Episode Info
- Season24
- Episode5
Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Lord David Frost
Lord David Frost was Boris Johnson's Brexit chief negotiator and one of the driving forces behind the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
Episode Summary
Lord David Frost, Boris Johnson's pugnacious Brexit chief negotiator, was one of the driving forces behind the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and a powerful force behind the scenes. But for a man who has had so much influence on British people's lives, he's not often heard from in detail. With time to reflect, Lord Frost sits down with One Decision's Julia Macfarlane and former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove in the latest in a series looking at the state of UK politics ahead of the general elections, which could end 14 years of the British Conservative Party's rule. Frost also shares what he thinks of Britain's foreign policy, supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia and criticism of Israel and how it's conducting its war in Gaza.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Mcfarlane: You're listening to One Decision, the podcast that looks at the choices made that shape our world. I'm your host, Julia McFarlane.
Dearlove: And I'm Richard Dearlove, former chief of British intelligence, otherwise known as MI6.
Mcfarlane: Together, Richard and I speak to the key decision makers, the power players, and influencers who shape some of the biggest events that impact us all. Today, we're bringing you a fascinating conversation with one of the most influential thinkers in British policy as part of our special series looking into the state of British politics. Lord David Frost is widely seen as one of the most influential power players behind the scenes in UK politics. A key force in the Brexit negotiations and a minister under the Boris Johnson administration, Lord Frost has shaped how The UK has left the EU. As a former diplomat in the EU and special adviser to Johnson when he served as foreign secretary, Frost has also seen up close the dynamic between power and influence when it comes to diplomacy. And in fact what he had to say on that very topic was, I think, one of the most interesting parts of our discussion, namely how frank and candid he was about how foreign policy is really all about power and not, for example, adherence to international law. Now he was criticizing the current discourse around Israel and how it's conducting the war in Gaza. He was saying that there was too much focus on policing international law rather than understanding the balance of power. And it's power that allows you to achieve your objectives in a region. Which seems obvious, Richard, right? But it's not something that tends to be spoken out loud, especially by diplomats, at least in my experience.
Dearlove: No, I think Julia you're absolutely right in making that observation. It's very unfashionable to say what David Frost said about diplomacy and about negotiation, but I think he has a very strong point to make because there is no question if you look at British foreign policy or the British Foreign Office or Foreign Commonwealth Office, it has in recent years become very very much preoccupied with let's say, rights based issues and the rule of international law. But, you know, taking a more historical view, Frost's observation that the exercise of power is really what makes international politics happen. And at the moment, you know, we have massive examples of that across the globe. And I think he's making a point that it's important to remember not to look at everything through a rights based optic. I mean, certainly Moscow are not doing that, Beijing are not doing that, Iran are not doing that, neither are the Israelis doing that. So all the current crises are really about the exercise of power and let's say the exercise of influence, but influence I would say backed by power, which is why the role of The US is so important in relation to the two conflicts that we have at the moment, one in The Middle East and the other in Ukraine.
Mcfarlane: Absolutely. And I think it's important to point out he didn't say that international law and respecting it is not important, but I think he was talking about the real levers behind the scenes and the prioritization of power dynamics. And Richard, you bring up China. China is a country that obviously has an appalling human rights record, but is one that diplomats have to work with and I think his exploration of that was really interesting to hear him talking quite so candidly about that.
Dearlove: Yeah and the Israeli government with whom I dealt in my career are very very hard nosed when it comes to their regional interests, it comes to preservation of the state of Israel and Israel's security. So you know you don't play with them. I don't mean that in the sense of recreation. You don't interact with them unless you recognize that basic fact about Israel.
Mcfarlane: The Israelis do not play around. That's for sure. That's for sure. Now without further ado, let's bring you that conversation with Lord Frost. We talked about all sorts of things, not just Israel, from Brexit to the conservative meltdown to dealing with the EU and its Western allies further afield. It's important to note that we recorded this conversation before the Conservatives suffered historically bad results in local elections in England and Wales, but nevertheless, impending disaster for the party is and has been widely priced in for the next general election. It was a fascinating conversation, and we started firstly by asking him his thoughts on Brexit, how it was going, and why so many people in UK politics have not given up hope that The UK might one day reverse its decision and rejoin the EU.
INTERVIEW WITH LORD DAVID FROST
Frost: It's a good question. In the middle of 2022, I suppose, up to Boris' departure, I did think that we had definitively won that battle, and nobody was going to question Brexit in future, and we were going to go onto a different path. And that's turned out to be wrong, obviously, not only because the opposition, you know, whatever they say, are clearly unhappy with being outside the EU, but because a lot of my own party doesn't seem to want to draw the full consequences from Brexit and seems content to jog along, you know, not changing much and not really delivering on the change that we hope Brexit would bring.
Mcfarlane: Can you explain a bit more what you mean by that, by not capitalizing on the benefits of Brexit? Do you mean willingness to align with EU regulations or standards or legislation? I mean, what do you mean by that? So a refusal to change things as quickly as is necessary.
Frost: And unfortunately, one of the problems is the Windsor framework, which is locking us in to a situation where we can't make radical change without increasing the gap between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But I think generally, there is a wish not to strike out on a different path. You know, issues like financial services reform could be going more quickly, net zero change could be going more quickly than it is at the moment, future regulation, tariffs and trade could be changed more quickly. I think we have not been willing to kind of push into a different model, which is the logic of the kind of Brexit that we chose. And, unfortunately, time is now running out. Why do you think that is? The majority of the British political system never wanted to leave the EU in the first place. It's still not really convinced it's the right thing to have done. Still wants to maintain a bit of optionality, doesn't want to get so far distant in terms of the economic model and the politics that it can't come back in if necessary. And I think that's the underlying truth.
Dearlove: That suggests, you know, a massive gap between the electorate and the sort of political cognoscenti. Is that gap going to be closed? Are we going to continue to have this dislocation in British politics?
Frost: Well, I don't see it being closed before the election now, whenever that comes. You never know. Things could change dramatically, but, you know, realistically, it seems quite difficult. We'll have to see where things are afterwards. But the problem we've got at the moment is that so many politicians in my own party seem unwilling to make the case for Brexit and to explain why it was necessary and to justify what they are doing in kind of Brexit terms. So the debate is being dominated by the kind of people you were talking about, Richard, who just have never reconciled themselves to this situation.
Mcfarlane: So the British people are not hearing that their leaders believe in what Brexit meant. So it's not surprising they're getting edgy and nervous about it, and that's why we're in the situation that we're in. I just want to push back against both of you. I am aware that I'm in a conversation with two outspoken Brexit supporters, and I, of course, as a journalist, I have no personal views on the matter. But actually, it is interesting that polls increasingly, and a wide range of polls, do seem to indicate that a majority of the British public do believe that Brexit has in some way harmed The UK economy, or that The UK was wrong to leave the EU. And that gap has been slowly but surely growing. What do you say to these polls, Lord Frost?
Frost: Well, I think they're very much influenced by the kind of mood at the moment. You know, they're not based necessarily on hard information. They're based on a mood, and the mood is that most decision makers, most commentators at the moment think Brexit was a mistake, think there have been damaging economic consequences, and feed that into political debate. So nobody is making the counter case. So I don't really find it surprising that opinion polls are kinda reflecting that. They're reflecting a mood rather than a really hard belief. And I think if we had politicians who were willing to explain properly what could yet be done outside the EU and why and what the opportunities were, you'd see different polling.
Mcfarlane: I think that's fair enough. Although The UK economy is currently lagging behind the EU, behind other EU countries. You know, that's something that you have referenced yourself in your paper that you published in Policy Exchange. Now, it may be a mood, it may not be entirely clear whether some of The UK's economic travails are exclusively because of Brexit, or in spite of Brexit, or partially because of Brexit, or because of other problems with The UK economy. But I think you have written about the problems facing The UK at the moment, and our issues with growth and productivity. So why is The UK not doing so well? What is it that is holding us back? And I appreciate that you're unlikely to say that Brexit is a part of that, but who would you place the blame on?
Frost: So I think there are lots of different factors here. I have always said there is a cost to leaving the Single Market and Customs Union, and a lot of Brexiteers have not said that. I think it's probably about 1% of GDP, one off, in terms of transition costs. That's long since paid. What we've got at the moment is a kind of zombie figure that ultimately dates from treasury studies, bank studies, OBR studies around and immediately after the referendum that says that the economy would be 4% smaller, and that's got by 2030 than it otherwise would have been. Now I don't accept that, but that in the popular mind has got transmuted into a belief that the economy is 4% smaller now than it was, which, of course, is not what's being said. And because the last few years have been difficult for all kinds of reasons, people are attributing that to Brexit, whereas in my view, Brexit is only a very small part of it. If you look back at the figures, it's clear that our productivity has not grown meaningfully since about 2008, 2009. I think the reason for that is still, to some extent, debated. But obviously, it's a mix of, I would say, energy costs, poor infrastructure, a model that depends on sort of cheap, low cost labor rather than investment in capital. All those things have come together at a time of deep integration in the single market to repress our growth. And I think that's what we are seeing. We're also seeing what everybody in certainly Europe is seeing, which is a sense of collectivism, a belief that every problem's got to be fixed by the state that is crushing initiative and is crushing growth in the economy more broadly. So in my view, all these things are coming together. Brexit is a small part of it. Brexit comes with opportunities as well as costs. What we need is to develop a political and economic strategy that takes us over the next five to ten years, bring in reforms, begin to get growth back on track. Why do you think they are swaying some voters? And do you approve of anything that they're doing? I do approve of, you know, a lot of what they stand for. They do push what I would recognize as, you know, mainly, strong conservative policies. And I would like to see the conservative party adopting many of their policies as well. What such as? Lower taxes, NHS reform, net zero, tougher on immigration, all those sorts of things, seem to me recognizably mainstream conservative policies. The problem is, I think, that they are still a party of protest. They still don't have the organization. They still have a slight air of being the party of frustration and wishing things were different. And in the end, to achieve things, you've got capacity to develop a natural political strategy and bring people along with you. Now that could happen. There's still a lot of time to go. There's a lot of frustration with the Conservative Party. In my experience, going out around the country, our voters are extremely unhappy and disaffected. But I don't think we're yet at the point where we're seeing a kind of, you know, substantive change of the party structure in this country.
Dearlove: David, there's been various articles recently in, you know, mainline media saying that conservative central office are excluding right wing candidates in favor of sort of centrist social democrats and that you know the selection committees are being you know driven out of instructions from central office and some very good you know right wing candidates are not even getting a look in. I mean you're reasonably well placed. Do you think there's anything to this rumor?
Frost: I think there probably is. I don't quite know who the kind of individuals are driving it or whether there is a deliberate policy. But certainly, you look at the people who are being selected in seats, you're not seeing strong right wing conservatives by and large being selected. And it also looks as if many of the most attractive seats, the strongest conservative seats are being held back for, you know, candidates to be chosen in the last few weeks before the election.
Mcfarlane: And are you still hoping to be one of those candidates? You have said, recently that you want to stand as a member of parliament, and that you would resign your seat in the Lords in exchange for a safe constituency. Are you still standing? Has there been any progress in that process?
Frost: I'm on the candidates list, and have been for about a year. Obviously, I would have to stand down from the Lords if, you know, at the time of an election. You know, whether I would be allowed to actually be selected for a seat at the moment is I think an open question and remains to be tested.
Mcfarlane: On that, Kemi Badenoch recently hit out at a group of shadowy plotters, who have recently been attacking Rishi Sunak. There was widespread speculation that you were one of those so called plotters. There was that very interesting poll that you were associated with recently. Can you, for our listeners, talk to us about the rumors? I mean, I'm sure it's like this in many other countries, how often rumors make it to actual print news and becomes part of the established view. But could you clarify for us whether you are indeed one of the plotters attacking Rishi Sunak? And do you think you could talk to us about the poll that you fronted that claim that the Tories were heading for an absolute wipeout under Rishi Sunak?
Frost: Yeah. So I have never called for Rishi Sunak to step down as leader or prime minister, but I am extremely concerned that we've drifted into a policy mix that is just driving away our voters. And that particular poll that I was a little bit associated with and wrote up, you know, it doesn't say anything different to all the other polls either before or after it. It was a bit more detailed than many others at the time, but it still showed that we were heading for a very serious defeat. And in fact, in many ways, it was more favorable to the conservative party than some of the ones that have come after it. So, you know, my concern is simply that we've drifted into a set of, you know, not particularly conservative policies that are just not what conservative voters wanted to see. And what I continue to argue is that you need to change the policies, and then people will come back to the party. I've made no secret of that view. I've told the prime minister of that view. I think everybody knows it. I just wish he would, but it's not happening, and we are continuing to go down and down in the polls.
Dearlove: Could we be heading for a sort of hearty Canadian conservative moment? I mean, you know, the parallels been drawn several times, but, you know, I was reading a piece by, I think, Katy Balls in the Spectator recently, and I mean, of the predictions are really, really dire in terms of how many conservative members might be left in the house.
Frost: I mean, I'd be surprised if we end up in a Canadian style wipeout with two or three seats. But, you know, what we've seen happen in the last six months is that gradually the benchmarks have shifted. And now somebody who says, perhaps the Conservative Party will finish after the next election with 200 seats, that's now considered to be really quite a positive kind of assessment of the situation. And, you know, people who say maybe we'll get a 100, that's kind of within the framework of reference. I mean, it sort of doesn't matter once you get below 200 in my view. You know, the party then is in shock and would take a long time to recover. You'd find it difficult to get people to kinda come into the party, difficult to get people to hold jobs because the prospects seem so feeble in the short run, I think it would be a very, very serious blow. So, you know, kind of how far you go below that sort of doesn't matter.
Mcfarlane: Can I ask you, Lord Frost, because you do sound like you are still a very strident supporter of your party? You talk about our voters, our policy. You've said that you're not tempted by reform, but you clearly are at odds with prime minister Rishi Sunak's policies. You were involved in this poll that came out with very, very damaging headlines for the conservatives, for Rishi Sunak. You've also said that you do want to stand as a conservative MP. Now, if that were to happen, and if Rishi Sunak does stay in place as Prime Minister, presumably you would have to campaign for him in your constituency. So it would be difficult for you to do that if you were opposed to his policies.
Frost: Well, I think, you know, every MP is elected on their own basis on a party ticket. I think, you know, if we run into this election in the current situation, there are going to be quite a lot of conservative MPs who, one way or another, have made clear they don't support the current direction of travel. A couple have called for the prime minister to go. There are many more who have had very visible policy disputes. They're still all standing under the Conservative banner. And I suppose I don't see why I should be driven out of the conservative party when I consider myself to have mainstream conservative opinions.
Mcfarlane: And it's always framed in those terms that the right, the center right, should go somewhere else. Well, why shouldn't the center left go somewhere else and leave room for a Conservative party that espouses Conservative policies. But I do think that's very interesting, because with no disrespect to you, you would be a potential MP, whereas this is the leader of your party. So if anyone should set the terms of a campaigning platform, it ought to be the leader. Are you saying that you would campaign and not support Rishi Sunak, and you would campaign on your own personal mandate for the voters in your constituency? I mean, would you support Rishi Sunak if he is to be the leader that takes the Tories into the next election?
Frost: As I said, I've not opposed prime minister Sunak. And if he was leader at the time of the election, you support the leader. Let's see what happens in the months to come. But I still, you know, I repeat that I think the policies are the important thing. That's what makes a difference in the country. What would your preference be? Would your preference be that there should be another leader? Honestly, I really don't think the leader is the critical question. I supported Rishi Sunak in '22 when Liz Truss fell, because I thought he was a genuine conservative. I believe he's a social conservative. It hasn't quite turned out like that. But the important thing is not who the person at the top is, but is the person delivering the right set of policies. And you know, as I say, I just feel that we have tilted too much to the center left, and that can be corrected. And I think the current leader could correct it. It's just that we're not seeing any sign of it being corrected.
Dearlove: David, I was pretty surprised when Rishi appointed David Cameron foreign secretary. As prime minister, most of the decisions he took on foreign affairs turned out, let's say, to be questionable if I'm being charitable, and then he comes back as foreign secretary, I can see the benefit of having a former prime minister traveling the globe in that position. But on the other hand, he certainly makes some of us feel pretty uncomfortable. You know, you're a former foreign office official. I was sort of not foreign office, but spent my whole career in that area. And I just feel at the moment, we haven't really got the right foreign section, I'm absolutely frank. But I'm not asking you as it were to speculate on him personally. I'm thinking more about the issues that are facing the government at the moment and, you know, particularly the way the crisis in Gaza has escalated inside British politics.
Frost: I mean, obviously, he's a very capable guy, and he can do the job, you know, well and effectively from a kind of professional point of view. And obviously, that was the appeal. I do think just for a moment on the politics, I do think that it was a political mistake, probably. I think our polls took another turn down after that reshuffle. And on the doorsteps, I think, you know, because he was so well known, it just came across to a lot of people as a sort of step back to the past, to the pre Brexit world. In terms of foreign policy, I do worry on Gaza a bit. I think he's brought us back into the British foreign policy establishment's kind of comfort zone on Israel Palestine, and James Cleverly had successfully pulled it away from it for a bit.
Mcfarlane: What do you mean by that?
Frost: I think not kind of getting that, you know, when the chips are down, we are an ally of Israel. We are a friend of Israel. Israel is a country that is always under some sort of threat and had a horrible thing done to it on October 7. And understanding how that is in Israel, how it's felt, how they rightly, in my view, need to react to it. I think that we did get that for a time after October 7, but now we've drifted back into what, in my view, is a kind of probably unrealistic, certainly unrealistic in the short term view about solution, the musing about recognizing Palestine was obviously damaging, the obsession with policing international humanitarian law, and the obsession with international law generally. I think all of that is important, and not to be discounted, but is a distraction from the fundamental strategic realities in the region. And much of our foreign policy establishment prefers to talk about law than about power. And in The Middle East, power is what counts. And we just don't seem to get that, I think, at the moment.
Dearlove: It used to be called the influence of the camel corps, I think.
Frost: It is. I don't know whether there is such thing as the camel corps any longer in the foreign office. What I do think is that we have spent so long seeing our foreign policy USP as being the rules based international system and standing up for that. And it's gone so deep that often we can't see any problem in any other terms than through those rules and through international law. And there is more to it than that.
Mcfarlane: That's interesting. I mean, you say we are this obsession with upholding international law. I mean, international law is there to ensure that people have their rights respected, that there are rules to legitimate warfare. You know, that's not calling into question the relationship with Israel, and in fact, being close with Israel should surely allow Israel's friends to criticize it, to put pressure on it, to try and persuade Israel to hold itself to a higher standard than the forces that it finds itself at threat from.
Frost: I mean, of course, I'm not trying to say it's not important, but if you give the impression that your sort of primary concern about the situation is the correct policing of international law in this very difficult conflict situation, if you give the impression that your primary worry is that Israel doesn't care for it and that you're always trying to kind of catch them out in some way, then you're not doing foreign policy. You're doing international law. And it's not that international law is not important. It's just that foreign policy is not only about international law. It's about standing by your friends. It's trying to achieve your objectives. It's trying to keep the balance of power in your favor and make it difficult for your enemies. And those are terms that our foreign policy establishment finds it hard to think about, I think.
Mcfarlane: That's interesting. I appreciate the distinction, but I do want to widen out. And I did wanna ask you, because you were a minister during the Trump presidency, that must have been an interesting time. How was it working with that American administration? There was, of course, coordination with them during the pandemic. You also advised then foreign secretary Boris Johnson a couple years between 2016 and 2018 when he resigned. How was working with the Trump administration? And what are your thoughts on the possibility that we may be ushering a second Trump administration in a few months' time?
Frost: Looking back first, I think we got mesmerized by the kind of character of Donald Trump to, once again, at the expense of a cool assessment of our interests. And I do think that, by and large, the world was more stable, or at least Western interests were better protected during the Trump presidency than they have been subsequently. And I do think from our narrow point of view, we should have gone for a free trade agreement with the Americans much sooner and more aggressively than we did. I think we got overly worried by the kind of feeling that, you know, Trump was in some way a bad person, and we shouldn't be dealing with it, which is not what foreign policy is about. It's about much more than that.
Mcfarlane: You say the world seemed to be more stable under Trump. Obviously, Joe Biden didn't ask for Putin to invade Ukraine. He didn't ask for another Middle Eastern spat to start under his watch. But what makes you say that the world seem more stable under Trump? Why do you think that is? Do you think that is because of Trump himself or just because of the situations and circumstances at the time?
Frost: So maybe stable is the wrong word because I think the world is fundamentally not particularly stable at the moment and hasn't been for the last sort of ten, fifteen years or so. But I think that, how to put this? That Trump's willingness to hit back if necessary, to be very clear about consequences, to be transactional about things, gave a framework in which, you know, we and others could operate. And he certainly did not signal Western weakness in any way. And unfortunately, what we've seen since '21, you know, it has been signals of Western weakness, Western sort of unwillingness to hold the line on things, you know, hope that things would turn out other than they did. And that is to some extent where we've got into the position that we have been.
Mcfarlane: I mean, a lot of people found him volatile, and a lot of people, and his tenure certainly led a lot of people to question America's reliability as an ally. A lot of European and NATO countries certainly felt that way. Do you think perhaps the fact that Trump was more volatile, perhaps meant that people, perhaps Vladimir Putin would have thought twice about invading Ukraine? I mean, do you think that?
Frost: I do think that, you know, the correct way of looking at it, The US Europe relationship though, is that I think Trump was questioning whether Europeans were reliable as allies. You know, obviously, these things are a two way process, but I think it was undoubtedly right to say, and still is right to a large extent, to say the Europeans are free riders on the system and that the Europeans need to step up a lot more. So I think he was more transactional overtly probably than we'd got used to American presidents being. And he said things in public that, you know, many countries had thought, but weren't used to having sort of said out loud. And that was a good thing. Do you think that volatility was a good thing? Is volatility really the right word? I'm not sure. I think it's more, sometimes clarity, unpleasant clarity, is nevertheless better than surface politeness, because you know what you're dealing with. You can react to it. You can make choices about it. If you're not quite sure how somebody's going to behave when you do something, then in foreign affairs, that's more of a problem. And so I tend to put more weight on kind of clarity telling it like it is than others do. And as a lot of people would say, of course, that's how I went about the Brexit negotiations by being sort of brutal in public.
Mcfarlane: I wanted to ask about Russia and about the threat from Vladimir Putin. I mean, we have increasingly heard a lot of warnings from European leaders, from our own military leaders that we could possibly see outright war with Russia. To what extent do you think we should support our European allies, our NATO allies? There are some people talking about conscription and restarting conscription. What are your thoughts on all of that?
Frost: So the correct policy for NATO, I think, is to make sure it is able to fight a war with Russia and win it. And I think, you know, for all our weaknesses, we still are in that position. I think it'd be an absolutely insane risk for Russia to try and get into a confrontation with NATO even now. But at times in the last few years, we have looked a bit weak and uncertain, and we need to put an end to that. So, to be clear, we don't wish for confrontation, but if it comes, we can perfectly well defend ourselves. I think we should be supporting Ukraine in terms of armaments and money. I'm not in favor of getting involved more deeply than that. But it would obviously be a strategic disaster for us if Ukraine suffered a heavy defeat and Russia came out on top. We must do everything we can to stop that happening. I think we have done the right thing. I think, obviously, the Americans ideally need to do more as well. But I do also think, and this is where I sort of slightly differ from some, I do think that we have slightly subcontracted our war aims to Ukraine in a way that perhaps isn't quite right. You know, we have been supplying as NATO most of the weaponry and a lot of the ammunition and armaments and political support. And, you know, I don't think we can write a blank check for that in terms of war aims. I think we have to be clear that we are willing to defend Ukraine, but also that we don't necessarily subscribe to everything that Ukraine has said about what it is trying to do.
Mcfarlane: What do you mean by that? What are they doing that you don't necessarily approve of, or what do you think they should be concentrating on there?
Frost: So I personally am not sure that recovering Crimea is necessarily something that should be a Western war aim, for example. But I do think that it is crucial that we're involved to the extent that Ukraine can defend itself and remain an independent state.
Mcfarlane: But obviously, the Russians have gained territory since the 2014 invasion changed a lot of things. I mean, what would you say should be the blueprint for sort of Western support and the Western sort of strategic aims? Would you, for example, call for the lines to go back to February 2022 before the latest all out invasion? Or do you think just Crimea? Do you think the Donbas and all those areas should go?
Frost: I don't think it's really kind of for me to say, and, you know, I wouldn't take the Crimea point necessarily in isolation either. I don't think this is necessarily a discussion that Western governments should be having in public necessarily about the war. You want to create strategic ambiguity. But I would like to feel it was being had in private. And at the moment, it's kind of irrelevant because it's clear that Russia isn't really interested in sort of settling, this conflict at the moment. Maybe that will change, maybe it won't. If it doesn't change, then we've just got to keep supporting the Ukrainians. If it does change, that won't necessarily be apparent in public necessarily at first.
Mcfarlane: Would you support negotiations, or do you think there needs to be more shifts in the battlefield as it currently stands?
Frost: We won't have negotiations until Russia feels that it's on the back foot in this war. And at the moment, that's not happening. And the best way of getting it to happen is to keep supporting the Ukrainians, until it does happen. But I just as a matter of logic, if the alternative is nuclear confrontation, then we'll have to find some way of settling it when both sides won't settle it, and at the moment they don't. That's the problem.
Dearlove: It is pretty extraordinary we've got two serious conflicts ongoing, and what I find surprising even after the events in Iran, both wars seem to be contained. They haven't actually spread beyond their borders yet. And, you know, it almost looks as though the Iranian response to the Israelis was sort of pre choreographed to a point where it didn't damage the civilian population. So it looked good for the Iranians, but it had minimal result. I think it's just surprising that both of these conflicts, are really intense and serious, have actually managed to be contained, not maybe because of the international community reaction, but because the proponents themselves they want more on their plate than they've already got.
Frost: Yes. I think that's true. They're clearly, to some extent, connected via some of the actors. But I agree. They haven't spread. To me, the difference is that in the Russia Ukraine conflict, the stakes are extremely high for everybody involved. In the Israel Gaza Middle East conflict, we or our Western ally has a chance to improve its strategic situation by getting rid of Hamas and potentially showing that the West collectively, there are some things that we won't put up with, and we will seek to win and conclude a conflict and improve the strategic situation in our favor. And I think that can be done with less strategic risk in The Middle East at the moment than it can be done in Russia, Ukraine. So that's why I'm a little frustrated at those who say that the Gaza conflict should stop now effectively. That's what we're arguing, and I think that's a strategic error.
Mcfarlane: Lord Frost, lastly, are you more concerned about Russia or China in the medium to long term when it comes to threats or challenges to national security? And what should The UK, the West do and invest in now diplomatically, strategically, etcetera, to ensure the best possible defense from those threats?
Frost: In the medium term and the long term, China is the bigger threat under current leadership. Obviously, it's a lot more powerful and has a much more successful economy over a much longer period. You know, I think Russia is probably the bigger threat in the short run. You know, I come back, how do we deal with them? The best way to deal with them is not to make yourself dependent on them. So I'm not in favor of, like, total decoupling from China or attempting to, but we certainly got to reduce our vulnerability to them. We haven't really talked about economics, but if you don't have a growing economy, then in the end, that affects everything else. And we need to get our economies growing again so we can fund the necessary defense effort and not be dependent on China and imports in crucial areas all the time. And we have to be confident in our own values. And again, it just worries me that you know, the West is always kind of on the defensive. And so many of our leaders are kind of guilty about what we did in the past or always trying to see both sides of every situation. You know, we are the countries that most people in the world would like to come and live in if they got the chance. Most people in their heart of hearts regard Western values, democracy, freedom, liberalism as superior by their own observed behavior. And I think we should be a bit more ready to speak out for them and have the kind of values battle that we had with the Cold War and that, in the end, chipped away at the support of the regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe. So you gotta do all those things, and we probably got to be in it for the long haul again unless we get really lucky.
CLOSING
Mcfarlane: That's it for this week's episode of One Decision. We drop new episodes every Thursday. Like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Drop us a line. Tell us your thoughts. What decisions have impacted you and where you live? You can write to us. Our email is 1decision@1decisionpodcast.com. From me and the team, thank you for listening, and see you next time.
