HIGHLIGHTS: Jens Stoltenberg

0:00Hi, everybody. Welcome to this highlight episode of the podcast in good company. What we've decided to do is for people who are really in a hurry, we're going to clip down the episode to just be 10 minutes long. But probably what you'll see when you heard 10 minutes, you're going to want to hear the whole thing. Now, what we do, Wednesday, full episode. Fridays, the short episode. Tune in. Hi everyone, I'm thrilled to be here with Jens Stoltenberg, who just finished off as a secretary general in NATO. And before NATO, he was the prime minister of Norway. Warm welcome, Jens. Thank you so much for having me.

0:34So I'm having here, you know, a book which you wrote, which came out eight years ago, which basically covered the period until 10 years ago. And it's got a beautiful picture of you on the front here. But just what are the most important changes in the world since that book came out? the most important changes at least related to my task my responsibilities in nato is that the world has become more dangerous um the good that's the bad news the good news is that nato has become stronger to protect close to one billion people um of course there are many other changes but but but seen from a security perspective we have now a full-scale war in Europe.

1:24We have a new, very devastating conflict in the Middle East, risk of escalation. And we have significantly more global rivalry between great powers, the United States, China. And then we have cyber hybrid terrorist threats as a constant threat to our security. So fundamentally, we live in a more unpredictable, more dangerous world than we have done for decades. If we cover some of these points here, so how do you think the Ukraine situation will end? What's the most likely? Wars are by nature extremely unpredictable. So therefore, I will be very careful predicting how that will end. But of course, we all want this war to end.

2:11The challenge is that the quickest way to end the war is to lose a war. But that will not lead to peace. that will lead to occupation of Ukraine, and Ukraine will not be a sovereign, independent, democratic nation in Europe anymore. It will be a country controlled by Moscow. So if you want the war to end in a way where millions of Ukrainians still can live in a free democratic society, then we need to convince President Putin that he will not win on the battlefield, that he has to sit down and negotiate, agree a solution where Ukraine can still be a sovereign democratic nation. The fact that there are stronger and stronger links between the autocrats in the world, what are the implications for the Western world?

2:59That we have to be together when we see that the autocrats are more and more aligned. And then, of course, that's partly we, meaning partly NATO allies of 32 nations on the both sides of the Atlantic, but also with other countries, which at least don't want to be part of a kind of orthocratic alliance. And again, Ukraine is perhaps the clearest example. Russia is responsible for war aggression. The main providers of weapons and enablers of that war is North Korea, Iran, and China. and this is not rhetoric this is real and makes a difference on the battlefield and we also see how Russia and China are exercising more together also around Japan and in other parts of the world so this is really a global picture that makes it even more important of course need to allies stand together but also to work with partners all around the world including South Korea, Japan and many other countries there are some voices that want the eu to play a more important part in defense policy what is your view on that my view is that if it's done in the right way it's very good if it's done the wrong way it's very bad uh so what's the right way the right way is that eu should do more and they and and they have started to step up uh when it comes to for instance strengthening the defense industry meaning overcoming the fragmentation of the European defense industry, to increase defense spending, and to, in general, strengthen European defenses, meaning that that will also strengthen NATO.

4:53Good. Space. Yeah. You can cover a lot of issues. Well, the world is so complex, right? It is. What's going on in space from a warfare point of view? So first, I think what we see is that there's more and more weaponization of space. And what happens in space matters more and more for what's going on on the Earth. That's obvious for communications, GPS, cyber. fiber, and then of course targeting a lot of military operations in Ukraine are dependent on satellites in space, and any future conflict space will be important. What we also then see is that again, Russia and China are developing capabilities that can actually be used as offensive weapons, and this is a dangerous development.

5:52In a way, a bit related to that, AI, what are the issues surrounding that when it comes to warfare? Some people in America say that we should build AI into everything we do, into all the weapons, all the cars, everything, right, to beat the Chinese in this kind of fight. How do you see AI impacting warfare? I think what is obvious that AI has, and will even more so in the future, change the nature of warfare, perhaps as fundamental as the Industrial Revolution did. I think we see something similar now, a fundamental shift where we don't fully understand. But autonomous systems, facial recognition, drones, cyber attacks by using also AI has the potential of changing warfare so much that it's very hard to fully understand the full implications.

6:53We have already seen it on the battlefield in Ukraine. Yeah. It's not the secret that some of the drones and the surveillance systems that NATO operates also uses AI to process information. So this has already started, but we are only seeing the beginning of a fundamental change of the nature of warfare. You ran this country during the July attack, the terror attacks that we had. And, you know, through the Ukraine situation in NATO, So how does one lead during these dramatic situations? What's the key to Stoi Sissum? It's to remain calm in a way and to make sure that you sleep because it is important to be able to function.

7:45So I've seen some people in crisis exhausting themselves too early. How do you work with feelings? I'm a bit strange there because when the crisis are acute, I suppress them. I just keep them away. And in one way, I think that helps me dealing with feelings. Is it lonely? It is lonely, but perhaps less lonely than people believe. If there's anything I'm quite good at, it's to allow people to help me. talking about um people just how you at nato you've been dealing with um you know people who are perceived to have you know large uh egos i guess what's the key to reaching consensus with them and getting to agreement no i think it's about taking their concerns seriously um and to even if we disagree on many issues, they may actually also have relevant points and concerns.

8:51And without being too specific, of course, there have been a lot of attention of how did we manage four years of President Trump in the White House. And it's no secret that I disagree with him on trade or abortion or climate change. but in one way that was not core issues for NATO so what I focused on was what matters for NATO and actually on those issues we had a large degree of agreement his main message was that European allies had to invest more in the fans he conveyed that message in a way which was a bit not as different than many other political leaders But the core of that message was absolutely the same as President Obama had done before him or President Biden does now.

9:48And I took that concern seriously. And I think that helped. The same with President Erdogan. People asked me, how does that work? Well, he has expressed serious concerns about the fact that no other country, NATO other country, has suffered more terrorist attacks than Turkey. So take that seriously. So I think focus on the issues, that's the best way of addressing strong political leaders.