's talking about it in those terms, I reckon it's going to be a pretty lean Christmas in a holiday period in America. This for many reasons, and one of them is that there's nobody there to do the work.
- [19:25]
Andrew Muller
Well, to Iran now and to a possible challenge for any enterprising public relations firm, it appears that the Islamic Republic is intent on depicting itself in a more inviting light, burnishing its soft power credentials and generally winning friends and influencing people. Inevitably, however, they are disdaining such obvious measures as, for example, ceasing to employ goons warranted by the state to beat up women for exposing untoward quantities of hair. Instead, Iran is going long on such cosmetic marketing inanities as the new slogan for Iran's tourism industry. Majestic Iran a different experience. Hard to argue with the different experience bit, though. Majestic is an interesting choice of word for a country which chased its last monarch off the premises at Pitchfork Point. Stephen, is this Iran sort of conceding that, what with one thing and another, perhaps not the hard power they once were?
- [20:21]
Stephen DL
I think it would seem to be an acknowledgement of that. And they apparently are trying to cozy up to other Arab states and saying, look, you know, the real threat now is Israel because, you know, look what Israel's been doing. Israel been bombing people in various countries in the Middle east as well as what they've done in Gaza. So they're trying to play that card. But the idea of it, of Iran having soft power. Anyway, it's interesting that there's a new dramatized serial has just, just started. Am I allowed to mention the BBC? It's on the BBC, of course.
- [20:58]
Andrew Muller
Well, anyway, you just have. It's too late.
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Stephen DL
There we are. It's a four part dramatization of the story of Nazarene Zagari. Ratcliffe, who of course was Iranian, married to a Brit. She went to Iran to see her mother and was. Spent the next five years in prison. You know, does it mean this, that sort of thing is not going to happen? I think not. Would she dare to go back again? I think not. So Iran, cosy, two words don't seem to go together.
- [21:28]
Andrew Muller
I mean, Lyn, Stephen, talking there about their outreach to the Middle east and perhaps to other places, I am inescapably reminded of a conversation I had at Globsec in Prague last year, which occurred coincidentally to the American Israeli air raids on Iran and one NATO foreign minister who will remain unnamed because we were just talking, did say that the Iranians are about to discover that, that their big problem is that nobody likes them. Do you think possibly the Iranians have figured this one out?
- [22:03]
Lyn O'Donnell
Well, it's been a really rapid about turn, hasn't it? But all their mates are gone. You know, Hamas leadership is all kaput. Their mates in the Houthis in Yemen have also said, well, you know, we're not playing this game anymore. Hezbollah are the same, so they don't really have any friends. Maybe the Qataris, Russia too.
- [22:30]
Stephen DL
I mean, they've been helping the Russians.
- [22:34]
Andrew Muller
But this is not a relationship based on tremendous mutual affection and respect.
- [22:40]
Lyn O'Donnell
Yeah. So I think you're right. Maybe they have realized that they not only don't have any friends, they don't have any firepower left either. And along with not having any money and a population of 90 plus million people who mostly hate being run by mullahs, women who hate being smothered the way they are. Yeah, but, you know, memories are short these days, but they ain't that short.
- [23:11]
Andrew Muller
I mean, just on their attempts to sort of pitch the idea of themselves as a holiday destination. I mean, I will confess, Stephen, to being torn about this. I've been to Iran once in my entire life in slightly bizarre circumstances, and I was only there for, I don't think it was even 48 hours, and it was only in Tehran, but clearly a extraordinary, in many senses of the word city. Everybody I met was absolutely delight. Well, apart from the secret police who were employed to follow me around and get in my way, everybody else was absolutely delightful, especially once we'd managed to sort of lose the secret police minders. But, you know, one sees pictures. It's clearly a glorious country. It would be a fabulous place to visit. Are you yet, however enticed?
- [23:56]
Stephen DL
I am not enticed. I've done a lot of traveling and I'm in the happy position. Position of being able to travel for pleasure rather than having to chase people for interviews who then don't turn up. And my wife and I have been doing a lot of traveling this year, but. But Iran is not on our list for this year or next year. And I think, you know, it almost says to me, well, if there's a God, he's got a wicked sense of humor because, you know, there is so much history there in that whole part.
- [24:20]
Andrew Muller
Of the world, there's so much. But in Iran especially, there's so much of everything, not least potential.
- [24:26]
Stephen DL
Yeah, but the potential is not going to be realized, may I say, with the current regime, if that's not too much of an understatement.
- [24:35]
Andrew Muller
I don't think that's a controversial take. And to the United States, where Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is appealing, almost certainly in vain, for his fellow Americans to smarten themselves up before flying home to spend Thanksgiving bickering with their families about Secretary Duffy's boss. Duffy has launched a campaign for better dress in airports and on aircraft, which he believes will prompt better behavior. They've even made an advertisement of which this is some.
- [25:03]
Chris Chermack
Flying was a bastion of civility, but today.
- [25:16]
Andrew Muller
It does lack something without the visuals. I do encourage our listeners to go and look it up, but this is one of those moments. Lyn, do we have to concede that a member of the Trump administration, let alone a member of. Of the Trump administration whose professional background includes competitive lumberjacking and reality television, may have a point. Is the secretary wrong about this?
- [25:40]
Lyn O'Donnell
I'm with the secretary.
- [25:43]
Andrew Muller
It's amazing what just brings out the reactionary in people, isn't it? And we are three people who have probably spent far too much of our lives on airplanes and therefore have seen some things. Stephen, he's further asked, people specifically don't wear pyjamas and slippers.
- [25:59]
Stephen DL
I think, I think I've been on about 16 planes this year, maybe as many as 20. I haven't once seen anyone in pajamas. I've admittedly, I've only flown once to the USA and back from the usa. And even though the one back was, of course was an overnight flight, I still didn't see anyone. Maybe I was in the wrong part of the plane. I didn't see anyone in pajamas. I do admit to taking my shoes off and putting the little sock things on.
- [26:22]
Andrew Muller
I think as long as you put the little sock things on that this is acceptable behavior. And the thing is, as a. And Lyn will back me up on this because as a fellow Australian, we are both ultra long haul veterans. That's when you really see conventions of behaviour just completely abandoned.
- [26:42]
Lyn O'Donnell
Yeah, well, that's true, but I think when it comes to pyjamas, we're talking the pointy end of the plane.
- [26:47]
Andrew Muller
Well, those are the ones they give you on the pointy end of the plane.
- [26:50]
Lyn O'Donnell
Yeah. And I did make a wrong turn once and actually got a seat and a glass of champagne and a set of pyjamas given to me. And when they came up and said, sorry, madam, this is not your seat, I picked up the champagne and the pyjamas and took them down, obviously.
- [27:06]
Andrew Muller
But did you put them on while you were in proximity to the members of the public, though?
- [27:12]
Lyn O'Donnell
They moved towards me like the Gestapo. Madam, this isn't your seat.
- [27:17]
Andrew Muller
But do you think, Stephen, that his broader point, because there are serious statistics underpinning this, there has been an astonishing uptick in poor behavior, unruly behavior, disruptive behavior by airline passengers. It spiked massively after the pandemic when people were allowed back on planes and everyone had just forgotten how to interact with other members of the public. It has tapered off a bit, but it's still a thing. Do you buy his. His idea that if people are wearing a suit and tie or the equivalent, they will behave themselves better?
- [27:48]
Stephen DL
I don't know about Suit and tie, but certainly just, you know, dressed smart casual, as they might say at certain events. But actually this, I'm sorry, I'm going to be a bit serious because this is, we're supposed to be laughing at this point. But I, I do genuinely believe that around the world, take Britain as an example and probably the States as well, that we really have not properly considered the effects of the pandemic. Five years on. I think there is a lot more anger in society. I think, you know, people who, I was very lucky I was commissioned to translate a book. I knew I was going to be in front of my computer all year. I could go out in the garden and get some exercise. The weather was wonderful that spring. I didn't, you know, I wasn't a single parent mother with three children stuck at the top of a block of flats and not able to go, you know, to get out. And I think that we are still suffering. There was so much anger built up from people. And last week in Britain we had the report, another report on the pandemic which was highly critical of the government and the lockdowns and so on. And I think that's actually, if anything, it's fuelled that far, that. And I did see some of the clip you played. I did actually watch the video and yeah, there was some pretty horrible behavior there and people, you know, literally sort of tearing each other's hair out on the plane.
- [29:03]
Andrew Muller
I, I did quite enjoy the blokes throwing hazard cones at each other at baggage claim. I, I would watch that as a sort of competitive sport, I think, which.
- [29:11]
Stephen DL
But baggage claim is one, you know, that's, I'm not just condoning that, but, but actually when you're on a plane, that that's going to frighten a lot of people. And I think there is more anger in society genuinely as a result. And I think the pandemic, you know, we haven't, still haven't got out of that completely. I don't know if or when we.
- [29:28]
Andrew Muller
Will just finally then, Lyndon, if we boil down Secretary Duffy's pitch to its ultimate destination. And at this point I will admit to occasionally still waking screaming in the night thinking about the apparition sat opposite me on a very long flight, at least some of the way to Australia. A few years back, this would have been a grown adult human being, Lynn, a man not, not younger than his mid-50s. So, you know, he's been, you would think by that point, in various social situations in which some manner of formality is required, he dressed for an Ultra long haul flight wearing, I kid you not, a singlet, a pair of shorts and sandals, which with grim inevitability he removed. So my question is, should airlines just enforce dress codes? Say these are the minimum standards we expect. If you don't meet them, you're not boarding.
- [30:23]
Lyn O'Donnell
Oh, gosh. And so who would enforce that? It'd be like having bouncers on the, at the boarding gate.
- [30:28]
Andrew Muller
But Siri would.
- [30:29]
Lyn O'Donnell
I'd love to see that.
- [30:31]
Andrew Muller
But all jokes aside, aircrew, you know, have almost godlike powers, especially once the door shuts. And we are accustomed in that environment to doing as we're damn well told for very good reasons. Why not extend it to this?
- [30:44]
Lyn O'Donnell
Well, yeah, okay, so that's a good question. But air travel is so expensive, no matter what class you're flying in, if you're paying 2,000 doll, whatever it might be for a five hour flight or a six hour flight to somewhere and somebody tells you that you can't board your extremely expensive flight wearing shorts, what are you going to say?
- [31:09]
Andrew Muller
Well, but you are also told there are other conditions of carriage and if you don't meet them, then you're not getting on the plane either.
- [31:15]
Lyn O'Donnell
I can't really see it working, to be honest with you. I just think that the contract is not clear enough. It's you get me from A to B, it's a train, it's a plane, it's an automobile. I can't see it.
- [31:29]
Andrew Muller
Lyn o' Donnell and Stephen d', El, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, the European Union has long been hailed, not least by itself, for bringing the continent together after the Second World War. But in reality, it has struggled to maintain optimism and cohesion after the end of another conflict, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Many of the fissures exposed in the 1990s now sundering further in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the rise of China. David Marsh is a writer and founder of OMFIF Economic Research. He spoke with Monocle's Chris Chermak about his new book entitled Can Europe the Story of a Continent in a Fractured World. Chris began by asking whether Europe had been overconfident and complacent about its ability to unite Germany and Europe after the Cold War ended.
- [32:18]
Chris Chermack
There was a certain amount of complacency that it might be okay as it had been, as you say, against all the odds after the Second World War. On the other hand, Chancellor Cole himself has had a great deal of angst about the problems of integrating East Germany into the West. He knew it was going to cost a great deal of money. He knew that much of the rest of Western Europe was against German unification as well. He had to make that quid pro quo. A lot of Germans deny that there was a quid pro quo, but clearly there was an acceleration and intensification of the move towards monetary union that had to be done as a way of somehow appeasing France, France in particular. Once Mitterrand became aware that coal was going to speed up somewhat the preparations towards monetary union, he became a lot less antagonistic about the unification of the two Germanies. Make no mistake, France could not have stopped that. That was going to happen anyway. But it was far better that that did take place on terms which were at least being looked at relatively kindly by France then that would lead to antagonism. So there were all these different elements at the time. I, I think that the, the role of America in both of those episodes was absolutely crucial. Without George H.W. bush there wouldn't have been, I think, unification in the way that there was and all behind the scenes. I think America was always in charge of the European agenda all the years after the end of the Cold War. This is what pains me now that America is plainly going down a different.
- [33:57]
David Marsh
Path again, sticking with kind of that post Cold War period. If there is some success in that, perhaps not the East Germany integration side, but there might be some success in the European Union's expansion eastward to central Eastern Europe. You note in the book that much of Central and Eastern Europe has been kind of catching up in the last three decades or so. But of course antagonized Russia in the process. And I'm curious when you look at that, you write about that dynamic a lot in this book as well. Was that inevitable, that sort of antagonism in order to improve the fortunes of Central and Eastern Europe, or could things have gone differently?
- [34:36]
Chris Chermack
I don't know about inevitable, but I certainly think it's logical that it would would lead to some antagonism, whether through the military side or through the economic modernization side. There has been, if you like, a new gulf now between the successfully modernizing catch up states of Central and Eastern Europe and Russia and the satellite states thereof, which do remain caught in something of a time warp. And it's exposed, I think, the vulnerabilities of the Russian economy, which is still very much an energy dependent independent economies, failed to modernize, failed to diversify. And of course we now see a war economy over time. I Think Russia and its economic fundamentals will become more and more dire. And that's not going to help bringing about of a more modern, Western orientated government in Moscow. But of course we went through a whole period of hope after Yeltsin came to an end that this new, completely unheard of man, Mr. Putin, was going to be a modernizer and a Western orientated technocrat. So we did have moods of hope there, which for various reasons did turn into ashes.
- [35:43]
David Marsh
We do absolutely have moments of hope. But also, and you write about this perhaps a dismissiveness that came with that hope from Europe and the US maybe as well towards Russia, sort of failure perhaps to take it seriously after the Cold War, the sense that the US won, Russia lost. And you write about that. There's this one meeting you recount, I have to say, kind of stepping forward a bit on that, but gets to this of the European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker meeting Vladimir Putin there at 2am at a hotel. Putin brings out a Russian history book claiming Ukraine as its historic territory. And Juncker counters that he has a book claiming that Prague was founded by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and maybe he should instruct Luxembourg's army to invade the Czech Republic. I just found that little nugget so informative and fascinating because it gets to this point perhaps did nobody in Europe take Vladimir Putin seriously? They kind of joked about these things until he actually invaded Ukraine.
- [36:46]
Chris Chermack
It's a good point. I mean, of course Mr. Juncker does have a very quirky sense of humor. What struck me about this was that this book, this book, I'd really like to know what it is. It's a cyrillic book that Mr. Putin takes everywhere with him. He took that to the G20 summit in Brisbane, as you say, in 2014, just after the more minor invasion of of Ukraine with Crimea. Is clearly like a Bible, a traveling badika to him. I think the principle that the Americans had after the fall of the Wall was that indeed America had been victorious, the Cold War had ended in America's favor. However much they tried to do, it was quite clear that the Soviet Union then became Russia, was the vanquished. You couldn't get over that Cold War victim mentality. I think in the case of the Americans, however much people like Clinton tried to cover that up. Condi Rice told me that she said that wasn't the case, but I talked to her about her book. She did write in the book that she told the East Europeans on one occasion, we've won and you've lost. I think the other Europeans, of course, were far more mitigated, the Germans in particular, knowing the dangers of antagonizing the Soviet Union. And then Russia were trying to be far, far more condescending, far more magnanimous as well, vis a vis the Russians. But of course, the Americans were in charge. And I think America always knew that there's likely to be a war over Ukraine. That's something which came out pretty clearly from all the archives. America was prepared to take that risk because America knew that whatever happened, it would be in charge and no doubt would emerge stronger from whatever conflict, whether military or political, was to ensue. And I think that's happened.
- [38:28]
Andrew Muller
That was David Marsh speaking to Monocle's Chris Chermack. David Marsh's new book, can Europe the Story of a Continent in a Fractured World, is available now. And that is it for this edition of the Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Lyn o' Donnell and Stephen DL. The show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Joanna Moser. 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.
- [38:54]
Stephen DL
It.