Interview

with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the sixth edition of the Financial Times’s Global Boardroom event

  • 07 Dec. 2022 -
  • |
  • Last updated: 07 Dec. 2022 12:51

(As delivered)

Roula Khalaf:
Hello everyone and welcome to the sixth edition of The Global Boardroom. I feel as if I say this every time we hold a Global Boardroom, that we're living in dangerous times with multiple crises. But I think the world is getting even more complicated. With war, recession, inflation, energy crisis, climate emergency. In a few minutes, I'll be speaking to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on how the war in Ukraine – now in its 10th month  – has upended the international order. Two weeks ago, I witnessed first-hand, the consequences of the new phase of the war and that is the war to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. Kyiv was dark, very dark and cold with no water for 24 hours. But people went about their daily lives, hardly even reacting to the sirens warning them of incoming missile strikes. Although much of the power network was hit during the strikes, Ukrainians picked up the pieces and fixed the network within a day. Ukrainians have surprised us with their resilience and their ability to defend their country and they keep surprising us every day.
Throughout this events, there’ll be different sessions dealing with Ukraine. Our Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, Gideon Rachman, has been following the conflict closely and is moderating and excellent panel on the geopolitics. It'll be broadcast later today. But we'll take you beyond Europe as well, we're holding The Global Boardroom just a few weeks after the National People's Congress in Beijing approved a third term for President Xi Jinping and only days after unprecedented protests against the draconian COVID restrictions. Our expert panel tomorrow will analyse what Xi’s third term might bring. Geopolitical tensions are, of course, a key factor in the global economic crisis. With inflation in Western economies reaching levels not seen for decades, though it does appear to have peaked. Martin Wolf, our Chief Economic Commentator will tell us in two separate panels how policy makers in advanced and emerging economies should respond. Here, in the UK, we’re back to economic sanity. But along with that comes austerity and recession. The Chancellor will be joining us on Friday for a live interview with our political editor George Parker. The Global Boardroom also comes just a short time after the close of the COP27 in Egypt. Later today, we will review the latest COP and ask whether these meetings have lost their purpose. Climate and energy security are big themes on all three days of the event with discussions on Joe Biden’s seven hundred billion dollar tax and climate bill, Europe’s energy security dilemma, Australia’s clean energy transition and much more. I hope you enjoy this Global Boardroom and thank you for joining us.
Now let’s get started. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, welcome.

NATO Secretary General:
Thank you so much for having me, Roula. Great to see you again.

Roula Khalaf:
Very happy to have you amongst us. I’ll dive right into it. As I was saying in my introduction, I was in Kyiv a couple of weeks ago and I was really struck by the confidence of Ukrainians. Not only their resilience. But their confidence. They now speak of winning the war next year and recapturing all of the territory. Not even just the territory occupied since February 24. So let me ask you: Do you think that next year we will see a return to the February 24 lines, at least?

NATO Secretary General:
First of all, we need to understand that wars are really hard to predict. NATO was very precise in predicting the invasion. We actually disclosed, shared intelligence more than … more than one year ago, last fall. Many months before the invasion, saying exactly was actually going to happen. That Russia was planning, preparing a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine. So when the invasion happened, we were well prepared, we activated our defence plans and we deployed tens of thousands of more troops in the eastern part of the Alliance. And we started to provide even more support to Ukraine. What we see now is Russia is actually trying to have some kind of ‘freeze’ of this war at least for a short period of time to they can regroup, repair, recover. And then try to launch a bigger offensive next spring. So what we do, we support Ukraine in their right for self-defence. Ukraine is defensing their own country and NATO Allies and partners are providing unprecedented support to those efforts by the Ukrainians.

Roula Khalaf:
This ‘freeze’ is what the Ukrainians are most worried about. Because they think that what will eventually happen, the longer this freeze lasts, the more fatigue there will be in the West. Do you worry about that as well?

NATO Secretary General:
I think we need to understand that President Putin made two big strategic mistakes when he decided to invade Ukraine. The first was to totally underestimate the Ukrainians, the bravery and the courage of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ukrainian people and also the Ukrainian political leadership with President Zelenskyy. But he also underestimated the strength of NATO Allies and partners in our commitment to stand by Ukraine, to support Ukraine.
NATO Allies have supported Ukraine for many years, especially since 2014. Especially Allies like the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, have trained the Ukrainian Armed Forces so they were much bigger, much stronger, much better equipped now, in February 2022, than when Russia invaded the first time in 2014. So what we have demonstrated over the years and especially since the invasion, is that Allies are ready to support Ukraine, because they realise that if Putin wins, it will be a tragedy for Ukrainians, but it will also be extremely serious for all of us. It will make NATO Allies more vulnerable and the world more dangerous and therefore we cannot allow President Putin to win.

Roula Khalaf:
So let me ask you this. Should NATO members… Given the state of the conflict right now, should NATO members be willing to give the kind of offensive weapons like tanks and advanced fighter jets that will allow Ukrainian forces to break this freeze and not to give any advantage to the Russians?

NATO Secretary General:
NATO Allies have and are providing an unprecedented level of military support to Ukraine, also with modern systems. Allies have provided armoured vehicles, also battle tanks, advanced air defence systems and a wide range of different weapons. But I cannot go into the specific systems we are now considering. We are always considering to add more systems. But I think that as important as adding new systems is to ensure that the systems, the weapons, we have already delivered are actually operational, are working in an effective way – meaning that they need a vast amount of ammunition, spare parts and also maintenance.
So for instance, we have advanced HIMARS systems, we have advanced air defence systems like the NASAMS, or the Crotale and the RST from Germany. So yes, we are considering constantly what kind of systems we should deliver. But it's extremely important to ensure that the systems which are already there are operational with the ammunition, spare parts and all the support they need.

Roula Khalaf:
You would have definitely noticed and probably you're studying what happened only yesterday when drones were used to attack a Russian military base. Can you tell us much about these drones? Did you know that Ukrainians were making these drones?

NATO Secretary General:
I have no more information about those specific incidents. But what I can say is that what we see is that Ukraine is defending themselves. And we need to understand this in the wider context. We see daily attacks by Russia on Ukrainian cities, on critical infrastructure. So what Russia tries to do is to weaponise winter, to deprive civilian Ukrainians of water, of electricity, of heating, when they're now going into winter. And this is a brutal kind of warfare that actually affects all civilians. And it shows the brutality of the Russian invasion. And of course, Ukraine has the right to defend itself against these kinds of attacks.

Roula Khalaf:
We're hearing more noises about the need to enter, to launch, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. It's something that makes Ukrainians very nervous. It's not clear what Russia's position is. Do you think it is time for negotiations?

NATO Secretary General:
It has to be Ukraine that decides when and the conditions for negotiations. And of course, they are also concerned about these attempts by Russia to try to have a kind of short break or a short freeze of the conflict so Russia can recover their troops, regroup and then launch a bigger offensive later on because now Ukraine has the momentum.
Most wars, and most likely also this war, will end at the negotiating table. But we know that what happens around that table is absolutely dependent on the situation on the battlefield. So if you want an outcome of those negotiations, which ensures that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation, we need to provide military support to Ukraine. And the only lasting peace has to be a just peace. If the aggressor wins, that will not give us a lasting peace. So the paradox is that the more we want a peaceful negotiated solution ensuring that Ukraine prevails, the more urgent it is that we provide military support for Ukraine to create the conditions for a just, lasting peace in Ukraine.

Roula Khalaf: What I'm hearing from you is that the conditions are not there yet.

NATO Secretary General:
The conditions are not there now because Russia has shown no sign of engaging in negotiations which are respecting the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And again, it's not for NATO, it's not for Brussels to decide. It's for the Ukrainians to decide when the time is right to start to negotiate and to agree the conditions.
This is about a sovereign, independent, democratic nation which is defending itself against a war of aggression. And of course, they have the right to defend themselves. We support them. The right of self defence is enshrined in the UN treaty. And that's also the reason why we support them.

Roula Khalaf:
From what we hear there are qualms in some capitals today about the idea of Ukraine retaking the Crimean peninsula by force, because that could potentially push Moscow to nuclear escalation. Do you share these concerns?

NATO Secretary General:
Again, we need to understand what this is. This is a war of aggression. Russia has illegally annexed, invaded, another country, Ukraine. And we are supporting Ukraine. At some stage this war will most likely end at the negotiating table. But the likelihood of any acceptable outcome increases with our support to Ukraine, it's absolutely linked on what happens on the battlefield.
Then what we have seen, this nuclear rhetoric from Russia, from the Russian side, especially earlier this fall, is reckless, is dangerous. And Russia must know that any use of nuclear weapons would totally change the character, the nature, of the conflict and a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.

Roula Khalaf:
How do you think NATO members can deter Russia from nuclear escalation? Do you think, you know, a few weeks ago when there was a lot of talk about the use of tactical nuclear weapons, was that a bit exaggerated?

NATO Secretary General: I think what we saw, more some weeks ago than now, was a lot of rhetoric from Moscow, from President Putin, that increased concerns among NATO Allies and others about the potential use of these weapons. We have seen less of that recently. But we remain vigilant, we monitor closely what Russia is doing.
And we send the very clear… and Allies have sent a very clear message to Russia that it will have severe consequences for Russia, and also of course that a nuclear war must never be fought.

Roula Khalaf:
What have you learned about Vladimir Putin over the past year and do you think he can survive losing this war?

NATO Secretary General:
So what we have learned is his willingness to use brutal force to achieve his political goals. And that's exactly why it is important that he doesn't win, because if President Putin wins in Ukraine, it will also end with the outcome that an independent sovereign nation in Europe has been attacked by another nation and the aggressor wins. That will also send a very bad message to authoritarian leaders all over the world and also to President Putin, that when they use force, when they violate international law and when they invade another country, they can achieve what they want.
And that will embolden them to use even more force and to do it again. So that's the reason why it is in our security interest to ensure that President Putin doesn’t win, because what we have learned is that he has a willingness to use force to achieve goals; many people hoped that was not the case but we have seen the opposite now.

Roula Khalaf:
Do you think that NATO can have a peaceful relationship with Russia if Mr. Putin remains in power, assuming there is a conclusion to this war?

NATO Secretary General:
I think what we need to realise is that NATO for decades strived for a constructive and better relationship with Russia, for a meaningful dialogue. Actually, just weeks before the invasion, we made written proposals on how to engage with Russia to try to prevent the war, to address some of the concerns they raised. But President Putin decided to just go ahead with his invasion regardless of our attempts to find a political solution. So we need to realise that when this war ends, it doesn't mean that we go back to some kind of good or normal relationship with Russia.
We need to be prepared for a difficult relationship with Russia for a long time, meaning that we need to invest in our defence, we need to continue to strengthen NATO’s collective deterrence and defence to ensure that the conflict in Ukraine doesn't escalate to become a full-fledged war between NATO and Russia. And of course, we cannot go back and be dependent on Russian gas. These are the long term consequences that will be there also after the war has ended.

Roula Khalaf:
President Macron, as you would have heard earlier, last week, spoke of a security architecture. Is there work underway on some kind of post Ukraine war security architecture and what would that involve?

NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg:
I think we have to do this now in the right order. First of all, President Putin started a war of aggression, and he can end this war tomorrow. Second, our main responsibility, the urgent task, is to support Ukraine to defend themselves and to create the conditions for a negotiated solution that ensures that Ukraine prevails as an independent sovereign nation in Ukraine. That has to be the basis for any negotiated solution. And again, it has to be Ukraine that decides what are acceptable conditions for them and need to try it for many years. And even as, as I said, just weeks before the invasion we were trying to engage with Russia, to engage in issues like arms control, and transparency, risk reduction and other issues that we need to work on.
We of course, after the end of the war, we need to continue to have a relationship with Russia, meaning that we need to have military lines of communications, we need to engage in arms control. But I think that this war has demonstrated the importance of having strong collective defence. NATO's increased military presence in eastern part of the Alliance with battlegroups, with high readiness, with more defence spending. And this is something that we have done actually since 2014, we were not surprised. The war didn't start in 20 … in February this year, it started in 2014. But we need to do more of this to ensure that there is no room for miscalculation or misunderstanding in Moscow about NATO’ s readiness to protect or defend all Allies. By doing that we are not provoking conflict, but we are preventing conflict, preserving peace.

Roula Khalaf:
Just going back a little bit to the past. Do you think that a lot of governments misunderstood Putin and his and his intention?

NATO Secretary General:
I think it's very difficult to speculate about that. What that welcome, is that is especially since 2014, all NATO Allies realised that we live in a more dangerous world. So after the end of the Cold War, NATO Allies reduced defence spending, reduced the number of soldiers we had in in Europe. After 2014 we have implemented the biggest reinforcement to our collective defence since the end of the Cold War. For the first time in our history we have a battle groups in the eastern part of the Alliance. We have tens of thousands of troops under NATO command backed by significant air and naval power and we also made important decisions now in June to further strengthen our deterrence and defence. And the good thing is, that since 2014, all NATO Allies have invested more in defence.
So I think all this reflects that while there may be different assessments, different analysis in different capitals, that's natural, we are 30 Allies, but what we have done together is to demonstrate the will to actually do more. And the paradox is that President Putin is getting exactly the opposite of what he wanted. He went to war to get less NATO. What he has seen is more NATO. More NATO military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance, more NATO membership, Finland and Sweden are joining NATO as a direct consequence of Russia’s brutal war and Finland in NATO means that we are doubling the border with Russia. So President Putin made big mistakes, strategic mistakes, when he invaded Ukraine, and that is also reflected in the fact that he's actually getting more NATO plus NATO supporters.

Roula Khalaf:
Let me ask you a question that a lot of people ask me, which is that we've all been celebrating obviously the unity of the West and of NATO since February.
When you compare that to the pull-out from Afghanistan to even the military interventions in Libya and Syria. The question is, why did it take an invasion on the European continent to bring about such unity?

NATO Secretary General:
But I don't agree with that analysis. Because what we have seen is that yes, there are differences between NATO Allies and there have always been differences among NATO Allies going back to the Suez Crisis in 1956. Or the Iraq war in 2003. There have been disagreements or differences between NATO Allies, but we have always been able to unite around our core task to protect and defend each other.
You're right, that after in the Cold War, we've built down our military presence in Europe because we all hoped for and believed in a more peaceful world and more peaceful Europe and we strived for a more constructive relationship with Russia. But since 2014, we have seen an enormous change in NATO. And this has been reflected both in what we do on the ground, with the weapons systems, but also establishing new military domains, cyber space and investing in high-end new advanced weapons systems to protect ourselves and therefore also when the invasion happened in February, we were well prepared. We activated defence plans that gave more authority to our Supreme Allied Commander SACEUR, we deployed additional troops, we doubled the number of battle groups in the eastern part of the Alliance. So the thing that in a way that we were surprised and now ….  this was a wake up call? Well, we have been very much awake for many years, and that has been reflected in the big transformation of NATO since 2014.

Roula Khalaf:
There's been another wake up call this year. And that's on China.
Can NATO find that same unity when it comes to China, given the very vast differences between the US and say, Germany, on China's threat to Western economies?

NATO Secretary General:
Yes, and we have been able to do that, too. So you're right, that previously China was not on the NATO agenda at all. The first time we addressed China as NATO Alliance was back in 2019. But in our new Strategic Concept, which we agreed in June this year, we actually address China extensively in agreed terms. In our most important document, the Strategic Concept, where we say clearly that China is not an adversary, we need to continue to engage with China. I recently met with the Chinese foreign minister, we need to engage with them on issues like climate change and many other … arms control.
But at the same time, we need to take into account that the rise of China might destroy our security. They are investing heavily in new modern new tech capabilities. They're cracking down on democratic rights as we saw in Hong Kong, the minorities in China, but you also see their coercive behaviour against neighbours. And then China is coming closer to us.
And I think that one of the lessons we have learned from the war in Ukraine is that it's dangerous to be too depend on authoritarian regimes for essential commodities like Russian gas. Of course, we don’t the same mistake I made too dependent on critical commodities coming from China.

Roula Khalaf:
You mentioned Finland and Sweden and you have publicly stated that it would be a quick process of membership, and it hasn't really been quick.
Has NATO's credibility been damaged by Türkiye and Hungary's decision not to yet ratify membership?

NATO Secretary General:
So far this has been the quickest accession process in NATO’s modern history, we have to remember that Finland and Sweden applied for membership in May, and then in June, all NATO Allies, also Türkiye invited Finland and Sweden to become members. All NATO Allies signed the accession protocols.
And so far 28 out of 30 Allies have ratified the protocols in the national parliaments and this is by NATO standards very quick, I agree that two Allies have not ratified. Hungary has promised to do it early next year. I visited Türkiye a few weeks ago, and I'm confident that also Türkiye will ratify and I think the time has come for all Allies to finalise the ratification process.

Roula Khalaf:
And Jens, my last question is about you. Your term was extended earlier this year for another 12 months to next September, I believe.
Some people are saying that you are open to another extension given the ongoing war in Ukraine. Some countries are also apparently open to that. Would you contemplate staying on or are you committed to stepping down next year?

NATO Secretary General:
I have no other plans than to focus on my work until the end of September next year. And that's the only plan I have. I'm absolutely certain that they will be able to find a good successor following me.

Roula Khalaf:
Okay. thanks so much for being with us. This has been a great conversation.