Speaker 1

20:00
who obviously did not always get on with his political policies hierarchy. So that
was someone with a very clear moral compass. And we're going to come to the
subject of reconciliation and men who embrace the complexity as you have
that extraordinary story extraordinarily complicated nation, Pakistan, places in
Pakistan. And it brought me to mind the gentleman Miller did you know,
gentlemen, the current chief of the Combine chiefs of staff in the United
States? But, yes,

Speaker 2
20:39
a very good friend of mine and Mr. Curry. Well,

Speaker 1
20:42
Well, I thought one of the things that really struck me when you remember the
incident when President Trump was the was the President was in post and
there was that ran outside in Washington, and it was catered to tear gas and
President Trump stood in front of the church holding the Bible upside down
[Inaudible, 00:21:03] and holding a Bible and during the day, I walked with him
there. What really impressed me was the gentleman he later said, I shouldn't
have done. I thought that was the most conspicuously transparent bit of
honesty. Why should he not have done that? Would you have done it where
that's a moral compass position that he obviously felt he'd strayed advice? And
is it appropriate for a leader? In the way you look at ethics to acknowledge
mistakes?

Speaker 2
21:45
Yeah, the straight answer is definitely one should try and acknowledge
mistakes. We're all human beings, we all make mistakes. And I think that it's
helpful for everybody if therefore, we're honest about doing that, and Mark was
very brave. And I think Mark has a very clear moral compass, as a leader of
the American armed forces. And he was annoyed with himself that he got
swept along with the momentum of what was happening that day, and didn't
get a chance to stand back and think about what his constitutional position was
in relation to the president at the time. And I have great admiration for the way
he explained what he had done having Castithan I thought that was a
tremendous thing to do.

Speaker 1
22:28
We had a series of arguments here, those otters where [unclear, 00:22:32]
every pair about three weeks, I saw three things that I've done, Robin got
wrong, big decisions, they

Speaker 1
22:39
made a serious mistake. One of my colleagues, our Chief of Staff said, right,
because I did three apologies, over a period of about six weeks. And one of my
colleagues said, right, you've now done apologies, until he said, you're giving
up apologies for that. I'm not sure I paid in you. But as you take

Speaker 2
23:06
them, I mean, to your point that one of the most important qualities of
leadership, and I think you show this commendably, if I may say so your
current well, is humility. Because if you haven't got humility, you won't listen.
And if you don't listen, in this ever-changing world you won't learn. And I think
fundamentally, strategic leaders need to be humble, because if they're not
humble, then they won't be adaptable. And I think that's so important for
leadership because it shows that you can take a counter when you make
mistakes and learn from them.

Speaker 1
23:34
It's interesting, I mean, certainly, I think that is wrong but isn't part of that.
Reagan famously said he surrounded himself with people who were cleverer
than he was, as a leader. Did you make a point? When thinks the army is very
hierarchical. Gentlemen, Carla says we must do this. So we must do this. Did
you make a point of having really strong characters around you? Or was it just
the people who arrived at the top with a strong character?

Speaker 2
24:11
I think what you have to do, you get delta handcarts when it comes to people,
Roger, you take over, but I think what you have to do is you have to make it
clear that you welcome challenge. Because I think if you don't welcome
challenge, there will be a danger that the hierarchy will cut in. And if you tell the
sergeant major that you want the battalion, square painted red, you'll wake up
the following morning. Will it be painted red? So the officers you know, you
need to be absolute to welcome challenge and I think that's fundamental to
what we do. So yes, I think it is important to have people around you who are
confident enough to be able to tell you when it's going wrong, and of course,
you know that something has to fit this Putin might not reflect on at the
moment.

Speaker 1
24:52
I was getting to come to one of the books that has influenced me consider the
amnesia is Slim's defeating factory, which actually know much better than I do.
But it is a most remarkable book, and another one I'll come to in a minute it's
really Smith's utility. And it's not only we external, but all the advancements in
the first case, but they for the military, so they have [Inaudible, 00:25:23], and
one of the things slim talks about in the Bernie campaign, was the three
components of the ship spiritual, intellectual material. Again, I think the words
have slightly changed now, but or may not have all of those concepts as
relevant in counterterrorism in asymmetric warfare, against insurgency, as they
are in the coming of all warfare, armies clashing that slim had to organize and
would you do see him as still a sort of relevant source of inspiration?

Speaker 2
26:14
Yes, definitely. I mean, he's my hero from World War Two,
Speaker 1
26:20
for all sorts of reasons,

Speaker 1
26:21
that a lot of generals say that interest.

Speaker 2
26:23
Yeah. And essentially, you know, the three second-level field marshals that
statues are outside the Ministry of Defense. And Allen's book is half a step in
front of the other two, I think, in recognition of his singular achievement at the
strategic level, but I'm in no doubt at that slim with this forgotten army. And the
inadequacy of resources that he had available to him, did a remarkable job in
interning defeat into victory, it's his book is titled, and I do think that his analysis
of morale endures throughout. And I don't think that analysis of morale will ever
change. And I think we're seeing that in her what's going on in Ukraine in the
members' play now. Because we always talk about the concept of fighting
power and trying to measure military capability. And fighting power is about a
component that is conject conceptually, one, there's obviously a physical, but it
could become one that is moral. And that moral component is very obvious on
one side of what is happening in Ukraine, and very obviously, absent on the
other side of what is happening in Ukraine. And that makes a big difference to
who prevails on battlefields. So I think slip-handed absolutely right in the way
that he and I analyze morale, the moral component.

Speaker 1
27:33
So when you look at the difference that someone commented to me, last
weekend, very senior person in the British civil service, and they commented
that they had spent their entire life in countertops. And therefore Ukraine
versus Russia was something they had a really new experience of dealing
with. And looking at your service, most of your life was counterterrorism. Or not
all like Battlefield, Army vs. Army. How do you think we are prepared for the
kind of situation where we're facing today, particularly in the moral component?
Because that is, seems to be very different when you're engaged in
counterterrorism than it is when you're engaged in? [unclear, 00:28:40]

Speaker 2
28:41
Yes, I mean, I think, you know, I was a product of the Cold War, the first sort of
10 years of my military career, half of them was spent in Germany. And of
course, we assumed that we were there to deter the Soviet Union. And we
knew how we were going to fight the Soviet Union. And curiously, what you
see playing out in slightly quirky Back to the Future Type way, in Ukraine at the
moment is not dissimilar to what we used to practice in the Cold War. Indeed,
we became very good at moving large convoys of vehicles from A to B, not an
easy task and something you have to really practice every year if you're going
to get it right as Mr. Putin is discovering, at the moment, but the fact of the
matter is that I think the difference between full-on war and counterterrorism
comes down to the level of friction that you find and the scale of it. And of
course, the rules to it. And, of course, we wrote, it basically campaigns I've
been involved at since 911. We've been up against opponents who certainly
don't adhere to any rules of war, and really don't really care about human life at
all in the way that they go about their business. So the whole sort of question
of morality and the way that plays out into the way that we need to behave in
response to that fundamental to the way we lead our young soldiers on those
battlefields. And, of course, when you then get into what is a much more
conventional state on the State of Qatar, in theory, the rules of war apply. But
again, I think morality is still there in terms of how you treat the people that
you're fighting. And indeed, how you then behave when you want to capture
them, or whatever else it might happen. So, I mean, I think there are there are
constants throughout it. But obviously, the stakes are different. And I think the
stakes that you see in interstate warfare are fundamentally different. And we
must never forget that whether it's counterterrorism or whether it's state on
cyber warfare, as [unclear, 00:30:40] always explained, war is an extension of
politics through the means. And warfare is a political act. And it's about the
interaction between people. And what I think we're also learning from what
we've seen over the last week or so in Ukraine is that the nature of war doesn't
change. It is still visceral, it's still violent, it's still interaction between people.
The character may change the weaponry that may be available to make
change the information environment change, but that interaction is still that
violent interaction between people. And that doesn't change. And I think what a
lot of people have learned or are learning is that some of the assumptions that
we've made about the tanks and all those sorts of things, afraid they are
relevant still, that we like it or not.

Speaker 1
31:27
That certainly seems to be the case. There's a friend of mine, who lives in one
of the embattled cities in Ukraine, who I've known for about 25 years. Man in
his 50s background in academia, philosophy, gentle, practicing Christian,
Orthodox Christian, remarkable, man last [unclear, 00:31:52]. I have, I've been
in touch with him over the last few days, and he sends an email to a number of
us, you know him well. Like so many others in this country, I have joined up
with my district defense. So I've never found a gun once in my life. But I
learned a collection. [Inaudible 00:32:19] And he will, looking at where he is. I
haven't heard from him for a couple of days, he will almost certainly be in the
depths of the most terrible experiences. You the kind of warfare we're seeing in
Ukraine involves civilians taking up arms, you wish fortunate professional, not
a citizen? What's going to be the effect on those who are involved in that?
What would you say?
Speaker 2
31:57
Well, I mean,
S1
Speaker 1
31:58
does it make a difference? Or is it just people?

Speaker 2
34:03
I'm not sure. I mean, I think perhaps one might suggest that people who are
trained to be soldiers, who are professionals, will be better able to cope with
the mental and physical consequences of a battle. But I'm, I'm not sure that's
necessarily true. I mean, in another life, I'm a patron of a charity called
supporting wounded veterans, which tries to help those veterans who have
suffered from the campaigns of last 20 years, and in particular, from post-
traumatic stress disorder. And I think, you know, we should expect the
population of Ukraine, whether they're professional soldiers, or whether they
are civilians, to be suffering a significant couple of years after this from what
they would have experienced. And that, of course, is going to be very
challenging when you come to reconciliation because reconciliation is
fundamentally the way that wars end. And the way that we are showpiece, and
that will be a real challenge, I think for everybody.

Speaker 1
34:00
I mean, it doesn't make any difference as to whether you won or lost as to the
After Effects.

Speaker 2
34:09
I suspect it's easier to manage if you win, certainly, but a lot of expense on how
you win, and whether you can live with your conscience.

Speaker 1
34:20
So that comes back to the Russians and the way they've conducted. I was a
[Unclear 00:34:26] is now starting to point out the security. People who look up
to the table. Almost all of them are excellent. He has done two tours in
Afghanistan versus envoys [Unclear 00:34:38] done two tours in Afghanistan
to Iraq. And we chatted for quite a long time I was listening to him, his
response to the car when it comes to success and failure, and he said why did
my closest friend die in my arms, what did he die for? Going back to the moral
component of warfare to your own response? How would you answer that
question to yourself, and to those who have lost friends and family? Whereas
what you say because Slim says the wrong component, spiritual component in
these words, is about knowing their causes worth time for.
Speaker 2
35:29
Yes. And I think that comes back to the question you asked about state-on-
state warfare. I mean, I think it is probably easier to find a compelling reason to
fight if your state is threatened by an existential threat. And I think there is
some really good worthy cause to get behind. I think the challenge that we've
all had in the campaigns the last 20 years is that they are wars of choice. And
try to find the overwhelming rationale for why you fight in those campaigns is
very difficult. And of course, it encourages political leaders to try and cast the
protagonists as good guys and bad guys. And of course, counterinsurgency in
search of a single group is never as simple as that. Because why people pick
up weapons is often motivated by factors other than the good cause that the
insurgency might be fighting for. So I think it's really challenging to get that
across. And the answer to, you know, the veteran that you were talking to is,
it's very difficult to explain why what he was doing, and his friend was doing
was a worthy cause. And I've struggled with this. And I firmly believe that we
have helped a lot of Afghans over 20 years lead better lives. And that I hope
that some of what they've learned will resonate as the country goes forward
over the next 10 to 15 years. But of course, the Taliban were painted as the
enemy of this. And the fact that the Taliban are now in charge, means it's
extraordinarily difficult to have a narrative that this was a positive experience.
For those who thought that said, I bet what he would also have told you is he
wouldn't have swapped the experience for anything else he did. And that I
think, is a fascinating facet to military life is that naval war for weird reasons, is
glamorous, it's what you're trying to do. So you've got a chance to go and
conduct combat operations, most people will absolutely insist on a day to do it.
And that's an extraordinary dichotomy, I say, between the worthiness of the
cause, and the professional cutting in terms of wanting to realize what they've
been trained to do.

Speaker 1
37:42
GCM itself staff in Pakistan, who I met a few days ago, we're discussing
exactly what's in connection with Ukraine. He said, fasters, wrong. War is not
the essential politics, by other means. War is said the role of the army is to
prevent the need to go to war. You know, quite well, what would you say?
Speaker 2
38:12
Well, I would agree with it. I mean, I think that you do have to get towards it. It
is a failure. It's much more challenging, of course, as he has to do on a daily
basis, we're dealing with within circumstance and a terrorist threat, where you
don't really have a choice. But yes, I mean, at the end of the day, you know,
our goal was, as the British military is to deter conflict from occurring. And yes,
if that fails, it is it's a failure of politics. And it's a sad fact of life that we all have
to step up to the plate too, to take part.

Speaker 1
38:45
I mean, going on to reconciliation, which is one of the key things that you've
talked about. I spent 20 years in various parts of the world seeking to bring
about reconciliation in areas of armed conflict. None women's fashion conflicts,
all domestic contexts of various degrees of seriousness. Throwing there's been
quite a lot of [Unclear 00:39:20] but equally vigorous conflict within the church,
which is probably one of the biggest challenges. I've recently written a book on
someone, it'll come into that I mean, it was a way of thinking it through. One of
the things that in the first article kind of can break it down is as to what
reconciliation is in my experience, it is not about agreement, it is to find non-
destructive ways of discipline. So to find creative forms of this agreeing to
which you can disagree absolutely passionately if you don't want to destroy the
other person.