Radek Sikorski Unleashed

>> Andrew Roberts: Radek Sikorski has been Foreign Minister of Poland since 2023, having previously held that office from 2007 to 2014. Radek, you were a war correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph covering wars and the National Review covering wars such as the mujahideen in fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the civil war in Angola and so on.

How does the Russia Ukrainian war compare to those?

>> Radek Sikorski: It's much more violent, of course. There is, I think over a million people involved over a front line stretching across more than a thousand kilometers. And there are already a million victims after two and a half years of the war on both sides dead and wounded.

In Afghanistan, the Soviet army suffered, they say, 13,000 losses over 10 years, but of course they killed about a million Afghans through area bombing. So no, the Ukraine war is a full scale war with some periods losses being comparable to that of World War I. Small towns taken or lost with the loss of 20, 30,000 troops.

That compares with World War I. Remember, Verdin was a million people, but it was over several months.

>> Andrew Roberts: And how do you think it's going at the moment? What's the latest?

>> Radek Sikorski: Wars are never linear, they go through phases. So last year Ukraine was regaining some of the territory it had lost and it regained about 50% of what it had lost.

This year Russia has been on the offensive at a huge cost in material and men. What is clear is that Ukraine has won the Battle of the Black Sea, which is remarkable given that Ukraine has no navy and the exports of grain and other foodstuffs from Ukraine through the Bosphorus to international markets are back to pre war levels.

>> Andrew Roberts: And are you at all concerned by this news about the brigade being sent by North Korea to fight in the Kursk region?

>> Radek Sikorski: It can only make a local impact because as I said, there are hundreds of thousands of troops involved on both sides. And it's calculated that Russia would need half a million troops to really go on the offensive to reach the Dnieper river, for example.

What I'm more worried about is what Russia is giving North Korea in return for this boost. There are things that Russia has that North Korea doesn't like missile technology, and I'm told the technology to launch ballistic missiles from submarines. And North Korea is a proliferator. So this is potentially a dangerous development.

>> Andrew Roberts: And you've met Sergey Lavrov and obviously, you spend a lot of time together delving into the mind of Vladimir Mayor Putin. What do you think they are planning to give North Korea? Both of those things, would you?

>> Radek Sikorski: That I cannot guess but Putin is a confirmation of a British saying that after eight years every Prime Minister goes mad.

The man has been in charge for over 20 years, and people do go mad. They imagine themselves to be world historical figures and instead of looking after the well-being of their countrymen, they start fighting for their place in history. And Putin has done it in a really anachronistic, primitive way by trying to conquer a neighboring country.

I hope this is Europe's last colonial war and it certainly hasn't gone to plan.

>> Andrew Roberts: When the war came down, I met you actually first, shortly after the war came down. I think even before that you were in the forefront of the freedom struggle and you discovered, and then you published the Soviet plans for using nuclear bombs in the Cold War in Europe.

How do you feel about Putin's repeated threats to use them if things go badly in Ukraine?

>> Radek Sikorski: To be precise, when I was Poland's Defense Minister, I declassified and published in 2006 the Polish part of a major Warsaw Pact exercise from the 1970s which envisaged using nukes from day one against the west, but interestingly not against France and Britain.

>> Andrew Roberts: That makes sense.

>> Radek Sikorski: I think those maps are the best advertisement for the nuclear deterrent that there is. And you can look at the exact facsimiles which I gave to the Glienicke Bridge Museum in West Berlin.

>> Andrew Roberts: And what modern sort of parallels do you think there might be for them?

>> Radek Sikorski: Well, first of all, remember there are two types of nukes, the intercontinental strategic nukes and the battlefield weapons, which is nukes put on delivery mechanisms of up to 500 kilometers in range. And the other difference between them is that they have a different decision making procedure. So the intercontinental stuff has to be on very short notice because it is a revenge weapon for an attack on homeland, whether in Britain or France or the United States or Russia or China.

So only the head of state usually has a very brief time to use them. Whereas tactical nukes are used and the chain of command goes through the normal defense Ministry and normal chain of command. And they are stored in central depots and we would have at least a week's notice if Russia were trying to deploy them to the battlefield.

And I don't believe the Russians will use them for the following reasons. Number one, China and India have read them the Riot Act. China knows that if a nuke was used that her neighbors would cross the threshold and they can, Korea and Japan, and that wouldn't be good for China.

Secondly, these weapons are actually quite difficult to use on the battlefield because they destroy, I am told, an area of about five square kilometers each, so one brigade at most. So actually, you would need to use many of them to have an effect. In order to use them, your own troops would have to be protected from radiation or you would have to move them back from the area of the strike.

The Russians don't have the hazmat suits, and the Ukrainians could just follow them. Nuclear weapons are terrible weapons when the targets are high value, dense targets. But out in the field, they wouldn't immediately settle the war. And also remember that in Europe winds blow from west to east and Russia happens to be east of Ukraine.

So for all these reasons, with perhaps one more, if President Putin were to give such an order, his generals that would be tasked with carrying it out would know that carrying out the order would make them heavy duty war criminals. And at that point, they would have to decide whether to become that or to terminate the order giving with extreme prejudice.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, so just giving the order could rebound very dangerously on Putin himself.

>> Radek Sikorski: I mean, we are theorizing, but in theory, yes.

>> Andrew Roberts: And the $300 billion of Russian frozen assets that are presently held in Euroclear, in Brussels, and elsewhere. There's been a great battle, a great debate on whether or not the interest from them can be used, which it looks like it is being now.

But what about the capital itself? What do you think should happen to that?

>> Radek Sikorski: We know what will happen to that. The G7 group has already issued a statement some months ago that Russia will not see this money until she pays reparations to Ukraine. And the reparations are of course going to be much bigger than the money you've mentioned.

So Russia is not seeing this money ever.

>> Andrew Roberts: In that case, why can't it be given to Ukraine?

>> Radek Sikorski: Good question, I'm in favor. Once you set up a loan based on the capital, you've deprived the owner of access to the money for at least the term of the loan, which is a long one.

But I think this still gives us options, if any ties, the existing arrangements. The American package plus this loan secured on the frozen Russian assets, I think secures supplies to Ukraine for the next year.

>> Andrew Roberts: Now you've announced a plan or an aspiration for Poland to spend up to 5% of its GDP on defense, which is a fantastic figure.

And it would make you, I think you're already the largest spender per capita on defense, aren't you, in NATO? But a lot of other NATO countries are frankly freeloading with some of the countries as little as 1.8% being spent. And I know Britain isn't doing terribly well at 2.3% either, how do we get these countries to spend more in a world that is obviously becoming more dangerous?

>> Radek Sikorski: Well, 3 to 4% was the norm during the Cold War. We then went into consuming the peace dividend precisely this, but we've always had a two track policy towards Russia. We tried to engage with Russia, when Russia declared that she wanted a partnership and cooperation agreement with the European Union, we backed that.

We had also something of a thaw in bilateral relations until about 2010. But all along we had a super law that guaranteed our military 2%, and in the last few years we raised it to 3%. This year it's 4.3%, next year it's 4.7%. And we will spend whatever it takes not to become a Russian colony again.

We have a saying in Poland, every country has an army, either your own or a foreign one. We have learned many times in the past that your own comes cheaper in the medium term.

>> Andrew Roberts: Well, and you've got a force of a quarter of a million men. I mean, it's a fantastic army, not just in terms of size obviously, but in quantity.

>> Radek Sikorski: We're the second army of the EU at the moment and we are investing in it further. By the way, Napoleon the Great, I think put it somewhat differently that a country that skims on feeding its army is fated to feed a foreign one.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yes, yes, he had a good line on that.

Tell us about Belarus. It's a country that we don't for some reason read too much about, you've obviously got a long border with it. You once wrote a book about the axis of evil and the aspects that Belarus plays in that. Tell us about the way it behaves on the Polish border.

And essentially, a lot of our listeners are American, and they're far away from Belarus, but it's a key player, isn't it? What's the story there?

>> Radek Sikorski: A country of about 10 million, for some centuries part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, but part of the Soviet Union and recently dominated by Russia in the military and security sphere, completely dominated by Russia.

It tries to keep some aspects of independence. So it didn't formally join the war against Ukraine, but it allowed its territory to be used by the Russians to attack Kiev. So that makes Belarus an aggressor. Very repressive, hundreds if not thousands of political prisoners, stolen presidential election. And now a partner with Russia in this hybrid operation against the EU, which consists in bringing migrants from the Middle east, from Africa, including criminals from Syrian jails.

Taking them to Moscow, busing them to Belarus, training them how to harm a Polish border guard and then trying to literally push them into the EU. Taking advantage of the fact that the old Soviet era border installations had been dismantled. We are now building border installations and we are going to implement a finish style law which will suspend the right to lodge an asylum claim on our side of the border, in the border area for limited periods of time.

Vulnerable groups will still be able to do it but these testosterone men forcing their way in will still be able to lodge an asylum claim in the Polish Consulate in Minsk, on Moscow, but not across our border. So we're trying to keep the spirit of the Geneva Convention.

And by the way, I'm a former beneficiary, having received a political asylum in Britain, for which I'm eternally grateful. But circumstances have changed. The Geneva Convention was devised at a time when the communist bloc was preventing people from leaving. And therefore the fact that a refugee crossed the border illegally was immaterial.

And we're also talking about dozens of people, not hundreds of thousands. When circumstances change, the law has to adapt. And we are determined to protect the perimeter of the Schengen Zone because for us, the freedom to travel all across Europe without visas, without passports, is a very important benefit of membership in the European Union.

>> Andrew Roberts: They seem to have just ripped up the rules. They're behaving, I'm talking about Russia as well as Belarus in all sorts of areas, as though they just don't care. Is that a fair analysis?

>> Radek Sikorski: Absolutely, and it started years ago when they would put dissident names into the database of Interpol, for example, or when Belarus had a specific operation against us 15 years ago already.

They used the channel of prosecution to prosecution collaboration to get data on bank accounts held by Belarusian dissidents in Poland. This is our weakness when faced with autocracies that we devise conventions and measures to defend ourselves against bad actors. And some states are just bad actors. And so let me just mention to you that last week I took a decision to close down one of Russia's consulates in Poland because they do in Poland what they do in Britain.

Which is to say they recruit idiots on telegram, pay them small amounts of money to set fire to places which is hostile behavior, which in other eras could start a war. And they're doing it all over Europe. And I just thought I would send a strong signal that we will not tolerate it by expelling some of their diplomats.

>> Andrew Roberts: Well done. Let's talk about another autocracy, China, which has been essentially bullying Lithuania recently. How are Polish-Chinese relations? And what's the best way of dealing with this sort of new axis between China and Russia?

>> Radek Sikorski: Well, we do sympathize with Lithuania while at the same time holding a one China policy, like almost everybody else.

Our attitudes towards China are more complicated than attitudes towards Russia because China has never occupied us. In fact, China has never done anything bad to Poland. I mean they are a communist dictatorship, and in that sense, we sympathize with people who are persecuted. But we have this only one neighbor between Poland and China, and there is actually more history to this than most people know.

So in Poland, people believe that in 1956, Mao Zedong intervened with Khrushchev not to do to Poland what they did to Hungary. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but this is widely believed in Poland.

>> Andrew Roberts: Okay.

>> Radek Sikorski: And what is certainly true is that before Nixon went to China, the Americans and the Chinese held hundreds of secret meetings in Warsaw.

>> Andrew Roberts: Really, interesting. I didn't know that. Staying on the subject of autocracies, Iran, another bad actor in the world, was attacked earlier this morning by Israel. What is Poland's stance on the dangers of escalating Middle Eastern war?

>> Radek Sikorski: Well, the Iranian theocracy is the last of the 20th century ideological dictatorships, Utopias in power after communism and fascism.

And Iran affects Poland's security by supplying drones to Russia that hit Ukraine. And the strikes on Ukraine affect us because their purpose is to cause another wave of refugees. And similar drones attack Israel. We have diplomatic relations with Iran, but we fundamentally disagree with Iran's aggressive policy. I don't yet have full information on the latest strike, but it appears that Israel didn't attack Iran's nuclear facilities or even oil terminals.

So there's been a measure of restraint, which is a good thing.

>> Andrew Roberts: There are strong political and cultural links with Hungary that Poland's enjoyed for a long time. But Viktor Orban is the most pro Putin of the Western leaders. How does that work out with regard to Poland?

>> Radek Sikorski: You're right. Hungarian kings and princes have been kings of Poland and vice versa. And there was an outpouring of support for Hungary when they got invaded by the Soviets when they tried to leave the Warsaw Pact. And therefore, I am amazed that my old friend Viktor Orban now says that Ukraine provoked Russia by even thinking about NATO membership.

And remember, when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Ukraine was a neutral country by constitutionally. So it's a bit rich to accuse Ukraine of provoking Russia I think. Victor now calls us names just yesterday, called us the puppet of Brussels. We don't answer, but I don't recognize the man.

He studied for a year at Pembroke College, Oxford, my college, on a Soros scholarship. And now he specializes in denouncing all things Soros. I listened to and read his great speech. He launched himself into politics in 1988, I think, making a powerful speech on the reburial of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Imre Nagy, who was killed by the Soviets.

So I thought, here's a fellow liberal in the broad sense, anti-communist. And now he is a Putin understander, as the Germans say-

>> Radek Sikorski: Which is a pity.

>> Andrew Roberts: Putin curious, Putin adjacent. Those are those kind of ways of putting it, I suppose. Moving to Moldova, the pro-Western president, Maya Sandhu, only just got back by the skin of her teeth, didn't she?

After a real campaign of undermining the referendum-

>> Radek Sikorski: Speaking of the referendum, she got, I think, 43% in the first round of the presidential, which is quite good. But the referendum only just got through.

>> Andrew Roberts: Absolutely, sorry, it was a referendum, yeah.

>> Radek Sikorski: Of a massive Russian onslaught.

I mean, a real information war and massive bribery. And this should not be allowed. It was first tried in Poland in 2014, then during your Brexit referendum, then against Hillary Clinton in the United States. These are-

>> Andrew Roberts: What can be done about it, Radek? I mean, ultimately what-

>> Radek Sikorski: I think we should regulate social media.

>> Andrew Roberts: Really? Really you go that far, yeah.

>> Radek Sikorski: Well, the shape of the algorithms make us angry at one another. They contribute to the nasty temper of public debate, and they are also affecting our ability to concentrate and the brains of our children.

When something is bad for society, it should be regulated.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, exactly. At some schools, especially in Australia, are taking away these phones altogether from children up to certain ages.

>> Radek Sikorski: That's one thing, but why is the business model of these companies sacrosanct? When subliminal advertising was estimated to be bad for consumers, it was banned. We can ban things that are bad for us.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, yeah. No, I agree, I think it's a great idea. The Law and Justice Party that was in power before you came in did a good deal of damage to Polish institutions and Poland's good name around the world.

How has the rebuilding of those institutions gone since you beat them in the elections?

>> Radek Sikorski: Well, they started by designating some judges as enemies of the people.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, yeah. It's not a good start, is it?

>> Radek Sikorski: But they went much further than in Britain because they were in charge for eight years.

I think the way we won against the very high odds, just to illustrate, because people might not know. So the chief of our election campaign had Pegasus software loaded and everything he said and everything he wrote was under surveillance.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yes, from the Polish intelligence services. And so were you, weren't you?

>> Radek Sikorski: I had an Android phone. And on Android, you can't prove. On an iPhone you can. So I don't know, but my lawyer was.

>> Andrew Roberts: That's interesting.

>> Radek Sikorski: And so dozens of journalists, lawyers, trade unions, opposition figures of all sorts were under total surveillance. And it's not eavesdropping, it's total sucking in of your life from your phone and therefore from your computer, including your passwords and including the ability to put stuff on your phone.

>> Andrew Roberts: Really? Really?

>> Radek Sikorski: Yeah, this is really sinister.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah. Yeah.

>> Radek Sikorski: The buying up of private media by state oil company sounds familiar. The kind of militarization of the prosecution service, packing the courts from the Constitutional court down to smaller courts. Really nasty propaganda on state media and so on.

So there was almost a sort of full conveyor belt, and people were given this treatment. So first you have a leak on state media, then they arrest you at 6 AM, then they put you before a judge who is sympathetic to the government, and you can be got rid of.

We are undoing it, and massive corruption. So hundreds of millions of euros converted, transferred to far right causes, foundations, and so on.

>> Andrew Roberts: Are you able to claw any of that back?

>> Radek Sikorski: It's difficult because some of these contracts, the intent was undemocratic, but the contract is professionally signed.

And what do you do then? So it's very hard, which is what Orban did in Hungary. He lost power for one term, and then thanks to the money that he had parked away, he regained it and he's been in charge ever since. And it's actually, remember what Putin did?

Putin got back into power in Russia, thanks to money left at secret bank accounts by the old KGB.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, actually we had Bill Browder on the Show recently and he was fantastic, talking about how they managed to sort cash away in vast amounts all over the world, essentially.

So you first came into government in 1992? I mean, that's over 30 years ago now. You've had-

>> Radek Sikorski: I was a pre-pubescent Deputy Defense Minister.

>> Andrew Roberts: You were Deputy Defense Minister. You've been in the Foreign Service before. You're now Foreign Secretary. It's been quite a long career already.

Even though you're only three weeks, sorry, five weeks younger than me. I noticed just now. What would you say, how has politics changed since the days when you came in very, very soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

>> Radek Sikorski: It changed more in the last 15 years because of social media.

So 15 years ago we had perfectly civil relations with our rivals. So until ten years ago, for example, at the European Parliament, the MEPs of the various Polish parties would once a month go and have dinner together.

>> Andrew Roberts: Right.

>> Radek Sikorski: Unthinkable now. And that's not good.

>> Andrew Roberts: No, of course it isn't.

Bipartisanship is dying all over the world at the moment, isn't it? Especially of course, famously in America. I mean, obviously, as foreign minister of Poland, you're not about to say anything about the Americans right now. But nonetheless, it's worth asking the obvious question, would you be concerned for poor old President Zelensky if the Americans started to cut the support that they're giving?

>> Radek Sikorski: As I mentioned to you before, I think Ukraine is fine from next year and I think by 2026, Russia will start running out of resources. I think what we in Europe should be aware of is that whoever wins, Europe will have to rely more and more on itself in the defense field because on that, that the rival number one is China.

There is actually consensus in Washington, as you know. And so we are racing against time. We should be getting serious about the European pillar of NATO, European EU defense, because as you know, these systems and strategies take years to make operational. So we are behind the curve.

>> Andrew Roberts: What's your book that you're reading, your history book or biography at the moment?

Have you got something on the bedside table that is non-fiction?

>> Radek Sikorski: I'm reading a book called How Tyrants Fall. And there are many good things in it. But I'll say one thing, it claims after research, that if you can bring 3.5% of the population of your country, then the regime will be powerless to put you down.

Then the regime falls.

>> Andrew Roberts: Sorry, if you do what to 3.5%?

>> Radek Sikorski: If 3.5% of the population go into the streets-

>> Andrew Roberts: Right, that's the level, is it, 3.5%?

>> Radek Sikorski: Yeah.

>> Andrew Roberts: Okay.

>> Radek Sikorski: Yes.

>> Andrew Roberts: Unfortunately, with Russia having 144 million people, that is a hell of a lot of people you're gonna need on the streets of Moscow.

>> Radek Sikorski: Sure, but I'm thinking of Georgia, which is voting today. And there are many other situations, of course.

>> Andrew Roberts: Was that written by Frank Decotter or did he do the other dictators book?

>> Radek Sikorski: I'm forgetting the name of the author right now.

>> Andrew Roberts: Not to worry. Not to worry.

No, no, well, great name for a title, that. And what about your favorite what if of history, your counterfactual?

>> Radek Sikorski: I have many such, but perhaps you will be most interested in the what if on Munich. If Munich hadn't happened and World War II started over Czechoslovakia, it would have been different for the following reasons.

Number one, the Soviet Union was not yet an ally of Nazi Germany, which is a really important factor.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, it was the exact opposite, really. I mean, Stalin was very, very worried about the Nazis at that stage.

>> Radek Sikorski: Yeah, number two, the Czech army was well equipped and the Czech borderlands were actually quite well fortified.

So the Wehrmacht, which if you remember needed to tank up on the way to Vienna, would not have scored an easy victory. And in fact, German rearmament after Munich proceeded faster than-

>> Andrew Roberts: Much faster. No, no, no, it outstripped anywhere else in the world, yeah.

>> Radek Sikorski: So we should have fought Hitler at the time of Munich, not later.

>> Andrew Roberts: And the third possibility, of course, is that the German generals might have overthrown Hitler in 1938 in a way that, of course, they weren't going to after the victory over Poland in 1939, yeah.

>> Radek Sikorski: The missing factor was that the British public was not yet ready for the war.

>> Andrew Roberts: British public, the British government, the British Empire, the Dominions didn't want it. But mainly of course also the French. They absolutely had no plans to do anything at all on that front. And so, ultimately, Germany would have won that struggle. But as you say, lots of other things would have happened.

Do you mind that Poland grabbed Tessen in that period?

>> Radek Sikorski: It was one of the stupidest ever decisions in Polish foreign policy.

>> Andrew Roberts: I don't think it would have happened if Piłsudski had still been around here.

>> Radek Sikorski: The other counterfactual that, perhaps, you don't know about is from that period.

So, we know that Hitler actually wanted to attack France, and his offer to Poland, an extraterritorial road through the Polish territory that leads-

>> Andrew Roberts: The Danzig Corridor, as it was called.

>> Radek Sikorski: And the ceding of Gdańsk, that was actually his test of our intentions. That was also a German mistake, because if you want an alliance with someone, you don't demand of them to make territorial changes, concessions.

But let's say that Poland had conceded, Hitler would then have attacked France, France would have had to fight, and that would have been Poland's opportunity to knife Hitler in the back and give him a two-front war from the start.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yes, with Russia not being involved on either side.

What's the reputation of Colonel Beck in Poland today?

>> Radek Sikorski: He was a good patriot. He fought with Pusudski in the Austrian army and the Polish legions attached to the Polish army. He was a confidant of Pusudsky. Unfortunately, he was chief of staff in his coup of 1926. And well, the truth of the matter is that on the one hand, his policy led to Poland's annihilation, but on the other hand, he caused the World War as a result of which Poland was resurrected.

So Chechen apart because that was just foolish, but also for understandable reasons. Yeah, if you want to know, Chechen was the first bit of Poland to declare for free Poland back in 1918, was grabbed by the Czechs by force. There is always history, but still it was a mistake.

And he ended a sad death in interment in Romania in '44.

>> Andrew Roberts: Last question, another what if one, 1926. Are you with Piłsudski with his coup or not?

>> Radek Sikorski: No, 500 people were killed in that coup. And he ran a kind of statist regime with his old pals from the legions.

They were not known for competence, particularly. And then they mismanaged things when he died in 1935. Another what if, what if Piłsudski had lived the same length of life as his opposite number in Finland and as a similar kind of figure, Marshal Mannerheim?

>> Andrew Roberts: Yes, I see him as a Polish Mannerheim, and Mannerheim as a kind of Finnish Piłsudski very much, absolutely.

>> Radek Sikorski: So, Mannerheim was able to navigate between Germany and Russia rather skillfully. And so Finland got Finlandized, but Finlandization meant internal democracy and integration with the west, just military neutrality, which, of course, for Poland would have been a good outcome in '45.

>> Andrew Roberts: Typically, I allow my guests to have one what if and you've just come up with five.

That's classic, Radek. Radek Sikorski, present foreign minister of Poland since 2023, having previously held that office from 2007 to 2014. Thanks so much for coming on Secrets of Statecraft.

>> Radek Sikorski: My pleasure.

>> Andrew Roberts: Thank you, Radek. On my next Secrets of Statecraft, my guest will be General Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Commander of US Central Command, and Supreme Allied Commander.

>> Presenter: This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we generate and promote ideas advancing freedom. For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts, or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.