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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first
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broadcast on 5 March 2026 on Monaco Radio.
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What does war between the United States, Israel and Iran mean for the war between Russia and Ukraine? How long is it going to be possible for the rest of NATO to keep out of this? And an improvement for air travel where air travel is still possible. I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. 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, Stephen DL and Elizabeth Brohr will discuss today's big stories and our weekly letter from arrives somewhat waterlogged from Melbourne. 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 Stephen DL, Russia analyst and regular Monocle Radio contributor, and by Elisabeth Braw, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, author of the upcoming title Undersea War. Hello to you both.
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B
Hello.
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C
Hello.
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We will start with one of the wars whose outcome might now depend to some degree or another on the new one, which has just begun. In the course of its four year attempt to conquer Ukraine in 72 hours, Russia has made much use of the Iranian made shahed drone, which Iran might now want to keep more of to itself. On the upside, at least where Russia is concerned, the attention of the United States is also now consumed elsewhere and a consequent spike in oil prices may galvanise Russia's economy somewhat. As a subplot, it seems likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin is presently screening his calls for fear of being reminded by his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Possesskian, of the strategic partnership he could have sworn the two countries signed 14 months ago. Stephen, we are learning there, not for the first time, about the value of treaty agreements with Russia. But that aside, as a longtime observer of Russia, how much did you enjoy President Putin condemning the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as, and I quote, a cynical violation of all norms of human morals and international law?
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I did see the irony in that.
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For Putin to talk about one does not require your expertise in Russia to spot it, to be honest.
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Indeed, indeed. And for Putin to talk about human values when he's just throwing his soldiers into the meat grinder every day. Russian casualties probably at least a thousand a day, young men being slaughtered. There was a very interesting, very harrowing, but very interesting documentary recently. I'm afraid I'm going to mention the BBC again on the BBC called the Zero Line, Inside the Russian army showing how Russian officers are actually shooting their own men if they refuse to go back into the fight. Very harrowing. Very. A terrible program. I mean, terrible news. So, yes. So Putin, if anyone doesn't have the right to talk about human morals, then Putin is it. But there's not an easy answer to what this effect is having on Russia, and a lot of it will depend on how long it goes on. But in the initial phase, as you mentioned in the introduction, geopolitically, any friends Russia has will be looking askance because Assad went in Syria, Maduro went in Venezuela. Venezuela. Now the Khamenei has gone in Iran, Russia's three, thought to be Russia's three greatest friends. I'm not sure about allies, but certainly friends. And Putin has sat in his hands and done nothing. And indeed, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was asked at a press conference only a couple of months ago, well, if Iran were to be attacked, would you invoke the agreement you mentioned at the start? And he gave the impression that he would. He didn't say outright, yes, but then he's a politician. So of course, politicians never use the word yes, but he did say that would. So on the geopolitical level, Russia's not doing very well. But of course, it's this question of oil. And with the oil price having risen, having previously dropped to $40 a barrel, which was very, very serious for Russia because its budget, which is already 40 to 45% going to the military, but with the budget dependent on at least $60 a barrel, down at $40, they were in trouble. Well, if it's up around 80, although theirs hasn't reached there yet, euros is about 57, at least it was in the last 24 hours. But the longer it goes on, the more it can be expected to rise. And ironically, again, it was Russia, Iran and Venezuela that were the three producers of what they call heavy crude, which is a lot of which is then exported to countries like Turkey or India who have the facilities to ref. And India, it looks as if they're already shrugging their collective shoulders and saying, well, you know, we'll buy more, even though they'd promised President Trump not so long ago that they would buy less, so they wouldn't be sanctioned.
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Elizabeth, though, how long does any rise in oil prices have to last to make any particular material difference to Russia?
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So the one thing to remember is that it's not just Russia that is affected positively or negatively by oil prices. What we are seeing at the moment is oil prices rising because oil can't leave the Strait of Hormuz. And that puts a lot of countries in a difficult position. So oil is more difficult, has become more expensive, but it's also the matter of can you get it at all if no ships can go in and out of the Strait of Hormuz? Now, Iran has said the strait is blocked, but in reality it can only block its side of the strait, not the Omani side. And so it comes down to insurance companies being whether they are willing to let ships sail in or out. And some are willing to let ships sail in, out, and some ship owners are willing to let their ships sail in and out, but very few. So that means that very little oil is coming in, going out of the Persian Gulf. And that is what's leading to this situation with the global oil markets. And that will have knock on effect because these ships not only can they not deliver the oil that they were supposed to deliver, they can't then return to collect more oil. So we are in uncharted waters, as it were, when it comes to oil because we don't know what the longer term effects will be. It's not the first time there has been trouble in the Strait of Hormuz. But we don't know how long this war will last, nor does the person who initiated it, apparently.
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Stephen, leaving aside the question of the oil prices on the ground in Ukraine, is there any kind of opportunity here or will Russia think there's an opportunity here in that the focus is on off us for the moment at least. That does of course raise the obvious attached question of whether Russia is actually in any position to exploit any such opportunity.
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I think not. Because the fact that the Iranians now need and are using their shahed drones actually isn't interfering with Russia too much. Because initially, in the first few months, first year of the war, Iran was supplying a huge number of these. But then Russia sort of took them apart and realized how they could make them because they are, in terms of weaponry, they are pretty simple. And so Russia is now manufacturing its own. It was still getting some from Iran, but given, I mean, look at the numbers, I was, I couldn't help a rather ironic smile when I saw that, you know, the west and is getting worried about, you know, the number of missiles and drones that Iran's been firing. And if you compare it to the increasing number of missiles and drones that Russia has been firing at Ukraine, you know, the amount that Iran has launched since Saturday, since all this all kicked off, probably amounts to one of the worst nights that Kiev has suffered at Moscow's hands. I mean, Moscow is throwing hundreds of these drones, particularly drones, and up to 40 ballistic missiles in one go. So I think it won't affect Russia's use of the drones because they're making so many more of their own.
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Now, Elizabeth, just finally on this, is there any kind of opportunity here for Ukraine, which for obvious reasons knows more about anti drone defence than any country on earth? President Zelenskyy has kind of intimated that Ukraine might be willing to part with
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that expertise, not just expertise, but drones. And this is the utter irony of the situation that the United States, or rather Donald Trump, who has spent so much time belittling, offending, insulting Volodymyr Zelenskyy and refusing to help the Ukrainians, is now in the position that he and his country need Ukrainian drones to counter the Iranians. And so they are apparently in talks with Ukraine to buy Ukrainian Dr. Because the Ukrainians have figured out ways of making, as Stephen said, making very effective drones very cheaply. And so the Americans are now trying to buy them. But it is an utter irony, is it not, that the United States, which under Trump has treated Ukraine so badly and caused it quite significant harm, has now discovered that even the most powerful country on the earth will at times need friends and allies. And the country it now needs the most is Ukraine.
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Well, to Iran itself, whose apparent policy of launching anything they still have at anybody they can hit is fraught with potential repercussions beyond whatever damage gets done when and if their projectiles evade interception. On Wednesday, a ballistic missile was launched from Iran, apparently in the direction of Turkey, before being cleaned up by NATO air defences. Iran was unsurprisingly swift to deny any intention of hostility towards Turkey, perhaps mindful that bringing NATO's second largest military into the fray alongside NATO's largest military would probably not improve their position. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, possibly stifling a nervous laugh, said, this was not an Article 5 event. Elizabeth though it's not actually, though unimaginable, is it? Whether by accident or design, an Iranian missile lands on NATO territory, it's not.
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And Turkey is clearly in the line of fire, as it were, or accidental fire. And this really brings into focus, into sharp focus, the nature of Article 5. For all these years we have thought that we knew what constituted an attack on NATO. So it would be a military attack. Well, what is a military attack? And today it may look very different from what the founding fathers of NATO had in mind. And in fact war looks very different today. From what it did back when NATO was founded. So a military attack is in the eye of the beholder these days. And so if it's an accidental drone accidentally shot into Turkish airspace, for example, then as happened today, NATO officials, NATO ambassadors will have to decide does it constitute an attack on NATO? And they, unlike us, don't have the luxury of ours to think about it. They have to react very quickly and also assess whether it was accidental or whether it's the beginning of a real attack. I think on this occasion they assessed it correctly that it probably was just a drone that had gone astray. But it's not always going to be that easy. And it's especially not going to be that easy on the eastern flank where you get drones crossing the border into Poland, into the Baltic states every now and then. And on each of those occasions, NATO officials, NATO ambassadors, NATO member states have to decide, does this constitute an Article 5 scenario?
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Because, Stephen, these questions are probably, as things stands, more fraught for Turkey than any other NATO member. It does, of course, share a border with Iran. It is a very likely path for any exflows of refugees from Iran, although it's reasonably certain that Turkey would wave them towards Europe with all possible haste, which would be a whole other crisis. And Turkey will also be unhappy about the chat doing the rounds about the US Attempting to foment some sort of rising of the Kurds. And it's, again, not unforeseeable that Turkey might decide to get properly involved in this.
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Not unforeseeable, but I think that it would have to go on for a lot longer. I mean, I'm sure that they are monitoring it, as you say, because of where they are. They're monitoring it more closely than anyone else. And there are, of course, reports already of refugees fleeing into Turkey, but for the reasons you've mentioned for the Kurds and so on, yeah, they've got real reason to be exceedingly wary. But another, I seem to be using the word irony an awful lot today. But another irony, of course, is that we're talking about Article 5 and NATO. Well, in recent months, President Trump has suggested that it doesn't actually count for anything as far as the United States is concerned. Europe can look after itself. So I think a wider question, depending again how long it goes on, but would be, well, what does NATO actually mean now? And is the United States really a part of NATO?
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Well, on that question, Elizabeth, another I think not implausible scenario. If this does turn into more of a months than weeks thing, might we arrive At a position at which other NATO countries, the United States, nominal partners and allies in NATO, start thinking we do need to make some sort of token contribution here with a view to at least keeping the United States in NATO and stopping the United States from saying, well, we went to war and nobody helped us. What is NATO, NATO even for?
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Well, NATO is certainly not for wars initiated against other countries and it's certainly not for wars in countries outside NATO's territory. NATO is a defensive alliance that only kicks in when a NATO United States
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might argue that NATO did go to war in Serbia and Libya.
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Yes, yes, but that doesn't mean that that's what NATO is about. That was an aberration, one could say, and one that was undertaken to protect NATO. This has nothing to do with NATO. It's a unilateral American undertaking in the Middle east undertaken for reasons that nobody seems able to articulate and nobody seems able to understand of those of us who weren't in the room. The decision was taken. But what is I think, interesting, Andrew, is that the war was initiated by the United States and Israel without apparently consultation with the European countries in whose air bases and other supports the United States was interested indeed suggests it would depend. And that has led to anger in Washington over these countries refusal to the UK and Spain, their refusal to let the United States use those air bases for this operation. And that really leads beggars the question if European support was so necessary for this undertaking in the Middle east has nothing to do with NATO, why weren't consultations held? And one thinks that if consultations had been held, the UK and Spain could have made the humble suggestion that maybe it might not be such a good idea to launch this war.
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Just finally on that thought, Stephen, is it likely that the United States embarked on this thinking that its European allies would fall in behind it, or is the United States at this point simply past caring?
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I think the latter, particularly even if we just narrow it down. I think President Trump is beyond caring. You know, he'd been talking about this for a while and as Elizabeth said, the only person that he or the only country he consulted was Israel. So Benjamin Nehemiah, who's not a member and then Israel isn't a member of NATO. I mean, I don't think, you know, in any way Trump can call upon NATO because, yeah, he completely ignored other NATO members. And I mean, I for one actually rather respect Starmer for standing up initially anyway and saying, no, actually you can't use the bases because, you know, you haven't asked us about this and we're not sure we agree with it. And I think Spain's position is even better. And then, you know, Trump throws the toys out of the pram, which we've seen many times, and says, well, we're not going to do any business with Spain then. It just shows how pathetic the man is, I'm afraid.
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Well, to possibly the most crucial location in hostilities as they presently stand, the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf pinch point through which is shipped around 20% of the world's oil and natural gas. The strait is, what with one thing and another presently effectively closed shipping companies cruise and in shore is unsurprisingly reluctant to test the luck of large, slow vessels bearing flammable cargo. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy has claimed that it is in complete control of the strait and that, quote, not a single drop of oil will pass through it. Elizabeth, the US claims to have sunk more than 20 Iranian naval vessels of one kind or another. That would range from the large frigate they sank off Sri Lanka earlier this week to rather smaller things. But given the rate of apparent attrition that Iran's naval assets and missiles are suffering, can they sustain a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz?
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Well, we should remember you can use things other than naval vessels to blockade. You can use missiles and that kind of thing, which is essentially, which is what the Houthis have done in the Red Sea, firing missiles and drones at ships that without making it too unsafe for them to pass through. Yes, Iran can keep making, can make the Strait of Hormuz unhospitable, and that would essentially amount to blockade. But at the end of the day, the people who decide whether the Strait of Hormuz is blockaded or not are the insurance companies. So they are the ones that decide it is possible to go through. And at the moment, the situation is that insurance rates have spiked unsurprisingly, and only a few insurers are allowing the shipping lines that they look after to send ships through at very high rates. And then it depends on whether the shipping lines are willing to send ships into the Strait of Hormuz from either side, knowing that it's going to cost them a lot of money, knowing that their crews could be, well, could be, could be hit by a missile or some other weapon. And so they are in a really terrible position because they need to keep shipping oil in and out in order to make money. And there are massive knock on effects if your ships are not going anywhere because then you, you have all the other cargo that you then can't deliver and pick up. But you have the additional cost to go in if, if you were to be brave enough. But you also have a duty of care to your crews, which is really important. And crews have already been hit. One has, one crew member has already been killed. And that is a really, really significant, rightly significant issue for shipping lines. They have a responsibility for their crews. And it is undeniable that it is very dangerous to go through the strait at the moment.
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I mean, it's not. Well, so it's proving, Stephen, not the only dangerous shipping route in broadly the vicinity at the moment. A Russian LNG tanker, Arctic Matagaz, was sunk in the Mediterranean earlier this week. Russia is blaming Ukraine for this. Ukraine is doing that thing of sticking its hands in its pockets and walking away whistling a happy tune. But is this something we're likely to see more of? Is this arguably something we should already have seen more of? The ship in question, the Arctic Madagascar, to be clear, was unarguably part of Russia's so called Shadow fleet, was already heavily sanctioned.
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Yeah, I'm quite surprised that we haven't seen more of these. I mean, of course what Ukraine has done is it's decimated the Russian Black Sea fleet. They've now all pulled out of Crimea where they'd moved into thinking that it was now Russian territory. So many ships have been sunk and they've pulled way back down the Russian coast, but I don't know whether it was Ukrainians who sank the tanker in the Mediterranean, but I think it's possible. What particularly struck me, though, about this question of the Straits of Hormuz was earlier in the week, Trump came out and said, oh, we will send naval protection for these vessels. And I, I smile because my father was a captain of the merchant navy and I could imagine if he was told, no, no, don't worry, we'll have a naval ship protecting you. My father could come out as a seafarer. He would come out with some pretty colorful language at times and I imagine him turning around and saying, you know, I am not going to put, as Elizabeth said, I'm not going to put my crew at risk by sailing there, however many ships you guarantee, because whatever the systems are on board the U.S. navy ships, you know, a missile coming fast and low across the water, there's no guarantee it would be intercepted by the American naval ships. So as I say, I was just, you know, my late father, I could hear, I could hear his voice saying, you know, I'm not going to touch that with a bargepole.
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And on top of that, it's completely unclear what vessels this escort would. Would it be just US Flagged vessels? There are not many US Flagged tankers in the world. The US Is not a big flag. Would it be US Owned vessels? Would it be vessels carrying cargo to the United States from the United States? Nobody knows. And it was interesting, actually. I saw an insurance, maritime insurance company put out a statement about this saying for the moment, this proposed policy appears to exist only as a social media post. So that's what.
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Yeah, and I think that, you know, exactly that again, shows how uncertain and how dangerous this whole situation is because we know that Trump has a very short attention span and he throws out a message like that. There doesn't appear to be a coherent policy behind it. As with many other things. I mean, this is one of the things that makes this whole situation dangerous and frightening because, you know, if it starts to go wrong for the United States, if more targets are hit by the Iranians, more Americans are killed, what's going to happen then?
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Well, it was of course last week he was promising to send a hospital ship to Greenland, which is doubtless still on its way. And slash. But by way of illustration that it's perhaps not all bad that humankind is not. Despite this week's headlines regressing entirely to Hobbesian squalor and that blows in the service of the advancement of civilization are still being struck hat all the way off to United Airlines, which has updated its contract of carriage to address the menace of pestilential morons who consume electronic audio without headphones. These sociopathic troglodytes now face being removed from United's planes, unfortunately not mid flight, bundled through the emergency exit with a boot print in the seat of their tracksuit bottoms and without a parachute. But it's a start. Elizabeth, how overdue is this?
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Massively overdue.
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Correct answer.
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I think we have all been on flights where children have been entertained by games or films on a smartphone or tablet without headphones and there is no need for such entertainment without headphones. I'm an experienced traveler over the years with children flying on 11 hour flights, infants and toddlers. They are now grown. But I feel I have a halo above my head because I never had them use any electronics without headphones.
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A ripple of applause from the presenter here. Yay.
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Perfectly. Actually have fantastic content for children on those screens in front of you on the plane precisely for this purpose. And they even hand out headphones so children are well looked after by the airlines by the content they have on those screens. And there is also the opportunity, Opportunity to bring books.
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That is true, Stephen. I worry that the penalty is not sufficient. They are merely banning them from United's planes, one assumes. Subsequently, I would have thought, I'm just thinking out loud here, perhaps for the flight on which the remainder of the flight on which they have offended, they could be compelled to sit in a corner with a pointy hat on.
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Well, that would be one rather old fashioned, but certainly one way of doing
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it while the other passengers pelt them with leftover in flight meals.
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There is that, yes, that would be another one. I would extend it not only to airplanes but to trains.
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Oh, literally everywhere.
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Underground. Absolutely. Yes. I have one story which it happened before the pandemic and I think this is crucial because to be serious for a moment, I think that societies generally are much angrier and not as friendly in many ways. After the pandemic, I think that's another
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whole story makeable case.
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But this would have been, I suppose, about eight or ten years ago, I was on the underground in London and as is my won't, I had a book and I was reading a book and as has been noted, that's a way of passing the time on a plane as well. But so I was reading my book and the guy, a guy got on, sat next to me, youngish chap, certainly compared to me. And you may have noticed that whatever music they're listening to in earbuds, what
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you hear is this guy was actually wearing earbuds. This was not
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really, really loud. And I found it very distracting. And so I said, I turned to him and said very politely, I said, excuse me, do you think you could turn it down a bit? What? Think you turn it? No, he refused, refused to turn it down. I said, well, it's disturbing me and I think probably other people. Nah. So he sat there. So I started to read my book to him loud. And after a couple of paragraphs he got up and went and stood a little further down the camera. And if looks could kill, I would not be here now because he was looking daggers at me down the train. As I say, I don't know if I'd do that nowadays because I think that I do think there's this extra
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anger and he probably has subsequently told the story, Stephen, of this guy who got on a train holding this thing which appeared to consist of cardboard and paper. And the paper inside the cardboard had these sort of little black squiggles on them, couldn't say what they Were don't know what that bloke was about. What a weirdo. Stephen d' Ohl and Elizabeth Bro, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, our weekly letter from is from me from Australia, making a case for taking the ferry in Melbourne. Sydney's harbour and Sydney's ferries get pretty much all the attention, commanded by Australian anchorage passengers and their attendant transport options. And quite rightly, Sydney is the only city in the world of which it can be accurately said that the best thing a visitor can do is go commuting. But Melbourne has an. Well, if not quite or indeed nowhere near an equivalent then an analogue at which some backdrop needs to be filled in. While the whole world knows of Sydney Harbour, great port and incomparable playground, overlooked by its magnificent bridge and eccentric opera house, much less is said of Port Phillip in Melbourne. This is understandable. Port Phillip is serviceable rather than spectacular. There is an argument to be made indeed that the uneven natural splendour of their foreshores has done much to shape the different characters of Australia's two big biggest cities. Sydney, the exuberant, insufferable, show off. Melbourne, the stolid, unfussy, stoic. And nobody really commutes on Port Phillip, where Sydney's representative urban transport is its ferry. Melbourne travels by tram, stately, dignified, no rush. But there are Port Phillip ferries. These are the boats operated by the company of that name which connect Melbourne to Port Arlington and Geelong. And there is an even more quaint option, the St Kilda Ferry. Granted Sydney ciders would fall about with derisive laughter at the description. The prides of Sydney's fleet of 39 ferries are the mighty freshwater class ferries which often ply the route between Circular Quay and manly. They are 70 metres long, at least twice the size of any of the Royal Navy craft, which bore the first boatloads of bilious brigands, C6 scofflaws and nauseous ne' er do wells into Sydney Cove in 1788 and can carry 1100 passengers. The St Kilda ferry is just one boat, the private owned Coastal Flyer, which seats maybe 20 or 30 people. And on the afternoon I board a couple of dogs. Coastal Flyer sails a few times a day between St Kilda, Williamstown and Port Melbourne, though in the evening it offers cruisers to witness the local population of penguins. I pay my $22 to take the ride from St Kilda to Williamstown. St Kilda is Melbourne, Melbourne's modest equivalent to Coney Island, a seaside suburb with a boardwalk and a fun fair and a Grand Old Theatre. Though the area is most popularly associated with the local Australian Rules Football club, established in 1873 and mostly hapless and or hopeless ever since, an almost impressive record of obstinate underachievement, which has made them everyone's second favourite team. At St Kilda's old home ground, Moorabanovel, it was often noted that a peculiar microclimate appeared to exist around it, for even in the driest of winters its centre square would often be a viscous muddy bog, almost as if someone had turned the fire hoses on it the morning of the match to slow down more agile opponents. Today it is sunny as Coastal Flyer futts gently from its docking spot on St Kilda Pier and proceeds gently through small boats moored in the marina. It picks up a bit of speed once out in the bay, enough to deliver the unwary passenger on the outdoor seats at the stern the occasional invigorating faceful of salty water. There is, to be honest, not a great deal of scenery, certainly not compared to Sydney Harbour. But given that this observation could be correctly made about every natural environment on earth, this is no reason not to enjoy the ride. On the starboard side, as we venture into Port Phillip proper, there is the skyline of downtown Melbourne and the derricks of Port Melbourne. On the port side, the view towards the open sea of Bass Strait today dotted by a few gulls and cormorants and dominated by a vast blue hulled Maersk freighter. At journeys beginning approaching the wharfs at Williamstown, we can make our one of the products of the shipyard which operated here until just a few years ago, HMAS Castlemaine, a Royal Australian Navy frigate during World War II. Now a museum, Williamstown occupies a peninsula so is surrounded by water on three sides and maintains many of the elderly buildings which evoke a picturesque history. It manifests as an agreeable mix of sleepy seaside hamlet, hamlet and Wild west frontier town, though with better cafes than either. Williamstown is not a suburb that many tourists think of visiting, but more should and they should forsake the train for a means of transport which is, in its understated and just slightly peculiar way, altogether representative of the city it serves. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. A big thanks to our panelists today, Elizabeth Bro and Stephen d'. Ehl. Today's show was produced by Chris Cherman Mac and researched by Annelise Maynard. Our sound engineer was Steph Changu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening, Sam.