Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
In this week’s One Decision In Brief, hosts Kate McCann and Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of Britain’s MI6, sit down to discuss President Donald Trump’s diplomatic style in recent meetings with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and how world leaders should prepare for an Oval Office visit with the American president. They also discuss the state of Russia’s economy and ending the Ukraine war. Plus, Sir Richard reflects on the unique gifts given to him by various foreign leaders including Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi during his tenure as ‘C’ of Britain's secret intelligence service.
Episode produced by Situation Room Studios. Original music composed and produced by Leo Sidran.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Mccann: Hello and welcome to One Decision in Brief. I'm Kate McCann and I'm joined as always by Sir Richard Dearlove. There is plenty for us to talk about. It's been a huge up and down period as it always is. But I wanna sit back a little bit today and reflect on Donald Trump, his strategy, and how world leaders should approach his methods, I suppose. And I start thinking about this because we saw, I'm gonna call it an ambush. The second ambush. Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office with Donald Trump. And the president turns down the lights, wheels out a video and shows a video which he says is evidence of white genocide. And, you know, I felt history repeating itself. It felt very similar to what happened with President Zelensky. Is this Trump's new method to put the pressure on world leaders, do you think?
TRUMP'S METHODS
Dearlove: How many times can you do it? Because you can do it twice. Maybe you can do it three times. But other than that, people are gonna come prepared or they're not gonna come at all because they don't want to be embarrassed in front of American media and it's all been filmed. It's all set up. Ramaphosa, who's quite a sophisticated politician, handled it pretty well and he wasn't wrong footed. I mean, clearly, Musk must be partly behind it given his South African origins and he's been put up to it. But it's quite an extreme way to behave, isn't it?
Mccann: Let's come back to the details of that, the question about what Trump is alleging, the white genocide. For me, it felt like this is a method refined. So the first time we saw it with Zelensky, it felt like you had JD Vance piling in, you had other politicians chipping in from the background, and it felt like a coordinated attack. There was less of that this time around but more a coordinated strategy with the printouts of the newspaper articles and the video. And it combined to feel again like an ambush but in a very different way. I think you're right that Cyril Ramaphosa did what he could. He tried to deflect. He tried to joke. He said, okay, we'll take it seriously. Do you think it will mean that people just won't go into the Oval Office like that anymore? They'll just refuse to do it. Can they refuse to do it?
Dearlove: I think they can. If you're going to The States and you want to meet the president, you're gonna have to go to the Oval Office. He's not gonna change the terms of the equation against himself. But the risk is if you go there and he's got something up his sleeve, he's going to slap you around the head with it.
Mccann: Who's he playing to?
Dearlove: Oh, he's playing to the American media, for sure. What a fantastic way to keep yourself in the global headlines. And let's face it. He is a showman. And if you're a showman, you have to produce things that make sure everybody's talking about you. Trump is something of a genius when it comes to doing that. We're all talking about him all the time. And when we're running out of stories, another one is fed to us. So they obviously have a pretty sophisticated media policy, don't you think?
Mccann: I do. And I also think your point there is a really valid one and actually one we haven't. So Trump does two things. He's very good at tagging himself onto the narrative of the day, of the moment, which is why he moves so quickly through lots of different subjects. I mean, he's alleging that there is this white genocide. He's saying that there are thousands of white farmers that are being killed. They are the only people who are being given asylum in America. These groups of white, you know, farmers, and we'll call them farmers, but they're not necessarily all farmers from South Africa. What's he doing? Why is he pursuing that? What's the end game?
Dearlove: I guess the end game is to point up the issue and explain why they've opened the door to white farmers when immigration is such a problem. And Ramaphosa made the point that this is an issue of law enforcement. It's not an issue of genocide.
SIMPLE ANSWERS AND COMPLEX CONFLICTS
Mccann: Do you think that kind of approach that Donald Trump takes, I mean, that's part of what this podcast is about? There's no simple answer, for example, on Israel, Gaza or Ukraine, Russia. There is no simple answer, and the complexities and gray areas around all of it. Is it helpful to have a leader who doesn't take the view, as many do, that one side is all right and one side is all wrong?
Dearlove: I think it's very dangerous, and I think it's problematic. And the idea that there's a simple solution, well, Trump saying I can solve the Ukrainian problem in a day. Of course, can't. I always think of peace in Ireland, let's say, when we start discussing these things. You have a situation in Ireland which is very hard to interpret if you don't know the history, which goes back to the sixteenth century. And it literally goes back to the sixteenth century. And that's replicated particularly in Europe where you have these long ethnic clashes which have had no solution, like Serbia and Kosovo. There is no easy answer. They usually are arrangements, but there's no solution to the fundamental problems. So you live with the arrangement, and the arrangements are either better or worse depending on how well conceived and deeply rooted they are.
NAKED ECONOMICS
Mccann: Yeah. And often it's to do with economics. I mean, this is the other thing I find really interesting about Donald Trump. It's the naked economics. Naked, you know, this is the guy who's taken delivery of a plane, millions of pounds worth of freebie plane. I mean, you're shaking your head, but this is happening. Right? This is innately economical.
Dearlove: Yeah. Well, he's accepting a present from Qatar, but there's something uncomfortable about it. Okay. It may be technically okay because lots of heads of state give other heads of state presents. You know, the famous examples of Giscard d'Estaing and Bokassa's gold. Do you remember all of that? You probably do. In the enrichment of individuals. But there's something, yeah, distasteful and it's definitely stretching of the ethical rules, which in The States, surprisingly, were, at least until Trump arrived, pretty strict.
Mccann: Does it make it easier to understand his foreign policy moves if we look at every decision he makes through that lens?
Dearlove: Well, I certainly think if you start looking at it through the business deal lens, it may begin to explain. So the idea that if Russia makes peace, they're gonna get all these business deals from The United States, well, maybe, but it's a very peculiar optic for viewing geopolitics if it's exclusive, and I'm beginning to feel that is the only one he looks through.
Mccann: Do you think it could work?
Dearlove: In some cases, it might. I mean, for example, if the Russian economy is as bad as we think it is and it's on the floor, if you take a twenty year view of Russia, maybe a strengthened economy and a more normal Russia that is trading successfully with business partners, including The United States, might be a better endgame than what we're looking at now, which might be an implosion of the Russian economy because it's so stressed as a result of the Ukrainian war.
Mccann: Yeah. I think it's running a deficit, isn't it, for the first time or a proper deficit for the first time?
Dearlove: Yep. It's really in a difficult place. And the sovereign wealth fund, which was basically built on energy supplies to Western Europe, which was huge, is pretty much spent now.
Mccann: Yeah. Which is, of course, where we end up at odds with leaders in The UK and the West, like Keir Starmer and others who say sanctions, we need more sanctions. And the American regime, which is looking in a very different direction at Russia as an opportunity.
Dearlove: Well, I think there's always been this concern about Russia's economic collapse. And one of the arguments within the Biden administration, not much publicized, for making sure that there wasn't an outright Ukrainian victory was the danger of a Russian collapse and the fact of an imploding Russia where you had regional forces beginning to break the country up would be a worse outcome than a war in Ukraine. Yeah. So I think that that concern is still definitely there. Follow the money. It's what it all comes down to in the end. I fear that that is the optic. I can imagine Trump sitting there with, you know, thick glasses with dollar signs on them.
GIFTS AND MEMORABILIA
Mccann: You mentioned presents. When you were working, did you exchange presents with your opposite numbers like politicians do? When they go on visits, they always hand over a gift, don't they? Did you do that?
Dearlove: No. Not really. I mean, we gave little bits and pieces.
Mccann: Like what? Like a badge? Like an MI6 badge?
Dearlove: I mean, something like that. But we were very strict, really. We have massively strict rules on receiving gifts. And then the problem is you go to the Arab world and you're head of MI6, you probably come back with, you know, a super expensive watch or something which you've been given, but you have to hand it in. Hand it over.
Mccann: Yeah. Well, politicians in this country, if they're given a gift over, I think a £150.
Dearlove: That's the same rule. It's the same rule. Yeah.
Mccann: So did you ever keep anything that was—
Dearlove: Of course not.
Mccann: You didn't? Because you can pay to keep it.
Dearlove: Oh, no. You can buy it back. When I retired, I bought back one or two of the presents I'd been given. And it's quite advantageous. I mean, they value them at resell value, of course, which is much less than they cost. Yeah. So I've got a few bits and pieces, things that I thought were worth keeping, but not many.
Mccann: Like, such as?
Dearlove: Oh. Well, I've got some wonderful kitsch bits and pieces that Gaddafi gave me, but those have no value other than the curiosity value now.
Mccann: Like what? What did he give you?
Dearlove: Sort of brass plates with enameled maps of Libya on them and then embossed sort of images of him. I mean, they're really bizarre, peculiar things. But, of course, you suddenly realize that in ten years' time, there'll be historical curiosities and quite peculiar and quite unusual.
Mccann: What do you do with that? Do you hang it in the downstairs loo? Where is it?
Dearlove: It's in a cupboard. I'm not sure I'm gonna hang out my Gaddafi memorabilia.
Mccann: You could have a room for Gaddafi memorabilia.
Dearlove: Yeah. Well, I mean, I've got a load of weird stuff, presents that the Russians gave me, which they love giving you sort of engraved glassware and crystal glasses. I mean, actually, probably quite—
Mccann: Embossed into the cowboy boots, which I think he did keep because he loved them so much.
Dearlove: And I've got a wonderful cowboy hat that I was given when we had a meeting with CIA somewhere in Arizona or in Texas. And they gave us this sort of cowboy gear. When I'm gardening in Cornwall, I wear my Stetson. It's a fantastic hat.
Mccann: Does it have your name on it?
Dearlove: No, unfortunately. But it sort of keeps the— it really keeps the sun off. And it's great to wear in the winter because it's felt. You know, shaped. It looks like a Stetson.
Mccann: Can't beat that. That's great. That's a great gift. So there are peculiar gifts you've got.
Dearlove: I've got one of those amazing Afghan woolly hats, you know, in brown woven wool, which are fantastically warm to wear in the winter. And I've got an amazing Afghan coat, which is wool, brown wool, but embroidered. And that's my dressing gown.
Mccann: And that is more information than I expected to hear today. Sir Richard, thanks very much. Great to see you. Well, that's it for this week. That is our One Decision in Brief. Make sure you check out the rest of our episodes wherever you get your podcasts from. And of course, you can find plenty more like this on our YouTube channel.
