Episode Info
- Season3
- Episode1
Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Lord George Robertson
Lord George Robertson was NATO's chief who faced an existential question after the September 11 attacks and dealt with Bush, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Putin.
Episode Summary
The day after the September 11th attacks, then-NATO chief Lord George Robertson faced an existential question for the alliance: was this an attack on all? And if so, what to do?
Lord Robertson, for the first time, shares details of his dealings with all the players of the time: Bush, Rumsfeld, Powell—even Vladimir Putin. Who wanted something…
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Transcript
COLD OPEN
NEWS CLIP [0:00] Coming up on One Decision.
Robertson: You know, we had to take the gamble. It was a momentous decision, and it could have gone horribly wrong.
INTRODUCTION
Kosinski: Welcome back to One Decision. I'm Michelle Kosinski. We all just marked twenty years since 9/11. Could you believe it? And simultaneously seeing the very bitter end to US involvement in Afghanistan. So it is timely that we're talking to someone who played a huge role in a first. In fact, the only time that NATO has ever invoked Article five, the part of the treaty binding the allied countries of the North Atlantic declaring that an attack on one is an attack on all. The ultimate security gesture, the ultimate warning to rivals in writing that you are willing to fight for one another. But have you ever wondered how exactly that epic decision was made after September 11? How it went down, what it took. The smoke, acrid dust, and outrage were still rising from those attacks, an open wound on the West. And Lord George Robertson was NATO secretary general. He's going to share his gripping inside view. But first, let's check in with Britain's former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, who also played a big role in that terrible time. Hi, Michelle. So I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and assume that you and Lord Robertson know each other.
ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE
Dearlove: Yeah. Well, I knew George pretty well when he was minister of defense.
Kosinski: To invoke Article five, momentous decision. But I also find it remarkable, given the nasty state of the world of late, that it is still the only time it's ever been used.
Dearlove: Well, I think it was a courageous thing for him to decide to do, and I think it was a real achievement to get the consensus quickly.
Kosinski: Was it the right decision to invoke it for a terrorist attack? This wasn't a state declaring war on another and given the endless wars that were to come.
Dearlove: Well, I think you could make an argument that it was excessive, and I think it was appropriate at that moment because these events were unique.
Kosinski: And if you had to envision the next scenario where Article V might come into play, what do you think?
Dearlove: Well, I think probably connected with those countries that do have sort of nascent nuclear capability and the threat, the serious threat that that had got into the hands of let's say an extremist clique. So countries like North Korea, Iran as well, obviously Pakistan. There is another dimension to this though that one ought now to consider. If China were now, you know, to invade Taiwan, you can envisage a possibility where that also is a risk. I mean you're right to ask this question because it's very important to understand the context and to understand the circumstances around this issue, and you know it's a really big deal, Article five.
Kosinski: All right, Richard. Great talking to you.
INTERVIEW WITH LORD GEORGE ROBERTSON
Kosinski: Now let's bring in Lord George Robertson, a Scotsman, former UK defense secretary, and NATO secretary general. Great to have you, Lord Robertson. So first, let's go back to that surreal day, 09/11/2001, and the question still asked, where were you as it began to unfold? We all thought, as many people did, that it was an accident. He was in Brussels at a regular Tuesday afternoon lunch that all the NATO ambassadors would have, a little preparation for their formal meeting the next day. So they were there enjoying this casual time when suddenly a security officer whispers in George's ear.
Robertson: When he came in a few minutes later again and said there had been a second plane heading the building, we knew, all of us around the table, that something dramatic had happened. So the lunch was abandoned. We got back into our cars, drove back to NATO headquarters. I, with all of my colleagues, stood watching the television screen and watching what was happening in New York at the time and especially when the building started to collapse. At that point, I recognized suddenly that, of course, we weren't just spectators. We were in a military headquarters in NATO, the headquarters of the world's most successful defense alliance. And not only that, we were right under the flight path for Zaventem Airport. And therefore, at that time, nobody knew what was going to be the next target.
Kosinski: He immediately evacuates the building. And in a room with the weight of this beginning to sink in, assembles a few key people to decide what NATO should do as the attacks are happening. Is it immediately, as the NATO chief, going through your mind that this could very well be the first time we invoke Article five, or does it take some time to get to that point?
Robertson: It took some time for that to dawn on us. First of all, we had to make sure that we weren't going to be a target.
Kosinski: Air traffic control for Europe is right across the street. They rushed to check if any other planes had turned around midair.
Robertson: So it was at that point when the American ambassador, Nick Burns, came to the office that people began to think, well, this was an attack on The United States. We began to think in terms of Article five. But can I say this, that if you're a week before 9/11, if there had been a tabletop exercise with all the experts in the world, military, political, around the table debating whether or not Article five would be invoked for a terrorist act, the conclusion probably would have been no? Article five was designed for an attack by the Soviet Union across the Fulda Gap in Germany. It wasn't designed for a terrorist incident. And yet, was under attack. And we had to start thinking about the nature of what this meant for the military alliance that is NATO as a whole.
Kosinski: With planes down in Pennsylvania and inside the Pentagon, the sense of horror was building, but especially for George, who was leading this group.
Robertson: Now it came to my mind that perhaps an attack on one country should be seen as an attack on all. Some of my aides were sent away to look into the matter and to the legalities of it, and people started to think about if we were going to use Article five, how would we do it? What would it say? And of course, we wanted to involve the US government, which on the September 11 was of course totally and completely preoccupied by what was going on in New York and Washington, and were hardly available to have any discussion about something like Article five.
Kosinski: And on a personal level, as you're watching this happen and evolve, what are you feeling internally?
Robertson: I'm feeling, first of all, horrified by the pictures that we're seeing. NEWS CLIP [8:01] We have another copy. There is the second plane, another passenger plane hitting the World Trade Center.
Robertson: I think we've got a role to play, and it's going to be perhaps an important role. But it was momentous by any scale.
Kosinski: Are you thinking, oh my gosh, if we really do this, what are we going to get embroiled in? What is this even going to look like?
Robertson: Well, the first thing was getting the allies, the other 18 nations, to accept that this was a subject relevant to Article five. That is the an attack on one is an attack on all part of the original North Atlantic Treaty. And that wasn't as simple as it sounded. First of all, we needed to get the Americans on board. I raised the issue of Article five with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and they agreed that it was relevant. But at the same time, they and especially I recognized that there was a risk involved here.
Kosinski: A big risk. Any number of risks, actually. They were facing the unknown. And still fresh in George's mind was the sage advice his predecessor gave him when he took the job.
Robertson: He said very clearly, George, never go to the council unless you already know the answer is yes. Because if you put a proposition to the council, and it's vetoed, and it's voted down, or it's not accepted, then your credibility disappears, and so does NATO's. So I was in many ways breaking that rule. I didn't know whether the 18 members round the table, the countries round the table, were going to agree with something so radical as invoking Article five. So it occasionally still keeps me awake at night thinking about what would have happened had it gone wrong if one country had said no.
Kosinski: But within hours, which was the morning of September 12, George was previously scheduled to speak to all the foreign ministers of the EU, which made for something of a dilemma.
Robertson: I thought, well, you know, we're considering Article five, big stuff that, big stuff. But yet, my advisors essentially said, you better not announce it to them, because it'll sound as though you're trying to upstage the European Union. So what I did was I said, right, I will phone a couple of the ministers and get them to ask a question. And if they ask a question, then I'll answer the questions. I phoned Jack Straw in London, my former colleague who is Foreign Minister of The UK, and I phoned Louis Michel, the Foreign Minister of Belgium. So I went to the meeting, they were very concerned obviously what had happened in New York and Washington. And nobody asked the question. So I left and afterwards, you know, there was a bit of bad blood and said I should have announced it. I said, well, I was going to announce it, but nobody asked the question. So yeah, that's the way little bits of history are made. I didn't want to grandstand by saying we're going to do something you can't do. But if you ask me, I'll do it. Don't ask, don't tell. So it's one of these sort of accidents of history. The human factor, remember, is always so important in international diplomacy. And here it was. So I went back to NATO headquarters, and I decided that, you know, we had to take the gamble. We had to take the gamble.
Kosinski: That afternoon, one day after the Twin Towers fell to terrorism, George would make history. He went down to the council chamber with all 19 NATO ambassadors around that table. He told them America was under attack. And so under Article five were they all.
Robertson: Now, some of them were taken by surprise. Some of them looked a bit slightly shocked, taken aback.
Kosinski: Were there difficult discussions in that room? Was there pushback from many countries about, do we really wanna be a part of what Article five is going to mean in this case?
Robertson: Well, yes. I think there were some reservations by some of the countries, an apprehension that, you know, you are offering America a blank check. Remember that there was a lot of noise at that time about Iraq. Mhmm. So, yes, there were some countries who thought that this was, you know, just too much of an offer to The United States.
Kosinski: Article five was always a difficult thing, even right back from the drafting of it. The United States was hugely worried about it after getting pulled into World War II.
Robertson: Remember that was a treaty that had to go through the senate of the United States in 1949. You know, there was a lot of feeling that these Europeans, you know, as one senator actually said, these Europeans will get themselves into a war again and expect us to fight it for them again. So Article five was not a given, it wasn't easily achieved. America thought that it was just going to be an endless commitment. So the careful wording said, you know, there are two parts to Article five. One is the statement that an attack on one country is an attack on all. The second part then says, what you do about it? So had it been the Soviet Union attacking, the first declaration would be that it was an attack on all nations. And the second one would be to invoke the integrated military command, so that all of the armed forces of the NATO countries would then come under the control of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe with the NATO Council in charge of it. So you know, that's a big step that would need to be taken.
Kosinski: Who was most opposed among the nations to invoking Article five?
Robertson: Well, I wouldn't like to say even twenty years on, there were people with apprehensions, were people with worries, were people, you know, we going too far? Is this not unprecedented? This is not what Article five was really meant for? You know, it's just a gesture. And, you know, instead of, you know, one minister saying, does this mean we're giving them a blank check to invade Iraq? Because that was still in the air at that time. He said, no. It's not.
Kosinski: George gave everyone some hours for it all to sink in, and he began phoning every NATO capital to try to get them on board.
Robertson: There were some, you know, prime ministers at a memorial service when I said you'll have to get them out. There was another country who said, well, we don't really know. This might be opening us up to something that we don't want. So I had to use all the political skills that I'd acquired over my fifty-four years at that time in order to cajole, bully, persuade, you know, to do it. I think by half past nine, we had all 19 countries on board.
Kosinski: This was happening. All that was left was to tell the world that NATO was ready for whatever that would mean. NEWS CLIP [16:18] Good afternoon. Following its decision to invoke Article five of the Washington Treaty in the wake of the eleventh September attacks against The United States Of America, the NATO allies have agreed today at the request of The United States to take eight measures individually and collectively to expand the options available in the campaign against terrorism. Specifically—
Robertson: And frankly, Michelle, as I was reading the statement, it was only then that I realized, you know, the significance that for the first time in NATO's long history and an alliance that is based on that mutual security guarantee, we were invoking Article five of the original treaty and realized the import of what we were saying. The alliance had changed. The world had changed. And this was a pretty dramatic moment. But up until then, I was just doing my job.
Kosinski: Did it make you feel a little queasy inside to be announcing this?
Robertson: I felt at that moment that this was really quite something. And again, as I say, my worry that had one country or two countries said no, the story, the great story as it was, you know, the Allies are coming to the aid of The United States, that story would have been wrecked and it would have gone the opposite way. I have to say the following morning, September 13, everybody thought it was a wonderful idea, and everybody thought it was their idea. And I was content at that point that we've done the right thing, the gamble, and it was a gamble, had paid off.
Kosinski: Well, if one of those countries had said, I want no part of this, would it have dismantled the credibility and the meaning of NATO?
Robertson: The credibility of NATO would have been enormously damaged because it would have been seen that we had proposed that an attack on America should be seen as an attack on all countries and failed to carry consensus on it. I think the signal would have been pretty dramatically bad, because it carried right around the world as an act of enormous solidarity. And frankly, it also would have carried into the caves of the Tora Bora in Afghanistan, because the terrorists would have known that they weren't just attacking America, they were meddling with an alliance of free nations and that the signal was that what they were doing was intolerable, would not be accepted, and that the most successful defense alliance in world history was solidly on the side of The United States Of America.
Kosinski: I would imagine at those moments, it must feel somewhat overwhelming. First of all, because of the historical significance, and secondly, because you don't know what it's going to mean in the immediate future.
Robertson: That's true. But, you know, I was a wee boy from a village in Scotland. You know? But at the moment you start thinking that you're finished, you've got a job of work to do, and that meant dealing with Vladimir Putin, with George W. Bush, you know, with Mr. Berlusconi, with, you know, with the leaders of these countries. It was a momentous decision, and it could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn't go horribly wrong. I did my job. I was surrounded by a lot of people who helped me. You know, we were a team, but I was the secretary general, and I had that huge responsibility. But as you rightly see, you know, that wasn't the end of the story because what did America want as a consequence of that decision by NATO? That was to come, you know, in the succeeding days.
Kosinski: Well, did you have any doubts about invoking Article five?
Robertson: I had no doubts that it was relevant to the situation that applied. America had been attacked by brutal, ruthless terrorists designed to undermine the way of life that America represented. And therefore, you know, that is what an alliance of free nations based on self defense, collective defense was all about. So I never had any doubts about that, but I certainly had doubts about whether or not doing it as quickly as we did, as importantly as we did was going to be carried on. But that was the only doubt in my mind. I had no doubts whatsoever about the rightness. You know, the alliance was there to do something about the attack that had taken place and indeed to change itself in order to deal with the challenge of global terrorism.
Kosinski: Was there any doubt in your mind at that time that this was going to be war, this was going to be the start of an actual and very messy war?
Robertson: I didn't really know at that stage what the Americans were going to do about it, although the president had been resolute in public that they were going to pay, the people responsible were going to pay a price. We all agreed with that. And within a few days, I had a letter from the American government with a list of things that they wanted of NATO as a consequence of Article five. You know, they wanted access to ports and harbors, they wanted overflight rights, they wanted a number of logistics elements to do with that. And can I just say just a little sidebar—
Kosinski: To that? We love sidebars.
Robertson: The day after the letter arrived from The United States with their requests, I was meeting Vladimir Putin for the second time. He was brand new as the leader of Russia, and Russia was very much onside. You know, the first telephone call I think that went to President Bush came from the Kremlin to say we're in absolute solidarity with you and we'll help you in every way. And I meant that meeting with Putin, this is the famous meeting where Putin said when are you going to invite us to join NATO? And I said well, we don't invite people to join NATO, they apply to join NATO. And he said, well, we are not standing in line with a lot of countries that don't matter. But anyway, so the meeting was taking place. And I meant to say to him, in relation to Article five, we've had some requests from the Americans, but you know, in the clutter of an agenda of things to talk to the Russian president about, I never got round to doing that. At the press conference afterwards, a reporter from Le Monde, the French newspaper, said, Mr. Secretary General, did you tell President Putin about any requests you've had from the Americans in relation to Article five? And I thought, oh, I didn't mention it. And just at that point Vladimir Putin jumped in and said, no, of course not. He said, why would he? That's NATO business, it's not my business. I thought, he saved me the embarrassment.
Kosinski: I know, I know.
Robertson: So yeah, you know, he was helpful at that point, less helpful later on.
Kosinski: A tad less helpful later on. Yeah. What were those conversations with him like? Did he say anything interesting about the terrorist attack behind the scenes?
Robertson: Yes. He was, you know, very much in solidarity because, of course, Russia itself was facing enormous sort of restiveness from domestic terrorists at that time. So, you know, the sympathy with America was very genuine. And Russia, you know, in the early stages of Afghanistan, you know, was extremely helpful to the alliance and to the Americans, you know, the use of their bases, you know, the fuel that they supplied. You know, the question about, you know, when are you going to invite us to join NATO was, I think, genuinely inspired. I think that he had made it clear at my first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of Western Europe. They wanted to be part of that secure, stable, prosperous West that Russia was out of at that time. So therefore when, you know, that West was under attack in these early stages, he was extremely sympathetic and willing to help enormously at the time. He was an interesting character.
Kosinski: And so did NATO offer The US its help and its central command. But The US was already ready all on its own.
Robertson: Secretary of defense Rumsfeld and vice president Cheney and others said, we'll deal with it. We'll deal with these guys. We'll have NATO help, but it's going to be us and not the NATO Integrated Military Command.
Kosinski: Did you have the sense that you're dealing with a very hawkish crew at this time?
Robertson: After 9/11, we were all hawkish. That was shared because nobody knew whether London or Paris or Rome were going to be next. In America, they were going to deal with it, and they weren't going to get involved with any committee, and they were going to deal with it themselves. And I think there was a feeling at that time, don't call us, we'll call you. And, you know, I think they regretted that later on. And in fact, the chairman of the joint chiefs later on made an apology to the North Atlantic Council for the way in which the Allies had been treated in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the attack on Afghanistan.
Kosinski: When The US sent that letter detailing what they would potentially need from NATO allies, was any of it seen as excessive or concerning?
Robertson: No, it was accepted almost immediately. I think it was seen as being reasonable. The Allies were willing to offer more.
Kosinski: Still to watch The US very quickly enter into the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan, was there a part of you that just thought, uh-oh, this very well could not end well?
Robertson: No. I didn't think that, I must say. And I don't think it needed to end that way either. I've got very critical thoughts about the way in which the operation was brought to an end in recent months. It was an exercise that was designed to prevent terrorism, to prevent Afghanistan being used as a base for attacks on countries throughout the world. And in that respect, it was successful. We've had twenty years without any of these attacks being planned from inside Afghanistan. We've had twenty years without the Taliban, twenty years for the people of Afghanistan to essentially create their own kind of society. I think we made some mistakes along the line. I made some in the initial stages. And over the years, I think, most importantly, we did not sufficiently tell our own populations why we were there, and why it was so important to their own safety and security that we succeeded in Afghanistan. And that, I think, was the soft underbelly which led to the eventual failure that the recent evacuation represented.
Kosinski: Do you remember any interesting conversations you had with any of those American players? Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, that whole gang.
Robertson: I do. I do. Let me give you a couple of examples. One was with Donald Rumsfeld. When the Taliban were defeated militarily, Donald Rumsfeld said, right, he said, we've defeated the Taliban, he said, and we're gonna come out and the rest of NATO can look after Afghanistan after that. And I said, no, no, you're not going to say that. I said, because that is not acceptable. And I said, you know, if you go and say that, then I'll lead the call that this is not acceptable. So he got a bit upset at that point and I said, no, I said, you're going to say, well, you know, sort of we did the cooking, you can clean up the dishes. I said, that's not it. We went in together, you know, and we're staying together and NATO's got a role to play in that. So, you know, Donald Rumsfeld was a bit of a bully, but he couldn't get rid of me because he would have required to get 19 countries to agree to sack the secretary general, and that wasn't gonna happen. So I stood up to him. And so they agreed that, you know, we would then collectively decide what was going to happen about Afghanistan. But, you know, there was some reluctance. The British were reluctant because they'd already done a lead nation in Afghanistan. The French were not in favor of NATO doing very much anyway. And Donald Rumsfeld was opposed because, again, he was saying we did our bit, you can do the rest sort of thing. So I made the case in the Oval Office to President Bush that that's what NATO was for. I made the case to him. So he turned to Colin Powell and he said, what do you think, Colin? Colin said, I agree with George. That's the way it should go. He turned to Donald Rumsfeld, what do you think, Don? And Don said, yeah, I said, I agree with George. He makes a good case, you know. At which point Colin Powell told me later he had an out of body experience. Because Donald Rumsfeld's guys had fought in every interagency meeting against NATO taking over ISAF in Afghanistan. They wanted to get out at that stage, you know.
Kosinski: Wow. So The US agreed to stay in Afghanistan with NATO because of you.
Robertson: I must say I will always pay credit to President George W. Bush that he actually listened to what you said. And his favorite question was, what do you mean by that? Which is, and you as an interviewer will know, that's a very good question.
Kosinski: What did you think of Donald Rumsfeld at the time?
Robertson: Well, Rumsfeld was the youngest defense secretary of The United States. He was the youngest chief of staff to a president, and then he became the oldest Secretary of Defense. So he had huge experience behind him, enormous experience and lots of very fixed views, and a really tough and sometimes very inflexible individual. But, you know, I think got the measure and we eventually became quite close. But he was a tough guy and sometimes I think he was too inflexible, had too many preconceived ideas, did not listen carefully enough to challenging opinions because, you know, his own opinions had been fixed and were firm and therefore were unlikely to be changed or moved by listening to the reason of others. That was a flaw in a politician. You've got to be willing to be challenged and to listen and to change if necessary.
Kosinski: Would you ever have imagined back then that what it would lead to would be an invasion, then another invasion, and then twenty years of war?
Robertson: I don't think I would have envisaged that. But I tell you, if at that time, you had been told, we'll give you two decades without Taliban in control, two decades without Qaeda completely marginalized and eliminated. Twenty years for the Afghan people to experience, you know, music and elections and industry and commerce and the markets without these theological thugs in charge, most people would have said, well, just give us 10. You know, we've left a legacy there that these theological hoodlums are not going to be easily unraveling. And I think that Afghanistan in the future will be a very different place.
Kosinski: Do you have any regrets from that time? And regret is a terrible word. I don't particularly like that word. But do you have anything that today you feel wistful about in the handling of it?
Robertson: Well, yes, I do. There's a number of things that have happened in Afghanistan. We lost the regional approach. We seem to end up fighting on our own. I regret that the political leaders who came after that period didn't sufficiently invest in what was happening out there. We sent our best and brightest of our forces out there to fight, but we basically ignored them. And you can't win a war, you can't win a campaign unless the people in the home territory believe that it is the right thing to do. Psychology matters as much as military hardware.
Kosinski: Yeah. Is there anything that stays with you from then in your discussions with the American administration or with the president himself? Any particular words that really had an impact on you that you remember?
Robertson: Colin Powell, an outstanding human being. Huge leader, but probably marginalized inside the Bush administration, but somebody of enormous consequence in the world, a great leader of the country as a whole. Ambassador Nick Burns.
Kosinski: Yeah. What a great guy. Ambassador to NATO at the time. When you look at the current state of affairs and Russia's aggression and cyber attacks, when you see the kinds of threats that NATO allies face, what bothers you the most?
Robertson: I'm worried that we're not sufficiently interested in diplomacy. We've downgraded that interchange between people and governments that used to underpin the safety and security that we've grown used to. And now, you know, with the volatility in the world today, the revolving doors of prime ministerial offices are almost dazzling. And at the same time, Russia and China have got long term objectives that they are putting in place. They've got strategies and we seem to be adrift at the moment, our values to be eroded, making ourselves more vulnerable as we go along. In many ways, we are our own worst enemy. Well, you know, that lack of attention to defense and security and diplomacy makes us more vulnerable now to our adversaries. Our adversaries are militarily weak, but they are clever, and they use the gaps in our societies, the weaknesses in our societies, they exploit. So whether it's through cyber attacks, social media, interfering in elections, misinformation, false news, subversion, organized crime, these are the elements where they are now deploying their forces. And frankly, we are not resolute enough in dealing with these kind of attacks and challenges that we face today. And that's what most worries me. Why is it that in 2021, we have become our own worst enemy?
Kosinski: That's so depressing. But if you could sit down, if you had another chance to meet face to face with Vladimir Putin today, twenty years after you last spoke to him, what would you say?
Robertson: I'd tell him that we were not the enemy, that we had absolutely no hostile intent towards Russia, the Russian people, that we have much more in common than we have differences between us. We all face the same problems, whether it's climate change, whether it's global terrorism, organized crime, and I would say stop believing your own propaganda. NATO is not, the West is not a challenge to you, your position, or to your country. And I would drive that message home. I had, I thought I had in the early stages a good relationship with Vladimir Putin. You know, I met him nine times during his period as president, and when I was secretary general, we set up the NATO Russia Council all around the same table with the same objective of dealing with the same kind of problems. I would remind him that that was an embryo, the kind of security relationship that we should all be aiming for. He's spending vast amounts of money on weaponry against an enemy that doesn't exist.
Kosinski: A threat that doesn't exist. Did you also find him to have no soul, as Joe Biden once said?
Robertson: I found him to be a complex individual who was determined that he was going to recover his country's status in the world. And I think that's what he's still trying to do. You know? He's trying to get attention and doing it by as many devious ways as he can imagine. And he was very single-minded. When he said to me, I want Russia to be part of Western Europe, he meant it. There's no doubt about that. And even in these days, you know, he had a sense of humor. There's no sign of any humor from Vladimir Putin these days, you know, that when he said to me when I gave him a gift of a book, an English language book, and he said, you know, thank you for your gift. He said, I practice my English by reading English books out loud, so my dog is now a perfect English speaker. And the NATO Russia council, President Putin put his hand up, and I thought, oh god. You know, if he makes another speech, they'll all want to make another speech. You know? So he said, well, Mr. Secretary General, I suggest that you should call the NATO headquarters the house of councils. Now sounds pretty ordinary, except that the Russian word for councils is Soviets. So the translator was saying, I propose that you call the NATO headquarters, the house of Soviets. And I saw the Polish delegation looking shocked, so I took my gavel and I said I declare that was a joke and this meeting is gone. But it wasn't. I think he intended it as a joke. But he's not in a joking mood anymore, and he's been there far too long anyway.
Kosinski: This is interesting. It seems like you are one of the rare people then who's ever described experiencing a human side of Vladimir Putin.
Robertson: But now, you know, he's conjured up a fiction that the West is determined, you know, to take over Russia, you know, to belittle the Russian Federation. And there is no such objective at all. There is no such motivation there at all. And maybe we don't say that often enough. Maybe we should be repeating it constantly.
Kosinski: And that might help with the general relationship in the future. So it seems like invoking Article five, while it was an enormously impactful decision, it wasn't that difficult because you knew that a, it applied and b, it was appropriate and c, it was very important to the alliance itself. So what would you say is the most difficult decision you made as secretary of NATO?
Robertson: Well, that was undoubtedly it. Because although, as you rightly point out, it seems self evident now, it didn't seem self evident then. It was a big gamble. You know, one country can say no, or let's wait. And all of that would have robbed us of the initiative that would have been so valuable, you know, in signaling to the world. The small countries are also in there as well with an equal voice around that table. So it was never ever an automatic thing. It wasn't always a given.
Kosinski: Did those discussions become heated?
Robertson: Yes. They did. There were times when I had to use a little bit of humor in order to diffuse strong feelings. But the great strength of NATO is that you have to make decisions by consensus. But once you've made the decision, it needs consensus to break it. So that raises the stakes about the decision itself.
Kosinski: It must have pained you in more recent years to hear the president of The United States then, Trump, undermine NATO the way he did.
Robertson: I was, I think, quite tragic in a way that Donald Trump challenged the whole concept of Article five and the NATO organization and belittled alliances as a whole. You know, the fact is that NATO and collective defense are essential to America's security. China doesn't have any allies. Russia doesn't have any allies. So the strength of America is not just its own individual strength. It's the strength of being part of that alliance of free nations, and that makes America much, much safer than it would be if it was a solitary isolated country on its own.
Kosinski: It was a first, this decision, one that no one hopes ever needs to be invoked again.
Robertson: What matters was that it happened, and it signaled, you know, to the world that NATO was alive as well. And it signaled, most importantly, to the global terrorists that what they were doing was unacceptable and that they wouldn't get away with it.
Kosinski: Absolutely. It has been such a joy speaking to you, Lord Robertson.
Robertson: It's been a great pleasure being interrogated by you.
Kosinski: A lot can change in twenty years, and the world has changed since those dark days after September 11. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. Thanks for joining us. I'm Michelle Kosinski. Follow us wherever you find your podcasts and on social media. We love hearing from you here at One Decision.
