27 – ‘Let Us Not Despair, But Act’: Sources of Strategic Hope – TallinnsideOut Live 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 to a special live edition of Berlin Side Out, the Foreign Affairs podcast in association

00:00:21: with the German Council on Foreign Relations, which is undergoing a very special name change

00:00:25: during our time at the Leonard Mary Conference in Tallinn in honor of our Estonian hosts,

00:00:31: and taking full advantage of the opportunity that the name of the Estonian capital affords

00:00:35: us.

00:00:36: Of course, welcome to Tallinn Side Out.

00:00:39: Thank you, everyone, our fabulous hosts at Leonard Mary, our live audience, and our amazing

00:00:43: guests for joining us, two of whom are joining us momentarily.

00:00:47: I'm Aaron Gash-Bernett, a journalist and security analyst specializing in German and European

00:00:52: politics.

00:00:53: And as always, I'm here with my friend and co-host Benjamin Tallis, senior research fellow

00:00:57: at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

00:00:59: Ben, we have come to Tallinn from Berlin.

00:01:02: And in Berlin, we had plenty of gloomy discussions earlier this week, and they were laced with,

00:01:08: unfortunately, a lot of fatalism, resignation, despair over our current moment in European

00:01:14: security and prosperity.

00:01:15: He's nodding his head there.

00:01:17: We heard plenty about the threat that Russia poses to Ukraine and to all of us.

00:01:22: And I know that you and I both left many of those discussions with the feeling of, well,

00:01:27: hey, we can still do something about this.

00:01:29: We still have viable solutions for supporting Ukraine, and in so doing, securing ourselves.

00:01:35: We can step up European military support.

00:01:37: We can seize Russia's frozen central bank assets.

00:01:40: There's still a lot of things that we can do, so let's talk about those.

00:01:44: Why aren't we doing that?

00:01:45: And that's a big part of why it's amazing to be here in Tallinn and at this conference,

00:01:49: which this year really felt like it was speaking exactly to that feeling that I just described

00:01:55: right now, that we were having earlier this week with this main theme, "Let us not despair

00:01:59: but act."

00:02:00: Some of us were just sort of briefing with Prime Minister Callas, who encouraged us that

00:02:04: while we need to be aware of how serious the situation is, we also need to avoid being

00:02:08: overly pessimistic because pessimism can lead to an action.

00:02:11: So let's look at our options because where there are options, there is hope.

00:02:15: That's right because I think sometimes we need to be able to say, "Let us act lest we despair."

00:02:19: We need to actually not be, not wallow in pessimism or panic at the scale of the challenge

00:02:23: we face, but at the same time, we also need to be clear-eyed about the threats we face

00:02:28: and the dangers that we're actually in.

00:02:29: And it's striking that balance in order to inspire action rather than prevent it, that

00:02:33: we convened this panel today.

00:02:36: And I'm very happy to say we've been joined by real experts who are going to provide their

00:02:40: different perspectives on this.

00:02:41: But as Aaron mentioned, the case for despair is certainly easy to make if you're in Berlin.

00:02:46: It's a little harder to make if you're in Tallinn.

00:02:48: And so understanding these different strategic conversations, the different outlook and the

00:02:52: different approach and how that's actually affecting our ability to act and act strategically

00:02:57: is why we wanted to convene this discussion today.

00:03:00: Regular listeners to the podcast will know that we've been pursuing an approach to grand

00:03:03: strategy for liberal democracies that we call neo-idealism.

00:03:06: And at the core of that is the notion that actually liberal democracies key advantage

00:03:10: over our systemic competitors is the right to a hopeful future for our citizens.

00:03:16: And it's restoring that credibility of hope that we see as essential to actually restoring

00:03:20: our credibility of strategic action.

00:03:22: There are of course obstacles to doing that.

00:03:24: This is no easy task.

00:03:26: And it's no coincidence that the quote that inspired the theme of this year's Leonard

00:03:29: Mary conference was taken from then Senator John Kennedy at a time of great global tension,

00:03:34: at a time of deep into the first Cold War.

00:03:38: When he said, let us not despair, but act.

00:03:41: First up actually, as we heard yesterday, a minst a conversation of favorites is, you

00:03:46: heard it here actually, is one of Kaya Callis's favorite historians.

00:03:51: That is of course, Timothy Snyder, who just walked in, professor of history and global

00:03:55: affairs at Yale University and co-founder of Documenting Ukraine, the recipient of many

00:03:59: distinctions across many countries, the author of 20 books in addition to the many hats that

00:04:05: he wears.

00:04:06: We also have Elliot Cohen, one of the world's foremost experts on strategy, the Arleigh

00:04:11: Burke chair and strategy at the Center for International Studies.

00:04:15: And also joining us is Anna Isabel Xavier, Secretary of State at the Portuguese Ministry

00:04:21: of National Defense, a position she recently took up following a storied career in public

00:04:25: service and security.

00:04:27: And we are also excited to be welcoming Estonian Foreign Minister Marga Sakna a little bit

00:04:34: later in the show.

00:04:35: Tim, thanks very much for running in straight from the airport.

00:04:38: Great to have you with us.

00:04:39: You've been one of the most clear eyed voices for understanding the threats to democracy

00:04:44: that we currently face.

00:04:45: What are those threats and how despite those, can we still draw hope?

00:04:48: Goodness.

00:04:49: First of all, it's great to be here and I promise to shave before the next time you

00:04:53: see me.

00:04:54: I started my day at four o'clock and I have just walked into the hotel room and I'm very

00:04:58: happy to be in the presence of hosts of the podcast and colleagues.

00:05:03: What's the democracy?

00:05:04: Number one is complacency.

00:05:06: Historically speaking, democracy is always incredibly difficult and exceptional.

00:05:12: And therefore any idea that democracy is the end of history or is brought to us by a constitution

00:05:17: or by national exceptionalism or any nonsense of that sort is deadly dangerous for democracy.

00:05:24: Related to that or another way to put that same point is that nihilism is a threat to

00:05:31: democracy.

00:05:32: Democracy is not a state of affairs.

00:05:34: It's a desire.

00:05:35: It's an aspiration.

00:05:36: No one's ever had perfect democracy.

00:05:38: And so in so far as your society is being voided of ethical direction, you're not going

00:05:44: to end up as a democracy because the people have to want to rule and they have to want

00:05:48: to rule for reasons.

00:05:49: In terms of what you were probably asking about, maybe more pragmatic things, the two

00:05:54: that I would always mention would be a social media structure which directs us towards a

00:05:59: kind of hyper individualistic atomization and which instructs us that people don't

00:06:04: agree with us are not just of different views, but are the enemy.

00:06:08: And related to that actually radical income inequality and especially inequality of wealth

00:06:14: which makes it difficult for people to believe that they actually belong to the same group

00:06:18: as everyone else.

00:06:19: Elliot, how do we go about turning that situation then into strategic action?

00:06:25: Well first again, also delighted to be part of this podcast and with such distinguished

00:06:30: colleagues.

00:06:31: I think the most important thing at the moment, because let's remember we're focused on the

00:06:35: war in Ukraine, is as the French would say, "A la guerre, qu'on la guerre," that if

00:06:40: you're at a war you better treat it like a war.

00:06:42: And the fact of the matter is our societies, even including the United States which has

00:06:46: been engaged in more wars than most, doesn't really fully grasp what the kind of war that

00:06:53: Ukraine is waging.

00:06:55: And we are not yet taking it with the seriousness that it requires.

00:06:58: It is not enough to say, "We're with Ukraine for as long as it takes."

00:07:05: You really have to be thinking much more concretely and that involves action.

00:07:08: I have to say I'm very skeptical of any solution that is primarily about speech.

00:07:14: It's ultimately about numbers.

00:07:16: It's about, are you willing to relax the various restrictions and regulations you have

00:07:21: so you can build more arms factories and run them 24 hours a day and be willing to take

00:07:27: risks and say, "Yeah, we're willing to have a Tachyms hit targets in Russia and we're

00:07:33: willing to get the German government to send tourists," and a whole bunch of other things.

00:07:38: But my chief concern at the moment is because war is so remote from our societies that we

00:07:47: have trouble grappling with what succeeding in it requires.

00:07:50: If I could say one more thing, I think the despair part is overwrought.

00:07:54: This is what wars are like.

00:07:56: You go through periods where you think your being very successful and then you suffer

00:08:00: stunning reverses and the war goes on.

00:08:04: You have to steal yourself to deal with that and there's a kind of mental toughness that

00:08:10: is required of societies and above all of leaders to get us through it.

00:08:15: I would say that is in many ways the most urgent requirement at the moment.

00:08:18: I just wanted to connect, if I could, what Elliot was saying to a point I was trying

00:08:23: to make, that if democracy is always going to be a matter of some kind of ethical choice,

00:08:28: that ethical choice is always going to involve risk, which is an argument that the Greeks

00:08:32: made quite rightly.

00:08:35: One way to characterize, I think, what Elliot was trying to say is that in these societies

00:08:41: we characterize as democracies, we tend to think that the work is being done by somebody

00:08:45: else or something else, some set of institutions, some inheritance, maybe capitalism and that

00:08:51: way of thinking about it dulls us to the reality that everybody is taking risks if there's

00:08:55: going to be a democracy, more or less risk and it makes it harder for us to admire the

00:09:00: people who are taking the most risk.

00:09:02: In order to be democratic now, one has to be in a position psychologically and morally

00:09:07: to admire the Ukrainians because they are taking the most risk as opposed to resenting

00:09:12: them because they're doing things that maybe you couldn't do or resenting them because

00:09:17: you think somehow they're the cause of your problems or resenting them because they somehow

00:09:21: get in the way of your view that everything should just kind of work out on its own.

00:09:25: Well we saw this very much in the famous, or famous in Germany at least, the Emma letter

00:09:29: that was sent by a group of intellectuals in the first year of the war.

00:09:32: And it became quite clear quite quickly that their main objection is that the Ukrainians

00:09:36: courage had shone the light on their cowardice and their unwillingness to actually stand

00:09:40: up for the liberal democratic values from which they benefit in their own societies

00:09:44: every day.

00:09:45: And that's the kind of cynicism that I think has come from a despair that actually predates

00:09:49: the Ukraine, the Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine and reflects a deeper pessimism

00:09:55: in some of our societies.

00:09:56: We see these surveys that are done about do you think your kids are going to live better

00:09:59: than you do?

00:10:00: Do you think the next generation is going to have it better?

00:10:01: And the last iteration of this from Pew in the US was that four out of five Americans

00:10:05: don't think it's getting better, they think it's going to get worse.

00:10:08: We've seen this in a consistent trend since the 1970s in the West with a couple of peaks

00:10:13: for 1989 for example.

00:10:16: But those who've been able to actually articulate positive visions are and have those who've

00:10:19: been able to act as well aren't they?

00:10:21: Yeah, absolutely.

00:10:22: And actually, well it's no secret that you and I love being here.

00:10:25: And one of the reasons for that is that this is a part of the world where the concept of

00:10:30: neo-idealism that you've articulated a lot of principles there of is alive and well here.

00:10:36: The very theme of this conference, let us not despair but act is already an example of

00:10:40: this.

00:10:41: We see here resolute commitments to defend democracy where it is threatened but also

00:10:45: as well as self-confidence in democracy and the value of free societies that I think many

00:10:51: of us can learn a lot from and emulate.

00:10:54: So just a few examples, Kayakalas herself even.

00:10:58: Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabriele Slansbergus, former Finnish Prime Minister Sanamarin are

00:11:03: all examples of people who exhibited this sort of self-confidence.

00:11:08: But neo-idealists can be found everywhere and they do come from all democratic political

00:11:12: traditions from social democrats to greens, liberals to conservatives.

00:11:15: And with that in mind Anna, I'd like to ask you, who are the self-confident neo-idealists

00:11:21: of Southern Europe or elsewhere that you draw inspiration from?

00:11:26: By which we mean who are those who can combine rhetoric as Elliot said with action?

00:11:30: Who can put their material support where their mouth is?

00:11:32: And just a couple of examples from this region to sort of connect to what you might want

00:11:36: to say.

00:11:37: We see that the rhetorical support for Ukraine and for standing up for liberal democracy from

00:11:41: the figures that Aaron just mentioned has been matched by material support in terms

00:11:46: of GDP percentages spent on defence.

00:11:48: Estonia is up to 3.2% plus 0.25% of GDP for Ukraine.

00:11:54: But also on doubling down on what it means to be a liberal society, so Estonia's recognition

00:11:58: of gay marriage, understanding that if you want to beat the drum for a liberal approach

00:12:02: to international politics, you need to be liberal at home too.

00:12:05: And we can see that also in this consolidation of Ukraine's civic nationhood at a time when

00:12:10: they are saying that this is part of a wider struggle for democracy against tyranny.

00:12:14: They've understood very clearly that they also have to live up to that themselves.

00:12:18: And it's in the magazine Diplomatia that's handed around for the conference.

00:12:22: There's a piece that also talks about the historical anomaly of democracy's dominance

00:12:26: came from democracy's being at their best.

00:12:29: And we've lost a bit of that winning mentality.

00:12:30: So these people we think are trying to get it back and trying to actually get on the

00:12:34: front foot and do the things that need to be done.

00:12:36: We talk about this region a lot, Anna, but where is it happening in southern Europe?

00:12:40: Thank you so much, Benjamin, Aaron, Elliot and Timothy.

00:12:43: It's a pleasure.

00:12:44: Good afternoon to all the audience.

00:12:46: Well, Lisbon is 4,000 kilometres away from Tallinn.

00:12:49: So geography is what it is.

00:12:52: But although we are a southern country and our concerns are mostly with the southern

00:12:57: flank, we are fully committed with the eastern geography and with the eastern challenges.

00:13:04: And we are fully committed with Ukraine since day one.

00:13:11: And that is very important for us because we are aware that democracy or the concept

00:13:17: of liberal democracy that also Aaron already spoke about is at stake when we are talking

00:13:23: about making Ukraine prevail and making the sovereignty of Ukraine prevail.

00:13:29: Portugal is a small country in terms of extent, but we definitely punch above our weight.

00:13:37: Our military assistance package so far is around 125 million euro.

00:13:44: And we also cooperate with initiatives that are already ongoing, like the initiative from

00:13:50: Czechia on the Ammonitions with 100 million.

00:13:54: And other joint procurement acquisitions, for instance, within framework contracts, European

00:14:01: defence agency and many other initiatives that we feel are very important.

00:14:06: Not only because what it is at stake, but because it really commits Portugal to this

00:14:12: broader idea on how democracy must prevail and on how democracy is part of our collective

00:14:21: ability to act strategically.

00:14:23: We are completely committed within NATO, within the European Union, United Nations, but also

00:14:30: the Portuguese-speaking language countries.

00:14:32: And that is important for us because Portugal perceives itself as a bridge with Brazil, with

00:14:39: the African countries.

00:14:41: And we also perceive our selfies as being in a privileged position to speak to, but

00:14:49: most important to listen to the South, but also to read the Eastern challenges to the

00:14:55: Southern concerns.

00:14:57: The fact that, for instance, Russia is, in fact, a major challenge in Africa as well

00:15:03: and also in the Portuguese-speaking countries.

00:15:06: And Portugal is really struggling with this challenge in Africa, helping other countries

00:15:12: such as Estonia to bridge their concerns in the South as well.

00:15:16: So that's why it's so important for a country like Portugal to be present at Leonard Merritt

00:15:21: and be part of this discussion.

00:15:24: And also to emphasise how liberal democracy is all about not to despair, but to act and

00:15:30: to act strategically and, in our case, absolutely in the multilateral environment.

00:15:35: So you've just mentioned, Anna, that democracy is integral to acting strategically.

00:15:40: And part of that is the right to a better future, to a more prosperous future, to a

00:15:44: more hopeful future.

00:15:46: And Marga Sakna has just joined us, Estonian Foreign Minister here, and you just came

00:15:51: from Georgia, where people are demonstrating for this exact right the right to a hopeful

00:15:56: future.

00:15:57: So what lessons did you take from that?

00:15:59: And what kind of strategic action can we take to support that as democracies?

00:16:05: Yeah, thank you very much.

00:16:07: And I'm really happy to be here.

00:16:08: And sorry, I was a bit late, but I really, literally, I just arrived to Estonia right

00:16:14: now from Georgia through the Strasbourg, and we have this Council of Europe meeting.

00:16:18: The question was that what can we learn from that?

00:16:20: And I'm thinking that we don't have to learn anything from the situation right now what

00:16:25: is happening in Georgia, because we knew it will come.

00:16:29: But we have to learn about the situations what we have had already in Georgia or what

00:16:34: we had in Ukraine, because Georgia was occupied 2008, and we didn't learn anything from that,

00:16:45: be honest.

00:16:46: We didn't act, we didn't react, and we were hoping that, okay, you know, business as

00:16:52: usual will continue, it's very bad, we were deeply concerned and more deeply concerned,

00:16:56: and we had Ukraine 2014, and we didn't really, really react in the proper ways.

00:17:03: So now we have a full-scale military aggression in Ukraine, I'm not going to describe you

00:17:08: very well what is going on.

00:17:11: And we have many other conflicts, and the question is what we have learned about this, what we

00:17:18: have learned about this, and I'm thinking maybe nothing, and the price is going higher

00:17:22: and higher.

00:17:24: And the price, finally, it's not paid for any other nation anymore, which is not the

00:17:28: NATO or EU, but the prices, we are going to pay this price ourselves, because freedom,

00:17:33: democracy, rule of law, maybe we understand finally it is not granted.

00:17:38: It's not granted, we have to fight for that, we have to fight for that.

00:17:42: And business as usual never comes back anymore, but I'm very honest, I see it daily, if I'm

00:17:47: traveling, if I'm meeting our people, our different politicians from different like-minded

00:17:54: countries, that there is like a wishful thinking that the business as usual returns.

00:17:59: But it's not, so from Georgia, I'm saying really, it's not just any emotions, because

00:18:04: I just came from there, but the situation is really, really concerning.

00:18:11: And the Georgian government's words and actions are not, you know, they're not fitting together.

00:18:17: So we had a meeting with the Prime Minister, President, Speaker, Foreign Minister, but

00:18:24: also the opposition leaders, and as well the third sector and NGOs.

00:18:29: And it's not the question only about the law, the Russian law they call, but what is going

00:18:34: on, what is behind that?

00:18:36: Actually, I think that the Georgian government is taking steps towards the Russian influence.

00:18:45: But what they're trying to act is that they're doing like both things.

00:18:50: They're using the fear of people who are still remembering the price they paid when Russia

00:18:55: made an aggression, you know, 20% of the territory is still occupied, and addressing people that

00:19:03: we are keeping the peace.

00:19:06: We are keeping the peace, don't worry.

00:19:08: And at the same time, we are following your will, you know, more than 80%, 86, 7% now.

00:19:15: Now, the Georgian people, they want to join European Union, moving towards NATO and EU.

00:19:21: And we are following your wish and actually acting, and now I can say as well, pretending

00:19:26: that they are fulfilling the promises they have given actually as well to European Union,

00:19:31: when they actually gain the position as official candidate country.

00:19:38: And these talks and the authorities and realities not fitting together.

00:19:41: So we don't have to learn anything from Georgia right now.

00:19:46: We have to learn from everything what we have witnessed and what is going on.

00:19:51: What I want to say, if we are not acting right now, and if we are even more deeply concerned

00:19:56: about Georgian situations, then we are going to lose Georgia.

00:19:59: So we need to act right now, not learning anything, but just act, the right act.

00:20:03: And that's my very clear message.

00:20:04: Margueris, thank you for those clear words.

00:20:06: And also, you were very clear pushing back against the speaker's report of your meeting,

00:20:10: for example, which was not quite as you recalled it, I think.

00:20:13: Yeah, it was not amazing actually, but somehow.

00:20:18: But we saw that after the meeting we left to, I was not alone.

00:20:22: We were together with Lithuania, Latvian and Iceland, foreign ministers, but the big press

00:20:29: conference was organized, but not without us.

00:20:34: So we were expecting anything, but honestly said, I didn't expect that this lie will be

00:20:39: so big, that we really were very frank and we said what we are thinking and what is the

00:20:45: position and EU has fulfilled all the promises what we have given, but not the Georgian government.

00:20:53: And there will be consequences.

00:20:55: And there will be consequences.

00:20:56: And we are raising these questions on EU level anyways.

00:20:59: But the outcome was just different, that the speaker announced that we agreed everything.

00:21:05: So then we had to say publicly as well that this was a lie.

00:21:09: But the question is not about that.

00:21:11: And one more fact that I just arrived to Estonia and I read that we went there to take down

00:21:17: the Georgian government.

00:21:20: It was not, it's still a lie in the meaning.

00:21:24: And we participated with the mass rallies, peaceful mass rallies.

00:21:28: I think the largest ever happened in Georgia.

00:21:30: I've been there many, many times before and peaceful, what I want to say.

00:21:36: And we said exactly the same things on the stage that Georgian government is saying,

00:21:41: that the Georgian people's rightful place is in EU.

00:21:46: Nothing more.

00:21:47: And to criticize, because of that, I think that the mosques, they are falling right now.

00:21:52: So we have to be very careful what is, what is going on.

00:21:55: Thank you, Marcus.

00:21:56: Tim, in a second, I'm going to come to you on sources of our domestic division and how

00:22:00: we might address those.

00:22:01: Because what we see in Georgia is something akin to a revolution of dignity, I think,

00:22:05: much like we saw on the streets in Kiev back in 2013, 2014.

00:22:09: People striving for this right to, for future striving to live in liberal democratic societies.

00:22:14: But Elliot, I'd like to come to you first on how we can actually act to support that.

00:22:19: How the international coalition of the free world can actually act to effectively support

00:22:25: people striving for freedom.

00:22:26: Well, I don't think you can answer it as a general proposition.

00:22:29: I mean, it depends what country you're talking about, what the circumstances are.

00:22:33: And in the case of Georgia, it's probably in addition to providing various kind of sort

00:22:43: of emotional support, I suppose.

00:22:45: And the kinds of things that intelligence agencies do, a lot of that is also about twisting

00:22:50: the oars of the government and making clear to the individuals who are in charge in Georgia

00:22:55: that they will pay a price in terms of how we will deal with them afterwards.

00:23:01: I mean, I really want to, in a way, I want to go back to the premise of what you were

00:23:07: saying because I'm not sure I agree with it.

00:23:10: You talk about an inter-liberal international order.

00:23:12: We haven't had a liberal international order.

00:23:15: We had an international order that was constructed by the democratic side of the coalition that

00:23:21: won World War II.

00:23:22: It was largely, not by no means entirely, American, certainly American-led.

00:23:30: And it had all kinds of problems with it and it was morally inconsistent and so on and so

00:23:34: forth.

00:23:35: That order is now under assault.

00:23:37: And it's not about abstract rules.

00:23:41: It's something much more tangible than that.

00:23:46: And to build that order, we had to do a lot of very hard things, a lot of very coercive

00:23:52: things.

00:23:53: We had to fight a bunch of wars, some of which were probably unwise.

00:23:58: We had to spend a hell of a lot of money on defense and level that is unimaginable for

00:24:02: most states today.

00:24:04: I mean, even, you look at Poland, which is spending 4% of GDP, the height of the Cold

00:24:09: War in the United States was spending 8% of GDP and even at one point got almost as high

00:24:13: as 10%.

00:24:14: The question is, are you willing to do those very hard things in order to defend an international

00:24:20: order that is cracking?

00:24:24: And frankly, that's the kind of thing that I think will encourage people who are fighting

00:24:30: in places like Georgia and certainly in places like Ukraine for the right to be free and

00:24:35: self-governing.

00:24:36: Yeah, I think that's something that our regular listeners will know we would very much subscribe

00:24:39: to, to that point of view.

00:24:40: And it's about actually understanding that, sure, by its own high standards that it set,

00:24:45: the liberal international order may not have been that liberal.

00:24:48: But a standard of practically every other order in history, as Dan Nexon of Georgetown's

00:24:51: pointed out, it was pretty damn liberal.

00:24:54: And it was indeed an international order that was built together with allies.

00:24:57: And just to give one example to what you're saying, recently it's been pointed out by

00:25:00: Paul Mason, the British journalist and politician, that in the late 1930s the UK was spending

00:25:06: about 3.2% of GDP on defence.

00:25:10: Fearing the war would come, they rose it up to 6.8% of GDP.

00:25:13: Now that wasn't enough and they ended up spending nearly 50% of their GDP on defence.

00:25:19: This is the kind of saving we can't actually afford to make if we're serious about deterring

00:25:23: the threats to that order.

00:25:25: At the same time, Tim, we see that there have been shortcomings of that order.

00:25:29: We see that it wasn't necessarily serving the interests of liberal democracies when

00:25:32: we let it become a legacy order of institutions without spirit.

00:25:36: Perhaps we saw the United Nations instrumentalised by actors such as Russia and by China to advance

00:25:41: distinctly illiberal goals.

00:25:43: And at home, you mentioned before, we see divisions in our society economic but cultural

00:25:47: as well.

00:25:48: I think what the specific divisions are is a little bit less important than how they

00:25:53: get generated and how one gets over them, which I think is at the bottom of your question.

00:26:00: It connects to Georgia and it connects to Maidan.

00:26:04: What people were interested in in Maidan, and I have a feeling this is true in Georgia

00:26:09: too, is the future.

00:26:12: But not the future in just some abstract way, like not just one future, but the possibility

00:26:17: that each of us can have unpredictable individual futures, which ultimately is what freedom

00:26:22: is all about.

00:26:23: Freedom is not a collective thing.

00:26:26: And it's that kind of action, collective action towards the possibility of individual futures,

00:26:33: which I think begins to shine a light in the general direction of an answer to your question.

00:26:38: And that's why we see again and again when people are deprived of a sense of future,

00:26:42: this is how they act.

00:26:44: This is how they act in Georgia.

00:26:45: This is how they can act in the United States in a few months, we'll see.

00:26:48: But this is the normal human reaction, not that everybody knows what the right future

00:26:52: is, but that we want to create a situation in which we can imagine, like a kind of positive

00:26:56: friction, horizontal connections.

00:26:59: And that's why also the part in the Russian playbook that you play at this time is what

00:27:04: the Georgians are calling the Russian law, the anti-civil society law, the foreign agent

00:27:07: law, which is precisely designed to make any kind of cooperation seem like a bad thing.

00:27:14: And where does the future get consumed?

00:27:15: So when Russian vade Ukraine, Putin exemplifies one way the future gets consumed, which is

00:27:21: to say, all that really matters is my own idiotic myth about the past.

00:27:25: And I'm going to substitute my own idiotic myth about the past, my own entirely indefensible

00:27:30: version of what happened in Kiev and Rus in the 10th century for everybody's future.

00:27:36: We're going to turn politics all the way back to the past.

00:27:38: All my bad days, I'll turn it back to 1945.

00:27:40: I'm like, good days all the way back to 1988, but there will be no future.

00:27:44: And we have a similar problem in the West.

00:27:46: We do that too sometimes.

00:27:47: But also what we do is that we take the future, which has to be a little unpredictable and

00:27:52: individuated, and we allow it to be consumed by idiotic oligarchical visions.

00:27:57: So Putin is an idiotic oligarch, but he's not the only one.

00:28:00: His idea that Ukraine, it doesn't exist, is one of a species of stupid ideas that billionaires

00:28:06: have, which tend to consume the future.

00:28:10: So for example, we're going to all live in space, or we're all going to live forever.

00:28:14: And then everyone else has to talk about those ideas.

00:28:16: And those few monopolistic or oligarchic privatized notions of the future consume what we all

00:28:23: need.

00:28:24: Because the thing is, in a democracy, there can't be a single answer to your question

00:28:27: of what the future is going to be like.

00:28:29: The key is that it enables the future, gives people a sense that there's going to be a

00:28:33: future.

00:28:34: If I was going to name one thing, which distinguishes where we are now from where we were in 1945

00:28:39: or 1948, it would be that in 1945 and 1948, we did not know that we were living in a

00:28:44: post-imperial world.

00:28:46: That order was still an imperial order.

00:28:49: It was in the years and decades after 1945, it became clear to most people anyway that

00:28:54: empire was unsustainable.

00:28:56: The European Union didn't know it, but what it is is a post-imperial order.

00:29:00: The Portuguese and the Spanish, they didn't know that a quarter century later they were

00:29:04: going to lose their empires and join a European project.

00:29:07: The Gaul didn't know they were going to lose in Algeria and so on and so forth.

00:29:10: The Dutch didn't know they were going to lose in Indonesia.

00:29:14: Every example, most examples of countries that joined the European Union are post-imperial

00:29:19: one way or another.

00:29:20: The East European examples are coming out of an empire, but that's also post-imperial.

00:29:24: We all know now that we're in a post-imperial world, and in that sense, empire is the problem,

00:29:28: whether it's Russia or whether it's China.

00:29:31: The idea of being post-imperial can also tilt you towards the future because you can ask,

00:29:34: "How can you make a better America now that we know that the way to make America better

00:29:39: is not to recreate an imperial America or colonial America?"

00:29:44: The idea that we're all in a post-imperial world now can help us define what's wrong,

00:29:48: but can also open up a conversation about where you might go.

00:29:51: That's brilliantly put, and I agree with it.

00:29:53: But I guess I would also like to point out that I think we have a tendency to believe

00:29:58: that while this order was created in 1945 and everything was fine until Putin invaded Ukraine,

00:30:04: that's really not true.

00:30:06: First, it was a partial order.

00:30:07: The Soviet Union wasn't part of it.

00:30:09: The Soviet Empire was not part of it.

00:30:11: China was not part of it.

00:30:14: You had all of the kind of imperial post-colonial upheavals that were associated with it.

00:30:21: It was a very, very challenging time.

00:30:22: I think that's really the critical thing to remember, is that the problem that we've had

00:30:28: is what my late colleague Fuad Ajami once called the Great Picnic, which is how he referred

00:30:34: to the period after 1991.

00:30:36: He said, "We've been living through the Great Picnic.

00:30:39: When the world seemed wide open, you could find a Starbucks in Mongolia.

00:30:44: You have the shock of 9/11."

00:30:45: But there was still a sense that we had exited the world of war.

00:30:49: We had Francis Fukuyama in the end of history, that there's this kind of ineluctable logic

00:30:53: that is going to take us all to some version of liberal democracy.

00:30:57: What was wrong?

00:30:59: It was always wrong.

00:31:00: There's a very famous story that when the Constitution is devised, and of course it

00:31:06: was written in secret, Benjamin Franklin is being carried out of the Constitutional Convention

00:31:11: and he's asked, "What kind of government have you given us, Dr. Franklin?"

00:31:16: And his answer is, "A republic if you can keep it."

00:31:20: And I think that there's a profound point there that the kind of systems of government

00:31:26: that we all, everybody in this room, prizes and for the most part live under, these are

00:31:32: always going to be contested and they are endangered in many, many ways by everything

00:31:37: from Vladimir Putin to in a very different way, TikTok.

00:31:41: We're now back in the real world after an extended Great Picnic.

00:31:46: This is something we've talked a lot about and I think is now becoming thankfully more

00:31:49: accepted that the lazy reading of the end of history that progress comes automatically,

00:31:53: that teleological reading that Tim you mentioned before, that this is a natural conclusion of

00:31:57: human evolution, that has really fallen away.

00:31:59: The scales have fallen from our eyes on that.

00:32:02: But I think it's important to draw out something from what you said at the very beginning of

00:32:04: Euromarks there is that it was a process of ordering and there wasn't just this order

00:32:09: that came and in order to enact that ordering we had to embrace our ordering power and actually

00:32:14: understand the sources of that power and that's something I think we've been afraid to do

00:32:17: more recently or unable to do and we think we really need to overcome that.

00:32:21: So how do we marshal those sources of our power and what are they?

00:32:24: I'm an academic so I was completely fascinated about this discussion on the world that we

00:32:30: are living in.

00:32:32: But and last year the Leonard Merritt conference was about so life begins, so begins new life.

00:32:38: In Sipit Vitanova, wasn't it?

00:32:40: Exactly.

00:32:41: But this year, I mean, it's not by chance for sure that we are saying that let's not despair,

00:32:45: but especially let's act.

00:32:47: Because I think it's, of course, as an academic again, it's very useful to discuss all these

00:32:54: and try to define what kind of strategic environment are we living in.

00:32:58: But mostly we have to focus on how to respond, how to act, how to combine these unprecedented

00:33:07: security environment that combines conventional and unconventional threats and also conventional

00:33:13: and unconventional answers.

00:33:16: How can we reply?

00:33:20: How can we address our concerns and no matter if you are Portugal or in Estonia, but how

00:33:27: can you address the national concerns when we are living an unprecedented year?

00:33:32: I mean, we are in a few weeks, we are voting for the European Parliament elections.

00:33:38: We have other major elections until the end of the year.

00:33:43: And we have the biggest threats that we ever had, probably.

00:33:47: If we compare to 2019, the previous year of the European elections Parliament, I mean,

00:33:55: we are living for sure in a post-pandemic world, in a post-Ukraine world, and it's unprecedented,

00:34:02: the catalogue of threats that we are facing.

00:34:05: So how can we also prepare our societies for the world that we are living now in 2024?

00:34:12: How can we face and how can we reply to these catalogue of threats that seems that don't

00:34:18: stop?

00:34:19: It's recruitment and radicalization in terms of terrorism, it's piracy, it's maritime

00:34:24: insecurity, it's ivory, it's cyber threats, it's disinformation, economic insecurity,

00:34:30: global pandemics, climate change, I mean, so many unprecedented threats.

00:34:35: So what are we going to do?

00:34:37: What are we going to do?

00:34:38: How are we going to act to actually address this unprecedented security environment?

00:34:43: That's my concern at least.

00:34:44: Well, you're right, and this is the danger of being overwhelmed by that catalogue of

00:34:48: threats that you've just outlined.

00:34:50: But one country that's not given into despair, Margus is Estonia, and your fit for freedom

00:34:55: agenda is exactly an effort to harness the sources of our power in that way and to find

00:34:59: a cohesive way of overcoming them.

00:35:01: Tell us a bit more about that.

00:35:02: The details you can find on the web page of Foreign Ministry.

00:35:05: But the case is that I was asking when I entered the office a year ago that how can we describe

00:35:10: actually what we are doing as a Foreign Ministry of Estonia?

00:35:14: What is our foreign policy?

00:35:16: So we are doing many things.

00:35:17: We are doing just a couple of days ago, we adopted the law of frozen assets the first

00:35:22: time ever in European Union.

00:35:25: We are going to prove that it is possible, there's no excuse not to use the frozen assets

00:35:30: of Russia because of the rule of law.

00:35:33: Let's see what is going to happen.

00:35:35: I just read the news that the leader of the Chechnya people or the group actually announced

00:35:42: that now we will wait the missile attack from Chechnya to Estonia because of this law.

00:35:49: And we are talking about accountability, we are talking about the bad news, we are talking

00:35:52: about many things, but how can we put it all together with a slogan?

00:35:57: And I ask the question, and we ask the question now from everybody globally, whether we are

00:36:02: fitting into the freedom or not?

00:36:04: Fit for freedom is the question.

00:36:06: And what I wanted to point it out as well that we must make now decisions, whether we

00:36:12: are going to protect democracy and the way of life what we have or whether or not.

00:36:18: And I think this is now that the time is over in the meaning of just enjoying all these

00:36:22: results what we actually agreed after the last huge conflict it was the Second World

00:36:28: War.

00:36:29: We agreed after that these rules and agreements, but these are not working anymore in the meaning.

00:36:36: They are working for us, but I think that the world will be more divided than ever before

00:36:40: between the democracies and non-democracies.

00:36:44: And we just cannot wait that let's see what is going to happen.

00:36:48: So we need to act as well.

00:36:49: The second thing is that about the hopes and expectations and actually the disappointments

00:36:55: about this Georgia example.

00:36:58: I remember very well.

00:36:59: I was very active as well at this time supporting Georgia when Georgia wanted to move forward

00:37:06: to the European Union and NATO.

00:37:07: It was before 2008.

00:37:10: And it was our decision altogether not to give the MAP or whatever we call.

00:37:15: And it is the most dangerous place actually for any country as a neighboring country of

00:37:19: Russia to sit in the waiting room of NATO.

00:37:23: This is the green light for Russia to act.

00:37:26: So what I'm saying with that is that we cannot hesitate anymore.

00:37:31: We cannot hesitate.

00:37:32: We have been hesitating too many times and the price for these nations has been very

00:37:37: high.

00:37:39: And the last question for us as a democratic world is that whether we are just keeping

00:37:46: these lines which are secured by the military power as well as NATO about democracies,

00:37:51: I mean that European Union and so on, not enlarging anymore.

00:37:55: I think that okay, it's here.

00:37:57: We are ready to defend.

00:37:58: And we don't care about the other part of the world.

00:38:00: We don't care about the Georgians.

00:38:02: We don't care about Ukrainians.

00:38:04: And let's protect our club.

00:38:07: But this is not right because we will be next under the aggressions and so on.

00:38:12: That's the reason why we need to act to protect our way of life and actually the way of life

00:38:17: actually people wants to live.

00:38:19: We heard from Prime Minister Kalis earlier today, some of us had a media briefing that

00:38:23: quote, "We still need to believe in Ukraine's victory."

00:38:27: And that's a part of exactly what's at stake here.

00:38:30: Adding shortly.

00:38:31: Of course we need to believe but we need to act as well.

00:38:34: I read as well this length.

00:38:35: Yes, well, and this is what it is.

00:38:36: We need to act.

00:38:37: And the case is that we were like, we have to think thanks and we have analysis and everything

00:38:42: that you know, 20 years, what is actually Putin wants to do?

00:38:46: What is actually behind his words?

00:38:49: But this is in the meaning of a critical situation.

00:38:53: Putin announced his plan already years ago publicly.

00:38:56: Yes, publicly said that yes, I'm going to restore the Emperor of Soviet Union, whatever

00:39:01: it costs.

00:39:02: And we didn't believe in it.

00:39:04: We just were hoping that, no, no, but what is actually behind that?

00:39:08: But he's just committing the official plan on the table publicly.

00:39:12: All the web pages are full of this plan.

00:39:14: So let's believe what this plan is and let's act.

00:39:18: That's my case.

00:39:19: Indeed.

00:39:20: I mean, Putin has never made a secret about what his names actually are.

00:39:22: We always wonder if there's some big strategy behind it, but he's very clear about what

00:39:25: he wants and we need to act as if, as you say, to do that, to really get to action and

00:39:30: to really go for victory.

00:39:32: And Elliot, I'd like to come to you on that because you've written about victory and its

00:39:36: importance.

00:39:37: But first, we need to break the cycle of pessimism, I think.

00:39:40: This is also one of the reasons I brought up the Prime Minister's remarks earlier, believing

00:39:45: in victory because if we don't believe, we don't act.

00:39:48: It leads to inaction.

00:39:50: And you brought up the Estonian Parliament's law on seizing Russian assets to support Ukraine.

00:39:55: I think that is one way to break this vicious cycle of pessimism that we seem to be in.

00:40:01: There are, of course, other ways to do that.

00:40:04: So I'd like to hear from all of our panelists about where that starts.

00:40:09: Elliot, let's come to you about breaking the cycle of pessimism for victory.

00:40:14: So the first thing is let's remind ourselves that the coalition that supports Ukraine

00:40:20: has infinitely more resources than Russia, even to the extent that it's backed by China

00:40:26: overwhelmingly, indisputably.

00:40:29: And it's just a question of mobilizing.

00:40:31: Secondly, it's important to, at a time when the news and the battlefield isn't that good

00:40:36: or is actually not good at all, remind ourselves there are great successes.

00:40:42: In fact, just today, the Novorossiysk just took a pummeling from Ukrainian drones.

00:40:48: Let's remember that.

00:40:49: You have a bigger NATO with the addition of two very effective members.

00:40:53: So first, I think you need to just take a deep breath, particularly in a war, when people

00:40:59: go through these mood swings.

00:41:01: That does happen in every war.

00:41:03: Step back and say, what's the real balance of resources?

00:41:06: I think the point after, and I also think it is very important to think about concrete

00:41:10: actions, confiscating those Russian assets.

00:41:13: Absolutely.

00:41:15: Taking the Ukrainian's authority to use weapons supplied by the West in the territory of

00:41:20: Russia as another, increasing the quantity and quality of the things we can give them

00:41:25: that includes a lot more attack from the United States.

00:41:28: It includes Taurus from Germany.

00:41:30: Thank you, Elliot, for our German listeners out there and a big hello to the Chancellor

00:41:33: Amt.

00:41:34: Yeah.

00:41:35: They know who I'm talking about.

00:41:37: But I think the third thing, which I think I really want to dwell on is it is natural

00:41:43: and appropriate and easy for us to talk about how do we support Ukraine.

00:41:47: The harder part of the discussion is talking about how do we defeat Russia, because it's

00:41:51: not just a question of victory for Ukraine.

00:41:53: It has to be a defeat for Russia.

00:41:55: The Russians are going to have to throw in the towel.

00:41:57: The Russians are going to have to decide this is not worth it.

00:42:01: And I will defer to people with greater expertise on Russia than I have.

00:42:05: I strongly suspect that that, it'll be very hard for that to happen with Putin still in

00:42:10: power.

00:42:11: I tend to think that that will only happen when Russian armies suffer not just heavier

00:42:18: losses, even heavier losses than they're suffering now, but really major reverses.

00:42:24: So in other words, concrete things that happen on the battlefield are going to be key to

00:42:30: this.

00:42:31: And so a lot of it comes back to very mundane questions of what kinds of arms supplies, what

00:42:37: kinds of training, all that sort of stuff.

00:42:40: Absolutely.

00:42:41: And there's been questions raised recently about whether we should not only be using

00:42:44: NATO air defense assets based in NATO countries to close the skies over Western Ukraine, but

00:42:50: to use that shield in order to actually allow us to send in a military training mission

00:42:53: of sufficient size that would allow the Ukrainians to regenerate their forces in a significant

00:42:57: way to prepare to go on the attack in 2025.

00:43:01: I would like to give it a last word to each of our panelists before we then open up to

00:43:05: your comments and questions.

00:43:06: So do be thinking about what your concise, punchy, short interventions from the floor

00:43:12: will be.

00:43:13: But first, we're going to come to Tim and then Anna and Marcus for your last words of

00:43:18: this first part of the discussion.

00:43:19: Tim, please.

00:43:20: I think the question beautifully frames it.

00:43:23: If you think of victory, then you start to think about the things you can do.

00:43:29: And then when you think about the things you can do, that reinforces the probability of

00:43:33: victory.

00:43:34: just restating now, points that have already been made.

00:43:37: My own little additions would be, number one, history.

00:43:41: Nothing is ever completely unprecedented.

00:43:43: And one thing we have a lot of precedent for

00:43:45: is Russia losing wars.

00:43:47: They've lost a lot of wars in the last two

00:43:50: centuries in every form.

00:43:51: And since 1945, the imperial side has generally lost.

00:43:56: And since 1945, the smaller country

00:43:58: has usually beaten the bigger country.

00:44:00: So those are sort of reassuring things

00:44:02: that history can remind you of.

00:44:03: Number two, this might seem a lot of the field,

00:44:05: but social media reform is very important.

00:44:08: Because a lot of the pessimism is artificially generated.

00:44:11: The nihilists are coming at us from a mechanized source,

00:44:15: rather than from human beings.

00:44:16: And the people who are behind that

00:44:19: are trying to make us feel depressed.

00:44:21: That is all engineered.

00:44:22: And you can only respond to that by reforming social media.

00:44:25: Third, going back to, I think, the very big theme

00:44:30: of this conversation, one has to privilege ethics

00:44:33: over psychology.

00:44:34: When you realize that people are trying to make you feel bad,

00:44:36: you have to remember what it is that you think is good,

00:44:38: like what it is that you value, what it is you're actually

00:44:40: aiming for.

00:44:42: And then related to that is human involvement.

00:44:44: In addition to all the things that Elliot said, all of which

00:44:46: I agree with, about what America could do and is not doing,

00:44:50: we just don't have enough people there.

00:44:52: And I don't mean necessarily soldiers on the ground.

00:44:54: It's a very weird war in that we don't have enough human contact

00:44:57: with Ukrainians.

00:44:58: And they don't have human contact with us.

00:45:00: And that leads to unnecessary suspicion

00:45:02: and unnecessarily limited conversations.

00:45:04: And after two and a half years, we really

00:45:06: need to have a lot more people physically there.

00:45:08: That will improve everybody's mood.

00:45:11: And then the final thing is action versus reaction.

00:45:14: Because if you're in a reactive mode,

00:45:15: you're also in a reactive mode psychologically.

00:45:18: And the other side is very good at putting you

00:45:20: in that reactive mode and making you feel down.

00:45:22: Whereas if you have actions that you're

00:45:24: going to roll out anyway, regardless of what happens,

00:45:27: then you're going to feel better about how things are actually

00:45:29: going.

00:45:30: So have plans, which things that you're just

00:45:32: going to be doing regardless of what the news is that day?

00:45:36: Yes, absolutely.

00:45:37: And you can read more from both Elliot and Tim

00:45:39: in the pieces that are linked to in our show notes,

00:45:42: the live audience that will come, obviously,

00:45:44: for the recorded edition, about victory and also

00:45:47: about the different ways to achieve it.

00:45:49: But indeed, the goal defines the means.

00:45:50: And unless we set that goal, which, as we know,

00:45:53: Chancellor Olafsshaltz has not done,

00:45:54: among other leaders who have not done that,

00:45:56: you won't define the means necessary to achieve it.

00:45:59: Anna?

00:46:00: Yeah, we must define the goal.

00:46:01: And we must define what victory means,

00:46:04: first of all, for the Ukrainians.

00:46:06: And that is part of the role of Ukraine

00:46:09: to define what victory is politically and militarily.

00:46:12: But I would also add that, I mean,

00:46:15: hope, optimism, victory is, of course,

00:46:20: and should emanate, first of all, from the trust

00:46:23: that we must have, that we can make ourselves stronger

00:46:26: and tackle any challenges in our path.

00:46:28: And I think that we do have reasons to be optimist,

00:46:31: especially if we look to the recent months,

00:46:34: both in NATO and European Union.

00:46:36: I think it's always important to emphasize

00:46:38: the importance of European Union strategic compass,

00:46:42: the NATO strategic concept, because, in fact,

00:46:45: and also the path that we are striving towards,

00:46:47: the Washington summit, because it's always important

00:46:50: to realize how we are banding together in support of Ukraine.

00:46:55: Our support remains live, kicking,

00:46:58: and I would say growing every day in very solid terms.

00:47:02: But we have to identify our vulnerabilities,

00:47:06: our threats, our challenges, and create also new instruments

00:47:10: to deal with them.

00:47:11: And I would say, just to conclude,

00:47:13: that I believe that our hope should also be inclusive.

00:47:18: We should reach out to our partners in a 360-degree approach.

00:47:24: The partners for a better vision

00:47:27: for a better, more secure and prosperous world.

00:47:30: And again, Portugal can play a very important role

00:47:34: bridging these concerns with our southern partners,

00:47:38: with Africa, but also with Brazil,

00:47:41: and bridge also with America.

00:47:43: But of course, a lack of optimism

00:47:45: and a lack of vision for victory

00:47:48: is always a powerful driver for insecurity and instability.

00:47:52: So we must avoid that scenario.

00:47:55: Absolutely.

00:47:55: And speaking of different definitions of victory,

00:47:58: you can read, as I say earlier,

00:47:59: who's written a number of things on what this means,

00:48:02: contrast them perhaps to what Jack Watling recently

00:48:04: wrote in Foreign Affairs.

00:48:05: More we need to put Ukraine in a position

00:48:07: to negotiate from a position of strength.

00:48:09: Now, that's not enough for a lot of people around this room,

00:48:11: but the analysis is there, it is doing the rounds,

00:48:14: it is interesting, and it's based on expertise.

00:48:16: So this is a conversation we need to have,

00:48:17: and we need to make that case.

00:48:19: But, Marga, it's just coming to what Anna said.

00:48:22: This notion of a more inclusive order

00:48:23: is part of your Fit for Freedom agenda,

00:48:25: but more inclusive can't mean anything goes.

00:48:27: It has to serve the interests of democracies, doesn't it?

00:48:29: Yes, of course, but I like your question.

00:48:32: You asked as well the psychological part

00:48:34: of what will happen in the future.

00:48:35: This is actually a decision question.

00:48:36: It's a first, it's actually, what is the goal?

00:48:39: And we have not agreed in the Western world

00:48:44: that our goal is to win this war.

00:48:46: We have not done it.

00:48:48: We must just decide it that we have to win,

00:48:50: then we are going to have a plan,

00:48:52: and then we need to act.

00:48:55: But we haven't done it, be honest.

00:48:56: We haven't done it. We are talking about it.

00:48:59: And the reason is that we are afraid

00:49:02: of winning the war with Russia.

00:49:04: And we are afraid, actually, what will happen

00:49:06: if Russia loses this war?

00:49:09: We are so much afraid of that,

00:49:11: and we are not ready, actually, for that.

00:49:13: But I say, and I can say in the name of Estonia,

00:49:17: that we are not afraid of, I think,

00:49:20: the Russia must lose this war.

00:49:22: But this is the main mental question,

00:49:23: that the second thing is that

00:49:25: lack of leadership amongst us.

00:49:27: Be honest, if we are waiting months and months and months

00:49:30: and watching very closely the debates in the US,

00:49:34: about 61 billion dollars package,

00:49:37: not about the decision whether to win or not the war,

00:49:40: but about 61 billion.

00:49:42: So this is the weakness from our part of the world

00:49:45: and democracies.

00:49:46: So the lack of leadership, I'm not talking about the persons.

00:49:49: It's like Schultz, Macron, Biden, whoever,

00:49:51: but the lack of leadership.

00:49:53: Because societies are more or less ready to support it.

00:49:58: But there is another concern.

00:50:00: I've made these kind of examples that,

00:50:03: you know, this communication very personal.

00:50:05: And nowadays we are like ordering the war movies

00:50:08: from Netflix and the other parts.

00:50:10: And then war movies normally like two and a half hours.

00:50:13: So I think that for our people globally,

00:50:16: it's the feeling is like,

00:50:17: "Okay, there's two hours and 15 minutes already."

00:50:20: So I would like to see another movie.

00:50:22: So let's finish this.

00:50:24: Let's just, you know, the heroes and who is winning,

00:50:26: who is losing, let's put it away

00:50:28: and maybe I would like to have another topic,

00:50:30: not a war movie anymore, maybe just comedy.

00:50:33: And this mentality is bad because even the news today

00:50:36: at this time, this conference,

00:50:38: I think that maybe thousands of people

00:50:40: from Russia and from Ukraine said, "They're dead."

00:50:43: And these are not the news anymore.

00:50:45: This business is usual

00:50:46: because we would like to watch the comedy

00:50:49: instead of the war movie.

00:50:50: But the bad thing is that this situation is not a war movie.

00:50:53: It's not a movie from Netflix.

00:50:55: It's reality.

00:50:56: And politicians, instead of leadership,

00:51:00: we are following what people want to get

00:51:03: because in democracies people says what they want to get.

00:51:06: But in situation we need to have a leadership

00:51:09: who says that what we must do.

00:51:10: That's a luck. We have elections,

00:51:12: like half of the world will have elections this year.

00:51:15: And this is actually a test about the leadership,

00:51:17: not even about the people with leadership.

00:51:19: - The elections are a good reminder that yes, indeed,

00:51:22: elections are about leadership

00:51:23: and democracies about leadership.

00:51:25: Before we come to the audience,

00:51:26: one last word to Elliot about victory

00:51:28: because I think you really wanted to come in there.

00:51:30: - I apologize because I have to leave unfortunately,

00:51:33: but first I completely, totally applaud what was just said.

00:51:38: On Jack Wildling, I'll point out,

00:51:39: he was also profoundly pessimistic

00:51:41: about Ukraine's chances before the war began.

00:51:43: And there is a long strain of pessimism

00:51:46: about Ukraine and its chances,

00:51:49: which continues to persist and which saps our will.

00:51:53: And the last thing I'll say is to just quote

00:51:54: my favorite psychologist, William James,

00:51:57: who said, "You don't do brave things

00:51:59: "because you have brave feelings.

00:52:01: "You have brave feelings when you do brave things."

00:52:04: And the country that is hosting us

00:52:07: is actually a pretty good example of that.

00:52:09: - Thanks for having me on.

00:52:10: - Thanks, Elliot.

00:52:11: - A round of applause for Elliot Cohen,

00:52:12: ladies and gentlemen.

00:52:13: (audience applauding)

00:52:16: So, the free for all begins.

00:52:21: Get your hands up in there if you'd like to ask a question

00:52:24: and we'll make sure a mic comes to you.

00:52:26: - I see this first initiative over here.

00:52:28: - But do please keep your questions short,

00:52:30: introduce yourself very briefly.

00:52:32: And it can also be a comment as well as a question,

00:52:34: just to be clear.

00:52:35: - Yes.

00:52:36: - But short and crunchy.

00:52:37: - Thank you.

00:52:38: I'm from Georgia, I'm Zorab Chevrolet,

00:52:40: actually representing the party,

00:52:43: as you found it in early 2000s.

00:52:46: And we are two here from Georgia,

00:52:50: two former diplomats and ambassadors

00:52:52: to various places in Europe.

00:52:55: And we both knew 12 years ago

00:52:58: when Ivanish really came to power

00:53:00: that we will come to this point.

00:53:01: What I would like to comment on,

00:53:03: the panel, this fantastic panel was absolutely right.

00:53:07: But about Georgia, I would summarize.

00:53:10: First, Mr. Minister, thank you very much.

00:53:13: I was in the crowd when you've been addressing the rally

00:53:16: and thank you very much what you and other ministers did.

00:53:19: I already voiced our thanks to your Prime Minister yesterday

00:53:24: and I will be repeating that all the time.

00:53:26: The regime, Ivanish really regime in Georgia,

00:53:29: they have to destroy democracy in order to change foreign policy.

00:53:34: That's the crucial.

00:53:37: Because when 85% of people support you

00:53:42: and NATO integration,

00:53:43: you have to destroy democracy first

00:53:46: and then reverse the foreign policy.

00:53:49: The key message from our side would be the following.

00:53:53: If Ukraine would be offensive now,

00:53:56: Ivanish really would not dare to reintroduce the law,

00:54:00: would not dare to destroy the Georgian democracy.

00:54:03: The problem is that there is interconnection

00:54:06: between Ukraine and Georgia.

00:54:08: The Ivanish really with the offensive of Russia

00:54:12: saw that opportunity, that window of opportunity,

00:54:15: that now is the time to break Georgia

00:54:18: and to make the Georgia just a vessel of Russia.

00:54:23: And the last point, I represent political party,

00:54:28: what the regime is telling to Georgian people

00:54:30: is the following, what do you want?

00:54:33: Be happy that Russian bombs are not falling on your heads.

00:54:38: And from the opposition side,

00:54:43: it's very difficult to reply to that message.

00:54:47: Thank you.

00:54:48: - Thank you very much indeed.

00:54:49: We had a question here as well.

00:54:52: And then one at the back, the lady in the blue.

00:54:54: The gentleman here, thank you, please introduce yourself.

00:54:58: - Thank you, I'm a champion,

00:54:59: I'm a columnist with Bloomberg.

00:55:01: I slightly worry that here, the message of,

00:55:06: we need to be inspired and have hope

00:55:10: for liberalism, democracy and so on.

00:55:11: That message works really well here.

00:55:13: It works actually quite very well in Georgia

00:55:16: where people are struggling, know what they want.

00:55:19: And the EU is actually an inspiring idea.

00:55:22: What we see in the United States

00:55:24: and in parts of Europe, I fear, is that that message

00:55:28: is not necessarily working because we don't actually know

00:55:32: as collective societies which values,

00:55:35: we're actually fighting over those values.

00:55:37: And if the election in the United States

00:55:39: is a pretty good example where there's parts of the country

00:55:44: which agree with Putin on a lot of the sort of value issues

00:55:47: and so on.

00:55:48: And so if we, I wonder if we shouldn't,

00:55:51: and this is a question actually,

00:55:52: should we not base the case that we're making to Americans

00:55:57: to people in Europe more on interests, more on,

00:56:02: well, let's tell you what does happen if Russia wins.

00:56:07: Let's tell you what the costs are.

00:56:08: Let's be much more explicit about the relative costs

00:56:12: that you are experiencing now

00:56:14: and the ones that you would pay in the future.

00:56:16: And a little less on, let's fight for democracy

00:56:20: because we're not quite there yet.

00:56:24: - Really interesting question.

00:56:25: And just to quick mark while the mic's making its way

00:56:27: to the lady at the back in the blue,

00:56:29: of course, following German foreign minister,

00:56:31: Annalena Baerbock, we could consider

00:56:32: if our values are our interests,

00:56:34: if there's not actually a distinction between those things.

00:56:36: And by pursuing our values as interests,

00:56:38: we take care of the other side of that coin.

00:56:41: That's of course a new idealist point of view,

00:56:42: but there are other ways and we'll be hearing

00:56:44: from the panel about that in a second.

00:56:46: Please to the back.

00:56:48: - Thank you.

00:56:49: I'll try to be brief.

00:56:50: Reili Kavironan, Mestonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

00:56:53: As a very short intro,

00:56:56: I had the honor of interviewing Mr. Snyder in November 2019

00:57:01: in Tallinn after the Mawhafal 30 conference.

00:57:04: And it was a completely different world

00:57:07: looking back at the interview.

00:57:10: And but some of the topics that we discussed

00:57:12: also included the Russian death information

00:57:16: and propaganda and how it is tearing people,

00:57:20: societies and countries apart.

00:57:23: So my question for Mr. Snyder and the whole round,

00:57:26: and it was also discussed in the opening panel yesterday.

00:57:29: So it's on one hand, a very, very difficult

00:57:34: and maybe also a naive question,

00:57:36: but Russia is putting probably billions

00:57:39: into their propaganda all over Europe, influencing us.

00:57:43: How do we fight it?

00:57:45: How do we, how do you see the fight

00:57:47: against the death information?

00:57:49: And maybe from also an Estonian perspective,

00:57:52: if you try to speak here or just try to speak

00:57:57: to the people who are influenced directly

00:57:59: by reading Russian media, their main argument is,

00:58:02: oh, well, you Europeans have your own propaganda.

00:58:05: So they don't see it as evidence-based truth

00:58:08: or the, so to say, propaganda truth,

00:58:11: but just a very broad question,

00:58:13: how do we fight this together for not letting

00:58:16: this terror or societies apart?

00:58:19: Thank you. - Absolutely.

00:58:20: Thank you very much indeed for that.

00:58:21: Let's come straight to Tim on that.

00:58:23: I mean, you talked earlier about mechanized nihilism

00:58:25: as this way of destabilizing exactly regimes of truth

00:58:28: and so on.

00:58:30: Would you like to respond to that?

00:58:31: And also to the question on values and interest,

00:58:33: I think it would be very interesting to hear from you.

00:58:35: And then also, Margueris from you and from Anna

00:58:37: on the questions and comments that were raised.

00:58:39: So Tim, please.

00:58:40: - Sure.

00:58:42: So beginning at the highest level

00:58:45: and returning to the theme of values,

00:58:48: I don't think we can do without the value of truth.

00:58:52: I don't think we can do without it

00:58:53: because if you accept the premise

00:58:55: that there isn't any truth,

00:58:57: then you don't have any argument against the person

00:58:59: who says, well, I have my propaganda

00:59:02: and you have your propaganda.

00:59:03: And of course, that is the basic Russian epistemic

00:59:07: that there is no truth

00:59:09: and we're better at lying than you are.

00:59:11: And therefore we win.

00:59:13: And also, since there is no truth,

00:59:15: we're actually morally superior to you

00:59:17: because we're not hypocritical.

00:59:19: We don't pretend that we're telling the truth, right?

00:59:21: So therefore we're actually better than you

00:59:23: 'cause you're the hypocrites.

00:59:24: And of course, if you accept the premise

00:59:26: that there's no truth,

00:59:27: then you are a hypocrite and they're right.

00:59:29: So I think one has to have this apparently naive thing

00:59:33: which people have a hard time with now,

00:59:35: which is that we are actually looking

00:59:37: for some kind of truth.

00:59:38: At the other end of the argument

00:59:40: is that you have to have humans

00:59:43: who are pursuing factual reality.

00:59:45: So to take the example of Georgia,

00:59:47: a small part of the tragedy in Georgia

00:59:51: is there just aren't enough Americans,

00:59:55: reporters in general, writing about it, right?

00:59:58: And so for in order to make Americans to pay attention,

01:00:00: one has to retweet something.

01:00:02: And one does that,

01:00:03: but we just don't have the repertorial resources

01:00:07: that we had in the 1980s.

01:00:09: We just don't, and that has to be subsidized.

01:00:11: Like we have to say this is a good, it's a public good.

01:00:14: We have to subsidize this.

01:00:15: And this actually begins at home because I mean,

01:00:18: you don't, if you're gonna have a regime of truth,

01:00:21: it has to begin with, is there mercury in the water?

01:00:24: You know, is my local mayor corrupt?

01:00:25: And if you have it there,

01:00:27: then you'll also maybe have it

01:00:29: in the foreign reporters as well.

01:00:31: And then in the middle is what I mentioned before,

01:00:34: which is regulating social media

01:00:36: so that the people who are mechanizing the line

01:00:38: don't have the advantage of gravity, which they do now.

01:00:41: The way the, and it's not, I mean, TikTok is bad,

01:00:44: but it's not just TikTok, it's all of them.

01:00:46: It's the ones in California too.

01:00:48: It's basically the same.

01:00:49: They have gravity on their side.

01:00:51: So the Russians are taking advantage of the way

01:00:54: that the institution is actually set up.

01:00:56: And then on this question of values,

01:00:57: I mean, I quite accept the premise of the question.

01:00:59: There's a lot of idealization of tyranny in the United States,

01:01:03: including idealization of a particular tyrant.

01:01:05: And some of it is sincere.

01:01:07: And if we did have tyranny in the U.S.,

01:01:08: a lot of these people would be very happy.

01:01:10: And some of it though, is just based on a naive notion

01:01:13: of what it would be like to have a strongman,

01:01:15: because we've never had one, right?

01:01:17: And so people think, oh, this would be great.

01:01:18: And so part of what one has to do is explain

01:01:22: how life is dismal when your neighbor is informing on you

01:01:25: and how life is dismal when like,

01:01:27: you have to pay a bribe to go to the doctor.

01:01:29: And these like everyday things,

01:01:30: because people, I imagine that the strongman

01:01:34: is gonna be their strongman.

01:01:36: And then suddenly everything's gonna be easy in their lives,

01:01:38: which is, that's maybe an understandable impulse.

01:01:43: And then on the other side of it,

01:01:44: and I think the recent Polish experience is on this side,

01:01:48: you have to show that democracy delivers things,

01:01:53: that there are things that you care about

01:01:54: that you can get in the future with democracy.

01:01:57: And those may have to do with rights and freedoms.

01:01:59: And so, 'cause it does, you're right,

01:02:01: I mean, I think this is your view and you can correct me,

01:02:03: but the word democracy actually doesn't excite anybody

01:02:06: in the US, except the people who are already excited, right?

01:02:09: Like, that's the truth.

01:02:11: You have to explain what it is that tyranny would make worse,

01:02:16: and also how democracy is gonna bring things about

01:02:18: in the future.

01:02:20: So I'll leave it there.

01:02:21: - Thanks so much, yeah, I think it's a really important

01:02:23: question also relates to the disinformation point,

01:02:25: because if democracy is not actually delivering

01:02:27: on its claim to both material as well as moral superiority

01:02:31: that is tangible to enough of our people,

01:02:33: that creates the problem of belief.

01:02:35: It also creates the cracks in which disinformation

01:02:37: can work and take root and take hold.

01:02:39: So we have to be able to address that.

01:02:40: So I think it's a really important question to ask,

01:02:42: but with Tim on this,

01:02:44: I don't think you can do without the values.

01:02:45: - You were reminding me, of course,

01:02:47: of a rents famous quote about the goal of totalitarianism.

01:02:51: It's not actually to convince you to be, you know,

01:02:54: a proper fascist or a communist,

01:02:55: it is to basically make you not care about the truth

01:02:58: or be apathetic about the truth,

01:02:59: which is why I think if we bring this back

01:03:02: to values versus interests, you know,

01:03:03: one of our values is the truth

01:03:05: and one of our interests is obviously also the truth.

01:03:07: So to come back to Baerbock there,

01:03:09: which Ben was referring to earlier,

01:03:11: the German foreign minister,

01:03:12: her point about this very bluntly was that the distinction

01:03:16: between values and interests were total crap.

01:03:19: Direct quote from the German foreign minister.

01:03:21: So let's ask both Anna and Margus to come in

01:03:24: on this question about this.

01:03:25: Is there a difference?

01:03:27: Can we pursue these at once

01:03:28: or do we pursue one and the other at the same time?

01:03:30: How does this work?

01:03:32: - It's a very tricky question.

01:03:34: This one of, should we look at values and interests

01:03:37: as complete different concepts

01:03:40: and completely aside from each other?

01:03:43: It's a very interesting question.

01:03:45: So I would say that values are nothing

01:03:48: if they are not part of a bigger

01:03:51: and wider package when we look to values

01:03:54: and we look at democracy and we look at security,

01:03:58: principles and values in general, of course,

01:04:00: but at the same time, you must have interest.

01:04:02: You have to enter, you have to be geopolitical.

01:04:05: And that's probably one of the gaps

01:04:09: that we can identify in our liberal democracies

01:04:13: at this moment is that we are not being geopolitical enough

01:04:16: starting by the European Union.

01:04:18: I always like to remind a famous quote from Bohelle

01:04:23: when he presented the strategic compass,

01:04:26: he said, "The European Union must learn

01:04:28: "to speak the language of power."

01:04:30: So that was a very geopolitical statement

01:04:33: that led or paved the way to be more strategically

01:04:38: in terms of autonomy.

01:04:40: But I think it really has to do with that.

01:04:42: I mean democracy, liberal democracy is nothing

01:04:44: if we don't feel that the most valuable deliverable

01:04:47: of democracy is security.

01:04:50: And principles and values are very important,

01:04:52: but we must be aware that we also have interest

01:04:56: and we must be more geopolitical on this.

01:04:59: So I would argue that to start with,

01:05:02: just a very brief comments on the other two questions

01:05:05: on the propaganda and this information.

01:05:09: I would say that a roadmap is ongoing,

01:05:12: both with NATO and European Union.

01:05:15: But again, I would like to emphasize

01:05:17: that we need to have a three-fold approach.

01:05:19: We have to anticipate, we have to protect

01:05:23: and be more resilient, and we have to have lessons learned.

01:05:26: These are the three ideas that I think are very important

01:05:32: to actually counter what propaganda

01:05:34: and this information means nowadays.

01:05:36: And to conclude, I would also like to address a word

01:05:40: to our Georgian fellows.

01:05:43: Portugal is very clear on this.

01:05:45: We fully support the European and Western aspirations

01:05:50: of Georgia and we fully encourage the reforms

01:05:55: all within the Copenhagen criteria and the Diakíkómonotér.

01:06:00: So we wish you all the best and we hope to have Georgia

01:06:05: with us in the future very soon.

01:06:08: - Marcus, hope alone won't get us through that.

01:06:10: We have to make it credible hope, right?

01:06:12: And how do we go about doing that?

01:06:14: - Credible or incredible, credible?

01:06:15: - Credible, yeah.

01:06:16: So about this discussion and that,

01:06:19: somewhere there is like a value-based policy

01:06:23: and then there is a different world

01:06:25: when we have that practical policy.

01:06:28: And I think that it has been a big mistake

01:06:31: all over the decades that the way of thinking like this.

01:06:34: And the proof of that is that actually the value-based policy

01:06:38: is very practical because it is existential.

01:06:41: Because without these values we cannot be practical as well

01:06:44: because without that we couldn't have any kind of the lifestyle

01:06:46: as we enjoying right now.

01:06:48: Is it very practical way of being on that level

01:06:51: of the incomes and then the freedoms

01:06:54: and the personal rights and also be honest

01:06:57: to be so happy personally in the meaning of

01:06:59: what the standards of living we're having

01:07:02: in democratic, democratic countries.

01:07:04: And as well in this fit for freedom what we're saying mainly

01:07:07: is that these countries which are respecting

01:07:10: the personal rights and democracies

01:07:11: and the liberal values in the meaning,

01:07:17: these countries are not as well aggressive against the others.

01:07:21: So actually it's coming finally,

01:07:24: it is very personal how people are feeling.

01:07:27: So that's why I wanted to say as well

01:07:30: that this value-based policy is very practical,

01:07:34: it's existential and just now we are witnessing that,

01:07:38: that we have to fight and stand for that

01:07:39: in very practical ways.

01:07:41: But what is the fight is not only in Ukraine

01:07:45: in the meaning and in Gaza and some other parts

01:07:48: and military ways but also the main fight

01:07:50: is about the people's mind.

01:07:52: It's about the people's mind.

01:07:54: And it is based about the two big things

01:07:56: and what we are affected that the humans are like

01:08:00: sex and the fear of death.

01:08:03: Putin is not playing about the sex using that.

01:08:06: But he's using the fear.

01:08:08: He's using the fear.

01:08:10: And personally and as countries, as a nation,

01:08:13: so escalating the personal fears and fears of the nations,

01:08:17: the leaders of the nations and so fears of,

01:08:20: I don't know, escalation and whatever.

01:08:22: If we are about this US situation,

01:08:25: if we are following what are the number one topics?

01:08:27: Not of course the democracy in the world,

01:08:29: the global democracy.

01:08:30: It's about immigration.

01:08:32: It's the first thing.

01:08:33: And immigration is not because of immigration

01:08:35: but because of fear.

01:08:37: About the, you know.

01:08:39: And then economical questions.

01:08:42: This is personal fear as well.

01:08:43: How can I pay my loans?

01:08:45: How can I survive and so on?

01:08:47: And this is all these kind of things

01:08:49: that they're based on the fear.

01:08:50: And this is, we have to understand as well.

01:08:53: And even why we have not decided to win the war

01:08:56: and why we haven't, why we are afraid about

01:09:00: what is going to happen when Russia is losing the war

01:09:03: is that we are afraid of escalation.

01:09:07: And we don't know even what this escalation is.

01:09:09: We think that, okay, nuclear war is the escalation

01:09:11: and we are so much afraid about that.

01:09:13: So fear and fear is in our minds.

01:09:17: Fear is not like very practical thing.

01:09:19: - No, exactly.

01:09:20: Tim, you wanted to come in on just that.

01:09:21: - Yeah, just briefly, that's a bit,

01:09:24: you've recharacterized in a very nice way

01:09:27: what I was trying to say about ethics versus psychology

01:09:31: because you can't be a realist without being an idealist first

01:09:35: because if you don't know what your ideals are,

01:09:36: you can't be a realist in pursuing them.

01:09:39: And if you don't have ideals,

01:09:42: then your notion of interests collapses into

01:09:45: what I was trying to call psychology

01:09:47: but what you're calling fear.

01:09:48: So if you don't have ideals,

01:09:50: then what you confuse your interests

01:09:53: with how somebody has just manipulated you

01:09:54: into being afraid, right?

01:09:56: And if that happens to you again and again and again,

01:09:59: then you're not really capable

01:10:00: of making any sort of foreign policy

01:10:02: but you believe that you are.

01:10:04: And the escalation cliche is a wonderful example of this, right?

01:10:07: Like the American fear of nuclear war

01:10:09: or of migration or whatever,

01:10:10: it's an example of how a subject

01:10:13: where we would be thinking more clearly

01:10:14: if we had values becomes a morass

01:10:17: of this kind of mindless angst

01:10:19: because we put the values aside

01:10:21: and we confuse our interests with how we're just feeling.

01:10:24: And unfortunately, how we are feeling,

01:10:26: it goes back to your question,

01:10:28: is very often how we're being made to feel.

01:10:30: - Right, and this notion somehow

01:10:32: that values-based policy is wishy-washy

01:10:35: or it doesn't have a hard edge is wrong.

01:10:37: It's simply wrong.

01:10:38: You have to be able to pursue those values

01:10:39: in a meaningful, hard-edged way

01:10:40: and putting those first gives you the guide

01:10:42: to then develop the means to do so.

01:10:45: Aaron?

01:10:46: - On that, you said earlier

01:10:48: that the most important guarantee

01:10:49: that democracy can give is security

01:10:51: but then if that's not simply a statement

01:10:55: that an example of that comes directly

01:10:56: to what you said that democracies don't fight each other.

01:10:59: So pursuing democracy, spreading democracy,

01:11:01: that is also a way of actually pursuing our interests

01:11:04: simply because it secures us against each other.

01:11:08: I'd like to come again to the audience

01:11:10: for a few more questions over here at this center table.

01:11:13: - Thank you, Mora Gaisik

01:11:14: from the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

01:11:17: So I actually have a question about narratives of democracy.

01:11:22: So whether we're talking about the end of history

01:11:25: or you mentioned here today or politics of inevitability,

01:11:29: there's all of these narratives that democracy has won already

01:11:33: or it will win.

01:11:34: So we can of course speculate whether these narratives

01:11:38: have actually caused the backsliding that we see right now

01:11:42: in the world of democracy.

01:11:44: But my question is actually,

01:11:46: do we need a new narrative for democracies

01:11:51: or is that what kind of got us into trouble

01:11:53: in the first place?

01:11:54: - I do love this question.

01:11:55: Do we have another to collect right over here?

01:11:58: There we go.

01:11:59: - I'm from Italy, Cedro Germani.

01:12:00: I'm a scholar of Observer of Russian Affairs.

01:12:04: But I'd like to ask you a broader question.

01:12:07: It's obvious that liberal democracy

01:12:10: is under intellectual attack from various quarters, right?

01:12:15: Putinism, China, populism, big tech, we don't know.

01:12:20: It's ambiguous.

01:12:23: So there's a kind of multi-dimensional threat,

01:12:26: intellectual threat.

01:12:28: Do you think there could be a grand strategy

01:12:32: to defend liberal democracy?

01:12:34: As there was during the Cold War,

01:12:37: there was a strategy of influence,

01:12:39: of cultural influence during the Cold War,

01:12:42: to discredit totalitarianism, communism,

01:12:45: and to uphold democracy.

01:12:47: Do you think that today we can imagine

01:12:49: some kind of grand strategy to defend

01:12:52: intellectually and culturally liberal democracy?

01:12:55: - Thank you.

01:12:56: While we see the mic passed for the next question,

01:12:58: just to note that in Berlin, we're actually setting up

01:13:00: a thing called the Democratic Strategy Initiative

01:13:02: to develop exactly this,

01:13:03: based on initially neo-idealist principles,

01:13:05: but also open to other competing ways of doing that,

01:13:08: to marshal the sources of our power

01:13:11: in order to actually direct them for our interests

01:13:13: and values, which we see as being highly united together,

01:13:16: across themes of community cohesion,

01:13:18: through military readiness,

01:13:20: and effective internationalism reforming our system.

01:13:22: And we're considering how we harness

01:13:24: both the dynamism of free people,

01:13:26: but also the way we share that prosperity

01:13:28: inside our society, so to address some of those cracks.

01:13:31: That's really the task we are setting ourselves to.

01:13:33: So watch this space for more on that.

01:13:35: Next question, please.

01:13:37: - Yes, thank you.

01:13:38: Allan from the Stone and Government Office.

01:13:40: And I'm also like continuing this grand narrative

01:13:43: or strategy question that in real life,

01:13:47: we also have many non-democratic countries

01:13:50: that are allied to democratic countries.

01:13:53: We are very much settled in this discussion

01:13:55: with how to defend the liberal order.

01:13:58: But in reality, since the second world war,

01:14:01: the liberal order is very dependent

01:14:02: on non-democratic or non-liberal countries.

01:14:06: We need hydrocarbons from Azerbaijan.

01:14:10: We need relations with Turkey.

01:14:13: We need diplomatic relations with many African countries.

01:14:17: Et cetera.

01:14:18: So this is like how to get this large narrative or strategy

01:14:22: that is beyond democratic or like a bit more inclusive

01:14:27: because in the cold war, we had anti-communism.

01:14:30: But now we don't have this.

01:14:32: - I'd like to come to this point quickly

01:14:33: and then take one more question.

01:14:35: And the reason why I want to come to this

01:14:37: is I'm from Canada, of course.

01:14:39: And I look a lot at the sort of the trade numbers

01:14:42: and economic links that exist between Canada and Europe.

01:14:45: And Europe buys less than 4 billion in critical minerals,

01:14:49: for example, from Canada.

01:14:50: Canada is the largest producer in the world

01:14:53: of nine critical minerals.

01:14:55: I mean, so this is a scandalously low figure.

01:14:57: And I think that that also speaks to the need

01:14:59: to link up our democracies in a new strategic way.

01:15:03: And that's very, very much a part of this.

01:15:05: - Just on LNG, exactly.

01:15:06: We wouldn't have to buy it from Azerbaijan

01:15:08: if we leveraged the fact we could buy it from Canada.

01:15:10: There's options out there.

01:15:11: We've not chosen them.

01:15:13: That's part of the point.

01:15:13: And understanding how we can make those options available

01:15:16: for action so we don't despair is a key element of this.

01:15:19: Last question over there, please.

01:15:20: - Hi, I'm Ines Ribad from the Portuguese Ministry of Defense.

01:15:24: So a few years ago, I know that NATO was working

01:15:27: on something related to democratic resilience,

01:15:31: like sort of a center.

01:15:32: And I was wondering what the panel thinks of this idea

01:15:35: because essentially what we're seeing is security

01:15:38: no longer being just physical, but also ontological.

01:15:41: So protecting this community of values.

01:15:44: So I'd like to see your opinion on that.

01:15:45: Thanks.

01:15:47: - Anna, let's come to you for a two minute response here

01:15:49: because I saw you nodding your head there

01:15:50: about this particular question.

01:15:52: - No, I mean, it will be my last statement, I assume.

01:15:55: So I'll try to be very, very quick.

01:16:00: And starting with the first question,

01:16:03: do we need a new bottle for old wine?

01:16:05: I don't think so.

01:16:07: Not just for makeup, no.

01:16:10: But still it's important to go to the roots.

01:16:12: And when we go to the root of the liberal democracy,

01:16:15: what it's enshrined is that democracy implies security,

01:16:21: that implies development, and so on.

01:16:24: So democracy, security, and development

01:16:27: always were perceived as being part of the same package.

01:16:31: And when we go to the roots again,

01:16:32: for instance, in the United Nations,

01:16:34: we clearly acknowledge that this debate is narrative,

01:16:37: starts in 1994 with the United Nations Development Program

01:16:41: when they assume and they include the concept

01:16:43: of human security as part of the United Nations narrative,

01:16:48: the distinguishing the freedom from fear,

01:16:50: the freedom from want.

01:16:52: But again, democracy implies security,

01:16:54: security implies development,

01:16:56: and development implies all the rest.

01:16:58: So it was in 1994, probably in 2024,

01:17:02: we would include Marga's fear of escalation

01:17:07: as well, which is a very good idea also

01:17:10: to go through this debate.

01:17:14: Then also a very quick word on a grand strategy

01:17:18: to defend democracies, and I believe that's also related

01:17:21: with this last question on the democratic resilience.

01:17:24: I would say that we don't need to reinvent anything in general.

01:17:29: We just need to make it work what it really exists.

01:17:32: And we need to go through the multilateral organizations,

01:17:36: like the U, NATO, United Nations,

01:17:39: they are all based in a community of values and principles.

01:17:42: So I think it's up to all our nations

01:17:46: to actually make these liberal democracies work

01:17:49: in the forums that already exist.

01:17:51: And of course, it's very important that we find new initiatives

01:17:55: like the one of the democratic resilience,

01:17:58: but making things really worth

01:18:01: and make the international organizations

01:18:03: really work in practice,

01:18:05: do not reinvent anything.

01:18:07: - As Marga's you were writing about in The Guardian

01:18:09: just last December, which we linked to in our show notes,

01:18:12: but please, your two minute last statement.

01:18:14: - Yeah, I'm trying to cover the narrative talk.

01:18:19: It was a very good question.

01:18:21: Should we need a new narrative?

01:18:24: No, of course, the case is,

01:18:26: it's not about what we are talking about.

01:18:28: The case is what kind of life we are living.

01:18:31: That's the case.

01:18:32: I think people are interested about living the life

01:18:34: that they can be happy, they can be rich,

01:18:35: they can be loved and so on.

01:18:38: And the bad thing is that,

01:18:40: I've been thinking about why we are in Estonian,

01:18:44: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,

01:18:45: these countries who actually,

01:18:47: geopolitically, we are very close to Russia as well.

01:18:51: Why we are supporting and understanding actually,

01:18:54: Ukraine more than maybe some others.

01:18:56: And why we are understanding as well

01:18:58: that these values are very important.

01:19:02: Because we were occupied 50 years

01:19:03: and we're still remembering what does it feel

01:19:06: to live without freedom.

01:19:07: These stories are real in our families.

01:19:09: So we know the price of freedom.

01:19:12: And what I want to say is, well,

01:19:13: that maybe I'm wrong and I hope I'm wrong.

01:19:15: There has been very long time in Europe,

01:19:17: at least the peace time.

01:19:19: We don't remember anymore.

01:19:22: How does it feel to live without freedom?

01:19:23: What does the war really means?

01:19:25: Ukrainians are now having this experience

01:19:28: and this is magical.

01:19:31: So, and I really do hope that we can learn

01:19:33: from different kind of ideas

01:19:36: and we can name whatever the narrative is.

01:19:37: But the question is that,

01:19:39: whether we have to pay the price and then to react.

01:19:42: We agreed this law of order and disagreements

01:19:46: after the Second World War,

01:19:48: when we paid a huge price,

01:19:50: we could actually act in 1941 or even before 1940

01:19:55: or '39 actually.

01:19:57: But we didn't do it.

01:19:58: We didn't do it because at this time,

01:20:01: business as usual, thinking was there.

01:20:03: Maybe it's going away.

01:20:05: I think that right now,

01:20:06: we are somewhere maybe in, I don't know, 1941

01:20:09: or something like this.

01:20:11: My question is, how much can,

01:20:13: must be the price that we finally will react

01:20:16: that people are understanding,

01:20:17: not, you know, normal people are not thinking

01:20:19: in the morning waking up that,

01:20:21: do I live in democracy or is it like the liberal democracy

01:20:24: or whatever it is?

01:20:26: They're thinking about how can I be happy,

01:20:28: enjoy the economical wealth,

01:20:30: be together with my family and live in peace.

01:20:33: You know, that's the case.

01:20:34: And I'm so afraid of that we are not acting in the right way

01:20:39: and we are not who to act before the price is already here

01:20:42: and we need to pay that.

01:20:44: And then it's too late.

01:20:45: That's the case.

01:20:47: - But then the value of narratives and slogans,

01:20:49: as you called it before,

01:20:50: and concentrating minds and concentrating actions

01:20:52: is why we come up with something like fit for freedom.

01:20:54: To say actually this encapsulated,

01:20:56: it doesn't dumb it down.

01:20:57: It's why peace through strength was an effective rallying point

01:20:59: in the end towards the end of the Cold War.

01:21:02: - Actually, fit for freedom concept is a practical guidebook.

01:21:05: It's not theoretical thinking.

01:21:08: - Well, that's the point.

01:21:09: It has to motivate practical action.

01:21:10: Tim, for your closing remarks, please.

01:21:13: - Yeah, I wanna try to pick up the ontological question

01:21:17: and connect it to the narrative question,

01:21:19: but I wanna do so by returning to your question.

01:21:21: In fact, because when I'm trying to communicate

01:21:24: with Americans about what it would be like

01:21:27: to lose the rule of law,

01:21:29: I talk to them about children

01:21:31: 'cause it's one of the non-obvious things

01:21:33: and it's something that speaks to people.

01:21:36: It really is different when you have to arrange

01:21:38: all of your life decisions around fear

01:21:40: of what's gonna happen to your kids,

01:21:42: which is, for example, the Russian norm.

01:21:44: If you're always concerned that something you're gonna do

01:21:47: means that your kid's gonna get thrown out of school

01:21:49: or not go to college or lose their jobs.

01:21:51: And Russians, just to take the Russian example,

01:21:54: have to think about those things all the time.

01:21:55: And it's very easy to move into a world of unfreedom

01:21:58: where that's what you're thinking about all the time.

01:22:00: Not about how your kid is gonna fall in love and get rich,

01:22:02: but about how something bad is gonna happen to your kid

01:22:04: because you stepped out, you did some little thing.

01:22:06: This soft American example leads me to,

01:22:09: this conference is already a success from me

01:22:12: 'cause you used the word ontological.

01:22:14: But into this question of being,

01:22:16: because I think being free really is a different way

01:22:19: of being alive.

01:22:20: Those 20,000, and it's more,

01:22:22: but those 20,000 Ukrainian children,

01:22:25: if they are raised in Russia,

01:22:27: they will have qualitatively different lives

01:22:30: than if they were raised in Ukraine.

01:22:32: That's just the case.

01:22:33: They're gonna grow up different sorts of people

01:22:36: than they would have otherwise.

01:22:38: And the only way to take this seriously is to recognize that.

01:22:42: Now, that's a sharp example,

01:22:44: but it's a true example of the fact

01:22:47: that you really are in a different world

01:22:49: when you're trying to design something

01:22:51: towards the future for freedom,

01:22:53: which brings me to the narrative question.

01:22:56: There are a couple of words,

01:22:57: and I don't mean that,

01:22:58: sorry, I don't mean this in a hostile way,

01:22:59: but there are a couple of words

01:23:00: that I think we should just drop

01:23:02: and try to express our thoughts without them,

01:23:03: and they are escalation and narrative.

01:23:05: I think if we could have a whole conference

01:23:07: where no one used either of those words,

01:23:09: we would all be happier, smarter people.

01:23:11: But with narrative, the chief problems are that,

01:23:17: the problems for freedom are stories

01:23:19: which have zero future,

01:23:21: which would be a Trump or a Putin.

01:23:23: There's no future,

01:23:24: it's all cycling back to an imagined past,

01:23:26: or one future, which is communism or the end of history.

01:23:30: We're all gonna end up in this happy place

01:23:32: because the economics are gonna push us there,

01:23:35: which is what Stalin said,

01:23:37: it's also what Silicon Valley says.

01:23:40: It has to end up in a certain way because the economy,

01:23:43: because it changes the modes of production.

01:23:45: And the problem with having one future

01:23:46: is that when it turns out it's not true,

01:23:49: and Silicon Valley is just as wrong as Brezhnev,

01:23:52: when it turns out that it's not true,

01:23:54: then you lose faith, then you're in despair.

01:23:57: So what we don't need is a narrative,

01:23:58: what we need is a horizon of individual possibilities.

01:24:02: We need the sense that democracy makes it possible

01:24:05: for individuals, families, small groups

01:24:08: to do the things they wanna do

01:24:09: and make a better future all along the way,

01:24:13: which brings me to culture.

01:24:14: So the thing, like back when I'm looking around

01:24:18: to see if I recognize any Americans here,

01:24:20: but like back when we were smart,

01:24:21: I'm just, now I know I know I was an American.

01:24:27: But back when we were smart, the thing that we did,

01:24:31: we didn't say like American culture is great.

01:24:33: What we said was, here's Jackson Pollock,

01:24:37: here's some African Americans performing jazz.

01:24:40: That's what we did.

01:24:41: And that's the sort of thing you do, right?

01:24:43: You don't say like America's great or Canada's great

01:24:45: or whatever or Belgium is great.

01:24:47: You say, here's some art,

01:24:49: like here's a translation of a book.

01:24:51: And we actually, I think have a greater disproportion

01:24:54: of cultural power than we did in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s

01:24:58: because the cultural superpowers are now South Korea

01:25:00: and Japan and America.

01:25:02: So countries which are more or less democratic,

01:25:04: I say with a certain modesty, right?

01:25:06: And so I think the possibility,

01:25:08: sorry, I should be looking at you when I say all this,

01:25:10: but I think the possibility as well as you,

01:25:12: but the possibility for doing this,

01:25:13: I think is very much there.

01:25:15: But the way it works is not saying

01:25:17: like we have a great culture,

01:25:18: the way it works is to say, look what happens

01:25:20: when you're free, you get this cool rap music,

01:25:22: you get this cool painting, you get this,

01:25:23: you get a thousand little things

01:25:25: as opposed to one big story.

01:25:27: - Right, I mean, you don't go out and tell people you're cool.

01:25:29: That's the word, the most clear way to tell that you're not,

01:25:32: right?

01:25:33: So you either are or you aren't.

01:25:34: And while democracy might not motivate as a word,

01:25:36: freedom certainly does.

01:25:37: And the idea of living in freedom,

01:25:39: we've heard that from all of our panelists today.

01:25:41: We're gonna close with just a word from Leonard Mary

01:25:43: who's speaking to an audience in Berlin back in 1995,

01:25:47: said, "Principles gain an importance

01:25:49: that does not depend on the physical dimensions

01:25:52: of the bearer."

01:25:53: And it's up to us, it's our duty to remember

01:25:56: these fundamental principles

01:25:57: and continually fill them with life.

01:25:59: And that is a sentiment that animates this conference,

01:26:02: it's a sentiment that's animated this panel.

01:26:04: And I think it's one that we can actually take forward

01:26:05: to say, it doesn't depend indeed on the physical might,

01:26:08: might doesn't make right, much as size doesn't make wise.

01:26:11: And we've seen the kind of leadership

01:26:13: that we need to see on this, in this particular time,

01:26:16: from some of the smaller states in Europe.

01:26:17: Now we just need to let them actually lead

01:26:20: and give animating life to those ideas.

01:26:23: - I absolutely agree.

01:26:25: There is always that agenda setting power,

01:26:27: which we find here especially, which is so important.

01:26:30: So that is a wrap for this special episode

01:26:32: of "Talent Side Out", Berlin Side Out.

01:26:35: Thank you all for joining, thank you to our guests.

01:26:37: And a very special deep thanks from us

01:26:39: before we go to Leonard Mary Conference Director,

01:26:41: Helga Khan for her help putting this together.

01:26:44: She was amazing, we could not have done it without her.

01:26:46: So very special shout out to her.

01:26:48: From us in Talent, thank you and until next time.

01:26:51: - Thank you all.

01:26:51: (audience applauding)

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