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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 Major General Chip Chapman, a former British military advisor to US Central Command who served for 33 years in the Armed Forces. He's also a commentator on geopolitics and security and is the author of the book Notes from a Small Military Chip. It's always a pleasure. Welcome back to Frontline. Good afternoon, James.
But before we get on to Ukraine specifically, I want to begin by getting your reaction to the remarkable revelation of that a journalist was added to a secret group chat where senior US officials were discussing strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. In all your many years of experience, Chip...
Have you ever seen quite such an extraordinary security breach? Well, the answer would be yes. But the specifics of this one are that if you serve in America and you're subjected to sensitive plans, it doesn't matter if Hesketh says they're not war plans,
then you would discuss those within the confines of what they call the SCIF, that is the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. That's where all the real secret stuff takes place in terms of the connections between various nodal points. What you don't do is do it on any group chat, adding a journalist or not adding a journalist to anything which you perceive to be secure, be it Telegram or WhatsApp or
or Signal. Now I'm on Signal as well. But one thing you learn if you've been in the counter-terrorist business, for example, which I have, is to take Turing's line absolutely 100%. That is that there is no such thing as an impregnable door, whether front, back or side. There are strong doors in various degrees of security, which is why, for example, in the UK, you can do intrusive surveillance surveillance
by the intelligence agencies once you have a warrant and it is warranted to do that. But the notion of command and control or war plans by WhatsApp signal or whatever other form is really, really worrying. And actually, it's a trend we've seen in the war as well when people are taking sort of smartphones to war with them. And that was what enabled, for example, exquisite targeting in the early days by Ukraine on Russian forces where you could...
see a cluster of phones together and that gave you enough targeting data to take kinetic action against them. So the whole notion of understanding about the radiance of phones and everything else is a worry in modern warfare alongside the things which happened yesterday. The other worrying aspect really from a European perspective is this sort of euro loathing which came at it.
Now, of course, that also is a feature that we've seen in the last few weeks in a lot of discussions. And that is worrying in terms of either the sort of future of NATO, transatlantic links and all those sorts of things, which is why I think you also have this meeting this week with the Coalition of the Winning in Paris, I think, hosted by Macron on the 27th.
where you absolutely have this notion that there can be no stitch-up in Washington or Moscow because there are other people who have
agency in this, including the Europeans and most certainly the Ukrainians. I mean, it's a very good point you raise about the Europe bashing in the messages. For example, commenting on how reopening shipping lanes in the Red Sea would benefit Europe, J.D. Vance posted, I just hate bailing out Europe again. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth posted, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading, pathetic,
I mean, we knew that the transatlantic alliance wasn't in the best of shapes even before these messages came out. But will this be another stark reminder to particularly Ukraine's European allies that they are going to have to double down their own support, that the US is in a very different place now? Yeah, I think that is the case. If you want another reminder that Europe needs to step up to the plate, this is it.
And in a way, it reminds me of what came in international relations prior to the transatlantic relationships, because, of course, the thing which came before NATO and the start of the First World War was what we really called the concert of Europe, where people
nations work together and it was really the divergence of that which created the problems for the future and war and those two factors at that time were nationalism and changing political dynamics you could argue that both of those are in train at the moment so for you know to europe to not do more in the future because of this changing divergence in the future would be you know
strategic folly for the European countries. And they've had enough time to sort of see the writing on the wall, really, in the last three years. So, you know, it's always been a lack of will, not a lack of overall GDP. And we'll have to see where that
goes in the future. But I think the cog is turning towards more strategic European pillar of the NATO defence posture. Now, it would be an absolute disaster if NATO were to finish as an alliance. And I think anyone who's
being vociferous on that has probably got the wrong wicket. We want to try and cement that as best we can. And that's why you have to be slightly careful about the language one uses and why the sort of leaking of things like the signal signal
signal messages from yesterday are just really not good in terms of diplomatic stuff for the future and really we've seen this sort of trauma diplomacy really and tantrum diplomacy from the Americans in the last few weeks and that's just not helpful in international relations
And just finally on the Signal Group, should heads roll over this? Well, one of the things that you can say about the Trump regime at the moment is that he's absolutely loyal to anyone who works for him. And the only divergence you saw was from J.D. Vance. I think no one's head will roll. Should it roll? Of course it should, because it's a security breach of the highest order in a way. I mean, one of the things I could say when I was over there is that the
combatant commands because of course it would have been sent kong who delivered the strike on the hoothies sent come always have plans it is then for the politicians policy to catch up with those plans in terms of they outline a left of left of arc and a right of arc of here are the possibilities for you oh politicians what do you want to do but they would have done that in a secure facility this should not have gone outside that secure facility
Let's come on to the war in Ukraine specifically. Talks between US and Russian officials took place in Saudi Arabia yesterday.
The Kremlin says the contents of the talk will not be published, with the results still being analysed by both sides. We had expected a joint statement as to what was discussed this morning, had nothing so far. Is Russia deliberately stringing along the Americans here? Probably. This is, again, one of the things I learnt in America, which you don't often hear in the UK, is this notion of a kabuki dance.
And it was a phrase that Jim Mattis used to use a lot, which is a symbolic rather than a sort of substantial negotiations. And a kabuki dance is a stylized Japanese dancing. It's political grandstanding theater. Now, Russia will want to try and
not to be seen as the bad guy in this. And we'll try and give a little bit of an inch, but they won't give much more than an inch. This is for show for an audience, in my view, at the moment, nothing substantive. And again, we shouldn't necessarily think of this in a linear fashion. So I think
For example, I think the first thing you have to do is go back to the 8th of December. That was the date that Trump was in at Notre Dame and the day that Assad fell. And on that day, he sort of said, let's have an immediate ceasefire in negotiations. We're now...
Near the end of March, we haven't got an immediate ceasefire. And we're talking about various contours of temporary ceasefires around the edges of this. So in a way, that also shows the complexity of it. So, for example, if you take the two things that they've really been discussing, the cessation of attacks on civilian infrastructure, then again, what is civilian infrastructure?
So, you know, you would argue from a Ukrainian perspective that it's easy to say that it would be things like attacks on substations and those things which give light and substance to, you know, 100,000 people in a city. Ukraine, on the other hand, would say that attacking an oil refinery, which you could argue is an energy infrastructure, is actually stripping away the sinews of war which power the Russian war machine because...
It's the money that comes from that which allows them to continue the war. So all those things show you the complexity, both in what is in terms of the targets and secondly, potentially the weapons that you should use against it.
Now, one of the things again here that we look at is sort of game theory. Game theory in international relations looks at these strategic interactions to understand the dynamics of negotiation, deterrence and cooperation. And all of this is a sort of bargaining matrix. But at the moment, the thing looks sort of slightly skewed towards the Russians because we did think that there would be some sort of pressure strategy on the Russians
Whereas up to this point, we've just had a pressure strategy on the Ukrainians in terms of, you know, the cessation of intelligence weapons and satellite feeds, which seem to come online again somewhere around, I think, the 11th of March. Whereas the pressure strategy on the Russians in terms of either sanctions, a weapon supply to Ukraine or oil price doesn't
seem to be there at the moment. So I think one of the things that one would be looking for
if this is a sort of kabuki dance is the moment that Trump either condemns or says something negative about Putin, which at the moment he's not done. So the other thing about game theory, which is, uh, sort of skewed at the moment is the incredible, uh, comments at the weekend from Witkoff, who's supposed to be the special representative, which really were just in his conversation with, um,
with Tucker Carlson, which really were just perishing Russia propaganda lines. It was absolutely incredible. And the one thing about that is that if your actions or rhetoric are
perceived as inconsistent or self-serving it undermines your leverage or your position as a mediator and that's why i can see the ukrainians being really upset about what wickhoff said and wanting him removed as a mediator because he doesn't look like a mediator he looks like a russian foil now again that could play into something which is the other part of the kabuki dance
which is that there may already be an outcome which is predetermined between Russia and Ukraine. And that might be that for geopolitical rapprochement between Russia and Ukraine, that the U.S. are prepared to sacrifice Ukraine. Now, of course, the problem with that is it doesn't give any agency to all the other people who have, you know,
who have a part to play in this. And that's why I think the European meeting this week is also really, really important and where we go in the future for this. I mean, it's such a good point you raised, Chip, about Steve Witkoff and that remarkable interview he did with Tucker Carlson over the weekend. At one point saying he doesn't think that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy, that he respects Vladimir Putin. I mean, the mind boggles. But I suppose it raises the question, which is something we've touched on in the past on Frontline in recent weeks, which is why...
does Ukraine need to engage with the US as the mediator here? If the US has essentially switched sides or certainly is swallowing a lot of the Kremlin propaganda, then why should Ukraine engage in good faith with the Americans as the mediator? Why don't they say, no, we'd rather someone else who wants a European mediator. We want the Turks to mediate, say. Well, all those could be within that. But again, to sever your relationship with the US would be something which would not be wise.
because it's in their interest for a number of reasons. So firstly, I think if you look at this in military methodology and how you'd approach this in military orders, the intent from Trump is absolutely sand and is a good thing in human security terms. That intent is the war must end, must end.
The scheme of maneuver in military terms, if we would look there at the how, the what, the where, the who, the when, that's when you get into the real difficulties of the complexity of trying to end war. Now, again, the third part of this in military terms is what is the main effort? And the main effort for Trump is a ceasefire.
and then negotiations. Now, at the moment, we're around the edges of this, not only in terms of that civilian infrastructure, but the second thing which they're talking about is, of course, the grain deal or the grain contours for the future. Now, Ukraine won the Battle of the Black Sea. So again, that is a peripheral issue in lots of ways. It is not a substantive issue.
And therefore, then ultimately, you would go back to looking at this in the three ways that I've outlined previously. The first one, that Trump does see this through a humanitarian prison. The war must end. Stop the killing. That is a very honorable thing to say, as I've said many times before, but potentially rewards the aggressor.
The middle position, which I've outlined before, is come to the table or Ukraine or will cease support what we saw prior to the 11th of March. But at the same time, potentially saying to Russia, come to the table or Russia or will support Ukraine with everything. Now, we don't know what the table looks like at the moment because it seemed almost that someone had cut the table in half and arranged the Russian half of the table alongside the American half of the table.
But if we see ultimately that Russia are not engaging in good faith, then you go to the wide of art, which I've outlined before, the Joe Wilson line from the Helsinki Commission on American-Russia relations from last September, which is that ultimately Russia,
Trump will see that Putin is a disingenuous negotiator, that nothing that he says will be substantive and no peace will hold for the long term. That is still the spectrum that we're looking at. You can't say that there are any certainties in this for the future. And
You know, conflict termination leading to conflict resolution and some sort of peace settlement is a very complex business. This is also one of the reasons why Trump's rush to set a date, either one day, 100 days by the 20th of April, is problematic.
I mean, it took, for example, two years and 500 meetings to get to an armistice in the Korean War. And it took five years to get to the Paris Peace Accords for the ending of the Vietnam War, which then ultimately led to the South being taken over by the North because it wasn't sustainable and endurable, which are some of the words that the Trump administration have used. So what that really illustrates is that all of this is essentially a
a long and complex process. There are multiple parties and there are likely to be several rounds before anything substantive can happen. And the other thing in terms of the military reality of this is advancing armies rarely stop fighting when their opponents become weaker. And obviously,
Putin still perceives that Ukraine is the weaker party. And we mustn't forget that people go to war not for the sake of fighting,
but for political objectives. He still has various minimalist and maximalist objectives. The minimalist one is to subsume all those provinces, all the oblastal provinces, which Wyckoff seemed to give to him in the way that he talked to Tucker Carlson. And more worryingly, in what
Lavrov said in the last couple of days about Ukraine is different. It is a breeding ground for Nazis prepared for yet another attempt to rally all of Europe under racist and Nazi banners for a war against the Russian Federation. We will not overlook
this task of denazifying the Ukrainian state. That would bring you back to his 21st of July 2021 essay about Ukrainians and Russians are the same people and that he seeks to destroy the sovereignty of Ukraine. I absolutely take your point, Chip, that it is still feasible that the Americans may lose patience with Vladimir Putin. They may think he's dragging his feet, that Russia isn't serious about peace talks and that he's a disingenuous negotiator.
But a lot of people would say, well, isn't that obvious already? So if they're not seeing it now, why would they see it in a month or two's time? Well, again, this might be this notion that there are greater political, geopolitical rapprochement reasons.
about potentially trying to sever Russia from China on the assumption that China is the long-term enemy or competitor of the US. And that's where their future lies. Now, again, within a European context, you could say that we should have known this for a number of years when under Obama, they talked about the Asia pivot. It never really happened because of events in
the Middle East with the rise of ISIS and all that came from that. And, you know, it might be that this is one of the, you know, four-dimensional chess things to get Europe to stand up to the plate and to have its own pillar while they can concentrate their forces and
and their combat power in an Asian theater. I just don't think that the way they're doing this would lead you to conclude that is the way that America are looking at it. And I don't think you could conclude by the background of a lot of the people and what they say within the inner circle of Trump that they're probably clever enough to think like that, and neither do a lot of them take expert advice. Their ability to take significant briefs, I don't think, is really there in their understanding of politics
international relations and how they work. Turning to the issue of Europe, one of the things that Steve Witkoff said in that interview with Tucker Carlson was addressing the idea, Keir Starmer's idea for a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine. He called it simplistic. He said it came from Starmer and other leaders thinking we've all got to be like Winston Churchill and
Is the idea of a coalition of the willing to enforce a peace in Ukraine viable anymore, Chip? Yeah, I think it is. But it depends what you mean by the sort of mission set that you're going to give any troops who are there. Now, for example, this week Macron has said maybe there should be a role for UN troops to go in there. Now, again, classical peacekeeping is
has three parts. You have consent of both parties. You have people only acting in self-defense. And, you know, you have the coalition of the willing. Now, there's no way that Putin is going to allow any sort of peacekeepers, peace enforcers, whatever you want to call them, into Ukraine. But he doesn't have really the final say on that. You know, Ukraine is a
a sovereign country. But there is a difference between a very capable force
and a UN peacekeeping force. And we saw an example of this late last year when UNDOF, the UN Disengagement Observer Force between Syria and Israel, was brushed aside in early December so that Israel could secure the high ground from their perspective. And we also have seen in Europe, really, with the Balkans in the early 90s, the fact that you can go from a blue-berried posture
essentially what the Brits did, to a war fighting posture quite quickly if you have the capability there. That's essentially what they did with the warrior armored fighting vehicles on one day when General Rupert Smith took over and the UN mission transitioned to a peace enforcement mission and the bombing from a NATO-enabled force.
What more do you think Ukraine's European allies could or should be doing right now? Whilst this remains a hot war, whilst a ceasefire isn't agreed to, what more should we be doing to support the Ukrainians? Well, I think the really interesting thing in terms of both the way that the withdrawal from Kursk has gone and in the way that they're fighting is three parts, really. So you have Ukraine
So they've been talking about drone stop lines, for example. So delay operations historically have been done by reconnaissance forces. You stop a force, you withdraw a bit, and then you do that with your reconnaissance forces or heavy tanks.
or whatever it might be. That now seems to be what is being done by drones, which is really, really interesting. That then enables you to use your artillery between 0 and 30 kilometers to chew up
the opposition force. And it's this relationship between drones and artillery and, of course, the intelligence that enables that, which is really interesting. Now, the drone coalition is a European coalition.
The defense industrial base in Ukraine has been significantly enabled, particularly in the drone area. We do need to keep the sustaining the artillery ammunition for the Ukrainians. So but all those things can make up for sort of
partially for deficiencies of manpower. So keeping that flow of things going is really, really important because one of the things we still don't know about the Americans for the future is it's not just the kit that they've supplied, some of which the Europeans can't replicate, particularly in the
high level air defense uh patriot missiles and things but it's a sustainment because there's a lot of spares and stuff for a lot of the american systems which um the europeans may not have enough even though they got those american systems so that part of the tap is also important to try and keep keep going from a european or ukrainian perspective
And if Europe did that, would that sufficiently increase the pressure on Vladimir Putin and Russia to come to the negotiating table more seriously? I mean, you mentioned what we haven't really seen from the US in recent weeks is applying the same kind of pressure on Putin that was applied on Zelensky. Could Europe do that instead? Well, I think you need a number of things. The first and most important thing is
I do think is the long-range deep battle assets. So I think the Germans bringing the Taurus to bear would be significant, and they need to be allowed to absolutely devastate the oil refining energy infrastructure, which does, as I said earlier on, is part of this sinews of war for the Russian economy. If you could devastate that to a significant level,
in line with a sanctions regime which lowered the oil price, one of those things which if America did have an about turn and absolutely were to try and enforce some sort of settlement on Russia, then the two ways to do that are,
the deep battle to a significant extent and American assets such as JASM would be useful to that and destroy the Russian economy by pumping more oil. The Saudis could have another 3 million barrels a day. The current barrel of oil I think is around $70. The Russian economy to prosecute the war needs a barrel of oil around 69.7. If that were to go down to 45, which is what 1%.
was one of the options that Trump talked about prior to becoming the president, then that would have a significant impact on the Russians. That would provide...
the pressure, because I've often said about how wars end, it's either by decisive military defeat, that's not going to happen. The improbability of military defeat, that is more likely at the moment, or because the costs are so great, either in industrial, economic or population terms, that one is forced to get to a negotiated settlement. It is that third thing, third element, which is still the most significant for the future, in my opinion.
And if the US wanted to, how quickly could they have that impact on the global oil price? Certainly within two months, I think, is my understanding. But you would need this sort of correlation of both the Americans turning the taps on and OPEC turning the taps on. It's not impossible to do. In that sense, it is significant that the...
the talks are in Riyadh because I'm sure there's some side talks with the Saudis about that aspect. But again, as I've said earlier on, you've got to absolutely see this decision point from the Americans that, hey, Putin's not the good guy we think he is. And I don't think it's that...
I just think that Trump absolutely believes in this great man theory of international relations, that someone that you believe that you can trust, same thing that Witkoff said, and you kind of generally think that you like is the way that international relations works. It doesn't. There are processes and procedures, negotiations, all that sort of stuff.
dull stuff which actually enables um agreements ultimately to come to to come to fruition it's not the this sort of great man theory and this is why it's difficult to posit uh where american foreign policy is at the moment you know i was brought up when i um was in america on the notion you either had wilsonian liberalism where you looked at human rights and democracy and
trying to bring those about in the world or pragmatic realism. What we've really got at the moment is this sort of unmagical unrealism or magical unrealism where you have threats to Canada and Greenland which don't fit any model from the past anymore.
You know, because I don't think there's been an example in history where a democracy has threatened another democracy with any form of military action. It's just sort of unheard of. Democracies do not go to war with other democracies. And it's this absolute upending of all these notions with the rhetoric of democracy.
which makes the world so uncertain at the moment. But that also makes the world uncertain for Putin because Trump is unpredictable. Major General Chip Chapman, we always appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us again on Frontline. Thank you, James. Strap in. You're in the race with F1 TV Premium. See what the race director sees with Custom Multiview. Woo!
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