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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Stuart Willey. Donald Trump's announcement that he's spoken to Vladimir Putin and that talks to end the war in Ukraine will begin immediately blindsided many, including, it seems, Ukraine itself and the US's NATO allies. It's led to a varied and very interesting response from European nations.
Yes, whose troops, we should remember, may be required on the ground in Ukraine if the US's apparent plan transpires. So, after looking closely at the US side of this story in part one, we're now going to focus on that European response with our guest Philip Ingram, the former NATO planner and former British military intelligence officer. Philip, before we talk about Europe though...
How do you think all this is going down in the Kremlin and in Moscow? I think Putin has got a big smile on his face and is seeing this as positive. What are we seeing here? We're seeing him engaging and being treated as a world leader by Trump. That's what Putin wants. We're seeing Trump arranging a meeting with him. Well, Putin has got an international arrest warrant out against him and
Trump is giving him a degree of credibility to allow him back into the international fold. So Putin sees this as an opportunity to exploit and get what he wants in Ukraine to try and extricate himself from the war with saving some face and to set a path for him being back into the international community and accepted as a global leader again. So for Putin, he's seeing this as win, win, win. So we're rehabilitating Putin.
Putin. Militarily, does this perhaps help him as well? It does if it gives him breathing space, because Putin will have learned huge lessons from his conflict in Ukraine. You know, he has been adapting his tactics. He's been adapting new technologies and all the rest of it very rapidly the whole way through. And he will take that and he will use that to regenerate Russian military capability bigger, better, stronger than we've seen beforehand. Now, this is from
Putin's perspective. Putin's saying very much what he wants. I think there's a very complex game being played here and we're analysing it from a 2D perspective and this is 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D chess that's going on. So I think a lot of the analysis of what's going on at the moment may not be in the right ballpark but that's what Putin will be thinking.
From the British perspective, the UK Defence Secretary says no talks about Ukraine without Ukraine being involved, going against exactly what Putin and what Trump have said. Is peace being agreed over Ukraine's head here? Well, it could be. And if we look back at Donald Trump in his previous incarnation as president, whenever it came to dealing with the Taliban and Afghanistan, he didn't include wider players in his decision to withdraw US troops
and to do deals with the Taliban. So he's got a history of this. And this is why he makes international leaders, I will be diplomatic here and say nervous, because he's unpredictable. And what they don't like is unpredictability. And this is why, if you look at all of the comments that are coming out from all the senior leaders around the world, they're all very positive, they're all very pro-Taliban,
what President Trump is doing and everything else because they don't want to upset him because his unpredictability can be emotionally driven at times. As you say, we're getting mostly positive statements, but also some conflicting ones. There's a seeming element of pushback coming. We see Healy's comments about no negotiations without Ukraine. Sweden saying, we can't rule out membership of NATO for Ukraine. Yes.
What do you think is going on behind the scenes in defence ministries across Europe today? I think there's panic, you know, and in particular across Europe and in the UK. And if there isn't panic in the UK, then they're getting it wrong. Because for too many years, and this is, you boil it down to Trump approaches things from a business perspective. Why should I pay more than other people? And why should I pay to look after you when you're not paying to look after yourself effectively? We saw him do that in his first incarnation when he insisted that all NATO members meet their
commitment of 2% of GDP on defence, not all do. And he's doing effectively the same now. He's saying, Europe's your problem. We've got bigger fish to fry at home and other places. So you step up. And it's clear with John Healy leading the contact group yesterday and chairing it for the first time that Trump sees the UK as stepping up and leading Europe and where Europe's going. We need to do that with what we're spending on defence, first and foremost.
We've had that mood music of Europe needs to look after itself, needs to shoulder the burden as it's being put. This was put out much more explicitly than it ever has before, I think, yesterday. Can Europe afford it?
And can it provide the kind of security guarantees that Hegseth mentioned to keep peace in Ukraine? Can Europe afford it? You put Europe together and it's got a GDP bigger than the United States. So the United States is spending $900 billion on defence. Now, it's looking Atlantic and it's looking Pacific at the same time with Pacific being the biggest focus. And
The US is only spending 3.2% of its GDP on defence. So Europe, yes, it can afford it if countries want to do that.
but most European countries don't because they see defence as dead expenditure. And when you've got American security guarantees, why do we need to spend money on defence? Well, they've just been called out now, and now is the time to sit up and wake up. Philip, if we think about the political situation in Germany, in France, even here in Britain, the money may be there, but perhaps not the will. Could we see this start to strain NATO as an alliance? Yeah.
I think some of the comments that Pete Higgs came out with did threaten the unity of NATO and the coalition of the willing within NATO. He didn't say the US weren't going to contribute even when it comes to Ukraine. He said not take the lead, not put troops on the ground. A lot of what we rely on from the United States is bolstering
backroom activity, intelligence, logistics support, air support and other things. So that hasn't been ruled out in any of the comments out of there. I think this is Trump forcing Europe to step up and meet its responsibilities and it can do. And that's good for European economies because you tend to spend defence on companies that are in your own country. There's an opportunity there but none of our governments seem to be sitting up and going, ah, we'll take this.
Thinking back to your comments about Trump as being a master negotiator at times, is there an argument perhaps that by ruling out the use of Article 5 in Ukraine, by ruling out NATO membership for NATO, by explicitly saying no 2014 borders...
Is this revealing his negotiating position before the starting flag even waves? I don't think so. I think he's smarter than that. You know, if we look at the plan that Zelensky went to Trump with before Trump was inaugurated, Zelensky's plan had...
Russia retaining some of the territory to be brought back into Ukraine by diplomatic negotiations afterwards. So Trump may be just pushing out Zelensky's plan in what's going on in there. And again, we have to recognize what is being said
is not necessarily what's going on behind closed doors and is not necessarily where any end solution is going to be with all of this. There's an awful lot to go into it, an awful lot of negotiations. And at the moment, Trump...
Putin is because Putin's got as big an ego he's playing Zelensky Zelensky is monitoring what's going on Zelensky's playing Trump and you know all of the other international leaders you know Mark Rota with NATO is playing Trump and the other NATO leaders John Healy from the UK is trying to
you balance everything out. And when we've got everyone doing these dances around, it can look a bit strange whenever you're looking in and trying to work out what's going on. We have to wait, I think. So it's coming back to your 40 chess arguments again, I suppose. Tomorrow, President Zelensky meets J.D. Vance, the U.S. Vice President. They'll clearly be positive and warm before the television cameras. Behind the scenes, is that going to be warm and positive?
I think it will be warm and positive. The one thing that Zelensky's done, and if you look at ever since the war started three years ago, or restarted three years ago, he's pled international leaders
He came into Westminster and talked of Churchill and talked of having cups of tea. He went to Germany and brought out German national emotions. He went to the States and did the same. He's a master orator because he comes from that sort of background. And therefore, I think he's going to say everything that the Trump team wants to hear in the right way. But you have a clear message underneath that.
He's not going to let this guard slip on this. Because at heart, he's fighting for the existence of his country. Exactly. He's fighting for national survival. And the reality is, he is fighting on our behalf for the protection of the rest of Europe. Trump, I think, is just fed up because he approaches everything from a business perspective. He's fed up with America having to pick up the bill every time something goes wrong around the world. And there are three major conflicts. There's Europe with Russia, Ukraine. There's the Middle East with...
And then there's Southeast Asia. And of all of them, and I've been assessing this for over 20 years, Southeast Asia is the most dangerous and would have greatest global implications. With your decades of experience, will we look back in another 25 years and say 2025 was a pivot point? Yes, 100%. And I hope it's not the pivot point that I think it is because we are ticking closer and closer to a global conflict.
Philip, thank you very much. That is the former NATO planner, Philip Ingram. As we mentioned, our other episode today focused on the US side of this story. Jim Townsend, who worked in the Pentagon for decades, was very interesting on that. All of this, of course, is taking place in the run-up to the Munich Security Conference, which starts on Friday. The Times' defence editor, Larissa Brown, is in Munich, and we'll be hearing from her tomorrow. So we'll see you then. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of the Times.
This episode is sponsored by Womble Bond Dickinson, an international law firm of more than 1,300 lawyers across 37 offices in the United States and United Kingdom. In today's complex world, new problems need new perspectives. Womble Bond Dickinson thrives on change, bringing together people with different skill sets and experiences to give their clients a competitive edge.
Across a range of markets, they support businesses and private clients on critical challenges, from energy transition, digital transformation, and cross-border investment, to corporate finance, dispute resolution, and personal wealth planning. All with a mix of minds you won't find anywhere else. Womble Bond Dickinson. A point of view like no other. Discover more at WombleBondDickinson.com.
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