Can NATO keep Europe secure?

Dr Patricia Lewis

Well, welcome, everybody. It’s great to have you all online for what will be a very interesting seminar, with a great lineup of speakers. We’re going to be talking about NATO. “Can NATO Keep Europe Secure?” Obviously hot on the heels of the Washington Summit, the 75th Anniversary Summit, where there were a lot of decisions made, a lot of discussions and a lot of anticipation of future political alignments.

This meeting is on the record, it is being recorded and it is being livestreamed, including on Twitter, and welcome to all those of you who are watching us on Twitter, sorry, I should say X. And can I say, as well, that we’d love you to tweet on X under Chatham House, #ChathamHouseEvents, and also – or #CH_Events, sorry, and also, @ChathamHouse. And if you want to ask a question, do feel free to put it in the box marked ‘Q&A’ and this will – you can type it at any point during the discussion, and we’ll bring it up, and then into the Q&A session, if we have time, and I will, sort of, curate the questions.

So, I’m going to start with our first speaker, who is Ambassador David Quarrey. He is the UK Permanent Representative to NATO. He’s been there for over two years now, and before that he served as the Prime Minister’s Advisor on International Affairs and Deputy National Security Advisor, and he was also the British Ambassador to Israel, in previous incarnations. A very illustrious career, I’m not going to go into it, or we wouldn’t have time, David. So, I’m going to turn to you first of all, to get us started on what happened at the summit, how you see it from your perspective, as Ambassador to NATO, and how things – how it’s being talked about in Brussels, and so on.

David Quarrey

Great. Well, thanks very much, and thanks for the invitation to join today. So, the Washington Summit was a big success, from our point of view, and I think it was a success at three different levels. First of all, this was, as you said, the 75th Anniversary Summit, for the world’s most successful defensive political military alliance, and it was important to mark that moment. And I think the US did a fantastic job, led by President Biden, of celebrating the alliance, and it’s always important to remind ourselves of what a unique creation this is. You know, 32 allies coming together, solemnly committing to our collective defence through Article 5, which remains the bedrock of our freedom and our ability to live according to our own political wishes and according to our own values. So, it was important to have that celebratory aspect.

But secondly, we were always clear that we didn’t want the summit to be just about the celebration. There had to be substance as well as celebration, and the summit agreed a really substantive package of outcomes. Ukraine was probably the headline for most people, with a new NATO mission, a new financial commitment, a new Senior Representative in Kyiv, advanced language on Ukraine’s membership trajectory, and, also, some very significant commitments with air and missile defence, the new Patriots, for example.

But there were many other areas of substance, as well, including further work on Russia, continuing progress on defence and deterrence, 23 allies now at 2% or above of GDP, a new defence industrial pledge building off the action plan from last year’s Vilnius summit. Lots of engagement with NATO’s global partners, including particularly the Indo-Pacific four, who were there at the Third Summit running at leader level. So, overall, a really good package of outcomes, and we paid tribute, of course, to Jens Stoltenberg after ten amazing years as the Secretary General. Done a truly outstanding job in leading the alliance, and welcoming the prospect of Mark Rutte, starting on 1st of October.

And then the third level for us was, this was obviously I think about day five of the new UK Government, and it was a great opportunity for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary, to set out this government’s unshakable commitment to NATO. To start talking about the Strategic Defence Review, which has been launched this week and which will include a pathway to 2.5% of GDP. And, also, to start talking about the Prime Minister’s determination to achieve a reset of relations between the UK and the EU, including, importantly for us, a new UK-EU defence pact, which he is very keen to explore. So, big summit, big anniversary, but lots of substance, both in terms of the NATO outcomes, and a great platform for our new UK Government.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thanks, David. Hanna, I’m going to turn to you now, and, you know, I should say, Hanna is the – on the Foreign Policy Council Ukraine Prism, has a extraordinary career, and has been – I think ten years ago, you were a Visiting Research Fellow at NATO Defence College, Hanna. So, you’ve got some really serious embedment into NATO. So, from your perspective, from Ukraine’s perspective, from the view of what’s going on, right now, in Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine, how would you characterise what happened in the summit and whether or not NATO can keep Europe secure?

Hanna Shelest

Thank you, Patricia, and thank you for reminding 2014, because I’ve been exactly at the NATO Defence College when the Crimea annexation happened. And I remember how all of my colleagues been joking that Ukraine saved the NATO future, meaning that at that time, preparing for the new summit, they were not sure about what to talk. Afghanistan seemed secure, Europe no crisises, so it would be a, sort of, existential crisis inside NATO at that time.

But, unfortunately, in 2024, I can’t say that Ukraine saved NATO Summit, or NATO itself, because the perception from the outside is that everything was not so probably rosy and on the high as we expected. And it’s not just about the absence of the invitation for Ukraine for the membership. That was expected, and then after Vilnius – and if we compare with Vilnius, definitely Washington was a much bigger success in terms of the boldness of the decisions that many of the NATO member states were ready to take.

But at the same time, I’ve been in Washington during the summit at the parallel public forum, and the general feeling in the room was that this summit is more about the US and about the US elections, rather than about the future of the alliance. The limits of the possibility of the questions to be discussed, are everything to be arranged as early as possible so not to have surprises. Then definitely all the questions about the health of the President of the US. And many, many of the other things, and definitely worries, because what the leaders of the different nations maybe were not that much open in speaking at the press conferences, but they were much more open at the closed door events of the public forum, the general feeling was that uncertainty. “We don’t know what will be after November. We cannot plan after November. We would like European partners to do as much as possible to secure ourselves, in case the US will betray us.”

And I’m afraid that this feeling was dominant much more than the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the alliance, at least, when you went out from the big room of the Atlantic Council. At the same time, I definitely agreed with the – Ambassador Quarrey about the certain step forward in the decisions that have been made. It was understandable that if Ukraine cannot get the invitation, something should be done to evaluate, or how to say it to you, make next step after the open-door policy, to find different words and to change the practical interoperability and co-operation between Ukraine and NATO.

And in this case, I hope that those decisions that have been made in Washington would be implemented with the same goodwill as they’ve been announced. Because the new command in Germany is important step, if it would be effective. The high rank of the representative in Ukraine, considering his wonderful reputation in the past. So, I hope that this personality of Mr Turner will really get the impetus for the practical co-operation. The talk about China, that was the big step forward, both for NATO and for Ukraine, that’s for sure.

And one very small thing on which I will probably conclude these introductory remarks, that is this word ‘irreversible’. And we know that ‘til the very last moment, there were very serious discussions to have this phrase in the final declaration or not, the irreversible pass for the Ukrainian-NATO integration. And it seems to me that if for many Journalists that was just a word, we know what is behind. And behind is the attempts of a lot of experts and Politicians in Berlin, in Washington and few other capitals, to put future Ukrainian membership in NATO to the table of negotiations with Russia. So, still giving Russia the veto power for the future of the NATO enlargement and a Ukrainian membership.

Including this phrase ‘irreversible’ and not only Euro-Atlantic integration, but explicitly saying, “NATO membership of Ukraine,” that seems to me became a very important prerequisite for all those who are ready to bargain with Russia, to be much more accurate with what they are proposing to Moscow.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thank you, Hanna, and thanks for pointing out some of that key language that was put in. I’m going to now turn to Armida. Armida van Rij is Senior Research Fellow and heads up the Europe Programme at Chatham House. Before that she worked with me in international security and conflict analysis, and before that, at King’s College London. Armida?

Armida van Rij

Thanks very much, Patricia. I thought what I might do is give you the European view on the outcomes of the NATO Summit and what was achieved and where perhaps we would have liked to have seen a bit more. And I might start with the positive elements first, and I don’t want to repeat everything that David said, because a lot was accomplished and a lot was achieved, and I think it is worth acknowledging that. But perhaps, just to start, I think one of the most important things is that allied unity was maintained, and that also included regard – despite what Hanna has just talked about, some of the positive engagement with Ukraine, and I think that’s in part, due to better expectation management before the summit. Where we didn’t see repeat of what happened after the Vilnius Summit last year, where that unity was not as clear.

The second thing I want to highlight, because this – David didn’t mention this, is the emphasis put on national resilience and preparedness, and I think that’s really interesting. And to me, that’s also a clear signal of how NATO’s newest allies, i.e. Finland and Sweden’s, their expertise is being used, ‘cause when we talk about things like civil defence plans, preparedness, resilience, that’s really where their expertise is. And essentially, that is the idea, that frontline states have to be able to hold the line for a short time, while we wait for Article 5 to kick in, if it does kick in, should any incursions happen. So, I think that was positive, and obviously, NATO there has a really important role in setting standards and ensuring that it’s not just frontline states who have those abilities, but also other states, perhaps further from the frontline with Russia.

What perhaps was less positive, if I may put it that way, I think it’s a shame that there was limited language in the communique on the European pillar of NATO, what that might look like. Whether we like that specific language or not, but basically, what, you know, Europeanisation of NATO might look like. There was a brief nod to European defence and calls for interoperability, as we’ve seen before, and that’s obviously positive. But I think this does also point to, perhaps, a slight division among European NATO allies, among those who are transatlanticist and look towards the US and NATO, and those are not transatlanticists and look more towards – while, kind of, wanting to have NATO as a key alliance, but also look towards the EU and what the EU might be able to do in that regard, which we can come back to later on.

And I think the other thing is the, you know, the concern remains over President Biden and developments since with the assassination attempt on Trump have only heightened those concerns among European allies. Which leads me to my second point, where, you know, as Hanna was saying, the US election does hang over this, but I think we need to look at this, and we were talking about this on the Chatham House podcast last week, we need to look at this not at Trump proofing, but as future proofing European security and the NATO Alliance as a whole. Because yes, while there are concerns about US engagements in Europe in perhaps the short and the longer term, and the J.D. Vance appointment as Trump’s running mate has only accelerated those concerns, there is a bipartisan focus on China, which in the medium to longer term could mean that we see resources allocated – being reallocated elsewhere.

Having said that, I don’t think this conversation should be driven by what happens in the US, and the US’ short and long-term priorities, because ultimately, this is a need that has been generated by the external security environment. And so, what does that mean in practice for Europeans to think about? It’s about defence spending, and obviously, NATO allies have made huge strides on that front, but it’s also about force numbers, it is also about capability development. And so, it then raises the question of, okay, so what does that look like in practice? What do we do about this? And I think one of the things that we’ve talking about and thinking about is using EU funds to close NATO capability gaps, which we can get, perhaps, into in a bit more detail, and it’s obviously a little bit difficult.

The EU’s made huge strides. You know, we’ve got the European Peace Facility, which is essentially, the EU’s defence budget, and a lot of that has gone in supporting Ukraine. There’s the EU’s Defence Industrial Strategy, which was launched earlier this year, but that just requires significantly more cash. That is, at this point, you know, just a couple of billion, which really isn’t going to move the needle. But what I will – think will be interesting to see with – as the, you know, the – we have a new institutional cycle starting and there will be a new set of Commissioners coming in, the appointment of Kaja Kallas as the EU’s High Rep, and VP on Foreign Affairs, I think may mean that we see an even more robust EU policy on Russia. And that’s a positive development, and I’ll leave it there for now.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thank you very much indeed, Armida. And as many of you will know, we are supposed to be being joined by Rose Gottemoeller, the former Deputy Secretary General of NATO. Unfortunately, she’s having major technical issues, so we’re trying to get her online, so we’re still hopeful that we might be able to. But we’ll continue the conversation amongst ourselves, ‘cause at this point, of course, I was going to bring her in to talk about the US reaction to what happened and what’s going on in US politics. So, we’ll have to manage without that particular expertise in that way. And I also wanted her to talk about arms control, which if we don’t manage to get her online, I’ll do a little bit on that myself, having some views.

So, I wonder if, David, I could go back to you, and Armida mentioned Sweden and Finland. She mentioned preparedness and resilience. We’ve also been talking about deterrence. I notice that these – the deterrence and resilience piece, particularly the resilience piece, is coming up more and more in discussions, which I think is a very good thing, but also, in the new UK Defence Review that was announced this week, which is going to be led by George Robertson, Fiona Hill and General Sir Richard Barrons.

So, I do think that there’s a big – there we’ve got a big report that’s just come out on preparedness for COVID and what happened and what went wrong. We’ve seen similar analyses in the US on all sorts of things. So, what is it about the way in which NATO would approach resilience? Will the experience of Finland and Sweden, and also, some of our partners for peace, such as Switzerland, such as Ireland and so on, help us in thinking about how to use resilience as a form of deterrence?

David Quarrey

Yeah, we will benefit enormously in the coming years. We already are do – we already are benefitting from the presence of Finland and Sweden in the alliance. We almost take it for granted, already, the fact that they are in. Resilience is one of the areas where they are making a fantastic, important, early contribution. The work on resilience didn’t, of course, start with their accession to the alliance. Work had been continuing for some time, but it is gaining increasing prominence.

And we have much to learn from them in terms of, kind of, whole of society contribution to resilience and defence. I think some of that will play through into our own Strategic Defence Review. When I was speaking to the Defence Secretary, John Healey, about this last week, he was really keen to learn more about their concepts and execution. And I think the key task for the alliance is – or one of the key tasks, is that the resilience agenda is very broad and we need to work out where are the areas that NATO can add most value?

A big focus at the moment, for example, is making sure that we have the right plans to join up the civilian and military side of society if we ever get into crisis and then into conflict. There’s a lot around supply chains, and there’s a question, allies have slightly different views on the extent to which NATO should really lean into, for example, the Economic Security Agenda. But I think the actions we’ve got coming out of Washington are a really good foundation for moving forward on this. I think more and more allies are very clear that resilience is a fundamental part of our deterrence, and we will spend more time talking about and doing more on resilience in the coming years.

That links, of course, to the wider transformation agenda that I didn’t flag it particularly at the start, but it was one of the very important strands of the Washington Summit, that whether it is around resilience, whether it is around hybrid, including responses to Russia’s increased hybrid activity against a number of NATO allies, including the UK, whether it is on cyber, challenges and opportunities with new technology, the new AI strategy, there is an enormous amount of work in those areas that didn’t start at Washington but has certainly been given a big boost by Washington, and which will be important both for the resilience agenda and more generally.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Yes, I think that’s right, and right now, you know, we are in a situation, I would say, in which for some years, we’ve been in a combat online, in terms of cyberthreats, not only with Russia, but also with some elements in China and North Korea and Iran. So, you know, this is an ongoing situation, and Hanna, if we look at the Ukraine issue, we’re seeing increasingly threats to the critical infrastructure, you know, the issue of energy, terrible attacks on hospitals, on civilian infrastructure. You know, there’s a real concern that these are not diminishing, and in terms of international law, they’re really, you know, right – going right – roughshod over all of the things that we’ve agreed, either under law or under regulation, or under confidence building measures, and so on.

I mean, how is Ukraine able – you know, one of the questions I think that’s often been asked is, you know, how Ukraine will essentially feed back into NATO, in terms of the learning for NATO. We talk a lot about Sweden and Finland, but when Ukraine joins NATO, what will NATO bring – what will Ukraine bring to NATO in that regard?

Hanna Shelest

It seems to me that Ukraine has already been bringing a lot for the last ten years, because a lot of all the changes that we are witnessing now in our NATO are happening exactly because of those lessons learnt from the Russian aggression and from the response to this aggression. But in general, I mean, what you described about the Russian tactics and what is important, I usually make the explanation like this. Currently, we have de facto five frontlines in Ukraine, the three classical landlines, about which we usually hear in the news, the North, near Kharkiv, the East, the class – the old war since 2014, the South, everything around the newly occupied territories. We have the fourth frontline, it is the maritime, it is Crimea, and everything that is happening in the Black Sea.

But the fifth frontline, it is exactly where Russians, unfortunately, are succeeding, that is targeting critical infrastructure all around Ukraine. Where they realised what consequences it can have both for the moral and for the economy and for the security. Because a lot of those elements, whether it is nuclear powerplant, for example, or the energy system, or railway, all of these important both for the civilian and for the military life, and in general, for the state.

Still, in 2022, just several months before the Russian full-fledge aggression, Ukraine adopted the National Resilience Concept, a document that had been based on the NATO seven baselines for the resilience. And that was probably the first example when the NATO theoretical approach been put to the practical document at the national level. The only thing that Ukraine added to additional baselines, information sphere and financial sphere. And definitely when the war started in 2022, that was the clear indicator that these two spheres are not less important than protection of the critical infrastructure, providing of the medical support, food, connection, the transportation.

So, if you look to those seven baselines for NATO, they are exactly what Ukraine needed at the very first months of the war, and what it needs after two and a half years of the full-fledge aggression. That’s why now after two years, it seems to me we have substantial material, practical material, that already can be lessons learned and implemented. So, from that theoretical document, to go to the practical implementation. We know that it is happening at the national levels. We know about plenty of delegations. Just this winter, the Swedish Defence University, for example, have been coming to Ukraine. They were doing research exactly about the resilience concept implementation, on the request of their governmental agencies, and writing recommendations for their government.

Now the question is, can we amplify it from the national lesson to the NATO level? So, something of more general recommendation that would be important, doesn’t matter you’re small Luxembourg or you’re big Canada. Because the principles of the response of the preparedness, they are absolutely the same. And here, I hope that this JATEC, the Joint Analysis Training Centre, that’s been – that should be created. It’s not physically yet created, in Poland. That it would be one of those places where such lessons can be not only learnt, analysed, but also, then elaborating recommendations for NATO as a whole, not only as something for Ukraine, but for NATO as a whole. Because that would be exactly that organisation, that framework, for the joint effort and for the interoperability, and not only in technical sphere, but also in terms of the lessons that we already have from the war.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thank you very much, indeed, Hanna. Armida, turning to you for some remarks about the European Union and NATO, and some ideas that have been floating around recently on, you know, should there be a new administration in the US? You know, could Europe actually buy weapons from the US for Ukraine? And also, one of the questions that’s coming up over and over again is that our own European divisions, both in the EU in terms of politics, in terms of government alignment, but – and also, then, that actually having an impact on NATO. And David, if you feel free to join in on that. I mean, I’m sure you will reply that, you know, that’s all we – that’s ever thus, you know, we’ve always had those divisions in NATO, and we’ve always managed to find unity, but it’d be really good to have those reflections. So, Armida, first to you.

Armida van Rij

Yeah, I mean, you’ve, kind of, highlighted exactly the right challenges, as, of course, you would. But I think there is this, kind of, big issue at the moment, where the US election is only a few months away, a new potential Trump administration is six months or so away, and should US support for the Ukraine fall away, that would leave a massive hole in funding. And there are some emerging ideas about what other states can do to plug that hole. One of them is around Eurobonds, but there’s a lack of consensus around this. There’s also discussion of using Russian frozen assets to buy American off the shelf weapons. Radek Sikorski, who was here at Chatham House last night, talked about this, as well.

But I think the bigger picture is that we have two parallel challenges. The first is to arm Ukraine, on the one hand, so provide the military support, but also, the financial support, because that’s what allows salaries to keep being paid out, etc. We all know of the one million artillery shells target that the EU set for itself that was missed. So, that tells you about where we are in terms of European Union production levels. And then the second challenge is one where we have to re-arm Europe itself. We didn’t have sufficient stocks anyway. These have been depleted as countries have provided Ukraine with lethal aid, and initially we saw lots of donations of perhaps slightly older equipment. But we’re running out of that, and so we’re turning to newer, more advanced equipment, which, for example, the Patriots that David mentioned, which are, then, also more expensive to replace. So, that’s a, kind of, very difficult challenge.

And so, what we need to be thinking about is developing this European Defence Industrial Base, which has to be co-ordinated with NATO, to try and address this short-term challenge, but also this longer-term challenge. And there is this perceived trade-off of, you know, do we buy off the shelf American, or do we pursue strategic autonomy, which is a debate that has resurfaced since 2016, and develop the Defence Industrial Base? There is a question over whether, if there is a second Trump administration, whether – and the Americans don’t want to supply Ukraine with weapons anymore, whether they would allow Europeans to buy American weapons to supply to Ukraine. We’ve had some American speakers here yesterday on the Republican side who said that wouldn’t be an issue and they wouldn’t be concerned about the Europeans developing their own Defence Industrial Base. We’ll see.

But I think, also, again, going back to the point about the institutional cycle and a reset of that within the EU, there is also an opportunity now, as we start thinking about the next multi-annual financial framework, which is a very long way of saying, basically, the EU’s budget, to allocate some serious money to defence. The challenge with that is that there are these internal member state divisions, and some member states aren’t happy about how the European Commission it’s pushing into what is technically and legally a member state competency. Defence is up to the member states, and so, that’s where there is a bit of tension.

But what I do, also – perhaps the final point that I want to highlight is that there are two accession tracks for Ukraine. One of them is NATO that we’ve talked about, but the other one, of course, is the EU. And all the reforms that the EU is having to go through, and we had the first – the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference on Ukraine in June which was – you know, which kickstarts the negotiations, essentially. But the reforms that Ukraine is having to make as part of that accession process, the EU’s accession process, will also benefit it once it’s able to join NATO, and will also benefit the alliance. So, these are two things that go hand-in-hand and are mutually beneficial.

David Quarrey

Shall I come in on this?

Dr Patricia Lewis

Yes, please.

David Quarrey

So, three things, perhaps. First of all, there is no issue that is more important, I think, for NATO at the moment than the Defence Industrial agenda, ‘cause precisely as was said, we’ve got two big tasks coming towards us in the years ahead, which we know will be there probably for years to come. One of which is continuing to support Ukraine at pace and at scale, and secondly, is restocking ourselves and making sure that we’ve got the right capabilities to deliver the new regional plans, and for our own defence and deterrence.

The – we had a Defence Production Action Plan at Vilnius last year, we’ve got the new pledge this year. We are moving in the right direction in all of this, but it needs to happen significantly faster. There’s a big role for NATO in setting and increasingly enforcing standards. There’s a big role for NATO in breaking down barriers between – breaking down barriers to multinational co-operation. But fundamentally, what industry are saying to us is that they need much more in terms of multi-ally, multiyear, procurement commitments. And we’ve started that as the UK under the previous government, and I’m sure we will continue. We’ve seen things like the German-Dutch Patriot Project, but these things are going to be fundamentally important, and are really one of the most critical strands of work flowing both from Vilnius and now from Washington.

Secondly, I agree on the importance of the debate about the EU’s role in all of this. You know, we, as the UK, welcome the EU doing more on defence. We welcome the EU spending more, investing more, on defence. We welcome the EU doing more on defence capabilities. But all of that’s got to be done in a way which increases co-operation across the Transatlantic Defence Industrial Base and does not put up new barriers. And the one million shells are a good example of if you do things on a closed basis, you are unlikely to succeed.

And it just runs contrary to the nature of most of our – of how our defence industries work. You know, our two biggest capability programmes are AUKUS with the US and Australia, and Global Combat Air with Italy and Japan. We are intimately connected with the defence industry of Sweden, amongst many others. You’ve got to do this on an open and collaborative basis, if you’re going to get the right outcomes.

Then, thirdly, I don’t want to get ahead of it, because – particularly because the EPC is meeting at Blenheim today, but I hope that the discussion about a UK-EU defence pact and the process of the Strategic Defence Review, will open up some new opportunities for deeper co-operation between the UK and the EU on defence industrial. Because, as I said at the start, there is no agenda more important to all of our security for the coming years.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Yes, and I’ll note that, of course, you know, we saw at the beginning of this year a new procurement policy being established in the UK, learning lessons from Ukraine actually. And this idea that we’ll deploy equipment in the field without all the bells and whistles and actually, you know, get used to using equipment that isn’t, sort of, fully loaded and, you know, and hack it in the way that we’ve been seeing the great Ukrainian military do. So, I think there’s some really interesting lessons that we’re all learning from this terrible situation, that will prepare us for the future.

I’m going to turn now to some of the questions, and there have been a lot of so-called impolite questions about Hungary, which I notice, you know, we nee – we, kind of, need to discuss perhaps in a way that doesn’t just talk about Hungary. And perhaps, you know, others might mention Turkey, etc., and who knows what they’ll be talking about next year. And I think that the very big issue is about the US. We’ve had a number of questions on that, a number of questions on cyber, that we have already developed.

But one of the question that’s come up is, is NATO just too expensive? You know, given the strain that all of our economies are under, now, war is far more expensive, of course, but that’s a gamble, isn’t it, about whether or not you think you can deter war, prevent war, or whether you have to prepare for war, in the case of that not working, given everything that’s going on? So, you know, how do we make NATO less expensive? Is the type of procurement that I was just referring to, a, sort of, more rough and ready procurement, stuff that would get out into the field more quickly? Is that the better way? Should we be putting more of our finances into lower cost equipment, like, you know, cheaper drones, etc.? Is this where we should be going? Who would like to take a stab at that? I can throw it out to the three of you.

David Quarrey

Well, I can have a first go, if that’s okay. I mean, the starting point is NATO represents fantastic value for all allies, in terms of securing our freedom, securing peace in SACEUR’s AOR. All of the alternatives are much worse and much more expensive. And Jens Stoltenberg has been very clear about this. Now, I’ve heard him talk to political leaders several times, and he’s, like, “There is a price to pay when you are dealing with a state as dangerous as Russia currently is. You can either pay that price upfront in terms of defence investment, effective deterrence and defence, or you can pay the much, much higher price, if we don’t get that right and we end up in conflict.”

So, the problem with this is not NATO. I mean, our procurement challenges are mostly at the national level, rather than at the NATO level. Sir Keir is clear about what he requires, but precisely as you said a moment ago, there is a – there are loads of lessons that we can learn, including from the terrible current conflict in Ukraine, about how we do this war efficiently and effectively.

But if you look at actually what core NATO costs are, as a percentage of most ally budgets, they are pretty small, and the real investment is in, sort of, national capabilities. And there it’s on us, it’s on us to im – you know, to respect NATO standards, to implement more efficient procurement processes. But – so, I think it’s the – just, kind of, the wrong way round of looking at this, ‘cause if we didn’t have NATO, my goodness, it would be lot more expensive, both in money and human cost for all of us.

Dr Patricia Lewis

But it is…

Hanna Shelest

I think…

Dr Patricia Lewis

It is – I was just going to say, it is true though that, you know, given all of the demands on the public purse in all of these countries with massive inflation, partly caused because of this war, you know, we are – we’re all struggling with the amount of money it’s costing, I think. And how – even if a country wishes to put in two and a half – Chatham House has proposed 3%, by the way, how do they do it? Is it at the expense of health? Is it at the expense of educat – it’s really, really hard, I think, in the public domain, to have this discussion. Hanna, I’ll turn to you.

Hanna Shelest

Yeah, thank you. Several phrases and ideas that just came to mind are – including the Ukrainian stories, you know, it is the old saying, “If you don’t feed your own armed forces, you will feed one day the armed forces of your enemy,” and that is the reality. Because when the war starts, it is already late to invest in now your security and the armed forces.

The question is that when NATO decided about 2%, everybody is thinking just about the absolute money. That is 2% of GDP. Nobody is remembering that from those, always been the question, how you spend this money, not only how much you spend. Because if you spend this 2% only for the salaries and for the, let’s say, pensions, that also can be included in this 2%, but it doesn’t improve your security and defence. In that 2% pledge, it was always that 20% should be spent for the modernisation, and the question is, how many from the NATO member states, for the last ten years, been really investing in modernisation?

In 2022, we clearly saw that this principle was not that much cared about, because when countries started to open their stockpiles of ammunition and munition, willing to deliver it to Ukraine, it appeared that a lot of this ammunition is just in such a bad condition that it cannot work, not only not being delivered, but it’s just useless. So, that is the question is, so we spent this money, did we really improve and we’re ready for any type of the crisis where we need to use these ammunition? So, first of all, we definitely need not just increase of the budget, we need the revision and audit of our capacities and capabilities.

The second problem with which we – which we face, that is the disparity between the government plans, armed forces plans and industry, and that was the huge issue, because that was the lack of the dialogue. And as a result, the industry been working the last two years as in peaceful times. So, when the governments already realised that they need to prepare to the serious crisis, the industry was thinking, this war is just for one month, and as a result, they were not able to produce anything what is needed. But for the governments it took one year to decide that they can buy something outside of the European Union, for example, but not in the companies that are located within the European Union. So, you see this disconnection between the industry and the government, it’s not about 2%. It’s more about the dialogue and about the joint vision of the threats and the perspectives.

And the last, but not the least, it is the probably understanding and trying to include in our defence strategy the principle of asymmetric warfare. Because the Russian-Ukrainian War demonstrated that we are at the same time in the 19th Century war in 21st Century war. We still need tanks, we still a lot of the very basic stuff that always needed on the war. But, at the same time, if you don’t have frigates, you can use marine drones, and you can be the same effective, and maybe sometimes, the huge air carrier would not be necessary for you, if we speak about the small c. But what you would need is to be much more – with better manoeuvre mobility, with the better electronic warfare, with the better reconnaissance, and all other – these new type of the capabilities that the modern war really requests from you.

So, here is the question is to the NATO member states, how much their discussions are including this new vision for the new capabilities, rather than just financial discussions, as the former President Trump usually emphasise, when he speaking just about money, about the exact numbers of what is spent, not about how this money are spent.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thanks, Hanna. Another question that’s come up, and it’s just come up in the questions and answers now, by Tajish, is the issue of how long Ukrainian society – “How much resilience has Ukrainian society got in terms of the fight?” We hear it all the time. When we talk with experts like yourself, we hear about the commitment, the determination, but we also have a lot of reports of, you know, people leaving Ukraine of a fig – people over fighting age, battle weariness, exhaustion and things like that. What’s your analysis of this, and, you know, compared with say the Russian willingness to fight, which must also be suffering enormously, as well?

Hanna Shelest

Definitely, people are tired. I mean, that is normal process. Remember those who had small kids, when they’re just born, the few months you are tired as hell, but you are not throwing the kid out of the window. Yeah, you are continuing with this. So, unfortunately, that is – I mean, that’s probably very metaphorical, but at the same time, that is the reality. When you’re fighting the existential war, what are the option you have? Either to disappear as the nation and as the personality, because each day you don’t know where the new missile can strike, or you’re continuing fighting, doesn’t matter how tired you are. The question is, how in these conditions you’re able to work with those who can help you.

As that is – like, you know, mostly I hear about tiredness, not from those people who are fighting, but from those people who are sitting in the nice library chair somewhere in Chicago University, or in the lake near Italy. Because that’s much easier to speak about how they are tired from the war than for those people who are staying in Ukraine and continuing doing it. But the desire to fight, I mean, here probably you need to divide it into two parts, the readiness of the society to survive and to help, the certain solidarity and the ability to fight. Because ability to fight depends not only on the personnel but also on the ammunition you have. You can be the bravest and would like to fight, but if our partners are not delivering us weapons that they promised a year ago, or if they are prohibiting to strike with these weapons, doesn’t matter how ready you are to fight, you just cannot do it properly, and you are prolonging your agony.

But then you are looking to the society in all these difficult conditions of the blackouts, of the strikes, and probably the latest one, for example, of the Russian attack against the children’s hospital, Okhmatdyt. And you can see how within the first three days, society with all these problems, managed those companies and individuals gathered several billion Ukrainian prisoners for the reconstruction of this hospital. That’s also part of that solidarity that is the readiness to invest in your own country and in reconstruction of it, not just waiting that somebody will pay for your humanitarian aid. And that is why people continue to donate to the armed forces. That’s why a lot of the drones are bought from the individual donations, not from the government spending for these, for example, or when, a year ago, society managed to donate to buy the satellite for the military intelligence.

So, that is a very important lessons probably, also, from this war, it is the connection between the armed forces and the society and the readiness to invest in these together. But yes, as you said, the tiredness is there, less money is there. Some people need to leave, because okay, yesterday I didn’t have electricity for 12 hours. I’m living in the second biggest city, so if you don’t have 12 hours of electricity, how you can operate with – a lot of the business, for example, even with small kids. So, people are making these decisions not because they want, but because the conditions are becoming much more difficult.

But, at the same time, the biggest difference between Russian and Ukrainian society is that Ukrainian society understands why is this war and for what is this war, and why they need to be in these conditions. When, for the Russian society, it’s still quite an existential issue, because the propaganda manage them to believe that it is the defence war, that it is West who are attacking them, so some parts of the society are really believing in this. But at the same time, for most of the society, it’s not understandable why they need to fight somewhere when they have these problems in sight.

And the big mobilisation will be in Russia, especially when we speak about not the small villages of far east, where the mobilisation’s been happening before, but when it now needs to come to the European big cities, I imagine that we would have more and more dissatisfaction and questioning of this war and the motivation inside of the Russian society.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thanks, Hanna. I mean, so we’re – I’m going to go now from this very deep dive into almost at the village and city level, and I’m going to go wider. And we’re having a number of questions in the chat about China, Indo-Pacific, what would – “How would NATO respond to China’s invasion of Taiwan?” Also, it’s the issue of Article 5 on United States or Canada.

And then the other, of course, is a very interesting question, from Patrick Nikolas Theros on, “What role do the NATO offices in non-NATO countries, such as Jordan, which is about to open, play in NATO strategy?” I thought that might be an interesting question, David, for you to address. You know, because presumably, a lot of what we’re trying to do here is also have engagement with other parts of the world and have conversations about these issues.

David Quarrey

Yeah, and these NATO liaison offices can play a very important role, and as I said earlier, one of the themes of the summit was about how NATO needs to do better at engaging with partners around the world, how it needs to do better at engaging with the Global South, for want of a better term. And I think offices like the new one in Amman can play a role in that. And NATO’s relationship with those countries will often be about two things. It’ll be about political dialogue. So, for example, we had Jordanian King Abdullah come to the NAC last year, and spoke very powerfully about the situation following the Hamas terrorist attack on the 7th of October, and what that was doing to his region. So, there’s that dimension of political dialogue.

But there’s also practical co-operation, and really, we should be doing much, much more in terms of practical co-operation with partners in Africa, in the Middle East and elsewhere. We’ve got some established mechanisms at the moment, like the Istanbul Co-operation Initiative, the Mediterranean Dialogue, but I don’t think, and I think many allies share this view, that they are yet doing enough in terms of delivering co-operative security assistance to countries who want to tap into NATO’s expertise and experience, but also, helping us learn from their experience, as well.

As you said, China was one of the key themes of the discussion. I thought the discussion with Indo-Pacific leaders was the richest of the three that I’ve heard over the last three summits. And one of the absolutely central themes reflected in the summit declaration, with the language about China being the decisive enabler of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, was about that increased support from China to Russia. But not only from China, also from the DPRK, and from Iran. So, there was a very good discussion there about shared challenges with the Indo-Pacific leaders.

We are always clear that this is not about taking NATO to the Indo-Pacific. It is not about making NATO an Indo-Pacific alliance or a global alliance. It is about working with likeminded partners in the region to share experience, to work together on these increasingly emerging challenges, like space, like cyber, like maritime security, but also, to talk about China, at times.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Yes, I think that’s right. I mean, Armida, do you have any additional views on the issue of the Indo-Pacific and what you’ve been hearing also in the discussions around Brussels, as well?

Armida van Rij

I mean, I think the question of the extent to which NATO should or shouldn’t engage in the Indo-Pacific, you know, it’s been around for a couple of years, and it’s definitely not new. And that goes back to, you know, where are – where is NATO’s – our area of operations limited to, and is that the Euro-Atlantic? I sometimes think it’s a bit of a – almost a bit of a red herring conversation. If we think of NATO’s engagement in the Middle East, through ISAP and things like that, that technically wasn’t the Euro-Atlantic. Now, we can debate to what extent all of those operations were successful or not, question mark, but they have already taken actions in areas outside of the Euro-Atlantic.

I think the engagement with the rest of the world, as David was saying, is positive and is needed, because by the rest of the world, NATO is seen as a, quote/unquote, ‘Western alliance’ and we know that we are, or that has led to issues and accusations of double standards and hypocrisy, etc. So, better understanding – using partnerships to better understand needs, asks, demand, is absolutely essential. But I think this question of our engagement in Indo-Pacific is definitely going to be a key priority question for the new Secretary General, as he takes over from Stoltenberg, as is what you alluded to earlier, the question of alliance unity, Hungary, Turkey and how we manage those allies, and potentially, also, the US, if Trump is re-elected.

Dr Patricia Lewis

One of the questions that’s come up in the Q&A and is – I was very struck by it, we had Rado Sikorski, the Foreign Minister of Poland here yesterday – do watch it online, really worth watching – at the Chatham House Prize, where we were giving the Prize to Donald Tusk. He was talking very much about the experience that Poland had with Russia during the Cold War. And it occurred to me, we’re doing a lot of work on disinformation, as many others are, and this is one of the questions that’s come up in the Q&A, as to, you know, how do we counter disinformation? And I was thinking that people in Poland who were inside the Soviet Union under duress, may have more, if you like, inoculation against the type of propaganda, the type of disinformation that we’ve been seeing come out of Russia over the years. But do you get a sense at the moment that perhaps it’s having less and less impact on the debate? David, maybe…

Armida van Rij

Can I make a point on that?

Dr Patricia Lewis

Armida, let’s go to you first.

David Quarrey

I mean…

Dr Patricia Lewis

Sorry to…

Armida van Rij

Sorry…

David Quarrey

I think you’re right about – sorry, who?

Dr Patricia Lewis

David, go ahead. So, that was my fault…

David Quarrey

Yeah.

Dr Patricia Lewis

…sorry.

David Quarrey

Sorry. I think you’re right, the – I think many people in Poland, in the Baltic states, in other states that were a part of the Warsaw Pact, people have a very, very realistic view about Russia, and are very clear eyed about that. I think the areas – or some areas that really need a lot more attention and support are around some of NATO’s vulnerable regional partners. I think Moldova is coming under a lot of pressure. They’ve done fantastically well since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion. I think the majority of the population is clear about the trajectory that they want to be on, but they come under sustained hybrid attack, basically, including disinformation.

I think we see it in the Balkans, in particular, the – you know, the massive destabilising impact that Russian disinformation activity can play. Now, some of that will be for NATO to respond to. Some will be for the EU to support a response to. Some will be best done at a national level, but there is no question that this broader issue of Russian hybrid activity, including things like the warehouse fire in London, or, you know, potential assassination attempts, this is racing up the agenda at the moment, both in terms of what we are doing nationally and what NATO can do. But a big area of focus, I think, over the next year, ought to be what more we can do to support those, like Bosnia, like Kosova, like Georgia, like Moldova, to try to protect them from this increased Russian attention.

Armida van Rij

Just adding to that, if I may. I think what’s absolutely key to this is that the public across Europe and the US and Canada have a very different understanding of risk, and that is in part, through memory and through different lived experiences of recent conflicts. I mean, Finland had land annexed by Russia during the Winter War and remembers that very well. I mean, everyone who is part of – you know, is – well, the men go into conscription, but everyone still has family members who lived through that war. The Netherlands in the Second World War was occupied, whereas, the UK was never occupied. And so, those will ring to different experiences and lived memories of conflicts, and that then feeds into public perceptions of risk, which then goes into the disinformation challenge, which is a long-term challenge.

I mean, it’s racing up the agenda, as David was saying, but this isn’t new to some extent, and it is only something that we can tackle if we think about it as a systemic challenge that we are facing. So, that is about building resilience through education, through critical thinking, through trust in our public institutions. But it’s also worth thinking about what the aim here is of those disinformation campaigns, and that really is to fray societal cohesion. In this particular instance and moment, it is about undermining unity for support for Ukraine, and so, that’s where those pieces of the puzzle become all the more important.

David Quarrey

Can I just – sorry to leap back in, but just actually connecting it back to one of your earlier points, Patricia, what is very striking, I saw a graph recently of British attitudes in terms of support to Ukraine. They haven’t shifted by more than a percentage point or two over the last two and a half years. We’ve just had an election in which both major parties were committed to reaching towards 2.5% of GDP on defence, and actually, Russian attempts at disinformation. I think, had a, sort of, marginal to zero impact in the UK.

So, I think a lot of populations do actually have a very clear-eyed view of the nature of the world we are in at the moment. And talking to Politicians who have been campaigning on the doorsteps in the UK, there was very little questioning of the need to spend more on defence. People would rather we didn’t have to, but I think people understand and accept that in this world that we are currently in, and that we are likely to be in for years and possibly decades to come, for all the reasons that we’ve discussed today, it’s absolutely essential. Because it’s about our freedom, and it’s about our ability to live by our own values, and I think a lot of people can see that.

Dr Patricia Lewis

That’s a really…

Armida van Rij

Sorry, I just want to…

Dr Patricia Lewis

No, that’s…

Armida van Rij

…comment on that.

Dr Patricia Lewis

I was just going to say, that’s a really good point, but the question I’ll put to you, do you think that’s because, or in large part because the main political parties were all in agreement on this? Is it something that just didn’t divide as a result of that, or were they in agreement because the population was already there, and, therefore, you know, they saw that that was a really important political stance to take, as well as having their own views?

David Quarrey

I mean, I think from political leadership generally in the UK, there has been very strong bipartisan support for Ukraine from the start, and I think a lot of British people have seen, with moral clarity, what is going on in Ukraine at the moment. And so, I just don’t think there is a, sort of questioning of that, and I think people – you know, we had the Salisbury attack, we’ve had a long, difficult experience with Russia, so I think people are, you know, generally clear eyed. I’m sure they would much rather be spending this money on hospitals or schools or other things, or taking it back in tax cuts, but people do recognise that we are in a certain kind of world now.

Dr Patricia Lewis

I think that’s right. Armida?

Armida van Rij

Yeah, sorry to push back on that a little bit, but I think unfortunately, the UK isn’t the whole of Europe, and the UK is exceptional in that way, where it is very much aligned with the Eastern states and the Nordic states who get the threat. But if we look at France, that’s not the case. If we look at Spain, which has really struggled to push up its defence spending because of its history, that’s also not the case. So, I think I agree with you that the UK has done really well on that front, and, you know, you can see Ukrainian flags and support for Ukraine everywhere in London, but even in places like rural Wales. I don’t think that’s the case everywhere, and I think that’s where it is up to our leaders to make the case for why this is about our security, it is not about Ukraine security, it is about our security, and we need to be making that case very, very clearly.

Dr Patricia Lewis

I’m going to have to wind this up now, unfortunately, and I’ve just seen some great new questions come into the Q&A, but I’m really sorry, but I hope our speakers can see those questions, ‘cause they are really excellent. And I want to thank our three speakers, Hanna, Armida and David, for a really excellent discussion. I’m very sorry that in the end, we weren’t able to connect with Rose Gottemoeller, but we will, I’m sure, be in touch with her, and she will be able to watch this. And I’m sure she’ll have things to say, she might write to us all about it, and we’ll get her back online on another day.

And I want to thank everybody for participating, putting in really excellent questions. I’m sorry we didn’t get to all of them, but I tried to group them together and get as many of them asked as I could. So, thank you very much. I think we’ve answered our question, “Can NATO keep Europe secure?” I think. The question is, you know, can it also help keep the Indo-Pacific secure? I don’t think we answered that, so that’s the next task, perhaps, the next discussion we’ll have. Thank you so much, all of you, and thanks to everyone for joining, and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Bye.

David Quarrey

Thanks a lot.