Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
In this week’s One Decision In Brief, Christina Ruffini and former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove report from the Warsaw Security Forum, where Poland has emerged as NATO’s front-line power. They look at Russia’s latest airspace violations and drone incursions, how European allies are scrambling to build defenses, and why Moldova’s surprising election result signals new limits to Moscow’s influence. Plus: what Ukraine’s drone industry is teaching Europe, and how the UK’s security role has shifted post-Brexit.
Episode produced by Situation Room Studios. Original music composed and produced by Leo Sidran.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Raffini: Welcome to One Decision. We are here in Warsaw at the Warsaw Security Forum. I'm Christina Raffini with my cohost, of course, Richard Dearlove, former head of British Intelligence. And we were just chatting before we came on about when the last time we were both in Poland, and you were saying how much it has changed since the fall of the wall and the end of the Cold War.
Dearlove: Well, I've been to Poland quite frequently. But if you take the countries of Central Europe, the one that is totally transformed is Poland. It's extraordinary.
Raffini: Transformed how?
Dearlove: Well, it's lost completely. I mean, I lived behind the Iron Curtain. I experienced firsthand what life under communism was like, okay, in Czechoslovakia. But they all had a similarity, a sort of drabness. And, of course, it was characterized by the fact that the cars on the roads, the style of transport, the paint colors, the apartment blocks.
Raffini: I mean, I spent a lot of time reporting here too, and I was looking from our hotel as a very high view. And there are still a few, but they've really revitalized. I mean, the city is glittering skyscrapers, tech companies.
Dearlove: Deloitte has a big skyscraper. This country is completely transformed. I was here two years ago en route to Kyiv. So we traveled through Poland. And even since then, you could feel the sort of pickup and the dynamism and the change. And, of course, it's now seminally important to European security. So having been, you know, this very particular East European Warsaw Pact country, it's now become really one of the key NATO players. And I don't think any country in Europe has changed as fast as this. And it's really exciting to be here. It's got a real dynamism about it.
Raffini: It's been interesting because even within the alliance before the war, you know, you have Orbán. And then to a certain extent, you had Duda, you know, kind of being one of the not always falling in line with the rest of the Europeans. It was not necessarily, you know, in the fold. And then when the war happened, it really turned around, and they got this very strong alliance with the US. And now, with these possible Russian incursions from drones, they've been on the forefront of this. I mean, the Polish leader said this week, if Russians violate their airspace, even over populated areas, they're gonna shoot them down, and Russia's gonna be responsible for the resulting casualties, which is a pretty remarkable stance.
Dearlove: Well, you're on the real frontline of European security. And I think this is one of the problems in Europe at the moment, that the sort of further back countries don't feel the urgency of the security situation. But if you're here in Poland, it's right at the top of everybody's agenda, particularly now given the recent incursions with drones and the other violations of NATO airspace. But I mean, what is so extraordinary is that if I'm right, if you take, you know, GDP, they're now proportionately the biggest spenders in terms of GDP on defense. I think they're already above 4%.
Raffini: I think that's why they're getting close to 5.6.
Dearlove: I mean, it is huge and it's important and it's a sort of focal point for really the future of NATO.
Raffini: So it's a very appropriate place to have a security summit at the moment. I mean, I was here much more recently. I was here day one when the war started. I spent most of my time in Poland on the border. And the thing that's remarkable to me given what we're just talking about, these Russian incursions and drones, is we had a woman who was helping us. She was translating, and I remember her saying to me, she was very nervous, and Poles at the time were very nervous. And she said, look, I've moved my family to Krakow, but do you think that's far enough? Do you think they're safe? And I remember saying to her, Poland is a NATO country. If you're not safe in Krakow, like, none of us are safe anywhere. But now that's a real discussion they're having inside these countries, including Poland, Estonia. You know, the Danes are having issues with jets flying too close. Do you think, given the constantly changing positions of the US on this issue, and we're gonna come back to that in a minute, do you think the alliance is still as solidified when it comes to the Ukrainian issue among Europeans? And what impact do you think these actions from Russia will have? Do you think they're gonna divide, or do you think they're gonna have the opposite impact and it's gonna get people back on the same page?
RUSSIA'S STRATEGY AND NATO SOLIDARITY
Dearlove: That's a great question. And, you know, one wonders what Putin's motivation is, because my initial feeling watching these incursions was that apart from, you know, the Russians maybe testing and looking really at the question of solidarity and coordination on the NATO side. It actually seems to me that if you want to, as it were, hasten the preparation of NATO for a serious Russian threat, what on earth is Putin doing?
Raffini: I mean, when, you know, the whole thing with this war, it ended up getting NATO two new member states, Sweden and Finland, who had been very, you know, against joining NATO for a long time.
Dearlove: Okay. NATO has been seriously behind the curve, and it's got a lot of ground to pick up. But if you want to create urgency, Putin yet again is doing that in spades. But the other explanation, which I think I certainly agree with to an extent, is perhaps what we're seeing is evidence of Russian weakness. Because when things are militarily beginning to go badly, which they are in Ukraine, what do you do? You open up on another front. You create a distraction. You do something else. And you act in a way which may be — well, no, it's a rather naive Russian assessment, which is designed to divide allies, get them to disagree, get them to act.
Raffini: Right. We talked a lot about them testing European security, but I think perhaps more it's what we're talking about. They're testing European alliances as much as they're testing. And what the attitude of local populations would be and how solidly they are behind, you know, the sort of implications of resistance and being dragged into maybe a more direct confrontation.
Dearlove: But I think the thesis that actually it's a sign of Russian desperation and weakness may well be an explanation, because Putin has characteristically opened or promoted crises in other places. And I mean, that is why I think one of the issues which is contemporary today is Moldova.
MOLDOVA AND RUSSIAN INFLUENCE
Raffini: We were speaking about this in the car on the way over here. Big deal.
Dearlove: Because clearly, you know, with the Transnistria issue —
Raffini: But the Russians put a hell of a lot of money and time into — it's one of those breakaway republics for people who, you know, like South Ossetia, like, you know, those ones that are these little enclaves.
Dearlove: Yeah. Sandu, the serving Moldovan leader has won an absolute majority, which was not predicted, which means the pro-European party will form a government without having to go into coalition.
Raffini: And I think, actually, this is a really, really significant political result when you're looking at the security of Central Europe. Because there was a lot of reporting leading up to this vote that there had been a lot of Russian interference, a lot of Russian money poured into it, a lot of efforts to try to sway this election to get them to go back towards Moscow. And it looks like, once again, as we're discussing, it's had the opposite effect.
Dearlove: And actually paying older voters, you know, pensioners to vote for the Russian so-called patriotic parties. And it's clearly been a failure. I mean, they haven't — and if they can't pull that off in very favorable conditions in Moldova for exercising Russian influence, I think that's an encouraging sign for everybody in Europe when they look at this example.
Raffini: I mean, it's interesting to me because we've seen the impact disinformation, some of it from Russia, some of it from elsewhere, has even in a country like the United States that I would say until recently had a fairly politically educated voter base. I think that's degraded over the past couple years. But in countries that are newer democracies, I think it's all the more remarkable to see pushback against that, especially when, you know, there's been migration around here for — there's a lot of culturally, ethnically Russians in these places. So they do have a Russian base of support that they could tap into. But, again, they're looking the other direction. They're looking away from us and not towards it. I think a lot of that support is aging populations.
Dearlove: I think so too. Who liked the reliability of a sort of static political situation. Right?
Raffini: Stalin made the trains run on time. Right? Yeah.
Dearlove: Yeah. And also so-called sort of attachment to traditional values, rejection of social change, a sort of stasis in society. But I think, you know, what you're seeing is a very high turnout particularly amongst younger voters who are desperate for a country like Moldova to be heading towards European Union membership. And that is — you know, although I'm personally not a great supporter in the case of my own country in terms of EU membership, everybody knows that. This is not a secret to any of our loyal listeners. I think that actually when you have a country like Moldova, it's really important to aspire to EU membership. And, you know, that's a completely different situation and an important one. And it shows the positive influence that the EU can play in newly democratic countries.
THE UK, BREXIT AND EUROPEAN SECURITY
Raffini: I do think — post-Brexit, you know, the EU and the UK, we're not on great terms. But do you think the situation's changing? I think the Ukraine issue has kind of brought the back and forth —
Dearlove: Changed it. I mean, actually, it's brought to the front the theory that I very much argued in the run up to Brexit, which was that we should always be the EU's closest ally and strongly supportive. We didn't have to be a member to be amongst the key security guarantors of Europe. And in fact, what's interesting now is the reality of that situation has sort of produced itself. And the key cards that the UK had to play were actually on the defense, security and intelligence side, because Europe can't manage without us. And that's absolutely clear now in the way that the situation's developing. And I mean, for example, if you take the security conference, it's unimaginable — there couldn't be, you know, an important UK participation here. I sorry — I meant the Warsaw Security Conference, not that.
Raffini: You said earlier when we were talking about these drone incursions, you know, it's a more pressing issue for countries like Poland, for the Baltics than it is for countries who are a little further back. But that goes for the UK as well. I mean, you've even got water between you, but Starmer and the UK have been really on the front of this Ukrainian security issue. How concerned realistically do you think people in the UK, people in Europe are for an actual war with Russia? I mean, I feel like I'm hearing this more and more that people are starting to be asked to pull together contingency plans. Hospitals are starting to be told you need to have a mass casualty plan. Is this — you talk to folks. What is the feeling in the UK? Are people actively worried about this or does this still seem like something that's a bit too far down the line of possibilities?
Dearlove: I think full warfare, let's call it that, is almost — is highly unlikely. I mean, I don't think Russia in its current situation can afford to fight a war with the West.
Raffini: Certainly not sustainably for a long period of time. No. But would the US come to fight? That's the question.
Dearlove: Well, yeah. I think it would. I think it's pretty clear that Trump's position on NATO has evolved significantly. And his position on Ukraine seems to be changing as well. There's a shift. There's a change there. And what really Trump was worried about was getting the Europeans to pay their own way in defense.
Raffini: Yes. Which was a legitimate argument as we discussed before. Drove Obama crazy too. He just didn't address it quite as loudly.
Dearlove: Yeah. You know? So all of that ground is being made up. It takes time to turn a large ship around and get it steering in the right direction at the right speed, but it will happen. And it's happening as we speak. You know, there's a transformation, let's say, in the European production of artillery shells. You can point to all sorts of areas where things have changed substantially. So the reality of the situation is we're in a state of undeclared war with Russia already. And I don't think that's gonna change. I think it's gonna become more serious. So there'll be more provocation. There'll be more cyber attacks. There will be more drone incidents. There will be more sabotage. Open warfare, no. And I think that the Russians are gonna conduct this without a direct confrontation. And they do have the means developed over many many years during the Cold War to conduct what they would refer to as gray warfare. And I think that's the problem, and I think the problem will get more serious and those countries which are closest to the frontline like Poland will be the more exposed. And the problem is that if you take something like drones, the aerial defenses of NATO were not constructed to deal with the drone threat.
DRONE WARFARE AND UKRAINE'S EXPERTISE
Raffini: I mean, it's such a new threat. Yeah. So everybody's scrambling now. I mean, the irony is that, you know, the world's experts on drone warfare, the Ukrainians. That's what I was gonna ask you about next. You have this statement from Zelensky, which is very interesting, saying he is happy to send advisers, and he said he is sending advisers to European nations to help them tackle this issue, but that's a much more strategic and transactional approach we've seen from Kyiv. What's your take on that? Do you think he's learning a little bit? Do you think he's adapting?
Dearlove: Well, I think he's beginning to adapt. And the irony is now that Ukraine will become an arms exporter.
Raffini: Because of their drone technology?
Dearlove: Yeah. And the West actually should be — well, they are beginning to pump money into the Ukrainian own armaments industry, because they're gonna be the main exporters. And they've developed techniques, defenses, capabilities, which the Europeans just don't have.
Raffini: Out of necessity.
Dearlove: I mean, you know, war is the always necessity. I was speaking to someone recently who has a chip manufacturing capability, which is in Western Europe. I won't be specific about where it is. And he was saying using their technology, the Ukrainians can fly these drones through a car window at 900 kilometers.
Raffini: That's insane. Nine hundred kilometers. That's insane. What is your take on — there's this push from, it's Estonia and I think Latvia. A couple years ago, they had asked for basically a drone defense wall on the border, the NATO border, and kind of been pushed off. And as early as last year, they asked for it as well. And now that proposal is being reconsidered. Is that at all viable, some sort of a drone barrier? Do you think it has to be more strategic than that than just doing a hard wall?
Dearlove: I think — my understanding is it's technically possible. And it's technically possible at a reasonably low cost.
Raffini: I mean, that's the — the finance has been expensive.
Dearlove: Yeah. The extraordinary thing is, you know, you're not talking about an Iron Dome, which is, you know — I mean, really off the charts, completely off the charts. This could be done relatively cheaply, relatively quickly. But you've got to have the will. And I mean, if it's the smaller countries, they have got to have financial help. Whether it comes from the European Union, it comes from NATO, or it comes from, let's say, the bigger economies in Europe who are worried about dealing with the generality of the Russian threat.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT AND REGULATION
Raffini: One of the other places I think we're gonna have to watch is Europe is gonna have to change its rules of engagement, its domestic policy in order to combat this threat. I was listening this morning to a German official saying right now, the rules of engagement are unless the drone is specifically threatening a military base, the German military can't shoot it down. It then gets deferred to the police, and it gets in this jurisdictional fight. So they're looking to change the law so that the military can shoot down the drones. Do other European countries have these same kind of issues?
Dearlove: The German specific issue? Okay. Alright. We love our German friends. Well, we'll let them figure it out. No, I mean, I think that that is typically bureaucratically, if I may say so, a German problem.
Raffini: I think the frontline countries in Europe with Russia don't have those problems. But there is the problem of what do you do? These drones are not small. Do you shoot it down over a populated area?
Dearlove: And then you get, you know, idiotic teenagers flying unlicensed drones that look like military drones and don't realize the complications they're causing.
Raffini: Flight chaos, all kinds of things.
Dearlove: So I mean, I think that there is a whole regulatory issue there as well, which some countries are coming to terms with, like, you know, the UK — if you buy a drone above a certain weight now, you have to have a license.
Raffini: Yes. They're also geofenced. My brother flies them. He's a cameraman and there are certain places they can't go up. But obviously, you know, you can hack it and get around it. There are solutions for the solutions.
Dearlove: No, I mean, it does indicate the speed of what, you know, the sort of defense technology is changing. And the last thing you want to do is to, you know, take a $5,000,000 Patriot to shoot down a $100,000 drone. You know?
Raffini: Right. So I hear falcons are really good at catching them. Well, just more falcons in Europe. This is the solution. Okay. What can you do? But peregrines, they're bigger and stronger.
Dearlove: Alright. That'll do it for us for right now. We will be here in our own geofence all day interviewing a bunch of leaders. It's great. There's a real buzz here. It's very interesting, and I'm sure there'll be a lot to talk about over the course of the next twenty four hours.
