Battlegrounds 50: Today’s Challenges And Prospects For International Cooperation

>> H.R. McMaster: America and other free and open societies face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home. This is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's battlegrounds and creative ideas about how to compete, overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and secure a better future.

I am HR McMaster, this is Battlegrounds.

>> Jenn Henry: On today's episode of Battlegrounds, we celebrate our 50th episode with a reunion of five former national security advisors. These former battlegrounds guests, known as The Quint, are Ambassador Mark Sedwill from the UK, Ambassador Mariangela Zappia from Italy, Ambassador Christoph Heusgen from Germany, Ambassador Philippe Etienne from France, and our host, HR McMaster.

In 2017 through 2018, all five worked closely together as an informal consultative body and subset of the transatlantic alliance. They sought to advance and protect mutual interests through the application of each nation's competitive advantage in complementary and synergistic ways. Today, our host and guests will reflect on their experiences together and share perspectives on contemporary challenges to security and prosperity, from Russia's war on Ukraine, to the policies and actions of the Chinese Communist Party, transnational terrorism and migration, and energy and food security.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Friends, Maryangela Zappia, Christoph Heusgen, Philippe Étienne, Mark Sedwill, welcome to Battlegrounds. It is great to be reunited with The Quint Club of national security advisors after five years. Great to see you.

>> Christoph Heusgen: Wonderful to see you.

>> Mark Sedwill: Great to see you, HR, and all of our friends.

 

>> Philippe Étienne: Nice to see all of you.

>> Mariangela Zappia: Nice to see all of you.

>> H.R. McMaster: Hey, I've been reminiscing about our time together, how we worked together on major challenges to our mutual interests. I kind of feel good about what we're able to accomplish together. But of course, the world has changed in five years, and probably not for the better, I think we'd all agree.

We're all facing very significant challenges. And I remember how we resolved to work together to understand how we could apply our competitive advantages across each of our nations in a synergistic and complimentary way. And so what I'd like to do is just open up the conversation with your view on the importance for multinational cooperation to cope with the challenges we're facing and to take advantage of opportunities.

And what you think are the essential ingredients for fostering multinational cooperation? And maybe reminisce a little bit about our time together and I and how we worked together.

>> Mark Sedwill: We should maybe ask the one who's still serving as an ambassador to kick us off.

>> Mariangela Zappia: Thank you very much.

Well, I'm also the only woman which doesn't give me a right to speak first, but since I'm different here. But first of all, thank you so much, HR, for bringing us together again. And indeed, as you were saying, it was a quite special cooperation that we had at the time, not long time ago, by the way, this idea of working constantly together to understand our competitive advantage as a group in trying to analyze crises and challenges.

And maybe I want to start really from that, and the role of The Quint, I really see it as a sort of steering wheel. It's really the place where some of the different perspective given by our geographical position, our experience, our history comes from, really can serve to understand and to analyze and to understand better where and how our action can be more efficient.

So I really believe in the format. I think that what we did together, these analyzing challenge by challenge, and try to have a common line, was really very important. And I have to say, looking at what's happening now, and particularly the war in Ukraine, the brutal aggression of Russia, I think the queen served as really the steering wheel, or the steering committee, if you want, that then translated into G7.

And also the G7 has acquired, I think, a very important role. So Quint and G7, hopefully transmitting all these in the G20, and creating that environment that can help addressing challenges together also with what we consider the rest, right? And I don't like at all the expression the west and the rest.

I don't like either the global south expression, but this is the reality that the world is much bigger than us, but we can have a role in really shaping our own understanding of facts.

>> Mark Sedwill: I think what struck me, HR and Mariangela, I agree with everything you've just said, is how well we all worked together and our colleagues.

But we have to recognize that we were not operating in a period of real western. I agree with Mariangela is a bad word, but no one's come up with a better one of real western unity. We had considerable frictions, transatlantic frictions, of course, within Europe. We were wrestling with the Brexit negotiations for much of that time.

And I think perhaps we lost sight, not the five of us, but I think our nations lost sight of the fact that the rest of the world was moving on. And if we want to really influence the course of global security, then we have to be completely united and put aside whatever squabbles there might be among ourselves in order to do that.

Because if we are preoccupied with arguing among ourselves, with imposing tariffs on each other and so on, then the rest of the world will just move ahead without us. And we're seeing just this week with the visit of President Xi Jinping to Moscow, his first visit just after being re elected for a third, re-elected, reappointed, re-somethinged for a third term and putting together a government of protégé.

We've seen that others will seek to fill the vacuum. Mariangela is also absolutely right that we haven't in the past few years done enough collectively, whether it's the five countries, the G7, etc, to only engage with not only the global south. I agree with Mariangela that, again, it's sometimes a slightly awkward term.

But there's many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Gulf, Asia who are rediscovering the attractions of non-alignment. And we need to do more, our countries need to do more to engage with them. Listen to their point of view, and therefore hopefully persuade them that our point of view is still the one that will preserve global order and the global economy and global security.

 

>> Philippe Étienne: I wanted to say, answering your question, HR, that one, a very important factor in our cooperation. Especially in the context which Mark has recalled, which was a context where our countries did not agree on everything and had some difficult issues to solve among ourselves. Was a personal relation inside our group, between our people, but more generally between our administrations.

This has struck me, and this is the reason why I am so happy to see all of you this morning, because it matters a lot finally, the human factor. Number two, at that time, I remember, of course, the issues were not the same, but I remember, especially with you, HR, we had still on the top of the agenda, and I think it is still around the importance of the fight against the terrorist threat.

And we live in a time where we have an accumulation of crisis and not one crisis solved and others are appearing. And of course, now we are all on this aggression, Russian aggression against Ukraine, but we have all the other issues which are still on our plate. And you mentioned Syria, one of the most important things I remember when we had to tackle the chemical arsenal of Assad, supported by Russia already.

And coming back to the fight against terrorism I was really happy this morning to hear about the release of two, one American, one French hostages in Sahel. Which shows how important this cooperation remains among our countries, among our democracies. Last point, coming back to what Mariancela and Mark said, neither I like the expression of global south, but I think it's more than ever, of course, facing the war in Ukraine, a priority to address the other challenges, which are global challenges, or more specific changes of those countries.

As a group, of course, we have the G7 for this, and it was underlined by the colleagues. But also to cooperate inside the United nations system, inside the international financial institutions, inside the G20, to tackle the issues which are really pressing for those countries. Especially the financing issue, and the adaptation of our financing instruments, including the development banks, to the needs of those countries.

Which otherwise have the impression that we ask them to be on our side, but which prefer, of course, to remain neutral When Russia invades Ukraine..

>> Christoph Heusgen: Maybe I can come in there and I want to end exactly where Philipp just ended. But let me first, HR, also recall with a lot of nostalgia the time we were in office and we were actually strategizing together division of labor and how we agree on certain policy issues.

I think that's something I hope that our successors do today. I wanted to make two remarks, the first one is indeed of having our leaders work together, the G7 or beyond. As you know, I chaired the Munich security conference now and we were very happy to have actually Prime Minister Sunak, President Macron, Vice President Harris, Chancellor Scholz.

And we had hoped to have Professor Melloni there, but then Professor Melloni, but in the end we had Taiani, who was also very good. So we had the Quint in Munich, but what I did this year is in advance of our discussion also to say, well, it's good that we get along with the other and we have to be united.

Totally agree, but we just have to pay much more attention to Africa, Latin America and Asia, and we have missed this. I was ambassador at the UN and so was Mariangela, and we saw how much China has on many issues, the Africans lined up behind them. I think personally like us much more, but they get the money, the investments by China and China conditions there, and they are very brutal there.

So we have to pay much more attention to the global south, it's not enough to do one off exercises, to do a summit or to do a trip. No, we have to do it on a much more regular basis. I think we have to put more people into our missions or we have to empower the EU missions, but usually in third countries.

In Africa, we have two or three German diplomats, and then we have 100 Chinese, and they are all over the place. We have to work together there, we must not have any illusions about Russia and China. China loves the situation where Russia is in now, they are their junior partner.

HR, you remember McCain, he said years ago that one day Russia will become China's gas station, and that's exactly where they are right now. I think the Chinese are benefiting from the fact that Russia has cut itself off the west and they are benefiting now from cheap gas and oil.

And on the other hand, of course, Xi has an interest in keeping Putin in power because the worst that could happen to Xi is to have another perestorika or have another Gorbachev, have Russia turned democratic, which right now we cannot imagine, but you never know. And the Chinese look at the long haul, so don't expect from China to be a neutral moderator, but they will always support Russia as their junior partner.

And they are together in spreading this narrative that this war is continuation of east west and we are east west competition, we are accused of double standards. Where were you 20 years ago when the US invaded Iraq, which was also against international law? Now you ask us to take sides, but we are affected by financial crisis, Philip, but also energy, food crisis.

And this is our concern, you get it over with, and we don't care how but get it over with so that our concerns are alleviated. And therefore, to make my point, I put the global south, so to speak. I don't use this expression, but between friends on the main stage in Munich, on the main date.

But I was surprised how prime minister of Namibia, vice president of Colombia, foreign minister of Brazil, who we know, Mariangela Mauro and how much they're equidistant. So there we have to be much more active and on eye level and also cater to their concerns, as Philip just said, on financing, but food security and other issues.

So we need to pay much more attention to Africa, Latin America and Asia, back to you, HR.

>> H.R. McMaster: I think this is just a really important area for cooperation across the Quint, the G seven, as you mentioned, because it's a vast problem. But I'm feeling kind of optimistic.

Christophe, I was not there in Munich this year, but I feel as if countries can't help over time. If we work together to realize that we're not asking them to choose between Beijing or Moscow and Berlin or Rome or, or Paris or London or Washington. I think increasingly we can help them come to the conclusion that it's really fundamentally a choice between sovereignty and servitude.

When you look especially at what Russia's doing in West Africa, China's use of predatory loans and creation of servile economic relationships. How all of them really love working with corrupt governments to advance their interests, I'm optimistic about it. But you're absolutely right. We do have to work completely together on this and kind of divide the labor because in all of our countries.

I think our citizens are skeptical about sustained engagements in other parts of the world and the resources applied for development assistance. And the new model for financial assistance and loans and economic development that Mariangela noted at the outset, I think is really critical. But what I'd like to do is because, of course, our time is so limited.

There's so much to talk about, is to talk about what we had hoped would not happen, which is continued Russian aggression on the European continent. And now, of course, we find Europe a major war in Europe for the first time since World War II. It's a terrible tragedy.

We have been witnessing extraordinary valor on the part of the Ukrainians and terrible atrocities visited on the Ukrainian people by the Russians. And so I'm just gonna ask an open ended question and everybody jump in here. That's a series of questions. You can take any part of it you want.

What went wrong? Why was it, do you think, that we were unable to deter what's happening or what's happening since February 24 of last year from occurring? What is your assessment? What are the prospects for peace now, and how do you envision the war evolving? And what more can we do right to support the Ukrainian people and to restore peace on terms that are acceptable to the victims in this war, the Ukrainians.

So I know that's a big question, series of questions. But this is something I know that our viewers would love to hear your perspectives on.

>> Philippe Étienne: I have not real answer to your questions, HR. The question of the past and the question of the future. The question of the past is the subject of a debate in France.

And there are people who say, also in your countries, even in the US, I think I read some of them, some of their papers. We think that we have not done what we should have done in our relations with Russia. But this is a question, this is a question for historians now.

What we can absolutely affirmed, including through the visit paid by President Macron to Moscow just before the start of the war. Is that we have made our proposals for the security of Europe and it stays for the future. But what I wanted to answer, what I wanted to say, HR, is that we have also to see what we have achieved after the invasion more than one year ago.

We have achieved two things which are really important and which would have to keep the unity among our countries. And the mobilization of the international community based on this unity is something which was really important. And probably Putin was hoping not to see this unity. This has to be kept.

We see the challenges in our democracies, including in the United States, but also in our European countries. And the other thing we have achieved on the European side is an incredible transformation of our countries. And frankly, this also was really not obvious at all the immediate direction we had as Europeans, together with the Americans.

But also the fact that we have, especially as a European Union. But I am sure that the UK mark would speak for the United Kingdom, which had such also a strong reaction to help the Ukrainians. But we have, as a European Union, reacted on three levels which were really not easy ones.

First, the defense and the fact that we have started immediately new instruments to buy weapons and to support the Ukrainians. The second element is energy. We have really developed our, with the help of the United States, but based mostly on our decisions, with a lot of sacrifices. We have really increased our independence from Russian imports of oil and gas very, very rapidly.

And third, what I would call the resilience of our economies also to support Ukraine, but also to support our economies. Which was absolutely not easy and which was also the consequence, what we have learned from the COVID the pandemic time. So on these three levels we have seen a very strong and very uniting reaction, which is now the thing which we must preserve.

Finally, I will just add that for the future, it is really important not to give the impression, especially in the international community, that we are the party of war. The war was started by Russia, everybody knows it. But it must be repeated and repeated that this invasion regime has violated all principles of international security, of the Charter of the United Nations.

And also that we, on our side, our nations, are ready at any point to support Ukraine, to reach a peaceful peace settlement, and to restore, at a point which obviously is not yet there. An order of security on the European continent, where we have our contribution, we have our ideas, and who are ready to give these ideas further.

 

>> Mark Sedwill: I think Philippe is absolutely right. I think, in a sense, the answer to the past and the answer to the future are quite similar. And we need to learn from why, as you said in the beginning, HR, we weren't able to deter this. And we weren't able to deter it partly because we didn't present a sufficiently robust and resilient united front against Russian and indeed other aggression in the past.

You can point at Iraq, you can point at the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But clearly Putin believed that we would not respond in the way that we did and that western countries would not stand together in the way that Philippe has just described. And indeed, he underestimated our ability to transition away from the dependence on Russian energy and so on.

He had assumed gave him a Trump card and I think Philippe has described that really well. Who knows exactly how this war will progress, but if it does stabilize at some point, whether there's a formal peace settlement or some kind of ceasefire with a line of control, whatever it is.

It's critically important we don't make the same mistakes again. That we really ensure that any pause is not an opportunity for Putin simply to regroup, hope our attention is diverted, particularly American attention, diverted, by the challenges in the Pacific and then go again at some point in the future.

And make sure that Ukraine is equipped with the capabilities that they will need, that Philippe described, that they will need in order to defend and therefore deter against further Russian aggression in the future. So that means really continuing to lean into Ukraine's social and economic reconstruction. But in particular to upgrade their defense capabilities with the kinds of weapons that they believe they need now to deal with the Russian aggression, but they will certainly need in the future to defend and deter against it again.

We've then just got to remain solid and as we did, as Philippe described. As we did over the use of chemical weapons in Syria back in 2018, as we saw after the Salisbury attack the same year, demonstrate that we won't be divided and that we will respond firmly to acts of aggression.

And that's the best way of deterring them, whether in the European hemisphere or indeed elsewhere in the world in the next decade or so.

>> Christoph Heusgen: I can only agree to what Mark said, not much to add, only to say that we are still, we are not there yet, I think Putin still believes he can win this war.

He still believes that Ukrainians at some stage will no longer sustain all the efforts. And he, of course, counts on Us Europeans, counts on the Americans to be affected soon by a Ukraine fatigue. And there, I think also, HR, it's very important that the signals from DeSantis and other Republicans that they don't get a majority in your country.

So we still have to fight to see that we can sustain the efforts. This also holds true for my country and we cannot actually count on Putin to be a real partner in the future to have the arrest warrant out. Some people who like realpolitik will hate it but I think that it's a very strong signal that this guy is an outcast, and we have given him so many opportunities in the past.

He all, he never took any of them to become a partner, but he chose the aggression. He chose confrontation and I think he has to pay the price for the millions of people that have been affected by this. So my concern is, do we have the power to the energy, the persistence to sustain the effort?

And this is what we have to do at some stage, indeed, as Mark said, we have to arm the Ukrainians. I wouldn't be against even then now getting NATO membership, but I don't see that we get probably common ground for this in NATO. So the alternative is to put them full of, full of weapons.

 

>> Mariangela Zappia: I completely agree with what the friends have said before. Maybe my point, and this is a point that maybe Christophe did at one moment in his reflection, is really how do we continue to get our public opinion behind us. And there is a role there for politics, for really our internal politics to play.

So what I think is that Putin thinks that time is in his plays, in his advantage. And so right now, the biggest challenge that I see is really how do we keep our public opinion behind us in what we are doing? How do we sustain the convictions that we have, that the condition for any negotiation have to be just, that the only peace that is possible is a just peace based on the UN charter principles.

How do we continue convincing our public opinion that the sacrifices that we have demanded in many different ways are so important? How basically Ukraine independence and sovereignty and rights to be a free democracy in the end are the same rights that we defend every day in our own democracies.

I think there is a big role to be played there. We are in a war of attrition, which means that the only way to. I think that the only choice that we have is to continue sustain Ukraine, not to lose the war of attrition but all these presents big challenges.

And also, I think we will see much more asymmetric threats. We will see attempt of destabilization of other countries, and I'm thinking of Moldova, for instance. We will see more cyberattack on our critical infrastructures, so we have to be prepared also for something that could come.

>> H.R. McMaster: The bulgarian election coming up as well, I would add.

 

>> Mariangela Zappia: Well, yes, I make a distinction there between a European Union country and maybe others that are less, how can I say that, have less means to defend their own democracies and I'm not doing a first class, second class sort of classification. It's just that the European Union provides a safer, if you want, framework.

So what I see is more challenge coming and how to keep our public opinions really behind the just policies that we are putting in place. And of course, I live in your country, HR, I see the debate every day, and every day it becomes more and more difficult precisely also in the perspective of the election, less than two years.

 

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, Mariangela and all of you, I really agree that this is a contest of wills, and maintaining our will is immensely important. And I think what Philippe began with is it's immensely important for us to really place blame where it belongs and knock down some of these narratives that somehow we failed to give Putin the security assurances that he needed that might have prevented the war.

Of course, he has aspirations that go far beyond anything in reaction to what we do, and I think we've seen that play out. I think the lessons that all of you have highlighted are immensely important, and they apply to another competition. That I think we're probably gonna have to almost end with cuz we're running out of time, which is the competition with China.

I think we learned, as all of us have been discussing, that really peace is best preserved through strength. Strength as really hard capability, but also the perception of will. And I believe that what Christophe, identified as the disaster in Afghanistan, other indicators of weakness on our part. I think maybe the stoplight coalition in Germany, the contested election in France, the trouble that Boris Johnson was.

These were all perceptions that Putin had, all the West, Europe, the United States, they're done, right? And, of course, Xi Jinping is now visiting Putin, and I think it's important to recall their meeting in Beijing just prior to the Olympics. Where they sort of declared Europe and the transatlantic relationship and the west broadly as over in this new era of international relations in which they were gonna be in charge, right?

And they voiced their concerns about so called color revolutions, but also made it clear that they were determined to create, I think a preponderance of power and influence in the world. Well, things maybe aren't going that well for them. I guess the question is, what more do we need to do to compete with what it seems are two revanchist powers on the Eurasian landmass who were determined to pursue their interests at our expense.

What have you seen in terms of the trajectory, in terms of European and American perceptions of the threat from China? And what are your ideas about how we can compete more effectively with what the European Union has now called a systemic rival in the form of the Chinese Communist Party?

 

>> Mark Sedwill: HR, I think just listening to you, it reminded me of a comment that Jens Stoltenberg made about China, this was a couple of years ago. Now when he said, well, NATO may not be in their hemisphere, but they're in ours. And the fact that in the modern era, that global security, the world economy, the global environment, we can't really talk sensibly about different theaters or different hemispheres anymore because most of these challenges are now global.

I agree with you, I think President Xi's visit to Moscow is essentially, it's really not about Russia and Ukraine. It's about the Chinese relationship with the United States and signaling to Washington that he is going to double down on his partnership with Russia for the reasons that we have discussed.

And actually, I think strategically what the United States has been doing in the past year or so is absolutely the right course, strengthening alliances not only in Europe, but in the Pacific. So we've seen Japan increasing their defence expenditure and Japan and India beginning to work more effectively together, new bases in the Philippines, the AUKUS agreement and so on.

And just gradually weaving together these alliances of like minded countries, not because we're seeking to encircle or contain China as they would suggest, but because those countries feel threatened by China's expansionist behavior, at least under this president. And so that kind of allied resilience building, that is a crucial part of how we must contest this.

As you also said, of course it's about will, but it's also about having faith in our own model. The G7 still represents over half the world economy. If you think of it as essentially being the two big continental economies, the United States and the European Union, plus the biggest independent advanced economies, Japan, the UK and Canada and in Australia and South Korea, very like minded nations, you're at half the world economies.

So if we can really work more effectively together, lower trade barriers between each other, not use national security provisions in trade and investment legislation against our allies. All of these kinds of things, and really work together and double down on our own model, then we can definitely prevail.

Because one dilemma China has not yet wrestled with, for all the extraordinary economic progress they've made, is if you prioritize control over growth, that is what you'll get. And it's quite clear right now that's what they're prioritizing. And therefore, we do have the opportunity to show that our model of democratic market systems is the right approach.

It worked for Ronald Reagan and the leaders of that era, and it'll work again in this era if we just have confidence in it. And by the way, it will help as well in our engagement with those other countries who are currently inclined to non alignment, to see that there's an opportunity to follow our model.

No one wants a green card for Beijing or Moscow, they want green cards for the United States and Europe, and we must remember that underlying attraction of our model.

>> Philippe Étienne: Well, I think that to answer your question, as Marx said, determination to act according to what we believe is the most important is really important, determination and unity.

And by determination, I mean not only the increase of our capacities to defend our interests, including militarily, what unfortunately we have to do what we are doing. But also the determination to handle our real dependencies and to increase the resilience of our technologies and our economies. But while we are doing this, and as the US is doing it, but also Europe, we have, and it is a second condition to do it in a coordinated way.

This is the whole discussion we had in Europe about the Inflation Reduction Act or the Chips and Science Act voted by the Congress last summer, which are really good legislations in terms of strategic goals. But the second condition is that we have to coordinate, in a way which does not impede us, our collective effort to be efficient.

And the third thing, and excuse me to come back to this is, again, and you said, HR, we don't ask the other countries to choose, and this is a really important point. I remember once visiting an African country in Eastern Africa with President Macron and the head of state said, you don't ask somebody to choose between eating an apple and eating an orange, I want to have both of them.

Okay, but as Mark said, we have to document to showcase the fact that what we propose is really both in terms of organizations of the multilateral system, but also in terms. I mean here is, fairness of this international system, the fact that every country has a voice, but also in terms of advantages, positive results.

For our intellectuals, we have to propose things which for African countries, for Pacific Island states, which meet their basic needs, and here things like biodiversity, climate, we didn't discuss those global challenges, they're really important. We have to be both engaging China and others, including China, but also to propose the solutions to other countries.

 

>> Mariangela Zappia: So China is this systemic challenge and is meant to stay there. So I think we, as the other said, we must address it through reinforcing our cooperation among allies. At the same time, we have to continue to engage Beijing in what I call dialogue. I don't know if it's the right word, but I think it is, we are still open to dialogue, right, as much as possible.

But why? In order to identify those incentives to collaborate and to preserve at the same time all the necessary guardrails where this systemic competition is going to happen, how. And in that respect, there are two things that I want to say, one, I think Philippe sort of referred to that when we talk about our security, our strategic security, we have to think in terms of our economic security.

And I think maybe we have to do a bigger effort to be much more coordinated also on that, because from that we have to be strong on the economic security of our, our like minded community. And the other thing, we have to be quick also. I have the impression sometimes that of course we have our principle and these are our guides, but at the same time, we need to be quick.

There are situations that are really calling for action right now, I'm thinking about Tunisia, for instance. And the country that is now the famous only Arab Spring successful, etc., etc. We have to be quick because this country is there in, and who's going to step in in our absence?

Others, that's clear to me. So this systemic competition, we have to play it in a way that is not a decoupling. I don't think we need to go in that direction. I think it would be extremely detrimental also to go in that direction. But we have to be strong, keep dialogue open, be very much more linked on the economic security of our countries and at the same time be quick in reacting to a crisis situation, not to be the second or the third or arrive too late when others are already there.

And I think if you look at Northern Africa, the Sahel, this is one of the things that we couldn't do HR altogether, understanding how big was the threat there that others were taking our space or the space that we didn't occupy. And right now I'm thinking of Russia and Wagner and terrorism.

And I come back to, I think, what Philippe was saying, the terrorist threat.

>> Christoph Heusgen: I agree with Mariangela, what she just said. I think we must not be naïve. Quite the contrary, we know that China wants a different world order and we just have to be, we must not be naïve about this.

On the other hand, it doesn't help if we are now, and this goes a bit into your direction, HR, if we are doubling down on China and upstaging Taiwan, visiting and supporting, etc., because this will only then lead to an escalation where nobody can win. So without any illusions about China, we still have to be careful in how we deal, we have to be practical.

And I think Tunisia is such an example. Why were we not able to actually support the country when they had their own president and somehow this was going in the right direction and now we see all the negative turns there. I don't know, mariage, if it's too late with regard to Tunisia, and we have to analyze this.

My conclusion on this is in these countries, when we engage, we have to do it much more forceful, with much more instruments at our disposal, just to give a few scholarships and give some consultants and do some exchange programs, offer a few jobs, it's not enough. We have to invest, they wanted to have a university there.

He said, well, we don't have the means and there's no need. Maybe if we had done that, really invested massively in the country, and this you can only do, and that would be my concluding mark a bit, turn to my own country. But maybe you have a similar situation in your countries.

We have to get the different actors that we have in our countries, Ministry for Development, Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Trade, Private Industry, big funds, pension funds, etc.. We have to combine that so that we can put big infrastructure projects in there, as the Chinese can do, where everything is decided by the Communist Party, basically.

So we have also to restructure maybe the way how we deal with these countries in Africa and other continents so that we can really, on substance, provide something that until now we cannot do.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well I think all of you made a really strong case for engagement. And in recognition that difficulties and challenges and problems that develop abroad can only be dealt with at an exorbitant cost once they reach our shores and hit home, as they had with the war in Ukraine.

I think you've all made a great case for peace through strength and really collective action, to share burdens and to be more effective across our alliances and with like minded partners. So I can't thank you enough, what I wanna do is do a quick speed round and go and ask each of you to just provide some closing thoughts to our viewers.

 

>> Mariangela Zappia: Well, interesting conversation. I think we didn't talk about many challenges, and when I think of food security, water, energy, climate change, migration, all these are huge challenges that are totally interrelated with the major crisis that we have addressed today. And in our work together in the past, I think we have to really focus much more on these big challenges, global.

And there, there is space, and I want to believe that we still have space for international cooperation. And this is my heart as previous Italian representative to the UN, I still believe in a global response to global challenges, and I really want to believe that this is still possible.

 

>> Mark Sedwill: Well, HR, thank you again for getting us together. It's been great to be with everyone in all too brief a conversation, and let's hope we can do it over dinner or in another more congenial way even than this. I agree with Mariangela. I think we have to remember that the really big challenges of the 21st century are the ones that she set out.

Those huge environmental, socioeconomic challenges. On that we mustn't just cooperate with ourselves. We must engage, including with China. We mustn't assume that a second Cold War in this century is inevitable. It is still possible to establish a stable relationship with China. To revive some of the concepts of the later Cold War, detente, peaceful coexistence and so on, which recognize that we have very severe differences and we can only navigate those through unity and strength.

But that there are areas on which we must cooperate, and in particular climate change and the other big environmental challenges. And we can then navigate our way safely through the 21st century, recognizing that there are some very big and important countries that have different and competing political systems to ours.

So, as Christophe said earlier, we shouldn't be seeking to decouple. There are some areas of our economies, of course, where we need to disentangle them, areas of tech and defense and so on, obviously those. But we mustn't decouple entirely, because in the end, we need to be able to work together.

And if we're unified among ourselves, then we can also present a unified front. And find areas in which we can cooperate with countries like China that otherwise will be competitors. And it's in navigating that very complex balance that's gonna be the challenge for diplomats in the next quarter of this 21st century.

 

>> Christoph Heusgen: I want to make a slightly different point. My analysis is that we are strong and we have to continue to cooperate, but it's not enough that we do it. I think that one of the tasks we have in our societies is that we make our countries, that we participate as people who belong to UK, France, Italy, US, Germany, that we also help to have our democracies function.

I think we have a challenge there in all of our countries. And we need to participate in making our co-citizens aware of what is happening around us, have our countries appreciate the freedoms that they enjoy, the needs to reform our countries. And what we need is that we have in our countries enough people ready to engage in public service, ready to engage in politics.

And to speak out and defend our domestic orders. Because if we are, as our societies of all countries, if we are not successful, if we don't resolve problems, we'll have more situations where it is that China and Russia and other authoritarian countries in this globe that will become more and more dominant and solve and be more important players in other continents.

So we also have to do our homework in our countries.

>> Philippe Étienne: Thank you so much, Ecza, for me gathering us. And I like this quint format, and I look forward to meeting in person, all of you, in in Washington or maybe in Stanford or wherever. I agree with everything which Mariangela, Mark and Christophe said.

In a very close cooperation among our nations, we must not underestimate our strengths, our collective strengths. But we must also understand this is a new world and our model will prevail, I am sure. But there are conditions for that. The first condition is what Christophe said, that we reinforce our own democracies and societies and economies.

But also the second important collective task should be, I think, to show to all nations in the world that we are facing some revisionist attempts. We're not the ones who want absolutely to keep everything as it is. On the contrary, we are ready together to improve the international system.

To give every nation more chances, not only for prosperity, but also and freedom, but also for securing its own sovereignty in terms of freedom of choice, for what every nation wants to do. So I think we have the best opportunities to do that if we are united and also if we, each of us, strong enough for doing this.

Thank you again for this opportunity.

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, Philippe, Mariangela, Christophe, Mark, thank you for helping us celebrate the 50th episode of Battlegrounds. But thanks especially for your friendship and your service to your nations, to our alliance, and really all humanity. On behalf of the Hoover Institution and our audience, thank you for helping us learn more about battlegrounds, important to building a future of peace and prosperity for generations to come.

It's wonderful to be back with you. Thank you so much.

>> Mark Sedwill: Thank you.

>> Philippe Étienne: Thank you.

>> Mariangela Zappia: Thank you.

>> Christoph Heusgen: Thank you.

>> Jenn Henry: Battlegrounds is a production of the Hoover Institution where we advance ideas that define a free society. For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.