The Director’s Annual Lecture 2023

Sir Nigel Sheinwald GCMG

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for that hush. I’m Nigel Sheinwald. I’m the Chair of Chatham House. I want to welcome everyone. I want to begin by wishing everyone a Happy New Year, our members, our supporters and friends who are gathered here this evening, but I also want to say a Happy New Year to Chatham House’s wonderful and committed staff, who are all around us this evening.

I want to thank a couple of categories of people for being with us this evening and joining us for this occasion. We have Members of both Houses of Parliament here this evening, and I want to mention Eliza Manningham-Buller, one of our Co-Presidents, who I can’t see, but is defin – there we are – who is one of our Co-Presidents, who has joined us. And I also want to mention the fact that we have been joined by a number of our friends from the London-based diplomatic community.

Now, this lecture and discussion will be on the record, there’ll be no Chatham House Rule this evening, and we’re being live-streamed, and, as you know, we encourage those participating to tweet using the hashtag #CHEvents. And the format for this evening is that after our Director’s Lecture we’ll have a discussion and Q&A, which will be led by Rafael Behr of The Guardian, who is with us here, and I’m very grateful to him for joining us and taking on that role.

Now, I’d like to thank Bronwen for instituting this first annual lecture. She’s in her fifth month as our Director, having joined us after six years at the head of the Institute for Government. In the UK and internationally, we’ve had more than our fair share of events of consequence in just a few months, events which normally would have filled a year, and we haven’t had too many normal years recently. Chatham House does have the breadth to cover world events with our mix of geographic and thematic programmes, but we also need that surge capacity to devote resources to pressing and priority themes every year, and this evening’s lecture gives our Director an opportunity at the very beginning of the year to set out what she sees as the priorities for the year ahead, in the company of our members and supporters and stakeholders.

Now, in doing that, as Bronwen always insists, it’s not enough for Chatham House just to describe events, but we aspire to distil their meanings and consequences and go on from that to offer ideas and proposals for making things better, as I’m sure we’ll hear in a few moments’ time. And that seems to me to be particularly important because, faced with evidence of disintegration and disorder in our national and international lives, a, sort of, deep pessimism or fatalism can take hold, and I think it’s the job of the policy community at times like this to come forward with fresh thinking, ideas both big and small, to help keep the flame of positive and constructive policymaking alive. And we obviously hope that when we get it right, decision-makers in government, business, media, whatever, will have the bandwidth and the openness to listen and react.

Now, these are testing times for any new Chief Executive to take over an organisation. My colleagues and I appreciate the energy, the clarity of thinking and the personal leadership which Bronwen has already shown over the past few months. We’re greatly looking forward to hearing her thoughts on the year ahead, so, please, audience, please join me in inviting our Director and Chief Executive, Bronwen Maddox, to come forward and deliver her first annual lecture.

Bronwen Maddox

[Pause] Nigel, thank you very much indeed, and thank you for the support that you and the Council have given me and all my colleagues. Thank you all for joining us online, as well.

I’ve taken as the title for my first annual lecture “What Democracies Need to Get Right This Year,” and why, you might ask. Well, Chatham House takes the merits of democracy as one of its core values, the way of organising relations between people that we set out to promote. In one sense, that might seem obvious, but the overall argument I’m making this evening is that the case needs to be made actively. Even in the excessively interesting times in which we live, this is a crucial year.

For a start, there are many important elections this year in countries which are democracies, but not always liberal ones, in Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, and those Turkish polls will determine whether that country turns further towards authoritarianism or leans the other way. There’s turmoil elsewhere in pursuit of fundamental rights and freedoms. In Iran we’re seeing an uprising by people, mainly women, of astonishing courage, and in the US, a country which has defined itself by its democratic principles, and so stands as a symbol of their success or failure, it is still grappling with divisions between its parties that threaten the workability of its political system.

And meanwhile, as Nigel was saying, Britain has grabbed world headlines more than I expected when joining the international – an international relations powerhouse. I started this job a few days before Liz Truss became Prime Minister, and the “lasted longer than the lettuce” joke has been inescapable. I’ve been here about three-and-a-half lettuces so far.

This year matters, though, beyond those polls and headlines. The pandemic was an assault on the free movement of people and trade. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine then marked an abrupt end to 30 years of globalisation and all the international co-operation that made that possible, and China has ambitions of unknowable implication, but they are potentially hostile to democratic interests, including most obviously those of Taiwan. Meanwhile the climate crisis is more evident and ways to address it slipping through our grasp, and many countries are grappling with slow growth, high inflation and debt. The era of cheap money has gone, and economic constraints will shape politics even more.

Even more than that, much of what we have come to take for granted since the Second World War is at stake. That war, a horrendous cost in lives, in the use of terrible weapons, and of course, in money, established the claims of democracy over fascism. Governments then worked together to set up institutions which would underpin peace and prosperity, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those institutions came explicitly to support democratic aims, too. And the responses that countries now make to the new threats to them will determine not only peace and prosperity in the coming years, but whether democracy survives as an attractive system of government.

So, what do democracies have to get right this year? An awful lot is the obvious answer. I’m going to make three main points. The first is the need to do everything possible to secure a Ukrainian victory over Russia. The second is for liberal democracies to take a more self-protective stance towards China, but not to exaggerate that, and to keep talking to its leaders. The third is for older democracies to change their approach to multilateral co-operation, offering a lot of help in the economic and environmental crises that are looming, and not high-handedly taking partnerships for granted.

I’m going to make a final point about the need for democracies to solve their own problems at home, particularly the US, and I will say something about how the UK should position itself, and I will end with some optimism because, for all the gloom, there is reason for that, as well.

So, let’s start with Ukraine. We’re just six weeks away from that dark anniversary. President Putin’s decision to invade was a global shock, at least to the 141 countries who voted in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn it. It overturned decades of co-operation on respect for sovereignty. It has threatened the stability of Europe, not least the Western Balkans, a neglected concern which comes up often in Chatham House discussions. It has threatened, as we all know, the stability of European governments battling higher food and energy prices; this is one. And the effect is seen throughout the Middle East and Africa, too. Alex Vines, Head of our Africa Programme, has written that this year, “2023, brings the increasing likelihood of civil strife on that continent, because of food and energy-fuelled inflation.”

The US and Europe are still grappling with the diplomatic ramifications. The extra jolt to them was that 35 countries abstained from the first UN General Assembly vote, including India, Pakistan and South Africa. A senior Indian businessman told me the other week, echoing the stance of the Government of Narendra Modi, that “Ukraine was simply a squabble between European countries with no implications at all for Indian democracy.”

The world is watching to see whether Russia’s seizure of territory will be tolerated or punished further, beyond the sanctions already imposed on Russia, and China is watching most of all, perhaps, given its declarations about retaking Taiwan. We’ve argued at Chatham House that it is essential that Russia lose, in some sense. As William Hague, Former Foreign Secretary, put it recently, “It is not just the moral case to assist a free people defending themselves against an evil aggressor committing crimes against humanity. Simple truth,” he went on, “is that the cost of deterring a victorious or emboldened Putin indefinitely will be vastly greater than the cost of delivering greater help to Ukrainians now.”

The US supply of arms, which has been escalating in force, is giving Ukraine some battlefield success, but not yet enough to win. For all the flaws of the Russian Army, this has the makings of a stalemate, one that jeopardises the coalition of support that has grown up, despite President Zelenskyy’s gifted advocacy. European leaders are openly concerned about protecting energy supplies in the next winter; that’s the one a year from now. The US and others now need to supply more powerful weapons. We have argued at Chatham House that this would be justified. For all the risk of escalation, which is there, stalemate carries too great a risk itself of the coalition failing and Russia digging in to regroup and then strike back.

The conflict may eventually end in a settlement; most do. There is some value in beginning quietly to discuss options among Western powers, such as what happens to Crimea, what reparations and prosecution for war crimes and other offences might be. Those are points that Ukraine is very keen on. But while there is a value to keeping open basic channels to the Russian leadership, it is too early to explore such possibilities with Putin, when that could leave Russia in an ambiguous and still dangerous position. At Chatham House we’re working with governments and private partners on these scenarios. We’ll keep you in touch.

My second point is about China and how democratic governments should treat China. I’m arguing they should defend themselves against it but not provoke it. It’s a less obviously urgent problem than Ukraine, but is, I put to you, a more significant one. Putin presents one kind of threat, an unpredictable, malign force on the flank of Europe, but his Russia hardly presents itself as a rival model, a desirable way of organising relations between people. China does and explicitly so, in arguing that its authoritarianism can deliver prosperity and stability where the West cannot. That model might look less appealing now after months of lockdowns, protest, a U-turn and rising deaths, but its challenge is still there.

The tone in which President Xi Jinping has chosen to assert China’s global influence has changed the view of Western democracies, who had hoped that it would grow more liberal as it grew richer. Xi has explicitly threatened the independence of Taiwan and the freedoms of the South China Sea, while talking of more economic self-sufficiency that he wants to build for China. It is a long time since George Osborne, as the UK’s Chancellor, called for a “golden decade” of relations with Beijing.

UK has now pronounced China a systemic challenge, and this will shape the revised integrated review to be published in March, although Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pulled back from earlier plans to call it formally a threat. Germany, where companies have been investing in China since the mid-1980s, will publish its own revised strategy in March, around the same time, and it is intending to shift its trade more towards democracies with shared values.

In the US, the tone is markedly more confrontational. Fear of the rise of China often seems the only point of agreement between Democrats and Republicans, along with a determination to contain it. One US company told me today that simply doing business in China could be seen as unpatriotic by some in the House of Representatives, and a recipe for many summonses before Congressional Committees.

So, the first step is to get the calibration of the threat right. To exaggerate it is to risk provoking a reaction that might not come otherwise, but to underestimate it out of naivety or wishful thinking is to risk theft of technology or subversion of IT and military systems. Many Analysts, including the Chatham House team, doubt that President Xi would choose actually to invade Taiwan any time soon, given the risks of heavy losses, as Ukraine is showing, but it is impossible to be sure, and the Ukraine invasion, where many calculated with good reason, that it was not in Russia’s interest, shows that you can get these calculations wrong. President Xi can find ways, in any case, to step up pressure, including in the seas around Taiwan. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has been called “the world’s most important company,” and its customers across the world now realise with some shock that they cannot count on access to its products.

So, what should be done? On Taiwan, I think inescapably, the burden falls, again, mainly on the US. If the US chooses to be explicit about its willingness to defend Taiwan, as President Joe Biden has now done, that is the best possible deterrent to Beijing, but that is worse than useless, unless the US will make good on that pledge. It is not so long since the Obama administration allowed Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to break its red lines with impunity. Russia and others drew lessons from that, although for Russia that has now proved a costly mistake.

On the threat to military infrastructure, the task is how to excise China’s influence from the most sensitive parts, the most sensitive parts of the economy, but it is hard, as the UK’s only partial expulsion of Huawei, at US urging, has shown. Countries are investing more in chip making, although Taiwan’s unique technology engineering culture has proved famously hard to replicate and many tens of billions of dollars will be needed.

Consumer goods: you look around your house, there’s very little from Russia there, apart from oil and gas, probably, but from China, everything from your iPhone or children’s toys have Chinese components or assemblies. There’s little point in trying to cut out those goods right now, although very likely, other countries would move in to make them if China didn’t, as Vietnam shows.

But this ‘decoupling’, this new word suddenly thrust on us, marks a brutal and costly reversal of three decades of globalisation. Although this is the new trend, it is important, too, to keep talking to Chinese leaders. A recent conversation between President Biden and President Xi and the slight cooling of the heated language over Taiwan that did follow that, showed the benefit of that contact, that direct personal contact, and incidentally, showed us one of the hidden costs of coronavirus. The pandemic prevented leaders meeting for a crucial three years, with a real, you know, unquantifiable loss of direct communication.

The third pressing decision for this year that I want to talk about is how to approach the search for co-operation. It’s something the old liberal democracies risk getting wrong. For a start, they need to make the case for co-operation actively. In recent years we’ve seen trade, for three decades an engine of common benefit, used as a weapon by both Russia and China. The UK, in leaving the EU, seemed indifferent to benefits of trade, although the country is now palpably poorer as a result.

As the World Economic Forum in Davos, starting next week, puts it, “Climate change is becoming a focus of competition as much as co-operation.” David Miliband, President of the International Rescue Committee and a Former UK Foreign Secretary, stood on this platform a couple of months ago, made a big plea for the protection of the institutions of the aftermath of the Second World War.

They do still have a value, and Chatham House writers have argued steadily for the importance of the rule of law in preserving global order, but nearly 80 years is a long time. The older liberal democracies need to be realistic about the waning power of these institutions. The United Nations Security Council couldn’t be invented now, and its uses are severely limited by the likelihood of veto. Although it is striking how, in the bitter debates over Ukraine, the General Assembly has picked up some of the weight of condemnation.

So, there is a need to take a fresh look at the institutions of co-operation and at new possibilities. All five permanent members of the UN Security Council have backed adding the African Union to the G20 to make it the G21. That is a recognition of African states’ increased diplomatic presence and their demands for inclusion. It is something that I and my colleagues at Chatham House would support. India’s presidency of the G20, just beginning, is a chance to explore that proposition and new uses of this body.

So, is Japan’s presidency of the G7, also just beginning, and it may prove to be one of the most important presidencies of the G7 for some time. The G7’s role has greatly increased in the past two years, since Trump, and given the conflicting interests within the G20, it’s also the obvious place to work out major internal differences between richer countries, including on climate and trade. This year is a very good chance to look at what the G7 countries can do more widely to help combat the threats of high inflation, low growth and debt, as well as climate change and biodiversity loss, in a way that recognises how much the disruption they bring threatens a peaceful, co-operative, democratic world.

Given Japan’s long history of development aid, it’s also a chance to look afresh at the purpose of aid, when it works best, when it fails and how to use it to build alliances. Japan’s pledge of $30 billion in aid for Africa at the 8th Tokyo International Conference on African Development in August last year was clearly made with an eye on the $40 billion pledged at the China-Africa Summit in November 2021. We have argued for the urgency of tackling debt distress in Africa in our recent excellent report.

Instead of just maligning China’s growing influence at the United Nations and in the Global South, the G7 countries could respond to it better by actively making themselves better partners for poorer ones. Consistency could be one principle. The UK, in swinging its aid spending from the pursuit of poverty reduction towards national security, while very suddenly cutting the total budget, has left some excellent NGOs stranded and has left recipients uncertain what to expect.

Even more damaging, the US’s abrupt exit from Afghanistan has left Afghans, particularly women, accusing it of raising their dreams for 20 years, only to dash them. I have come to the view that the US’s many confused goals in Afghanistan were probably unattainable after just the first 18 months of mistakes, but its inconsistency over those two decades in what it said it was setting out to do has undermined its ability to stand up for its professed principles.

It’s important to recognise that many countries want choice in their partnerships, they want their support not to be taken for granted. The decision by Gabon and Togo last year to join the Commonwealth showed their desire for an alternative to the Francophone Bloc. The international financial institutions are right to focus on good governance in offering their support, but the tone in which they do it often jars with countries’ sense of sovereignty and the right to set their priorities.

There is something of a liberal panic about the countries who abstained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it is overblown, I think. The old term ‘non-aligned’ used to carry the connotations of an anti-Western stance, but that is not necessarily true now. These countries want to retain options for their own partnerships, but that shouldn’t be confused with hostility. It does mean, though, that liberal democracies need to argue more actively for the attractions of the principles they represent, and we have seen recently how effective that can be in UN negotiations on IT, the internet and space security.

That brings me to my final point about the need for the older democracies to change at home if they are to continue to offer an attractive model, and applies to the US, above all. These three goals I’ve discussed on Ukraine, on China, a new approach to co-operation, they are much easier to pursue if the US takes a leading role. It is the country, above all others, that defines itself by freedom and democracy. It has purported to act in their name in foreign interventions, and since the Second World War, it has generally supported the institutions that underpin those principles.

There is a long history, much analysed, of the ebbing and flowing of the US’s appetite for taking a leading role in the world’s order, the famous ‘global Policeman’, but its internal politics make the US now so unpredictable that its stance cannot be presumed by its allies or those who depend on it. The US elected a President in Donald Trump, who welcomed the invasion of Ukraine as a clever move and who still commands popular support, even if that is fading. Many of its own people believe, without evidence, that the last presidential election was stolen. It is not clear that its elected representatives still agree to work under the same constitutional rules. In the aftermath of the overturning of Roe versus Wade, states are arguing over whether they have the right to override each other’s laws, for example in opposing – imposing travel bans on state residents for getting an abortion or suing abortion providers in another state. At some point, when you go down that road, you no longer have a country.

Many of the US’s problems are its own, they are unique, they spring from its elemental project of knitting together its people under one common purpose, and then from its role as the world’s superpower. But many of the world’s older democracies are in trouble, too, struggling to show that their political system can solve their own problems at home, and without that, the model can have no appeal.

Philip Hammond, who’s sitting here, Former UK Chancellor and Foreign Secretary, said at a recent dinner of ours that a senior Chinese Official had challenged him, “If your political system cannot deliver short-term sacrifices for the long-term good, how can you expect it to deliver sufficient economic growth for its own survival?” And this captures part of the UK’s political problem, which it has in spades. This year’s drama of three Prime Ministers, a point that I find European Ambassadors particularly keen to make, is just a symptom. In fact, I can quite imagine how the current Prime Minister might be grateful for the current distraction that the Duke of Sussex is providing, distraction from the strikes and the spectacle of NHS patients waiting for beds.

The problems are those shared by many mature democracies. They include ageing populations and the demand for health and pensions that follows and crowds out the ability to invest in education and innovation. The contract that voters thought they had with their governments: healthcare, education, pensions, is being rewritten, and not in their favour, and then Politicians have to say, “Now vote for me again.” It’s a hard sell. Many governments now facing re-election will lose.

Those sceptical of democracy have prophesied that this is how it consumes itself, “Easier to make promises than keep them, so the temptation,” this argument goes, “is for Politicians to make extravagant commitments to get into office and then try bending the rules to stay there.” Boris Johnson and the unfillable Brexit promises were a symptom of this. The end of the era of cheap money has made the choices facing governments even more constrained, one of the key points Liz Truss failed to recognise.

There are answers, or there could be. Leaders need to make the case for growth, knowing that the steps to bring it about, including legal immigration, may be deeply controversial. In the UK, Rishi Sunak has made a case based on innovation and education, and that must be right, but as we all know, it takes time. He and Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, do not want to make the obvious point that the UK needs closer relations with Europe. A trade deal with the US is not coming any time soon and they have set aside China, the only alternative of the large market. The signs of a deal with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol, just in the past few days, show an instinct for political survival and a sense of the country’s best interests that has been missing for some years, and let’s hope.

The other crucial point is to improve voting systems and legislatures. In the UK, the House of Lords is hard to defend, the electoral system of first past the post barely so. The US needs to fix its gerrymandered constituencies, which make a mockery of many of its elections. For all those countries which are democracies but not particularly liberal ones, but people fighting in countries which don’t have democratic government at all, the illustration of how the older ones manage their affairs really matters.

I said I would end with some optimism, a bit. Recent years have seen many more people brought out of poverty through economic growth and trade. The pandemic brought a wave of creativity in science, medicine and culture. It also showed that people were prepared to undergo enormous sacrifices willingly, if persuaded of the point. We’ve barely had a glimpse yet of the scope of the digital artificial intelligence and quantum revolution. There’s more seriousness about looming environmental catastrophe, even a bit more action. It’s possible that when we look back on these years of turmoil, we look back on them not just as that, but as ones of a creative revolution.

And democracy, and the liberal version of it, can make a case for itself, above all that so many people want it. British Ministers are a bit too fond of saying that the “flood of immigrants in small boats proves the appeal of the country,” but they do have a basic point about the attractions. But to salvage that hope does require clearer decisions and a less patronising notion of international co-operation by democratic governments if they are to show that their model, our model, can weather the storm. These are the decisions I have argued they should make this year. Thank you.

Rafael Behr

[Pause] Bronwen, thank you so much. No-one ever doubts that there will be an enormous amount to think about from your lecture, and there’s a lot, I’m sure, of questions. Chatham House is an institution that respects laws and rules, and so, there are certain rules here. I’ve been told we have to finish promptly at 7 o’clock. I’ve also been told that when you ask questions, you’re expected to remain seated, and a microphone will come to you, by a mechanism I don’t yet understand, but I’m confident it will happen.

While you think about those questions, however, I do get the moment to abuse my position in the chair, which I will gladly do, and my first question to you, really, I want to try and link the, sort of, the second and the third points that you made in the lecture, which is about, you know, China sits at the core of the analysis that you had, and then the question of whether democracies, the ‘older democracies’, as you describe them, can, sort of, rehabilitate their reputations internally with arguments about what they have to offer their own citizens. I remember, it might even have been at a discussion here at Chatham House, a Diplomat saying, “One of the differences between the way Europeans and Americans look at China at the moment is, the Europeans don’t like what China does, the Americans don’t like what China is,” it being a, sort of, a rival superpower on a scale that the US hasn’t really had to confront since the Cold War.

And, as I understood what you were saying, you separate out China as distinct from the Russian threat at the moment, precisely because, you know, although there’s been a bit of a bobble, it posits an alternative model to democracy that could actually deliver wealth, prosperity. It sets itself up as an existential rival to democracy. And you gave the example of the challenge that was posed to Philip Hammond, who could – might perhaps tell us what his answer was, but I’d be interested to know what your answer would be if the question is, liberal democracies, in the need to satisfy the short-term, impatient demands of populations that, sort of, are – can’t wait for representative democracy to deliver what they want, they can’t make the strategic choices that will be needed to protect themselves. What actually is the answer to that, that demonstrates in the third decade of the 21st century that democracy is still the superior model, and the best one available? Easy question.

Bronwen Maddox

No, thank you, thank you for that. I think you’ve put your finger on it when you say that America does see China as a threat to what it is, as a threat to its own ability to have a realm of its own values, and a threat to its ability to exercise its own influence. And the European discussions are much more how to calibrate an ability to trade with China while talking tough on human rights, how to have those two things together.

I think countries in what I’ve called the older democracies, can make a simple moral case for democracy, that it is what people want, that many people demonstrate that they want it. But they then have to back that up with showing that it can deliver them some of the other things they want, particularly prosperity, security, and a sense of where the country is going. I’m not completely gloomy about that, though, and actually, as I was saying right at the end, take some hope from the pandemic, because that awful phrase that you hear often in politics, and particularly in Britain, “grown-up conversation,” which always has a faintly, sort of, infantile, sense around or, kind of, schoolroom sense about it, but the Politicians were forced to have exactly that kind of conversation with the public. Saying that these things which would have been unthinkable months before, “We all need to do because of the greater good,” and people did them, and actually embraced them rather more vigorously than some people had expected.

And it seems to me that that is possible. We’re probably heading for something like that over the National Health Service. Everyone can see that it’s not working and I think people understand the sense in which more and more money has gone in. So, the – you know, there is the room for that conversation, and people reject it completely. It depends how it’s presented. So, I think, you know, it is the political task of the age to put these difficult choices to people and explain why those in government think some of them should be made in a particular direction.

But I still retain some hope that the electorate are not simply going to spit out one after the other. Perhaps in Britain, though, you know, the test will come with what governments and people make of Brexit down the years, if Brexit has not delivered the either freedoms or economic bounty that different sets of advocates for it said it would.

Rafael Behr

I have lots of follow-up questions, but I’m now not going to monopolise, so, if you…

Bronwen Maddox

And no problem.

Rafael Behr

And you have a glass of water. We have, straightaway, a question from this gentleman, to whom a microphone will – is already making its way, via the mechanism I now understand. And then while you ask your question – actually, no, we’ve only got one microphone, so, why don’t you…?

David Howell

Thank you, I’m David…

Rafael Behr

Oh, so, if you could identify yourself as well.

David Howell

David Howell from the House of Lords. Your – thank you for a splendid and penetrating overview. Your predecessor, Robin Niblett, in his final speech, goodbye speech, mentioned the concept of the ‘neo-non-aligned’, by which he meant, I think, a great many countries of the world, not like the old Bandung ideological non-aligned, as you rightly said, but countries that don’t want to be too caught up in either the hegemony of China or the hegemony of United States of America, but just want to pursue their – assert their own independence and take the best they can from either side, and anybody else who offers.

I wonder what your thinking is on that, and do you particularly think that, in looking for safe harbours, these sort of countries might be increasingly attracted to, sort of, non-treaty, voluntary organisations like the Commonwealth of Nations, which is actually the world’s biggest network of all, slightly disappointingly you didn’t mention? Do you think this is a new pattern emerging which we should, here in Britain, take more account of and use more to exert our own influence?

Bronwen Maddox

Thank you for that. I’m not promising complete continuity of regime, intellectual or otherwise, but it was a very useful concept that Robin Niblett raised there, and I think in terms of – do I agree with the beginning of what you said, you know, should Britain and other countries look to neo-non-aligned countries and their, if you like, opportunistic, but exploratory, examination of different alliances and partnerships? Yes, I think that’s precisely what we should do, without taking a rebuff as sign of hostility. Did briefly mention the Commonwealth, and the joining by Gabon and Togo last year, you know, as an expression of their search for new partnerships, and also as a lesson that one shouldn’t take history as, you know, as perfect guide to where countries will choose to seek those partnerships. But it is about the tone, I think, of expectations.

Your final clause, though, had me pausing, and that was about whether Britain should look to use its influence there, and it is a very interesting question about how Britain should look to use its influence in all kinds of ways. It has a lot to bring to different partnerships. I think it is actually getting rather better at moving adroitly between them and exploring, you know, different ways in which it can be grouped with other countries, and that – you know, if there’s, you know, a positive to what Britain has learned in the years after Brexit, it seems to me, that may be part of it. Look at the way, over Ukraine, Britain is taking something of a lead in Europe, despite not being part of the European Union anymore, and clearly could do the same over migration and immigration within Europe.

So, you know – but it is a more exploratory and less defined set of partnerships than we had in the past.

Rafael Behr

Alright. Now, I understand there are actually two microphones, so, I’m going to take a brace of questions. This gentleman at the back there, I think, had his hand up first, and this gentleman at the front, if he’s still – if his question still stands, is next. Shall we take them – take both, and then…

Bronwen Maddox

Yeah.

Rafael Behr

…you can answer both in sequence? I think it’s more efficient.

Don Cholowsky

Don Cholowsky, Chatham House. It’s very good to look at the – this year, what needs to be done this year, although I think Chatham House should have a, kind of, agenda for this decade, because we live at the time when pace of change is almost exponential. So, by the end of this year, most of what you have proposed, and I entirely agree with that, may be not good enough. So, we have to take into account not just the global warming tipping point by 2030 but, okay, global disorder, again tipping point by 2030, and artificial intelligence, losing control of AI by 2030.

You said that the United Nations, essentially, cannot be relied on, as the Ukraine war has proven, so, what’s the alternative? We have the alternative in the making; this is the European political community, which is a no – which is aligned, it’s just the very first steps, but this is the place where Britain could play the role, and Britain is a member of this new entity. So, what would you say to that? Thank you.

Rafael Behr

Before you answer that, this gentleman here.

Bronwen Maddox

[Pause] [Inaudible – 45:42].

Rafael Behr

There is breaking news somewhere in the room.

Rafael Behr

He’s standing, okay.

John Stasinski

Thank you very much. John Stasinski. In my travels around the world, there’s no question that the democratic model is very much taken for granted, and I’m delighted that you focused on that, ‘cause I think it is the framework. In terms of this tension we’re now seeing globally between capital flows, trade and geopolitics, I’d be interested in your views, given the precedent of freezing the Russian reserves, on the whole broader subject of weaponization of the dollar, in the context not just of China, but all the other major economies. Because it is the great paranoia that people in Beijing are terrified of, is if the weaponization of the dollar becomes part of foreign policy.

Bronwen Maddox

Great, thank you. Let me start with that one, which I think is really – brings together a really interesting point. You think of the things that are being weaponised now, and I can absolutely understand the Chinese fear about the dollar, ‘cause we, you know, have, in some sense trade, in general, we have, you know, the oil price cap, we had Russia withholding gas with sanctions. We have all kinds of things that were taken for granted as, kind of, currency, being weaponised in a way that was unthinkable just a few years ago.

I think you’re absolutely right if what you’re implying is it adds to the fragility of all this. It does give China some cause to think, how would it work without this? I think it makes – to me, it’s simply much less predictable what is going to happen on these things. We saw a tiny bit of this over sanctions and Iran, the way the international financial system was used to shut out many, many organisations from dealing with banks that dealt with Iran, not just – and these things can spread. It was obviously a very small taste. I think we simply have to note it down as an enormous element of potential instability, that things that were literally currency have become weapons and other countries have to remove themselves from them.

On the ten years, we do have an agenda for ten years, but one that we are prepared to change every few months, in a way. Some things you can see coming, I think the climate crisis is going to be with us in ten years, and some of the trends. But half our work is thematic, half is, sort of, country and region and based. And in the thematic stuff, by its very nature, whether it is digitisation, security and so on, you can see many of these things coming. Relations between countries, and I think it’s part of what we’re talking about, are much harder to predict.

I think that prediction is a fool’s errand in, you know, in many cases. It is precisely this question of what a country will do in response to these uncertainties that has become so hard to foresee, and as – you know, Russia taught us that and, you know, while I and my colleagues have been – you know, have held back from thinking that China is going on that route towards Taiwan in the next few years, we could be confounded.

So, you know, ten years, yes, we know some of the things that we want to be focusing on and some of the things we want to argue for change in, but many of the things – we’re going to leave ourselves plenty of room to respond to events because we live in a time of many of them.

Rafael Behr

Now, we’re online as well, so, I’m going to take some questions from the Q&A, I’m going to take the liberty of reading them from screen, rather than going to the Zoom, in the interests of efficiency, and the – I’m going to give you two to begin with. The first is from Euan Grant, who asks what “role Western big tech, finance and mining might play in eventual back channels to Russia and China, both on willingness to keep the engagement going, while robustly pointing out that they are working with democratic governments to boost resilience.”

And the other is a broader question, which I will summarise, about – this is Oded Meyer, who is mystified by the definition of “liberal democracy.” “Democracy,” he says, “is well-defined, liberal less so,” and he makes the point that “Every democracy has what some people would consider illiberal elements, and every democracy has necessarily relationships, trade and political, with non-democracies.” You could think about the UK’s and other relationships with Gulf states. So, “Is it not time,” he asks, “to cease usage of the somewhat utopian term ‘liberal democracy’ and address these issues with slightly more pragmatic terminology?”

Bronwen Maddox

Thank you, I’m all for pragmatism. Let me start with the first one, the role of big tech and big companies, whether finance, mining, things that cross borders. I think it’s very interesting, yes, in theory, as, you know, I guess there’s a thrust in that question that they can be intermediaries, ways of contacting governments when government-to-government conversations are too difficult. But I find myself pausing at that, because they also represent one of the many ways in which it has become more difficult to run a government, to run a country, if you like. They operate, often, outside any one country. They’re notoriously difficult to tax if they don’t want to be taxed. They operate on – they can set their own rules, in a sense, and the relationship between very big companies and governments and some kind of rules-based order is very much up for debate at the moment.

So, whether they could be used in any systematic way as intermediaries, I rather, I’m rather sceptical of, if that’s the thrust of the question. Clearly, they have their own interests, which generally, are to keep contact and keep trade flowing, but very hard to commandeer an organisation which is focused, for example, on that, to one that has, you know, explicitly political aims, as a country does. So, I’m a bit sceptical and it would take a longer conversation.

On the liberal democracy, I mean, democracy, actually, I don’t think is particularly well-defined. You’ve got a huge range, all kinds of assortments of it, and something that looks very democratic at one point, can become less so, and it really is a, not quite a spectrum, but a, almost a zoo of different types. Liberal, I’d say, I guess, got opposite instincts to the questioner, I would find almost easier, because it is one, you know, political system based on a set of – based on respect for a set of freedoms and rights. And I think it gives a character, as a useful label, but labels are, you know, labels are labels, they’re useful in conversation, but they don’t do the heavy lifting of these, you know, relations between countries. That is as far as I’m going to take this now, but something we may continue to publish great reams on.

Rafael Behr

A few people have caught my eye. I’m going to start with the lady just there who – in the glasses. Well, that doesn’t narrow it down very much, but she’s identified herself. And then, let’s get a microphone to, actually, this gentleman there, then – yes, behind you – don’t worry, we’ll come to you if we have time – who caught my eye earlier, as well.

Xenia Wickett

Thank you. Xenia Wickett, Wickett Advisory. I want to pick up, if I may, a little bit of one of the previous questions. You focused your comments on what democracies could do, but I think it would – most people in this room would agree that the role of non-state actors has increased immeasurably over the last, say, five years, in terms of international relations, but even more broadly, domestic growth. And I wonder what advice you would be giving, or what comments, suggestions, you’d be making to the corporate sector, to the NGO sector, to civil society, for the year ahead.

Rafael Behr

And, also, when you’ve made your – when you’ve asked your question, you might as well – there’s a synergy here, you can just pass it a little bit forward to that gentleman there, and then we’ll take three at a time, yes.

Eitvydas Bajarūnas

Thank you very much. Ambassador of Lithuania, Eitvydas Bajarūnas. Course, I would want to ask a very easy question. You mention Ukrainian victory against Russia, which sounds very nice to my ear, but what – how you will define this victory, what is the victory? And especially in the same way as Moderator related the second and third question, I would relate first and the third to your point: Ukraine and Western democracies, are we ready to withstand this long battle with Russia? ‘Cause that would require – you know, we know how Putin is marked with all the hybrid influences and, you know, energy prices and, you know, then government would start to be, sort of, pressed by society to say, “Okay, let’s do the deal with Putin.” So, how far we can go? So, victory against Russia, what is this, and how far we can go? Thank you.

Rafael Behr

Ačiū. That’s the limit of my Lithuanian.

Jonathan Singh

…this thing to work. Hi, Jonathan Singh. I’m a Chatham House member. You touched on two things in your presentation, one on the ageing population in the Global North, and, also, the challenge of conflict and climate-related migration from the Global South. And I wondered if you had any thoughts on how democracies should manage the likely movement of people as a result of those, and whether you think there is any institutional change or update to the institutional framework that ties into your final point, that can help manage that flow of people.

Rafael Behr

Okay, so, non-state actors, what does victory look like?

Bronwen Maddox

I’ve got…

Rafael Behr

Oh, you’ve got them.

Bronwen Maddox

Great, thank you very much, great questions. Xenia, on the first one of non-state actors, I’m, first, look, forgive me, going to retreat and point to the title of my speech, which is “What Democracies Need to Get Right This Year,” and it wasn’t what other things need to get right this year,” but – which could be a whole other talk. But in – very briefly, you know, it is a really interesting question. It obviously depends what they are and what their purposes are.

I find it very hard, though, to group non-state actors together, whether they’re NGOs or companies, and say, what, you know, what common purpose might they have this year? I mean, the world is trying to recover from pandemic and trying to sift its different values, and it depends, you know, where the NGOs and companies are focusing themselves. I’m probably retreating out of this question. I think, you know, obviously we’ve been – set out priorities. We would love them to do more about climate change, we would love them to, you know, contribute to what governments’ struggling to put together an agenda for growth can be. But I, I – will you forgive me? I find your question so broad and many-sided that I’m going to conceivably leave it for next year’s lecture, but anyway, not now, but thank you for asking it.

On the Ukraine victory, thank you for asking what you said was a simple question. So, simple that my colleagues and I were debating it just before I came up here, or so clear a one, you might say. And there is no clear answer, as you know, but it seems to me it must be something that is decisive and does not leave Russia in a position where it can just sit there on the edge, regroup and threaten Ukraine, or other states to its west, once it’s got its strength back, and therefore that means some kind of containment.

Exactly what it means in terms of territory that Russia now holds that it gives up, that is part of the point of debate, and Ukraine and President Zelenskyy, as we know, are now pushi – you know, saying at least, you know – Crimea as well, I think that is one of the points of discussion. Ukraine also very keen to talk about reparations, about punishment for war crimes and other offences, and there is a huge constituency for that, as well, but whether that is realistic, we’re some way from seeing.

I don’t think we can even get practically into that conversation until this has played out for six/nine/12 months more and see what position Russia is in then. But I do think the goal that the, kind of, countries that are supporting Ukraine should be aiming for is something that is decisive, that leaves Ukraine sovereign and securely in charge of the territory that it has at the end of that, under that agreement. It may not be an agreement with Russia. We simply don’t know, you know, whether we’re heading that – heading there at this point, and I think we’re too early to say. But the consequences – and I picked up that quote from William Hague with some feeling, because the consequences of leaving Russia in a position where it can continue to simmer and threaten are really extensive for many, many other countries, as well, so, it must not leave Russia in that position.

Rafael Behr

Now, we’re very short of time.

Bronwen Maddox

Yeah.

Rafael Behr

But I do want you to come back to that third question, and ideally, get another one from the hall.

Bronwen Maddox

Right, migration.

Rafael Behr

But there are a couple have come in online…

Bronwen Maddox

Sure.

Rafael Behr

…that are relevant to this specific point, I think, about…

Bronwen Maddox

What, migration?

Rafael Behr

No, actually, on a follow-up to…

Bronwen Maddox

Ukraine.

Rafael Behr

…Ukraine, specifically raising the question of the future of the UK’s nuclear deterrents and, you know, broadly bundling these questions together, your views on the extent to which the reality of Russia’s position in this strategic confrontation is so defined by the fact that it is nuclear power, that – I’ll just – maybe if you could just engage with that specific point, before we go back to these questions.

Bronwen Maddox

UK’s nuclear deterrent, it’s a choice. The country does not have enough money for all the things it wants to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if that one went at some point, but it’s a trade-off. It also gets us status and a part – some partnerships. Can be much, much, much debated, but, you know, there’s a clear, difficult choice there.

Russia, I don’t think it is so defined by the fact that it is a nuclear power that everything we do in relation to Russia is shaped – in Ukraine is shaped by that. Obviously, there is an immense caution that has come, and a desire not to escalate, that has come from Russia’s possession of nuclear weapons. Obviously, while we could say it is not in Russia’s interest to use those, as I was saying earlier, those – that particular line of argument didn’t – might’ve led you to say that Russia would never invade Ukraine, but it did.

So, we can’t be sure, but what I’ve said in my talk was that the costs, or the risks of stalemate, of allowing a stalemate to go on, are also considerable, and that is why this, kind of, gradual escalation of the power of weapons that the US is engaged in, is, I think, the right answer. Shall I go back to…

Rafael Behr

Yes.

Bronwen Maddox

…migration? Migration. I think your word, ‘manage’, is exactly the right one. There is an enormous number of people who would like to come to countries that are more prosperous, that are more free, all kinds of things, and the best that countries on – who are receiving, you know, many, many people who would like to go there, is to manage it. Is to work out what they want by way of legal migration, and it is some kind of answer to ageing populations, and to have that – Politicians to have that conversation with their people, and then to work together to try to improve conditions and improve incentives in home countries for people to stay there and to help those countries to prosper, to help with aid and other development, and trade, to help those countries as well. It is immensely complex and is one of the big questions, I think, and one of the phenomenally difficult questions of government in the coming years. But ‘manage’ probably captures the spirit of it, because there is no resounding answer or piece of rhetoric that is going to deliver an answer.

Rafael Behr

Now, if you can promise to be more succinct than I have been so far, I think we can get a couple more questions in from the hall. So, there was this gentleman here in the second row, who I’m pointing at, rudely, and then, I see the gentleman at the back there has been waiting patiently as well, so – but the – extremely succinct.

Amol Joli

Amol Joli, a Technologist and a recent member. What is one contrarian belief that you have for this year or for the decade? Whichever’s easier for you to answer.

Bronwen Maddox

I think your question’s…

Rafael Behr

Excellent, succinct question.

Bronwen Maddox

…hot, although, I mean – alright.

Amol Joli

Very related to the topic of the – today.

Bronwen Maddox

Right, okay, alright.

Rafael Behr

And then let’s get the question from the gentleman in the back there. Give it to him.

Don Grocott

Don Grocott, a member of Chatham House. Is democracy under threat from the polarisation that’s going on? January 6th is an example, what’s going on in Brazil currently. Is the future of democracy in danger?

Rafael Behr

You have about 30 seconds to answer those questions, and as a result, I won’t say any more. I will get my thanks in now, so you then get the last word. Answer as much, or as little, of that as you choose, and thank you.

Bronwen Maddox

Alright, rather contrary, and I would say the plea for some optimism, the feeling that we will look back on these years, and whether it is the flood of things that we have been watching on television, or the quite astounding discoveries in science and medicine and the speed of those, and that those will actually come to, you know, rival in our memories the political and economic turmoil.

Is democracy under threat from things like January 6th? Yes. I’m conscious it’s always easy to sit outside the United States and perceive more existential threat there than, in fact, people there feel, because they say, “Look, this is the point of it. It’s set up like this, this is the whole constitutional point of the way the US is founded.” But I think there is something about the January 6th, the actual denying of the outcome of an election in the absence of evidence, and the popularity of that view, that is a peculiar kind of threat that leads us to the – that much overused phrase, “This time it is different.”