Frontline special - James Heappey, former UK armed forces minister
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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. I'm Alex Dibble, and I executive produce the podcast.

The World in 10 is partnered with Frontline, the interview series from Times Radio, available on YouTube, with expert analysis of the world's conflicts. At the weekend, we bring you Frontline interviews in full. Here's one from this week. I hope you find it interesting.

Hello and welcome to Frontline, Times Radio's interview series about the war in Ukraine and global security. I'm James Hansen and today I'm delighted to be joined by James Heapy, the former UK Armed Forces Minister, who before entering Parliament served in the British Army, rising to the rank of Major and serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. James, it's always a pleasure. Welcome to Frontline. Thanks for having me on. First of all, as someone who, as Armed Forces Minister, was a very strong advocate for Ukraine,

I wonder how you feel at the moment, given we're in this weird phase, you could say, where we're waiting for potential peace talks. What more would you like to see Ukraine's allies in the West do at this point? So that's a really good place to start, I think, because I can't hide that I'm disappointed that we're,

in the place that we're at, where the end game now dominates the conversation and a suboptimal end game, rather than that commitment to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to see Putin defeated in Ukraine. Now, you can sort of dance on the head of a pin and say that his strategic defeat is already achieved through a whole load of other things that have happened over the course of the war, and that

mere territory doesn't reflect strategic success or or defeat um but i i i i do think that this is a that this is a suboptimal situation maybe it's the reality that we have to deal with maybe the arrival of trump means that it's inevitable but um i think it will set up

the next 20 or 30 years in quite a dangerous way. And I don't think it had to be like this if Europe had mobilized at the scale that it could have done, should have done,

two or three years ago. And I mean, it is interesting because I know that you, as early as I think April 2022, were calling for British supplied long range weapons to be able to be used by Ukraine inside Russian territory. And of course, we had before Christmas this whole debate over the storm shadows and Keir Starmer waiting for approval from the Biden administration that to me, and I'm no expert, it looked like, well, why do you necessarily need approval from the Biden administration if these are British weapons?

When you look on at debates such as that, do you find that incredibly frustrating? Yes. I also, but I have some sympathy. The Ukraine war started for the last government when the last government was well into its tenure. And there's a confidence that comes from having made big geostrategic situations, navigated them previously.

And, you know, I think sort of when the new administration were calibrating their relationships with the White House and others, it's probably not unreasonable that they wanted to check, check and check again.

But I mean, you quoted me. I felt that we could have been giving permission to strike into Russia much earlier. And I'm not sure that the US equities were quite as significant as people claim. I suppose there has always been this fear that if you give Ukraine too much too soon, if you want to put it that way, that it will lead to some kind of drastic escalation of the war. And we don't know how Vladimir Putin will retaliate.

When you hear such arguments made, James, what is your response? Do you think that's a paper tiger? I always did. But then I guess that the role that I played and to a degree that Ben Wallace played was... Ben, I think, was a bit better than me at seeing the bigger picture. But...

You know, we were the sort of the scrappy defense ministers pushing for always doing more. And others in government were genuinely concerned about what they call kind of catastrophic success. And this idea that that if the Russian army started to go backwards too quickly.

that the nuclear threshold would be passed and that Putin would respond with tactical nuclear weapons. And that kept people awake at night. The other thing that kept people awake at night was that that sort of catastrophic success for the Ukrainians could lead to the collapse of the Putin regime and with it the collapse of the Russian Federation.

And with that, the loss of control of nuclear arsenals that were in state provinces, regions that might break away. So I get that when you sit around the National Security Council table, things are never black and white.

And, you know, as a former soldier, defence minister, the minister responsible for the MOD's operational output, I was always going to be at the kind of harder edged end of the spectrum and that the opinions of those who were worried about the what's next within Russia had a very valid opinion, too.

And only history will judge whether or not ultimately we were wrong to calibrate so carefully over those months, that initial year of the war.

or whether we should have gone after, supported the Ukrainians even harder, even sooner. And if we had done so, whether we would have pushed the Russians or helped the Ukrainians to push the Russians out before they'd been able to turn it into this horrendous, very static, attritional war that it's become.

I mean, at the very least, you would hope the West at the moment would be trying to do all it can to put Ukraine in as strong a position as possible ahead of potential peace talks. If you were still in the MOD, what kind of things would you be pushing for? Would there be specific weapons that you think now should be made available to Ukraine? Is it about the size of financial military aid packages? What would it be that you would want to see delivered now? So I don't know.

what from a uk perspective at least what the next evolution of weapons could be cruise missiles um but i i don't think that you know t-lam genuinely is something with a lot of us equities within and there's no way we could unilaterally decide to gift t-lam uh i also think that because um

you know, cruise missiles can be unconventionally armed. That is a level of, that would play on a Russian nervousness that is just not worth going anywhere near.

So I don't know what the next evolution is. You know, we could we could maybe go off to combat jets, but there's no point giving the whole the beauty of F-16 was that they could have a fleet of one type of Western jet, one type of pilot, one type of maintenance, one spares supply chain.

Funny enough, I think that the next evolution, and I think we could have gone there six months to a year ago, we were considering it when I was still in government. Although admittedly, at first pass, I was very nervous about it. I now believe it's absolutely what we should be doing and it should be a prerequisite for

for those end game negotiations, that there should be a Western presence in Ukraine delivering the training of Ukrainian armed forces on their territory. And that, because I think that that, you know,

If that is part, if a peacekeeping force is part of the end game discussion with Putin as a negotiation, then it will be traded against. OK, so if there's a peacekeeping force, then there's a commitment to know NATO for 30 years. Whereas if that force as trainers is.

is there now and is a sort of and is is is not a bargain and therefore isn't part of the sort of tit for tat in the negotiations. I think that puts Ukraine in a much stronger position and is the and sort of makes very clear to Putin.

that the cost to him of this folly is a greater presence of Western troops in Ukraine. And whilst my point earlier on was, you know, you can sort of claim that strategic defeat is about more than, it isn't about territory, it's about the wider cost to Putin. One of the things that absolutely would play to that narrative

is a large presence of Western NATO nation, if not NATO flagged troops in Ukraine at the end of this war. And would you like that to include US troops? And do you think that would be realistic at all? Do you think the Americans would go for having US troops training the Ukrainians on their own territory? So yes, I would like them to be there. No, I don't think it's realistic. I just can't see how

with the US setting their priorities in the way that they are, we're going to see a Western, a US ground presence in Ukraine. The challenge is that even a significant training mission, so let's just say for the sake of numbers, it was, you know, sort of around a sort of brigade level presence. So three and a half to 5,000 people all up from all contributing nations.

And they were there very, very much to deliver the training and the regeneration of the Ukrainian army that will guarantee Ukrainian borders after whatever deal is done. They will still need to be a level of protection for them, air defence particularly. And I don't think that European countries...

can deliver that level of protection themselves. I think that there will need to be some US enablement, even of a mission of that size. And the question is whether the US are willing to do that even. Just looking at Donald Trump and the way he's viewing this conflict at the moment, and we'll come on to what a potential peace deal may look like in due course. But, you know, I've often thought that the part of his scepticism about US support for Ukraine is tied to his...

irritation with Europe over defence spending. And I think it's a fair point he makes that Europe maybe for too long has freeloaded off the largesse of American defence spending. And I wonder if part of the way you persuade him to be more hawkish when it comes to Russia and Ukraine is

is to actually show that you are prepared to commit to Europe's own defence. And, you know, we're having these discussions around what the appropriate level of defence spending should be in the UK, but also in the EU as well. Do you think European leaders are still in denial when it comes to defence budgets? Yeah, undoubtedly. I mean, even the readout in...

in the paper, in the Times today of the sort of Ruta's lunch with EU leaders yesterday and Keir Starmer's dinner with them is interesting.

It's really interesting. You know, Ruta, apparently the Times will always be incredibly well sourced. But who knows whether these conversations are accurate, whether they're sort of people's agendas being reflected journalists after the event. But the but the readout is that Ruta said Trump's what Trump wants five. Wake up and smell the coffee.

5% of GDP on defense spending. Wake up, smell the coffee. You lot that aren't even spending 2% is ridiculous. The European average spend on defense is still only 1.9%. You've got to spend more. Rutherfeld, it says that 3.7% would be a compromise that he could go to Trump with as a sort of, you know, hey, when you come to the summit in the Hague later in the year, Europe will rally around 3.7% as a commitment.

at some point in the future, like the Cardiff commitment for 2%. And I think by all accounts, EU leaders were, that's really unrealistic. You know, 3% is your ceiling from us. And even that is difficult. And last night, Keir Starmer was apparently putting his shoulder to the wheel, telling European leaders that we needed to spend more on

But that was with the UK, apparently, if the reports are to be believed, to be on a trajectory that limps towards 2.5 by the middle of the next decade, no sooner. And that was to a room where there were already a handful of countries, Poland and the Baltic states most notably, where they're already spending considerably more than 2.5%. So I think that Trump is right to be frustrated. The Europeans undervalue their defence.

Europe is stuck now in an awful situation where to make that commitment to defence would be at the expense of a level of public services and particularly health and welfare spending that is unsustainable if you're spending 5% of GDP on defence. But that all said, ransoming the sovereignty of Ukraine against EU defence spending plans sucks as well. So, you know,

It's a bit like settling an argument with my children. The reality is, is that both sides are behaving quite badly. And do you think the reluctance of European leaders to go there and to go to those kind of levels when it comes to defence spending is,

Obviously, you can understand every politician has domestic political pressures. And as you say, James, you know, they've got constraints over health and social budgets and, you know, 101 other things that you can justify spending public funds on. Are they in denial that if Putin is emboldened by a potential peace deal, if he can portray it as a win, if he can go away, he's already ramping up his military industrial base in Russia, ramping up the size of his armed forces, he will be back.

and the cost in the long term for Europe will be greater still. Yeah, and that is the key point. So...

Let's just say that the UK goes for it. The UK makes a commitment to put about a thousand troops into Ukraine. The French do the same. The Polish do something similar. And then, you know, gaggles of people from everywhere. So get to that number of sort of three and a half to five thousand people. That's that's a UK battle group, effectively. And when you look at how committed the army is.

It's quite hard to see where that comes from because it's not just 1,000 people at any one time. It's the next 1,000 that are coming on to the commitment, the 1,000 that have just come off it. So actually 1,000 in the field is a commitment of probably 3,000 or 4,000 plus those that train and enable them, plus the opportunity cost to other parts of the force because enablers have been sucked in to deliver that training mission.

And you could say, OK, well, that's fine, because all we're going to do is rebalance our priorities around how we spend troops across Europe. And we're going to focus on Ukraine. But what people under price is that the moment that that peace deal in Ukraine comes, if it comes, Putin will redisperse the troops currently concentrated into Ukraine.

And so the Western military district, the one that kind of backs on to Belarus, will be repopulated. It's currently empty. The Northern Fleet military district, whilst the ships are all still there, all of the land forces that are assigned to the protection of the Kola Peninsula and the border with Finland are all down in Ukraine.

So actually this idea that NATO militaries, EU militaries at their current size can just rebalance away from their deployment in the Baltic to put a deployment into Ukraine is a nonsense because as all of the other military districts repopulate with Russians having dispersed from Ukraine all along the NATO frontage, there will be credible troop formations that pose a threat to NATO. So the reality is that

Everything that we've got at the moment has to remain in place in anticipation of that repopulation of the Western Military District and the Northern Fleet Military District. And then we're going to need more.

in order to do the job in Ukraine, which will start over time when it becomes a, when it transitions from a, a training force to a peacekeeping force, we'll start to feel awfully like the British army of the Rhine, the French army, the Rhine, the U S army of the Rhine in the sort of post-World War II period. And remember what we were spending on defense to maintain that sort of presence then. So, you know, I, I,

I advocate strongly for getting trainers into Ukraine now, but I think people have to be really clear that the geopolitical security situation after the war will be even more challenging than the situation during the war. And with Russian forces redeployed all the way along the NATO frontage, whereas at the moment we can take huge comfort from the fact that the Western Military District and Northern Fleet Military District are completely empty of ground troops.

Do you think we maybe missed an opportunity last year? Once it was established that North Korean troops were fighting on the side of Russia in Kursk, that could have given the West the opportunity to justify putting, for example, training forces in Ukraine. Yeah, I mean, I don't. And that moment has still not passed. Right. I mean, there is a justification in doing that. I think the only the only danger in making that direct parallel.

that the North Korean troops are demonstrably there for combat purposes. So I think if you said, well, look, the North Koreans are there, so we're there, the Russians would take that with the intent of contributing to combat. And I think we have to be really clear that that's not the case. But if Putin's cause for war in the first place was a fear that NATO wanted to be in Ukraine...

The presence of NATO countries, albeit not under a NATO flag, delivering a training mission at some scale, you know, will great. That is an element of...

Even if he has made some territorial gains. You made the point earlier, James, that you could very legitimately argue that Putin has suffered a strategic defeat in Ukraine. I mean, his aim to take Kiev within 10 days or whatever at the start of the full scale invasion clearly never came to pass. The impact on the Russian economy has been enormous. You see NATO expanded, not constrained.

You can make a very strong argument that there has been a strategic defeat of Russia already. And yet he is having some success, it seems to me, portraying his incremental gains on the battlefield as some kind of victory currently, this sense that Russia is winning the war somehow. How worried are you about that perception as we enter peace talks? Because who is seen to have the upper hand is surely going to be crucial. I mean, I think it's absolutely key that Russia

Putin is not able to present himself as having succeeded. The danger is, and this is perhaps a slightly controversial view, that you might argue that that is already achieved. I mean, he has the whole language of global politics

has changed since February 22. Now, I don't mean, you know, the sort of the change of language in domestic politics within different electorates and the move towards sort of a more right wing populism. That's a different thing. I don't think that is connected to this. What I mean is you hear things that you would have never previously thought possible. You

in a way that I don't think he would have ever done before February 22. Xi's language about the reunification of China and Taiwan has strengthened on the back of February 22. And what's more, and this is the controversial bit,

People can say that Trump is the anomaly, but it is also a sign of our times that the president of the United States is willing to go on TV very soon after his inauguration and talk about the annexation of other territories and the Panama Canal and whatever else. Putin has changed the paradigm for global security geostrategy.

I don't think that that necessarily reflects success for him. I don't think that was his aim. But he has brought in a new era of geopolitics. And it's an era, by the way, that suits his style of diplomacy far more than it suits a Western style of diplomacy. What have you made of Trump's comments about Russia and Ukraine since taking office? I mean, in his first week, he said things like,

Putin is destroying Russia and the Russian economy through the war. He's very bold on that. That didn't go down very well in the Kremlin. Then he came out and said if Putin doesn't end the war, he'll impose new taxes and tariffs and sanctions on Russia.

And yet clearly he is also keen to get some kind of peace deal. What have you made of the approach he's taken? I mean, I think that Kellogg, his envoy, is a sensible guy. And if you read some of the things that he's reported to be saying, then I think that suggests that there is still a necessary level of measure in the

that the administration's plans for Ukraine are being developed. It's no surprise to anyone that Trump sort of does his business in front of a TV camera in full Technicolor. So I'm not perturbed. And I think that when people like Mike Waltz

point to that the Ukrainians still haven't mobilized all males of fighting age. Younger Ukrainian men are still not being called upon to fight. That's not an unreasonable thing for an incoming United States national security advisor to be saying as you know why if this is an existential thing and the future of the world order is at stake

Why are we being asked to do ever more whilst you yourselves are not responding in the way that you might expect of an existential challenge? So I think whilst the sort of bluntness of it might grate with European ears that tend to try to be a bit more sort of diplomatic in these things, the point is not invalid.

And similarly, you know, Trump has been saying all the way through his time, you know, out of office in the last four years that he would end the war in a day. The fact that he's now talking about doing over a longer period, you know, I think genuinely reflects that he is seized of the realities. He's seized of, you know, how the start point for the negotiations needs to be one in which he sits down at the table with the strongest hand. And I think if you were to rush to do it straight away, that would not be the case.

So I'm I'm whilst I to my very first answer, I'm disappointed that we're no longer in the space of everything it takes for as long as it takes. Putin must be seen to fail in Ukraine.

I'm reassured that the language of the campaign has already been moderated to reflect the realities of now being the guy in office that will ultimately lead these negotiations. And General Kellogg has previously said that if Putin is not prepared to make serious concessions and sit around the table and negotiate in good faith, then in his view, America should arm Ukraine to the teeth.

And that's clearly General Kellogg's view. Do you think President Trump would be prepared to do that in those circumstances? Yeah, I do. I do. I mean, funnily enough, I think that Trump as a businessman will have an eye on the reality that, you know, whilst he may not want to commit huge amounts of US and their stockpiles because he wants them to be re-geared and re-cocked ready for a potential conflict in the Pacific.

I think Trump will see the opportunity for U.S. defense industry to make huge amounts of money out of the rearming and reconstituting of the Ukrainian armed forces over the next 20 years. So therefore, there's no way that Trump is going to turn around to the Europeans and say, Ryan Mattel, BAE Systems, Safran, build your boot.

the US is having none of this GD and Lockheed and Northrop Grumman and everybody else will be front and center at that so the idea that the US is not engaged in what comes next for Ukraine is a nonsense because the commercial opportunities are just so enormous that they won't sit it out

But I also don't think that the U.S. administration is anywhere near as reckless as some commentators like to think. And actually, I think they see that U.S. security issues

The US has an Atlantic coast, whether people like it or not. I mean, that is just a straight reality. So the US can never disinvest in Euro-Atlantic security because their own security depends on having some engagement. And I think Trump gets that. Just finally, James, do you think this is still going to be a hot war by the end of this calendar year? I think that it is 60%.

possible that it will still be hot 40 percent that it will have been settled so it really hangs in the balance completely at the moment yeah it does but i mean my sense is that it's just because of just because of all that needs to be achieved to get negotiations going in a way that the ukrainians can accept russia can accept but where trump knows he's got all the key cards in his hand that doesn't feel like 10 months work it feels like it will take longer than that

It may happen sooner simply out of impatience or events conspiring to move things quicker. But I mean, I don't think that I don't think that the European commitment to Ukraine in the sort of medium term will coalesce any quicker than that. I think that Macron deploying French troops into Ukraine, given French domestic politics,

It will take some time for the new German administration to settle, for a coalition to form, and for them to start making decisions. I just can't see, so I can't see any European commitment to Ukraine emerging any earlier than the sort of final quarter of the year, September, October, November, December. I can't see the US getting itself to a position of strength that needs to be in for the negotiations any sooner than that.

And all the while, the fighting therefore continues. So it's possible, but it's more likely than not that they're still fighting next January. James Heapy, we really appreciate your insights and analysis. Thank you so much for joining us today on Frontline. Thanks very much, Andy. Thank you. Thank you.

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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