"We Stand with Free People" — U.K. Security & Strategy with Tom Tugendhat
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You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. My name is Ryan Evans. In this episode, I sat down with my friend Tom Tugendhat, a member of parliament in the UK. He was the security minister in the last conservative government. We had a great conversation.

Tom, thanks so much for rejoining us on the show. Ryan, it's a pleasure to be back. So you're here visiting Washington. Yeah. What are you doing here in town? Well, look, I'm in town because there's a lot going on at the moment. There's a lot of change. I was asked to speak at a dinner last night, which I did. And I was also here to say goodbye to a very, very dear friend of mine, Karen Pierce, who has stepped down as ambassador here in the United States and

We await the arrival of Peter, the Lord Mandelson. She was such a great presence here in Washington. She did such a terrific job. Yeah, she did an amazing job here, but she's done amazing jobs for the British people in various different countries, actually. She was our ambassador in Afghanistan, and she led the Afghan unit in the Foreign Office. She did a huge amount of really important work there, and I'm sure she will be contributing further in different ways that I don't yet know about.

That's great to hear. So you were in government before the last elections. Tell us about the job that you, because there's not an equivalent in our system here in the US of that. There isn't. I was security minister and it's an odd job because you work in the home office, so you're under the home secretary, but you're not in some ways because you have a different line, as it were, and you work directly to the prime minister on some things and you work across other government departments with others. So it's an odd job.

But it means that you're overseeing the budget of the intelligence services. You have direct oversight over domestic intelligence and sort of contributory oversight, if you like, over others. It's really interesting. It's a very sensitive position and it means that you see everything and you have a greater understanding of most of the things that are going on. It's quite a fascinating job. I suppose it aligns more to Homeland Security and DNI and intelligence.

and things like that. It doesn't have an equivalence. And you're very well suited for it, of course, between your military background. I believe you were an intelligence, right? I was. I was an intelligence officer.

And also, of course, all the work you've done in the House of Commons over the years. Well, and then, you know, five years chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee, which was interesting. You know, that's where you're really getting serious exposure to quite a lot of foreign policy debates and having a chance to influence them. So, yeah, I'd spent in different ways, 20 or so years doing foreign policy, sometimes in uniform, sometimes in parliament. You know, knowing the portfolio so well, I'm sure there were still some things that surprised you about this role. And what were some of those things? Plenty that surprised me.

It was interesting, actually. The first day I came in for a briefing, you know, the first day I was briefed on various ongoing operations, the person who was briefing me was somebody I'd worked with over many years. So it was nice to see them again. So there was some continuity.

But, you know, one of the first things that happened was the death of Her Late Majesty the Queen. And that was quite extraordinary to immediately be involved in organizing not just the funeral of a much-loved public figure, a much-loved monarch, but also a huge public event.

where thousands, tens of thousands of people were gathering in public, in some cases like in London, queues hours long of people needed to be protected, but protected in a way that wasn't aggressive or hostile or off-putting. And then, of course, organising effectively 100 or so incoming state visits, all at the same time, all on the same day, to come to the funeral. And then, of course, a little while later, the same again, but for the coronation.

So it was a real baptism of fire in that sense. It was a huge event, as you can imagine. And there were some fantastic teams who'd prepared for years for what we call Operation London Bridge to make sure that it was all done beautifully. And, you know, my role was basically to oversee it. This might be too sensitive. I'm not sure if you can answer this, but were there any credible threats? I'm not going to answer that question for rather obvious reasons, but I will say that we took...

everything incredibly seriously. And what was interesting, of course, and surprising is normally you're dealing with threats to your own country, right? You know that this terrorist group, the IRA or whoever it might be, threatens your leadership in a certain way. But in an event like that, you suddenly realize that there's five people in a town that you didn't know about who have a particular desire to have a go at the president of a country that you had no idea they had a terrorist. So you're not only dealing with your own threats, you're dealing with 100 others. And so it

changes the risk profile remarkably of the country in 24 hours, but only for 24 hours. It's a fascinating and challenging thing to do. Aside from those two major, but thankfully unusual events, what were some of the things that took up most of your time? The most important thing that kept up my time was getting through the right legislation to be able to take action against foreign intelligence agents in the United Kingdom. I mean, extraordinarily, I know this may surprise you,

But we had laws, of course, we've had laws for years against leaking state secrets. The Official Secrets Act does that. But there was no law against being a foreign spy. So we brought in the National Security Act. I took it through Parliament. I'm delighted to say that it went through with almost no amendments and almost no hitch. My opposite, in fact, the guy who's now

replaced me as security minister as a guy I served in the army with. We were in combat quite literally side by side in Afghanistan. He then did a daft thing and joined the Labour Party. But apart from that, he's an incredibly decent man, a man of the highest integrity. So I was able to work with Dan Jarvis to get the bill through, almost unchanged, very, very minor adjustments. Was this recently? Yeah, in 2021. Sorry, forgive me, 2022. And it came into law in 2023. And it was the National Security Act, criminal

assistance to a foreign intelligence service. And it's, you know, a really important change. That was hugely important because we've seen, as you know, we've seen the rise of Chinese activity in the UK, Russian activity, even Iranian activity. You know, Ken McCullough, the head of MI5, has said publicly, sorry, Sir Ken McCullough, he was just knighted,

We've seen more than 15 credible threats against individuals in the United Kingdom by Iranian-sponsored agents. So that's what a lot of my time was taken up doing. What are some things that you wish you were able to get into that bill that you hope to see in future laws? Well, the one thing that I wanted to get in was the FERS, the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme. We passed the law that enabled it. Sadly, the election came a little bit earlier than I was hoping.

So I wasn't able to bring in the scheme actively. But we set up all the legislation for it. I'm afraid it seems that there is a different attitude now in Whitehall, which is concerning that number 10, according to newspaper reports, I don't know this to be fact, but according to newspaper reports, the government is not keen on putting China on the enhanced tier of the scheme. Well, frankly, that would be a grave error.

Absolutely. Russia is obviously an enormous challenge to the UK, perhaps its most enormous. Russia essentially considers itself to be at war, I think, with the United States and especially Britain, even though, of course, USAID Ukraine has outpaced British aid, but

Britain has been willing to take on, from what I've read in the news at least, much more risk in terms of advising at close range and some other things. This obviously affected what you were having to do in terms of dealing with the Russian espionage and the homeland threat, which Britain's played an unfortunately outsized role in with the poisonings and such over the years. Right. To use a nuclear chemical in the United Kingdom so toxic...

that it meant an airplane was taken out of service, and that was the attack on Litvinenko. To use a chemical killer like Novichok in the United Kingdom, that though it didn't kill the Skripals, did kill a woman in Salisbury, and had it got into the water supply, could have killed thousands, maybe even tens of thousands. They may not be acts of war, but they are certainly warlike acts.

They are the acts of a country that cares nothing for our people, that is willing to use the most evil methods to extract revenge against its own citizens and to put at risk British citizens. And now, as you rightly say, because of Ukraine, we've seen Russian attempts against different elements. But let's also be clear, Chinese attempts have been very serious as well. We've seen huge amounts of cyber attacks. We've seen attempts to

steal intellectual property. And we've seen attempts to bully and occasionally to assault individuals in the United Kingdom, often Chinese dissidents or Hong Kongers who've come to the UK. So-called foreign police services that China's tried to embed everywhere. Yeah, exactly. The overseas police service stations, as they call them, which we closed them down. But it's pretty extraordinary. It's a violation of every international agreement.

to set them up and it's particularly hostile to do it. But we also saw the Consul General, the Chinese Consul General in Manchester, actively getting his guards to beat up protesters outside his consulate. It's completely unacceptable behaviour. And

And we've seen some really hostile acts by the Chinese. And that's a real problem. So, you know, the mixture of Iranian attempts to assassinate, Russian attempts to infiltrate, and Chinese vicious espionage operations means that we've had, sadly, a much busier time of late than we should have done. What are some things that you'd like to see

evolve or change about how the United Kingdom is supporting Ukraine, if anything? I mean, the first thing to say is this isn't just about Ukraine, it's about us. I mean, the idea that Russia's ambitions will be satisfied by

by taking Ukraine a rubbish. We all know that crocodiles get hungrier with the eating, and Putin is just another dictatorial crocodile fighting over Ukraine. This is not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. Very sadly, what we need to do is make sure that we stop this by supporting Ukraine to have a credible defence. Now, the first thing we've got to do is make sure it's properly supported, and the US has done a huge amount over recent years, let's not forget that, in making sure that Ukraine has the weapons capabilities

But many European countries have done a lot as well, including supporting the Ukrainian budget so that weapons and ammunition can be purchased while hospitals and schools are paid for out of foreign contributions. So there are various different ways in which people have already helped. What I'd like to see is I'd like to see a proper realization that this is a choice, right? Does the war stop here in Ukraine?

with the Ukrainian people able to decide their own future? Or do we see Putin's ambition growing? And do we see him threaten NATO states like the Baltics or Poland? That's a choice for us. And I think the right answer is to make sure it stops here and it stops now. There's been some talk about the UK and France contributing some sort of peacekeeping troops or a tripwire force should an agreement in Ukraine unfold. What are your thoughts about that? I think there are various different ideas on this.

But I think it is important that we're willing to make credible commitments. And there's various different ways you could do it. A trip while force is one argument. There's also talk about various forms of NATO membership. There's also various different ways in which you could give guarantees.

But we've got to remember that guarantees were given 25 years ago, roughly, when the Ukrainians handed over their nuclear weapons. And those guarantees were given by Russia, France, the United States, and the UK, and yet Russia invaded anyway. So, you know, we've got to be realistic that the kind of guarantees we need to give can't be like the red lines we gave in Syria. They need to be credible. The Budapest Memorandum, which you're referring to, of course, its fundamental flaw was there was no actual enforcement mechanism whatsoever. It was...

a deal made for a very different time, as they often are. I agree that if there is a deal in the future, it does have to have some kind of heft to it. Because otherwise, it simply isn't credible. And what we need is we need to see Ukraine making the right economic and military decisions, knowing that it's secure to do so. Now, that doesn't mean that it should be reliant on foreign military aid, but it should be able to sustain itself. And it will only make that investment if it realizes that there's a

credible deterrence. Some idea I've been socialized me curiously what you think about this is something that isn't NATO membership for Ukraine, but includes security guarantees from some NATO members. So like the UK, the Nordics, the Baltics, the Polish, obviously, that would end up implicating NATO if war were to happen in some way, because they're all NATO members, but it's something apart from NATO that might have some meaning. I think there's a lot of conversations going around here. And I'm going to be cautious about saying exactly where I think they should end up, because there are a lot of ideas going around, and making sure that those ideas are

work will depend not just on our offering them, but on Ukraine accepting them. And let's not forget when Zelensky was threatened by the Russian army, he didn't ask for a ride, he asked for ammunition, right? This is a guy who's willing to stand up to a brutal dictator who's tried to kill him on numerous occasions in Putin. I'm sure he will stand up for what he thinks is the best for his country in these talks. And we need to make sure that we're listening to him. There's some big changes going on in NATO. We've seen

The new administration here in Washington, the Trump administration, the sequel, makes some demands that actually NATO spending should be a minimum 5% of GDP. I think that's just one way to measure military power. I've been a longtime advocate for

countries spending more. I'm not sure if every NATO member needs to spend 5%. I certainly think that countries boarding Russia should be, just out of wisdom, but would like to get your thoughts on where you'd like to see NATO go over the next few years. You're already seeing some of those countries stepping up. I mean, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are already spending significantly more, not quite 5%, but they are spending more. Poland's spending more and is doing a very important job on re-equipping itself.

And we're also seeing, now that Jens Stoltenberg has handed over to Mark Rutter, we're seeing a new drive on a lot of this as well. Let's be clear, this isn't just about spending. I mean, look at what the Ukrainians have achieved. I mean, they are building quite literally hundreds of thousands of drones a month. They have got into a form of artificial, I mean, it's not artificial, it's real, but you know what I mean, artificial warfare with

without humans on the front line in certain areas. And we're seeing an automation in combat that many people have spoken about in the past, but has not been evident. So this isn't just about spending, it's where you spend. And that's where, to quote Little Heart, the hardest thing about getting a new idea into the military mind is getting the old idea out. You know, when the tank was brought in, the hardest thing to do was to get cavalry regiments to give up their horses. I'm not going to now list the bits of equipment that I would drop, but you can see what I mean. If you're going to drones, if you're going to...

this new form of technology need to be prepared to drop some of the legacy systems. And so I don't think you can cut, but you can certainly get more bang for your buck if you're willing to be more ruthless about what you're trying to do. You just returned from a trip to Taiwan pretty recently. Yeah. Would love to hear some of your reflections, what you learned, what you took away. Look, I was very struck by Satterlamb's love at first meeting former President Tsai was fascinating. He was an extraordinarily impressive individual and a remarkable leader. And

Hearing her talking about Taiwan's position was really interesting. They're not seeking to play casuistical games as to the status of the province or the island. What they're seeking to do is to make sure they protect democracy and the freedoms that they enjoy. That's where I think we need to be clear as to what choices we're making. I don't think that we need to be making empty statements. I think what we need to be doing is demonstrating that we stand with free people on the side of freedom.

You know, this is what America has done for many, many years. It's the argument that President Reagan made throughout the 1980s that the United States stands for freedom. And I think it's the argument that we should be making today. And it's not just, you know, altruism. That's also self-interest. I mean, look at what Taiwan produces in terms of chips and look at the challenge

Should we abandon the so-called nine-dash line and Chinese expansion put under threat countries like the Philippines or indeed possibly put pressure on others in the region? We need to be making sure we're standing up for democracies. And that doesn't mean empty threats, but it does mean supporting them to stand up for themselves.

in this case, with anything from, you know, maritime drones to the capabilities they require. I'm a big believer in Taiwan being an important element of American interest in the Pacific. And I personally, you know, there's a lot of, I'm never going to be in government so I can say this. I think Taiwan is a country. It's de facto independent.

I don't support it declaring independence. The only reason I don't say that is because it's not for me to say it. Right, right, right. It's up to the Taiwanese to choose their status and they don't say it, so I'm not saying it. Totally agree. But I'm just saying that I'm on your side on a lot of this. I do think it makes it harder to sell this to citizens of our respective countries when Taiwan defense spending remains so anemic and their personnel policies on how they mobilize and use their service and how much training they get.

still remains kind of so unserious. I get that. And it's a reasonable point. And this is where, let's not kid ourselves, some of the words that have been coming out of the White House are not unuseful in reminding people that UK, actually less the UK, but European welfare spending has been paid for by American Abrams tanks. This has got to be a more equal distribution of support. The US isn't solely responsible for European defence. The Europeans have a responsibility too. But it's

but it's not true to say that the United States gets nothing out of European defense. The United States gets a lot out of European defense. It gets not just partners in Europe, but it also gets a large market and so on. So, you know, I would argue that Taiwan's similar and you're right. Taiwan needs to do more, but actually, do we really think that Taiwan should be buying, you know, 100 Abrams tanks or should it be assisting us with the development of the latest generation of drones and things like that? Well, I'm more in the latter camp. This is a country that's demonstrated its technological capability, an island that's demonstrated its technological capability.

And so, you know, making sure we play to each other's strengths is where we need to be looking. During the success of conservative governments, there was this idea, more than a tagline, but it was a slogan of sorts that was meant to symbolize something important of global Britain, that Britain remained an important global actor. And you just came back from Taiwan. We were talking about Ukraine.

I know you obviously believe that Britain probably has an important role to continue to play in the Pacific and would love to hear you talk more about where you'd like to see that go. Right. Look, there's some really interesting things here. First of all, of course, we're a P5 country. We have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, so we have a global role. Secondly, we've just joined the CPTPP, which I hope one day the United States might join, the so-called Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.

a sort of trade deal of Pacific nations, which we're the first non-Pacific nation to join, so it's important for us. But third is a simple reality that you can wish it away if you like, but we are fundamentally connected to...

ships from Taiwan or ideas from Japan or nuclear cooperation with countries around the world. And so things like AUKUS, which I think is incredibly important, the Australia-UK-US deal, are absolutely fundamental to making sure that we're able to defend ourselves and our interests around the world. So we are tied to the Pacific. I mean, we may not be a Pacific power in the same sense as Australia and the United States. Of course we're not. But we do have interests there. And you know,

What we're seeing coming out of Pillar 1 is really important. But what we can do with Pillar 2, how we can bring in not just Australia and the United States, but of course, could Pillar 2 include Taiwanese elements, Japanese elements? Could it include Indian elements? There's a whole new way of looking at this. And I think we need to think very carefully about it. I won't get into this. I'm a long-time skeptic of the submarine aspect of the deal. But setting that aside, I think AUKUS's biggest problem is

It's sort of seen as this white person's club in the Pacific, and we need to bring in some of our other allies. My own view is Japan and India have a very, very important part to play in this. And, you know, I think what India's done in its military reforms has been important. I mean, it hasn't got away from Russian supply chains yet, but it is getting more and more equipment from Israel, from the United States and from France. So it is seeing a shift.

What Japan is doing, I think, is really important. Its realm months have gone through relatively successfully, and I think it's beginning to play a more important role in the region. So, you know, I think there's a real opportunity to bring them into an AUKUS-type construct, which allows a greater participation. What's some legislation that you're championing these days back in the opposition? Well, at the moment, I'm waiting to see what the government's bringing forward. I mean, look, I'm still very supportive of the first legislation that we brought in, and I'd like to see it enacted. I

I'm a little concerned that now, whatever it is, six, seven months into, no, more, eight months into this administration, they still haven't brought in the first scheme. And I'd like to see more legislation supporting the reforms of the armed forces. You know, we've got a big strategic defense review coming, being done by a few interesting people, including the former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, former General Barron's.

And Fiona Hill, who was a policy advisor, a special advisor, chief of staff, in fact, to a former prime minister. So, you know, we've got some interesting people doing the work and it'll be interesting to see where they get to. But that's going to be really important because, as I say, the reforms in the armed forces, not just a quantum of cash, is what we need to see. I know, especially when you were in government, you didn't have a lot of time for pleasure reading, but I also know you're a big reader. What were some books that you found yourself discovering or returning to while you were in government? I have to say one of the best...

things I did was a friend of mine organized a dinner with your deputy ambassador in the United Kingdom, who was a very proficient spy writer. And he organized a dinner for various spy writers. So as the minister responsible to have dinner with various novelists was fantastic. And I met David McCluskey, who, as you may know, wrote Damascus Station. And both of us were in Damascus at roughly the same time, not quite on similar briefs. But anyway, what was fascinating was meeting him and being able to tell him that I really, really

He'd really got the feel of Damascus in 29, 10, 11, that sort of period. And it was very evocative of my time there. It was fascinating. It was great fun to meet him and read his books. Thanks for joining the show. Great pleasure. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the War on the Rocks podcast. Do not forget to check out our membership program at warontherocks.com slash membership. Stay safe and stay healthy.