Murnaghan 23.03.14 Round table discussion with Lord Owen, Jock Stirrup & Mary Dejevsky

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

COLIN BRAZIER: Now the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has warned Russia it faces long term isolation and stagnation following its decision to claim Crimea from Ukraine.  It comes amid continuing tensions in Crimea where pro-Russian forces have seized control of more military sites, 189 at the last count.  Are we then on the brink of a new Cold War between Russia and the West?  It’s quite a question and I’m joined in the studio by Air Chief Marshall, John Stirrup.  His squadron played a key role in the air defence of Western Europe, that was some time ago now, he went on to become head of the RAF of course before taking charge of all Armed Forces as Chief of Defence Staff.  I’m also joined by the Independent’s Chief Editorial writer, Mary Dejevsky and Mary worked as a foreign correspondent during the Cold War with postings in Moscow and Eastern Europe and, technology permitting, joining us from Marlborough in Wiltshire, Lord Owen, who was Foreign Secretary in the late 70s, Lord Owen welcome to you too.  Let’s begin with you while our satellite signal holds, Lord Owen do you think we are on the verge of what amounts to a new Cold War?

LORD OWEN: No, I don’t, I think the Cold War was very different.  I mean we had nuclear missiles targeted on Soviet cities and on London, Washington and elsewhere, there was also no contact whatsoever really economically between Russia and the NATO countries, now you have a transformed economic situation where we are very closely interlinked in terms of industry, in terms of finance and banks and so if we were to run into real serious troubles over Ukraine it is much more likely to be reflected in the form of economic warfare than any form of military warfare. 

CB: Mary Dejevsky, it’s an important reality check isn’t it?  When you think back to the 70s, the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, if you lived in West Germany then – well if you lived in East Germany you were prepared to get shot to get to the West, no Germans import vast quantities of gas and export lots to Russia, it’s their biggest sole trading partner, times are different. 

MARY DEJEVSKY: Yes, times are very different and the mutual dependency means of course that anything we might enact might also come back to rebound on us so actually taking measures is that much harder to do.

CB: Jock Stirrup, in the 1970s were you in a Lightening? 

JOCK STIRRUP: No, I wasn’t, I was in Jaguars mostly but I agree with Lord Owen that if by Cold War you are talking about the sort of massive armed stand-off we saw across the German border, we’re not on the verge of repeating that but we are I think in a position where it’s clear that Russia is no longer a normal partner within Europe, that Russia is a threat to the security and safety of Europe and indeed to countries more widely because the actions it’s taken, the rationale it’s proposed could be seized upon by many other people around the world and international order would be almost at an end if that were to continue so what is critical is that although we can do nothing about Crimea in the short term, Russia cannot be allowed to get away with what it has done.  It has to be seen in the long term to suffer for this and what that requires is a strategic approach and what I’m pleased about is that more people are starting to talk about this, not just the short term tactical approach of sanctions, important though they may be, but a longer term strategic approach which as Lord Owen said, has to focus on economic issues, it has to focus on energy diversity but it also has to focus on revivifying NATO, making it stronger, making it more robust and more suited to the challenges ahead because although the situation may be very different from Germany in the 1980s, it probably doesn’t feel all that different if you are living in Poland or Lithuania or Latvia or Estonia. 

CB: Putin is not being inscrutable about this, is he Lord Owen, he is quite open, he says I don’t need nuclear weapons any more, I’ve got gas, I’ve got trade, he’s perfectly open about that and he knows which levers he can pull. 

LORD OWEN: Well it’s important to remember what is the crucial issue.  The crucial issue is the naval base in Sebastopol on the Crimea which has been really with the Russians for centuries and we have got to understand that.  You know, there is a naval base at Guantanamo in Cuba and it is held by the Americans to this day but also held through a very difficult controversial period with Castro and then when Russians put missiles there.  That is part of America’s sphere of influence, they’ve held Guantanamo but Guantanamo is part of Cuba, there is no change in the boundaries although jurisdiction and control is entirely American.  I would put Guantanamo on the table as negotiating issue to be discussed between the four Budapest signatories to the agreement in 1994 which is US, UK, Russia and the Ukraine and put those military conversations there and leave east Ukraine and the largely political problems to the European Union which has a good deal of experience in dealing with the three Baltic states who then came in to the European Union with large Russian populations, particularly Latvia.

CB: Lord Owen, I am just reading some Reuters wire copy, the news agency Reuters, saying that NATOs top military commander says the Russian force at Ukraine’s eastern border is quote ‘very, very sizeable and very, very ready’.  What do you consider the likelihood of any Russian military incursions into Eastern Ukraine?

LORD OWEN: Well it’s certainly a possibility and even you might say likely.  President Putin told the Russian parliament they had no interest in dividing Ukraine but they are threatening by their troop movements.  There’s some hope now that the OSC will put monitors in, it’s very urgent to deal with the East Ukraine, there are many Russians there, Russian speaking, Russian orientated.  They have got rights and they can be safeguarded but it has got to be within Ukraine.  Also I think we have got to focus our attention on trying to get more negotiations, there are lots of telephone conversations, lots of verbal assaults, now we’re having tit for tat sanctions.  What we actually need is the start of negotiations and I think that is really very urgent indeed.  I don’t like this distant diplomacy, it’s got to become upfront and real.  We’ve had conversations between Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister and Kerry, the US Secretary of State, that now needs to be taken into a more detailed round the table negotiations and it will probably take a long time. These territorial disputes where there are also issues of representation, the feeling that we are not giving enough view and emphasis to the views of the people, these take time but they can achieve results and I believe they will do if we’re careful, persistent and patient. 

CB: Mary Dejevsky, do we run the risk of exaggerating the apparent yearning of the Russian diaspora in places like Eastern Ukraine and elsewhere to be reunited with Russia?  I say that having reported from Donetsk a couple of weeks ago, chronicling demonstrations in Lenin Square which actually totally in the city of a million people probably fewer than 5000 people on a daily basis, there wasn’t this mass outpouring of a desire to be reunited with Russia.

MARY DEJEVSKY: I think there are two different things here.  I think that Crimea really was a separate case, that people in Crimea very much felt that they were Russia and from Russia there was this huge nostalgia for Crimea.  If they had been asked which bit of the Soviet Union do you most regret losing, then Crimea would have be it.  I don't think there is the same emotion about Eastern Ukraine.  The other thing about Eastern Ukraine is that ever since independence, all the polls in Ukraine have shown that all Ukrainians within Ukraine’s border actually support independence so I think the problem is, the slight change that might happen is if the Russian speakers of Eastern Ukraine felt themselves threatened then they might see Russia as their saviour and then we’re in really complicated territory.

CB: Jock Stirrup, we’re seeing change here aren’t we, there’s a sense in which Berlin is coming to the party diplomatically, Angela Merkel exerting considerable influence at least behind the scenes and also in terms of, you talked about the importance of NATO getting its act together again and showing it is prepared to take action or to talk tough at the very least, we’ve seen differences of opinion, quite deep differences of opinion within the EU, Germany and Italy set against some of the Eastern European countries but particularly between the EU and the United States. 

JOCK STIRRUP:  Yes, because each has its own interests many of which are tied up in Russia and that’s why we need a strategic approach.  These are difficult issues and some of the short term sanctions are going to present different difficulties to each country and we need to work through that but in the longer term we need to get past that, we need to get to the point where the EU, instead of just talking about energy diversification is really doing it, is really putting itself in a strong economic position.  One of the things that concerns me is that people are starting to talk about the eastern parts of Ukraine as if, well if Russia doesn’t do anything else well that’s okay but it isn’t okay.  We may not be able to reverse the situation in Crimea but if we do not …

CB:     We don’t have to accept it. 

JOCK STIRRUP: Exactly, if we do not respond, if we do not make it clear that this is unacceptable in the international arena and that Russia suffers as a consequence, then we could be in very serious trouble internationally.  So we have to have a long term approach to that which makes the position of the international community absolutely clear and results in action which in turn results in Russia suffering consequences because of what it’s done in Ukraine. 

CB: Lord Owen, isn’t it the truth, the blunt truth, the essential arithmetic, as you say back in the 1970s when nuclear missiles, Russian missiles, Soviet missiles were targeting British cities people gave a damn and now that’s rather less true so for instance Lord Dannatt today, former Chief of Defence Staff, suggesting that there needs to be certainly no further reductions to the size of the British army, that message is more receptively received when there is a genuine threat but people don’t see Vladimir Putin as a threat in the of those old terrifying Soviet leaders. 

CB: And I think public opinion is correct in that.  I’ve done business in Russia now for 19 years, initially with tremendous optimism, we thought we were going to get really very close.  There has definitely been a distancing over the last seven or eight years and I regret that but I do believe in the long term it is going to be through business, through contract, through arrangement and trading that we will come closer but Russia is already much, much closer.  I mean look at the contacts between German industry and Russia, it’s extraordinary.  It’s not just pipelines, it’s commercial life.  Now I believe myself that Europe has to stand very clear on this, make it very clear to the Russians that because there are Russian speakers and Russian sympathisers in Baltic states it gives them no rights whatsoever in those countries and NATO did make confidence building deployments to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and rightly so, but the main issue is not to go back to Cold War rhetoric and try and turn back history.  Explain to the Russian people, not just President Putin, that we want friendship and we want serious relations but they cannot just tear up international law, ignore the UN charter and we do not yet accept, and I certainly do not accept, that Crimea is part of the Russian Federation.  It may be looking like a fait accompli but there are negotiations on that issue and remember, in the Security Council China actually abstained and it surprised many people.  China also around the world has a strong vested interest in maintaining existing boundaries and that they cannot be changed by use of force but only by using the UN Charter.

CB: Mary Dejevsky, very briefly, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel is reported as saying he has lost touch with reality.  Is he still that shrewd Kremlinologist, former KGB spy, all the rest of it or is there something going on in the mind of Vladimir Putin we ought to be worried about?

MARY DEJEVSKY: No, I don't think he’s lost touch with reality, I just think his view of reality is rather different from the way it looks from our perspective.  

CB: Mary, thank you very much indeed.  Jock Stirrup and Lord Owen in Wiltshire joining us today, thank you all very much indeed.