26 – Stop Self-Deterring! – TallinnsideOut – Talk of the Town from the Lennart Meri Conference

00:00:00: Welcome to Berlin Side Out, the podcast that takes an expert look at how Germany sees the

00:00:05: world and the world sees Germany with me, Benjamin Tallis.

00:00:09: And me, Aaron Gash-Bernett.

00:00:16: Welcome back to a very special edition of Berlin Side Out, Tallin Side Out, here from

00:00:20: the Lennart-Mary conference in Tallinn, where we bring you more talk at the town to fuel

00:00:25: that FOMO you have from not being here. We're joined by three people who we know well and

00:00:30: who are experts in their respective fields, Balkan, Hannah, Rihardz. Please introduce yourself

00:00:37: to our listeners.

00:00:38: Hi everyone, my name is Rihardz Gals, I'm the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee

00:00:41: of the Parliament of Latvia. And I'm thrilled to have this conversation, looking back on

00:00:48: the full day of conversation at the Lennart-Mary conference.

00:00:51: I'm very delighted to have you on the show, especially as we've had your two musketeer

00:00:55: colleagues on in the past. We've had Jiges Pavliones and Marco Miquelsson. And now finally

00:00:59: we have you after your leg injury, kept you out of our last planned recording together.

00:01:03: Triumvirate is complete for Berlin Side Out here in Tallinn.

00:01:07: Hannah.

00:01:08: My name's Hannah Notte. I'm the director of the Eurasian Nonproliferation Programme at

00:01:12: the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. And I'm also

00:01:17: a senior nonresident associate with CSIS in Washington DC, though I am based in Berlin.

00:01:23: And I'm very happy to be joining you today.

00:01:25: Thank you. Thanks for agreeing to come on the show. Now regular listeners will know and

00:01:28: recognize the inimitable voice and views of Balkan Devlin. Balkan, welcome back. Tell

00:01:34: us who you still are.

00:01:35: Oh, thanks Ben and no pressure at all. My name is Balkan Devlin. I'm the director of

00:01:39: the Tri-Satana Programme at the McDonald-Loria Institute, which is a national tank tank in

00:01:44: Canada.

00:01:45: Very good. So we've had a full day at Lennart-Merry today. There were sessions last night and

00:01:49: then starting early in the morning. They're really working us hard. The first session

00:01:52: started at 8.15 and Aaron and I have recorded two separate podcast sessions since then.

00:01:57: And we've had a really full session of presentations. But what's caught your eye? Rickards, you were

00:02:01: on the panel this morning about seizing Russian assets from freezing to seizing.

00:02:05: Yeah, that is the missing link where the West is still somewhat hesitating and making decisive

00:02:12: decisions. Of course, everything is surrounded with legality discussion, but I think it's

00:02:18: not the case. It's the case to really show that we are decisive when we can go ahead.

00:02:24: And the question is how and when. Well, we see the fine example of the ongoing discussions

00:02:31: when it comes to sanctions, right? We already up front announced to Russia that we're going

00:02:37: to prepare the 14 sanction package. It will involve this, that and another and so on.

00:02:43: That makes makes him, you know, starting points to start to circumvent and avoid and so on.

00:02:49: So what we actually discussed, and there was somewhat of a consensus building in a room

00:02:56: that Russia needs to be given a cold shower on instant decision, like on a fortnight just

00:03:04: coming out and saying we're seizing the assets are going to Ukraine's support, be rebuilding,

00:03:11: reconstruction, military and etc. The questions right now surrounds in what ways everyone waits

00:03:19: for the G seven meeting in June. But I think we can already push ahead beyond before that.

00:03:26: And I would argue that there are different aspects that we can put in motion already.

00:03:31: The Europe has already given the legal framework that we can withhold these windfall interest

00:03:38: rates. Well, because the central bank assets of Russia, they're in only a few handful of

00:03:44: countries. They're not across the all you member states. So it's up to them how they're

00:03:49: going to work with the windfall interest rates, the income which amounts to three billion annually.

00:03:56: And just to conclude the idea that was in the room that is really triggering that we

00:04:02: can provide, you know, in indefinite financial support annually amounting 30 billion to Ukraine

00:04:10: is that we take a loan. And that each year from that windfall interest rate, we pay the

00:04:16: interest rate to those who we take in the loan. And where we can get the loan, we don't have

00:04:20: to look outside of you. Let's take from the Nordic pension funds. Special contribution

00:04:27: to Nordic Baltic relations there from from Reads. Yes, exactly. Well, one thing that

00:04:32: I think that came up in that particular session was the goes really to the theme of the entire

00:04:38: conference. Let's let us not despair about act and that there's a lot of pessimism flowing

00:04:44: around. We certainly experienced that a lot in Berlin, all of this list of things we cannot

00:04:48: do because of this. We cannot do because of that. The discussion around seizing assets

00:04:52: is a big part of that. We can't do it because of legal reasons, economic reasons, this sort

00:04:56: of thing. But did you did you get a sense from that conversation or any other conversations

00:05:02: you've had that maybe we are actually moving towards a more decisive approach to dealing

00:05:09: with Russia? And the question of whether we should seize assets is just one way that we

00:05:14: can make this is a this is I think the main theme should be surrounding Glen and Merritt

00:05:19: Conference. Can we agree on one particular way of how we define strategic defeat of Russia?

00:05:27: Because there are 50 shades of strategic defeat of Russia defending from the capital to capital

00:05:32: in Germany is let's not let's Ukraine lose. And in Baltic said still the victory. And then

00:05:39: there are others as long as it's necessary, which is again so way again so on. So I think

00:05:45: I will use Gimantas Pavlionis, his advocacy when he is in Washington DC, he's putting

00:05:52: his fist on a table and saying, we need Casablanca Conference. Do you know the Casablanca Conference

00:06:00: 1943? It's Churchill and Roosevelt together defined there will be no negotiations with

00:06:06: the Nazi Germany. It's only total defeat. This should be applicable to Russia, at least

00:06:14: as they described us collective West. Right. And we actually talked about this on the other

00:06:18: talk at the town session this morning with Matt Crainig and other guests. And Matt, of

00:06:23: course, just released a book that's called We Win, They Lose. Ronald Reagan's famous

00:06:27: comment that actually some of these very complex issues are quite simple if you think them

00:06:30: through and that quest for victory, which as Richard has said is not shared by everyone

00:06:36: at the moment. And we end up risking strategically defeating ourselves. Now, Balkan, we've just

00:06:40: come from a panel about NATO's 75th anniversary and there was a lot of celebratory self congratulatory

00:06:47: talk about what has been done, but there were some questions about what hasn't as well.

00:06:51: Exactly. Before getting to that, two points perhaps about the seizing of the assets. Aaron

00:06:56: wrote about it so he can talk more on that. But one thing, one of the primary, you know,

00:07:02: oppositions to the idea that this will create a precedent, right? And then people will not

00:07:08: invest, blah, blah, blah, which is of course, complete nonsense. Because if you are engaging

00:07:14: in crime of aggression against your neighbors and, you know, committing war crimes and genocide,

00:07:20: yes, you should be worried about exactly. You should be worried about getting your assets

00:07:25: seized. And we can't allow it to become normalized behavior. This is about setting that precedent.

00:07:30: Exactly. Exactly. So that is the precedent we should be setting rather than avoiding

00:07:34: it, right? The number two point is that we need to, when we get to the moving part, we

00:07:39: need to break the barrier of fear, right? The fear of action that we keep concerned

00:07:46: about, oh, what the Russians would do. Oh, what the Russians would do. Let's move and

00:07:51: take action and break that particular barrier. The third point, which is your question about

00:07:55: what was not talked about. I wasn't particularly convinced with the undersecretaries' comments

00:08:03: about that, you know, things were given in a timely manner and in timely fashion. That,

00:08:10: you know, drip, drip, drip feeding Ukrainians, ammunition and weapons systems, delivering

00:08:16: things too late, too little is one of the reasons why we end up here today.

00:08:20: Well, I mean, the message I think that we are hearing that we often say is let's not

00:08:23: self deter ourselves, right? And this comes up in a few different topics. This certainly

00:08:28: comes up in the seizing of the assets. Let's not be afraid of our power to actually do

00:08:32: this. Let's just do it. We have escalation dominance in the financial field. Let's go

00:08:36: ahead. But that was also a theme that very much came up during that session that Balkans

00:08:40: just talking about right now where Assistant Secretary Celeste Wallander from the US, you

00:08:45: know, made certain remarks that some of us raised our eyebrows at during the session.

00:08:52: This sort of self deterrence, which has motivated this drip, drip of support to Ukraine. What

00:08:58: did you make of that?

00:08:59: It struck me during the last session that it seems to me over two years into this war,

00:09:04: we still have this, what I would call a stakes conundrum in this war. I think there are those

00:09:08: people who still haven't understood what is at stake with the war in Ukraine, the consequences

00:09:14: that a Russian victory would have, what it would mean for European security, what it

00:09:17: might mean for nuclear proliferation across the globe, what precedent it might set for

00:09:22: Indo-Pacific. So those people seem to say the stakes are really not that high in Ukraine.

00:09:27: You know, what happens in Ukraine doesn't really matter for us. And I think across the

00:09:32: European continent, we still have constituencies who would support that. And then there are

00:09:37: those who say, well, the stakes are actually too high. If we push Russia too much, we might

00:09:42: see the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. And so you have sort of what I would

00:09:48: call the stakes conundrum, where there are those who think the stakes are too low, and

00:09:52: there are those who think that the stakes are too high and both sort of prevent sufficient

00:09:57: support for Ukraine, but coming at it from different perspectives. And that is a problem

00:10:02: because we are faced, I think, with a Russia that is a single purpose actor. Russia's entire

00:10:08: statecraft, its entire global foreign policy has been recalibrated to stand firm in this

00:10:14: confrontation with the West over Ukraine, whereas we in the West still get pulled into

00:10:19: all sorts of different directions and considerations. I didn't attend the session on the assets

00:10:25: this morning. I was in a different session on expert controls and sanctions, you know,

00:10:30: discussing why it is that Russia still has very high income from selling oil, why it

00:10:34: is not, why it is the case that we're not taking more of Russia's shadow fleet off

00:10:40: the market, why it is that we're not enforcing the price cap on Russian oil sufficiently,

00:10:47: why it is the case that the so-called roundabout trade through third countries is still in

00:10:51: motion. And again, we sort of come to all sorts of domestic considerations or not wanting

00:10:57: to impose secondary sanctions, not wanting to drive up gas prices for the American consumer

00:11:03: ahead of the US elections. So these different considerations that interfere, whereas again,

00:11:08: we are focused with a Russia that is singularly focused upon winning this war. And I think

00:11:14: this, what I would call the stakes conundrum sort of stuck with me throughout the day as

00:11:19: I was listening to the conversations.

00:11:41: If I may on that, obviously the Baltics already on 24th of February, so 23rd we provided lethal

00:12:11: weapons. I don't know if it's widely known or not, but we gave the anti-aircraft manpower

00:12:17: to rockets, actually. We actually spoke to artist Pabrik last night, who was very proud

00:12:22: that his stingers, as he calls them, he was sent back by his stingers, went to Hostamel.

00:12:26: Well, exactly. It actually, I think saved Kiev. But it's, well, obviously it's 113

00:12:35: days since that. And we're still way back on delivering on what we have promised. We

00:12:42: absolutely rightly pointed out, we keep circling the red lines around ourselves, limiting the

00:12:49: capabilities that we can provide. And just wanted to say, I don't know if it's true

00:12:55: or not, but I believe it is. The Patricia writes the just the closed meeting of the

00:13:02: Russian Security Council leaked information about his rhetoric, what was being circulating

00:13:08: on media. But one point he's stating that what he was mentioning, the fear is our main

00:13:18: weapon. And, you know, if we look not only at the political leadership, but to the state,

00:13:24: but if we go to the human being, fear is something that paralyzes you to make a decision, to

00:13:31: make an action and so on. And this is what they constantly dripping in different parts,

00:13:36: fear of nuclear weapon using, you know, dirty bomb or tactical, whatever. That is just,

00:13:44: it was counted how many times since 24 February, Russian propagandists or the leadership has

00:13:50: mentioned the nuclear attack. It was 300 something. It's like every second day, there's this

00:13:55: rhetoric. And this is something that keeps us paralyzed because what this means at some

00:14:00: point, they're really, I don't think Putin is ready to do that. It's way too much for

00:14:06: him to lose to trigger something like that. And he has right now the bigger brother, Russia

00:14:12: is a vessel state of China. And China has clearly stated there won't be use of any even

00:14:18: tactical news because that is obviously a loose policy that won't work for either party.

00:14:25: We've heard about lots of justification for what has been delivered, as you said. And

00:14:30: not really enough focus on what we actually need. But what strikes me is that I personally

00:14:35: think if you deliver enough, you don't have to justify yourself. Right? But in that last

00:14:41: session on NATO just now that we saw, especially with Celeste Volander, we saw a lot of justification

00:14:49: of what has been delivered, especially by the US, but also by other allies. And she

00:14:54: has sent a certain message that the NATO summit will have a clear message from the US and

00:15:01: from allies that Putin is wrong about our level of commitment that we've been able to

00:15:06: demonstrate to Ukraine so far. Obviously, Russia has shown itself that it's very committed.

00:15:12: Hannah, as you just said, it has basically formulated its entire society around this

00:15:18: particular goal. So that's kind of interesting. What kind of message would that have to be?

00:15:23: Because she didn't say what it was going to be. What would we need to see? So Hannah,

00:15:27: let's start with you on this question.

00:15:28: Well, she talked about some of the deliverables that she's hoping for from the NATO summit.

00:15:33: She talked about 32 NATO allies committing 2% of spending. She talked about fully sourcing,

00:15:40: I think military units for various regional programs. But yeah, questions regarding a

00:15:47: pathway for Ukraine for NATO membership. We didn't hear clear answers from the panel.

00:15:55: I've never heard quite so many adjectives used to describe a bridge, as we've heard

00:16:00: in the last afternoon since Tony Blinken's comments about needing a bridge for Ukraine.

00:16:04: It's well lit, it's short, it's straight, etc. It's reliable, but it's still not NATO

00:16:10: membership.

00:16:11: Bridge nowhere.

00:16:12: Well, you know, the bridge is the most unstable structure in architecture, actually.

00:16:18: We don't live on bridges, right? You pass through bridges.

00:16:20: Well, let's be clear. There's one bridge we'd love to see blow up. We all know which one

00:16:24: that is.

00:16:25: That's true. But Hannah, in terms of how the Russians are seeing this, I mean, Rick, I

00:16:29: just mentioned this sort of leak. I mean, I don't think that's any surprises that the

00:16:32: Russians working with fear, playing on our own fears. How do we overcome that?

00:16:37: You know, I'll be quite frank. I'm not sure that fear can be totally overcome because

00:16:42: fear of nuclear war, of a nuclear weapon, that's quite a formidable nuclear fear for

00:16:46: humans to deal with. I think that we are in a situation where we will likely face a Russian

00:16:53: Federation with which we will be in confrontation for a very, very long period to come. And

00:16:58: that Russia has nuclear weapons and will be continuously manipulating and using that nuclear

00:17:03: fear. So we need to have a much more, I think, nuanced and informed conversation in our societies

00:17:12: of how to deal with it because it's not going to go away. And there is other measures that

00:17:17: Russia can take. And I anticipate we will see more of those short of nuclear use over

00:17:22: the course of this conflict. We have already seen many Russian measures. Russia has essentially

00:17:27: walked away from nuclear arms control. It has suspended its participation in the New

00:17:33: Start Treaty. It has hinted that it could be testing a nuclear weapon. It has deradified

00:17:38: the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It is now, and I hope we'll talk about sort of in the

00:17:43: Pacific and Middle East as well because those are themes at the conference. Russia is now

00:17:48: enabling both North Korea and Iran no longer a partner on nuclear nonproliferation. So my

00:17:53: point here to you is that we are faced with a Russia that is continuously trying to raise

00:17:58: what I would call the nuclear temperature more broadly.

00:18:02: of using a nuclear weapon. And that is a new environment that we Europeans are still incredibly

00:18:08: uncomfortable with and need to grow more comfortable with and in terms of how to deal with it.

00:18:15: But I'm not sure that a fear of nuclear use in a conflict is something that you can sort of

00:18:22: fully rid people of.

00:18:23: No, but it really is. It's not the fear. It's what you do with it, right?

00:18:26: No, no. I think one thing the NATO has to show, we mean business, not only, you know,

00:18:34: refilling our stocks and, you know, fueling our military industry to the maximum capacity and

00:18:40: beyond, but also putting to the practice certain things. I think right now is the time

00:18:46: for the Baltic Sea GPS blocking scheme that is obvious coming from certain parts of Russia,

00:18:54: Russia's territory to give a blow to that, to that particular infrastructure, because that is

00:19:01: absolutely interfering and that is endangering our people's lives. And that is that is already

00:19:10: violating our space as such. And that should be already. I mean, I'm not talking even about

00:19:17: those incursions of rockets into Poland and Romania that also have somewhat tested. There's

00:19:23: actually two casualties in Poland, two civilians got killed. And then we are still kind of, you

00:19:29: know, and it's not, well, we, it was misfired rocket. It was intentionally targeted and it

00:19:35: entered NATO's airspace. We did nothing. So with GPS right now, which is massive, massive

00:19:44: been blocking in Baltic Sea, Finland is even, you know, suspending their flights.

00:19:50: That is something where NATO has to respond with force. Right. Because otherwise we send the signal

00:19:56: by force, it's you can kick out those signals and others and go beyond that. So because otherwise

00:20:02: we send the signal, we are afraid. And actually this blackmail works. Whatever they want.

00:20:07: That's the point. And this, this was a lesson from the Cold War as well, Balkan, right? We had to show

00:20:12: that we weren't going to give into blackmail in order that it doesn't actually work. And they

00:20:16: don't keep trying it. Exactly. And the nuclear component mad still holds, mutual issue, disruption

00:20:21: still holds. We do have a nuclear escalation fear. So does the Russians. I mean, Putin's regime,

00:20:27: Kremlin, maybe a lot of things, including being evil, but they are not suicidal. You do not stay

00:20:35: at the top of such a regime by being suicidal. Right. This is a guy who sits 20 feet away from others

00:20:42: because he was scared that he'll catch COVID. COVID. Right. So he's pointing at rehounds,

00:20:49: but I think he means. Yeah. Up there. Up there. So this is not a guy that will necessarily willingly

00:20:56: to walk into a nuclear escalation ladder. Right. And just to go back to the sort of old Bolshevik

00:21:05: dictum, which is, which could be apocryphal, but where the, you know, you, you, you prod by, with

00:21:11: bayonets, if you meet, you know, still you pull back, if you meet flesh, you go through is exactly

00:21:18: what Russia has been doing. Historically, when it is being pushed back, Russians move back. So there

00:21:25: is, we have to take the nuclear escalation component with the idea that Russians don't want to die.

00:21:31: Putin definitely doesn't want to die. His, his, his, his cronies doesn't want to die.

00:21:37: And once you get into a nuclear escalation ladder, you don't know where it would go.

00:21:40: And there are other options that they actually horizontally escalating by including targeting

00:21:47: civilian infrastructure, continuously to do so, et cetera, et cetera. There are other options

00:21:52: that are militarily more beneficial and psychologically more beneficial than using

00:21:57: nuclear weapons, plus the China factor. Well, Irish fishermen, they're very effective.

00:22:01: I mean, that's why we have an Irish general now at the head of the military committee.

00:22:07: In all seriousness, no, if we use the Irish fishermen example for a second, I mean, you know,

00:22:13: that, I mean, the Russians folded pretty quickly when actually, you know, confronted with, we're

00:22:18: going to do something about this, you know? So, I mean, you know, there's, there is the sense,

00:22:23: of course, that there's a, you know, I mean, yeah, Putin is, is, it has to have a huge table

00:22:27: because he's afraid we do not have this table around us right now. It's a very, it's much smaller

00:22:31: one. So, for what, what are some of the other highlights that you also had today from some

00:22:38: of the panels? We had sessions on narratives. We obviously had sessions on a new arms race,

00:22:44: and indeed the one that we have been talking about a lot and 75 years of NATO.

00:22:49: And Balkan, no pressure at all to say the other highlight was the other recording of

00:22:53: Berlin Side Out Live here at the conference with Timothy Snyder, Elliot Cohen, Marcus Tarkner,

00:22:57: and Ana Zavier. No pressure, Balkan. No, no, not at all. But I'd like to pick on that last point.

00:23:03: Perhaps I'll leave the other panel discussions to, to, to my colleagues here. My, my take from,

00:23:10: from that, you know, live session of, of, of Tallinn inside out was, well, first, there are a

00:23:17: couple interesting conversations, but the thing really that I think was very beneficial and everyone

00:23:21: should really go back and listen to it was the deep dive when we talk about values versus

00:23:29: interests and why that's actually a false dichotomy, right? As, as I like to say, and as Ben says,

00:23:36: you know, our values are our interests, but, you know, our interests are downstream from our values,

00:23:42: right? Very basic interests such as sovereignty or territorial integrity are fundamentally because

00:23:48: we value political independence. If they can give you $100,000 every citizen and they, but you will

00:23:54: not be sovereign or you will not be politically independent. A lot of people would refuse that,

00:23:59: right? Because we value our political independence. So our interests are downstream from values.

00:24:06: And by artificially separating this, which really did came out in, in this session,

00:24:12: we are undermining ourselves by creating possible wedges for others to go like, this is not in your

00:24:19: interest. Do not, do not pursue that one. So that's, I think, one of the highlights for me.

00:24:23: And one thing that came up on that panel too was that democracy is not simply a motherhood and

00:24:29: apple pie kind of value. It is actually a security interest because if you're surrounded by other

00:24:34: democracies, you know, you don't fight each other. That helps to provide for your own security.

00:24:39: It does as does the fundamental freedoms and human rights that democracy ensures.

00:24:42: This is also security of the person, freedom of conscience, all of the things that we really

00:24:46: hold dear. And that's where we would say our values are our interests. Hannah, what's, what's

00:24:50: else has stood out for you in your time here at Leonard Mary? I would say that the conference is

00:24:54: also doing a good job of what I call connecting the dots, connecting different issues across the

00:24:59: globe. I attended the session on the Indo-Pacific where we talked about perhaps a looming crisis in

00:25:05: the Taiwan Strait, but also what's going on with North Korea. And of course, what we have is a growing

00:25:12: partnership between Russia, China and the DPRK. North Korea, North Korea is supporting Russia's

00:25:18: war against Ukraine, but Russia is also perhaps giving certain capabilities to the North Koreans

00:25:23: that are fueling Pyongyang's risk appetite on the Korean Peninsula. We'll have a session later

00:25:28: tonight on the Middle East and who's benefiting from conflict in the Middle East. Now, don't get me

00:25:33: wrong, you know, Russia is not the architect of tensions in the Indo-Pacific. Russia is not the

00:25:39: architect of the war in Gaza, but Russia's cooperation with Iran and Russia's cooperation

00:25:44: with North Korea is having an impact on how those actors conduct themselves in these other regions.

00:25:51: And we as the West, you know, the United States, Europe, we are also thinking about those crises.

00:25:56: You, Ben mentioned Israel earlier and what we did with, with Israel. Well, yeah, after October 7th,

00:26:02: the United States moved patriot battalions into the Middle East. And there was a formidable show

00:26:07: of force by the U.S. and its allies on April 13th when Iran attacked Israel. But that also then

00:26:14: led the Ukrainians to say, well, what about our air defenses? So of course, policy decisions are

00:26:19: made in a research constrained environment. And as we have sort of metastasizing crises across

00:26:25: the globe, which are not exclusively, but partially fueled by Russia, I think connecting these thoughts

00:26:32: and understanding how what's happening with DPRK, what's happening in the Middle East and what's

00:26:37: happening in Ukraine is sort of having these inner linkages and fully understanding the nuances

00:26:42: of these inner linkages is also incredibly important. And so I think it's great that we have these

00:26:47: sessions, these sessions here as well. I'll be talking, for example, tomorrow morning in a session

00:26:53: about Iranian weapons support to Russia. And again, I'll make the point that that's a big

00:26:59: problem for the battlefield in Ukraine. But we also want to ask the question what the Russians

00:27:03: are giving the Iranians in return, and what effect that will have on dynamics in the Middle

00:27:08: East, because again, these things cannot be fully disentangled. Such important points that

00:27:13: absolutely we have to deal with these things in a coherent and comprehensive way, don't we, Rehaaz?

00:27:17: Well, yes. Obviously, thank you for bringing this up yesterday as well, the owl session.

00:27:24: It was the freedom for peace in a way. And I tried to provoke those who would trade freedom for

00:27:31: peace deserve the both. Yes, but I kind of suggested for the panelists to instead of the word freedom,

00:27:39: put the word impunity, impunity for peace, are we ready to trade that? And this is something that

00:27:47: lessons from the 20th century as well, the one that was really emboldened to act as it acts in

00:27:53: 21st century is because of impunity in 20th century. The Soviet Union, Red Army, none of them,

00:28:01: none of them, they committed a name of war crimes in Eastern Europe, in in in the Baltics,

00:28:08: deportations, you name it, and none of them, none of them were accountable or or went to the to

00:28:15: the to the trials. So that emboldened them in 20 20s at the end of 20th century and 21st century

00:28:22: tacked the way they act, how they acted in the first days of incursion in 24th of February,

00:28:29: the what we saw the whole world afterwards, butchai opinion, so on. It was it didn't came

00:28:35: as surprise. It's because the Russian army, they know that, you know, they will get away

00:28:42: because they're part of the Security Council. Their leadership will cover all the crimes and so

00:28:50: on. None of them will be accountable. They're for God's sake, they're sending prisoners to the

00:28:54: to the battlefield when they, you know, fight, you know, a killer's, you know, assassins. And then,

00:29:01: you know, they return to their societies and be full fleshed. So this is this is somewhat

00:29:07: incredible. What I wanted to mention is it's not actually putting together the dots. The dots

00:29:13: have the name and the name is axis of evil. That's how they should be labeled. They Russia, Iran,

00:29:21: China, North Korea. That is exactly what they are. The born Ukraine, Russia born Ukraine,

00:29:29: the Middle East conflict are not isolated conflicts. Yes, I agree. It's not maybe Russia

00:29:36: directly involved in in in Middle East right now, conflict, but everything that went up to

00:29:43: 7th of October, enforcing training, arming Hamas and etc. It is two regimes hand in hand. It's the

00:29:54: Tehran and Moscow very much. We see that after the 7th of October, Hamas is traveling to Moscow.

00:30:00: I mean, when when when the West pulls out of NATO pulls out of Afghanistan, where where does

00:30:07: Taliban travel to Moscow and others? It's just this is something that is happening in front of

00:30:12: our eyes when the West is still fighting, still fighting each other on different arguments.

00:30:18: They are cooperating. Just reason one, Putin and well, somebody said that I do not pronounce

00:30:24: correctly. I pronounce it as a Latin XE, but she or he or sorry, careful, we'll get into a pronounce

00:30:33: there. I don't know. That's why I say XE. Okay, there's a session on the Middle East coming up

00:30:38: tonight and whoever scheduled that after drinks was clearly showing no fear whatsoever. You need

00:30:43: a drink to deal with the Middle East. Well, there we go. That's the other way of looking at it.

00:30:47: Different philosophy. Actually, I think that's that reminds me what you were talking about just

00:30:53: now, the new axis of evil. We had a speaker here at Leonard Mary Sholateroda who used different

00:30:59: terminology. She called it the coalition of jerks, which when we we have to understand that these

00:31:05: things are not an isolation, right? This is this is exactly the point. May I propose a slight

00:31:09: amendment from axis of evil to circle of jerks. That will undermine their morale to evil. Evil

00:31:17: sounds too cool for them. Yeah, exactly. Really, they're just a coalition of jerks who are afraid

00:31:21: of COVID and therefore have to have a long table, you know, but otherwise. What else is coming up?

00:31:26: Yeah, but otherwise, let's ask you guys quickly what you're looking forward to. We have several

00:31:30: things. We have a Russian disinformation panel that you are speaking on tomorrow, Ben. I am,

00:31:34: which is about joining dots in other ways, joining dots from foreign policy to our domestic

00:31:38: situation, understanding that Russian disinformation as well as other malign activity works in the

00:31:42: cracks in our societies, which we create. And frankly, we need to fix. That's why we need a

00:31:46: coherent approach, not only to dealing with the circle of jerks, as they should be known going

00:31:50: forward, but also to our domestic issues as well as our foreign policy posture. Yeah, and you

00:31:56: mentioned the session that you are also chairing tomorrow. This is one of the issues of Leonard

00:32:00: Mary. There's so many things happening at the same time. And sometimes you have to pick and choose,

00:32:04: but here's one last panel. Can we turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake? Very curious about what

00:32:09: you think about this, Rick. Yeah, I know it sounds like funny and so on. Lake and so on. Lake means

00:32:16: there is no need then for presence, permanent presence. So we, so it's still, it's still something

00:32:23: that we have to heavily invest in our defense. I mean, we'll see how the new defense plans are

00:32:28: unfolding because after Sweden accession, we have to revise the already adopted plans after

00:32:35: Finland joined. It's the procedure. But yeah, it's, it's obviously has way, way limited Russia's

00:32:46: capabilities, especially in the Navy area in the Baltic Sea. And I think beyond as well,

00:32:52: looking up in high North as well, we'll see how the new command structures are working out,

00:32:59: Brunsum, North Falken, etc. I just hope the Nordics will stick with the Baltics.

00:33:06: But that's, that's for the future discussions. As long as you don't ask them about their pension

00:33:11: funds again, Rick, I think it's a good investment. Imagine to get to get 10% interest rate back.

00:33:18: I mean, where else are you going to get better deal? You heard it here first. Yeah.

00:33:22: Balkan, what are you looking forward to? I mean, there are a number of things, but I'm really

00:33:26: looking forward to one of the night all sessions that focuses on lessons learned. Because, I mean,

00:33:34: for us, going forward as, as, as Russia is not an acute threat, it's a chronic threat that we

00:33:40: would need to deal with. And they are learning different lessons. Iran is learning, North Korea

00:33:45: is China, they are learning. We need to figure out what lessons we could also learn when,

00:33:50: and understand what lessons Russians are learning, right? So as well as winning the tactical adaptation

00:33:55: battle, we need to win the strategic adaptation battle. Otherwise, this is going to look very

00:33:59: bad for us. Hannah, apart from your own panel tomorrow, what else are you looking forward to?

00:34:03: Well, two things. So first of all, I'll be very sad to miss a parallel session that runs in parallel

00:34:08: to my panel, which is on the situation in the South Caucasus, where, you know, we have a situation

00:34:12: in Georgia where a foreign agent law was just passed. We have a, I think, you know, precarious

00:34:17: situation in Armenia after, after the exodus of Karabakh Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh last fall.

00:34:25: So there's a lot in flux in the South Caucasus that is also, I think, quite directly related to the

00:34:30: impact of Russia's war against Ukraine. So I think that should be an interesting discussion.

00:34:35: But I'll also say that I really just look forward to having more conversations with folks on the

00:34:39: sidelines. You know, I live and work in Berlin. I work mostly on Russia's foreign policy outside

00:34:46: of Europe, you know, so with the Iran's and the North Koreans and in the Middle East. I don't really

00:34:51: work on the Baltic region in my work. And of course, there's so many excellent people here from

00:34:56: different countries in the Baltic region. So I'm just, you know, networking, speaking with people,

00:35:02: very excited to hear perspectives from this region, because I'm not, you know, exposed to it so much

00:35:06: in my day-to-day work. And so for me, that's almost the biggest benefit coming to this conference

00:35:12: for the second year now in a row. I agree. Making friends and trying to influence people

00:35:17: is definitely part of the game here. And we're all having a blast doing it. It has to be said,

00:35:20: too. It's a lot of really serious issues. But when you have such great allies to talk to them

00:35:24: about, it becomes a pleasant exercise as well as a seriously important one. Hannah, you're based

00:35:29: in Berlin. We hear your voice and I debate a lot, which is great. It's been fantastic to have.

00:35:34: When Rihards, you've come to Berlin, Balkan, same thing. We need those strong voices to push

00:35:38: Germany to do what it needs to do. However long it takes to whatever it takes and make sure that

00:35:42: it is victory. Thanks very much for talking to us today here at the Lennart-Mary conference,

00:35:46: and we look forward to continuing the conversation here and in Berlin in the future. Thank you all.

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