179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend

14:17Alastair Campbell:And I would not be here, was it not, for Putin's and Russia's War of Aggression in Ukraine.

14:22Rory Stewart:Mr. President, your book, could you provide a little overview? Let's begin with the global West, the East and the South.

14:29Alastair Campbell:Yeah. So the name of the book is The Triangle of Power, Rebalancing the New World Order. And the starting point is to say what everyone is now saying, that the world order is changing. And I think this is the 1918, 1945 or 1989 moment of our generation. And we can get it wrong, as they did after World War I. The League of Nations wasn't strong enough. And And after two decades, World War II broke out. We can get it more or less right, as our leaders did in 1945 with the creation of the United Nations and four decades of virtual peace during the Cold War, tight situations, but nevertheless, so institutional control.

15:07Alastair Campbell:Or then we can be intellectually lazy as we were after the Cold War when we made an assumption that history ended and it would all be about green fields and rainbows and peace signs and liberal democracy and social market economy and globalization. And my argument is that the moment that it all changed was the 24th of February 2022 when Russia attacked Ukraine. And then, of course, this has all been accelerated by the new US administration. And the rebalancing of a new order will take, I'd say, another five years before we're there.

15:41Rory Stewart:One of the jokes you can imagine was to say, this is a wonderful book, which put five years in, but the global South and the global East are doing fine. It's the global West that's the problem now. Yeah. And just to explain to readers, the global West is a construct that includes Europe, UK, Canada, Japan, South Korea, but also unfortunately includes the United States, which is a big challenge.

16:00Alastair Campbell:Yeah. So the framework of the triangle is to say that the global West, formerly led by the United States, supported the old liberal international order. So basically multilateralism, the UN, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank.

16:14Alexander Stubb:When you just said formally.

16:16Alastair Campbell:I think the jury is out. And if you look at the national security strategy, which I'm happy to talk about, it obviously rejects that order. And if we just listen to Marco Rubio's speech, He says the order is still there, but we're going to transform, which is, I think, good news. Then you have the global east, which is led by China, followed by Russia, which is more into multipolarity. So it doesn't necessarily want to pull the sovereignty that we've done during the 80 years of the liberal world order. And essentially the global south, which I know is unfair to lump 125 countries, many of the middle powers into one, they will be the ones who decide the direction of the order.

16:55Alastair Campbell:And my argument then is for the global West, if you want to maintain the remnants of the order, you need to reach out to the global South. You need to use values-based realism and dignified foreign policy. I think that's what China is doing quite well right now.

17:08Alexander Stubb:And as soon as you say, you say 1918, 1945, 1989, and you said the turning point now was 2022. You think it was that rather than Trump term term?

17:17Alastair Campbell:Oh yeah, certainly that, because you have a member of the permanent member of the UN Security Council violating everything that the UN stands for, and basically trying to destroy the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of a neighboring country. Now, I'm not saying that American foreign policy in Iraq has been spotless, or that the international order has always been pitch perfect, but this is one of the largest violations that we've seen.

17:44Rory Stewart:And Mr. President, why that not 2014? I mean, looking back, the Russian invasion of Crimea, and indeed invasions of Georgia and other things seem to be very very similar to what's going on and maybe we were actually you know 10 years too late to notice what was going on well I was

18:01Alastair Campbell:intimately involved in mediating peace in Georgia because I was foreign minister and chairman of the OSC organization for security and cooperation in Europe and we were able to get a ceasefire in five days and then of course you know President Sarkozy was involved after that I gave a speech which was called 080808 because the war started on the 8th of August 2008. And I made a claim that this could be the end of the old order because Russia is showing its imperial DNA again. It's using aggression. Got quite a lot of pushback saying, hey, young man, don't push it. This is going too far. 2014, I think there's an argument there that we should have woken up, smelt the coffee, but we didn't.

18:44Alastair Campbell:We still felt that the end of history is upon us. If we just continue to cooperate with Russia, they're going to fall into place and become a normal state.

18:51Rory Stewart:And the idea was that after 2014, that that would be the end of it. Putin wouldn't want anything more.

18:55Alastair Campbell:And of course, it wasn't because he believes in Roskimir, Great Russia, which is one Russia, one language, one religion, and one leader himself. But the difference from 2014 and 2022 is the scale of the invasion because i think in 2014 he only went for crimea and then donetsk and luhansk now in 2022 he tried to go for kiev and thought that he'd do it in 72 days and here we are four years later it has been a strategic and military disaster for putin the coverage of the book was essentially

19:25Alexander Stubb:about the triangle good marketing get the title and then that's the big argument of the book global west global east global south but i was really struck by this line power today scattered kaleidoscope style into a dizzying array of ever-changing shapes and combinations in 1990 the u.s appeared to command the globe now small command centers appear everywhere which makes it hard to contain countries diverging interests or connect them to the common good is that right isn't it isn't the the change actually that the really big powers are in charge of all of these connections and that's the world that xi jinping wants that's the world that Trump wants and that's the world that Putin thinks he can create and you think actually he's already failing in doing so.

20:07Alexander Stubb:But I just wondered what you meant by that. Is that sort of small and is that a Mark Carney vision of the world?

20:12Alastair Campbell:No, I think Mark Carney and I, we of course speak a lot and you know, we talk about the changing world order. The difference that Mark and I have is that he talks about a rupture or destruction of the old order. And I talk about transition because I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. I sometimes wonder, should I have called it the rectangle of power? Because if the US wants to take the Western Hemisphere, let's call it the global West, and then call the traditional global West, Europe, Japan, Korea, we call it the global North. But triangle of power is what it is. I think there are two pillars that are in this sort of fight, which are linked to your question.

20:49Alastair Campbell:One is the multipolar one with Xi Jinping, probably with President Trump, with Putin. They talk in terms of transactions and deals and spheres of interest. So it's a little bit of concert of powers of the 19th century. And then another group which talks the language of multilateralism, so international institutions, rules, and norms, and cooperation. And yes, the big ones will always do what they want, and we small ones do what we can. But what we can do is to try to convince the middle powers, here's where Carney comes in, to support multilateralism. When I was at the G20, not because Finland is in the G20 with G30, but I was there in Johannesburg, I detected that 18 out of the 20 Gs all supported multilateralism.

21:35Alastair Campbell:Why? Because they feel that if that's not the case, the big ones will rule. President Stoep, Rory, quick break in the back for more.

21:47Mr.

21:47Rory Stewart:President, China, tell us about it. because the US, China, and Russia seem to have very different relationships to this rectangle power. We have different dependencies on these different countries. They have different views about expansion. Some of them may want to reincorporate one bit of territory. Some of them may want to actually topple other people's governments through invasions. How would you describe China's perspective on the world and what you think they would want to achieve over the next 2030 years in the worst case and the best case.

22:17Alastair Campbell:Yeah, I think China is a very patient and a very strategic power. I've had the opportunity to have long conversations with President Xi Jinping three

22:26Rory Stewart:times. Including one of your best jokes of all time as you stood on the thing and you said, here we are together, we represent, what is it, 1.4 billion people.

22:34Alastair Campbell:I think I stole it from the Luxemburgers. So the bottom line there is that it's a very strategic power. And it, of course, looks at a century of history just as a page in the history book. And it is trying to become the superpower of the world and is the second superpower of the world right now. And it does it through different types of programs like the Belt and Road Initiative or Great China 2025, whatever there is. And they're actually quite good at reaching their targets. their approach is much more patient, for instance, in comparison to Russia, which is an expansive imperialist power, declining power.

23:14Alastair Campbell:I mean, we forget that the size of the Russian economy in 1990 was the same with China, and now China is 10 times bigger. And they're also declining power in the sense that they live on the acquisition of land, which is a little bit old-fashioned, whereas China is doing more the economic and trade and manufacturing and artificial intelligence side. Then, of course, we have the United States, which is still a very strong superpower, will continue to be so. I never want to compare these three, and especially when it comes to sovereignty and territorial integrity, but there have been claims on Greenland, which breaks the old order.

23:51Alastair Campbell:There might be claims of Taiwan, which will break the order. And of course, there have been claims on Ukraine. So we are kind of in a transition period right now,

24:01Alexander Stubb:and the question is how we get it back we've just recorded a mini series on the podcast about war in

24:07Alastair Campbell:the arctic i listened to the 18 minutes but i didn't sign up yet oh you're not a member i'm not a member yet come on but i i i bought i bought the book and i'll have to become a member okay

24:17Alexander Stubb:and obviously and i talked in the thing about the map and there of course you're there we're big you're right huge and the author of that book and thank you for listening to the 19 minutes actually that we gave free to Norman. It was really good.

24:29Alastair Campbell:I recommend every listener to listen to it.

24:32Alexander Stubb:Just give us your perspective on that, because I get the feeling that it's one of those debates that we just haven't been having. And yet now, here we are talking about, is this the sort of place that the next big global confrontation could be sparked? What's your answer to that?

24:47Alastair Campbell:Okay, so in 2009, when I was foreign minister, we actually did the first Finnish Arctic strategy. And the take is very similar, actually, to the discussion that you had in the podcast, that it's really about three things, security, economy, and climate. And they're all sort of intermixed in many different ways. Now, there's a strong focus on that. Now, there used to be something called the Arctic Council. It still exists, but that one had eight countries in it, including Russia. And of course, now, the Arctic Council is not working. So we're talking more about the Arctic Seven, which would then include the five Nordics, the US, and Canada.

25:24Alastair Campbell:For us as an Arctic country, we're happy that the focus is on the Arctic because we have Arctic know-how, we live in Arctic conditions. And actually, if you look at life in the Arctic Circle, the most sort of focused part of it is Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Now, of course, the Arctic has been up there because of Greenland. And we want to stress that Greenland is very important, but when it comes to Arctic security, it happens somewhere else, and that is basically in the north of Finland, Sweden. and Norway because, of course, Russia has strong nuclear presence up there in that region. There are a couple of things that I've been a bit dismayed about.

26:05Alastair Campbell:When someone says that we don't project power in the Arctic, I say, okay, Finland has obligatory military service, so we have trained 1 million men and women to fight in Arctic conditions. We have 62 F-18s. We just bought 64 F-35s. We have long-range missiles, air, land, and sea. We have the largest artillery in Europe together with Poland. And our whole defense composure is based on an Arctic defense. So if someone wants to come and learn about how to defend yourself in the Arctic, then you're welcome. And you're now in NATO. We are now in NATO. Was that part of your return to politics? It was very much a part of my return to politics because as you might know, I was always an advocate of Finnish NATO membership when it wasn't popular.

26:54Alastair Campbell:It took quite a few hits on it. 20 % of the population was in favor of NATO, 50 against and 30 undecided. So when we had these conversations at home with my wife who is now dual national, born in the UK and now British and Finnish, and we sort of had this conversation that, you know, should we do it again? She was kind of the one pushing and saying, listen, we're now in NATO. This is really good for the alliance. Why don't you go ahead?

27:24Rory Stewart:Tell me about how we're going to build your order. We're here in Munich. And what strikes me is that the attempts to try to do the sort of things that you and in a different way, Mark Carney are talking about, are continually being torpedoed. So the European Union and Britain have been unable to actually come together to do their defense agreement. It all collapsed. I don't know, political will or civil servants, whatever. France is unable to sign up to the EU's deal with Mercosur. So every time there is a real test on how we're going to create new trading relationships, new defense relationships to balance, it goes wrong because of national politics.

28:04Alastair Campbell:Well, yes and no. I mean, first of all, we have to understand that the European Union or Europe is not a utopia. It's not a single entity. And I always sort of jerk around and say that Europe advances in three stages. First, there is a crisis. Then there's chaos. And finally, there's a suboptimal solution. And that's pretty much, you know, what we're all about.

28:23Alexander Stubb:That's not a great rally in crisis.

28:25Alastair Campbell:I know, I know. What do you want? Suboptimal solution?

28:27Alexander Stubb:I want a suboptimal solution.

28:30Alastair Campbell:Yeah, big on political speeches. But I mean, you know, I look at the silver lining. So after 2016, of course, when the UK unfortunately left the European Union or actually only in 2023, we have been trying to work out, okay, how can we bring the UK closer to Europe? And I think COVID, I think Russia's attack on Ukraine, I think energy, now the transatlantic partnership. I don't even make a distinction anymore between, you know, meeting the UK prime minister or the French president. For me, they are the same. They're part of the big security umbrella. Then, you know, sometimes we get things right.

29:08Alastair Campbell:Mercosur will go through, but there has been strong rejection to it, which I fundamentally disagree with. And then on the defense thing, I mean, we have to understand that, you know, European defense without UK presence is much weaker. So we just have to work through these differences and bring the UK closer again.

29:26Rory Stewart:What's going wrong, though? I mean, what the defense thing is such a litmus test i don't it's it's so difficult to understand it

29:32Alastair Campbell:well that's money that's money right uh and here i think there's a little bit of you know some member states have eu envy about defense industries etc i will not name france so so there's a little bit a little bit of that and it's understandable but i think for me as coming from one of the largest militaries with a very vibrant defense industry i i would like to see the UK closer and let's work on this within the NATO framework.

30:00Alexander Stubb:And Keir Starmer's speech today is very much trying to point in that direction. One of the other proposals you make in the book is one that Rory and I have talked about this and we completely agree, but it's how do you get to it? Yeah, I know. And that is?

30:16Alastair Campbell:The UN Security Council.

30:17Alexander Stubb:Yeah. How do you reform the United Nations Security Council when it's built with this inbuilt veto of the five big powers,

30:22Alastair Campbell:Yeah, I knew you Brits would ask that. So you probably want to give your seat to Finland. Was that not?

30:29Alexander Stubb:I would move towards possibly making it the European Union, I've got to say.

30:33Alastair Campbell:Yeah.

30:34Alexander Stubb:I've got to say.

30:34Alastair Campbell:So, okay, the proposal in the book, you know, it's one which I made in my UN speech in September as well, and the previous September, is to double. So to say that the UN Security Council is dysfunctional, because its basic function is to maintain peace and do peace mediation, but it's not succeeded in doing that. and maintaining the international order and the rules and the norms. So what do we need to do? We need to double the membership from 5 to 10 because it symbolizes the world which existed post-World War II and in the early 70s. And get rid of the veto. And get rid of the veto. And if you double the membership, you should take one from Latin America, two from Africa, and two from Asia, and then Europe should rethink, you know, France, the UK, Germany, EU, how we do that.

31:18Alastair Campbell:I'm a little bit agnostic to how Europe organizes it, but I would assume that the rest of the world is looking and saying, why does Europe with Russia have four seats in the UN Security Council? So, you know, it's a complicated mix. How do we get there? We get there by starting the conversation. Then you have different ways of doing it. You know, can we be in a situation where the General Assembly votes in a different way with the UN Security Council? Who rules over whom? So we just have to look at this more openly. And my argument is that the global South needs to have agency because that reflects the world that we live in.

31:53Rory Stewart:Mr. President, part of the reason, I guess, why these powers were given vetoes is just to reflect the raw facts. I mean, particularly if you look at the big ones, let's talk US-China. It's very, very difficult to imagine a world in which US and China are against something even if they don't have a formal veto. and the rest of the world is able to provide real protection, particularly if it's another one of the big powers that's doing the attack. So the system, League of Nations, UN, I guess, is about protecting small countries against big and trying to create a back page to do this. But if US and China and Russia, for whatever reasons, want to flex their muscles, nobody can really stand up to them even together, or it feels as though they can't.

32:34Alastair Campbell:That is true. But then, you know, you might as well be speaking of a Hobbesian, dog-eats-dog type of a world where the big do what they want and we small kind of what we can. And I think the whole idea of global governance is that you end up pooling sovereignty in issues where you really need to cooperate. Trying to solve conflicts is one example. I mean, that is the core of the business of the United Nations. Fighting climate change is another example. And you try to find compromises when you're dealing with this global governance. But of course, I fully understand that when you have nuclear powers like Russia like China, like the United States.

33:13Alastair Campbell:If they want to go the full mile, they can go the full mile.

33:16Rory Stewart:And in a sense, no amount of architecture, no amount of new design of multilateralism can compensate if the three big powers don't want to play ball. If they don't want to be multilateral, it's not going to work.

33:27Alastair Campbell:Yes, but if we go to a microcosm or a smaller example, which is the European Union, what happened after World War II? Three big states and three small states decided to pull sovereignty and create the European coal and steel community and then the European Economic Community after that, which now has 27, soon 30, perhaps 35 members. And they're pooling sovereignty on issues that are very close to national control, like trade or competition, and have a currency, etc., etc. So, you know, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think the UN is still there.

34:02Alexander Stubb:Given you very kindly plugged our mini-series and the book on which it was based. Final plug to your book. So we talked not long ago to Moses Naim, Venezuelan former minister and big thinker, and he talks about populism being driven on three Cs, crime, corruption, and cruelty. You have three very different Cs at the heart of your kind of conclusion, and that is competition, conflict, and cooperation. How do they fit within this new world order that you want us to try to navigate?

34:34Alastair Campbell:Okay, so the starting point is that the world is essentially competitive, whether it's about geopolitics, geoeconomics, technology, whatnot. But that competition without rules can easily spill over into conflict. And we're seeing now an increase in conflicts, both local and regional, and we're trying to prevent a global one. And what is the solution for this world of competition, conflict? It is cooperation. And And that's where we need to find the common rules in international institutions. And I think that's what we need to work at. We just need to revamp them and reform them and get the world back on track.

35:10Rory Stewart:You're an extraordinary example of how the president of a small, medium-sized country is having outsized influence. What lessons can countries like Britain take from this when they might feel they no longer have the raw economic and military power in terms of playing a useful role in shaping the world because we can often feel powerless.

35:32Alexander Stubb:Sorry, Rourke, can I just say as your political guide, if you're still a politician, you're basically saying UK is the new Finland.

35:40Alastair Campbell:Is that what you're saying? The happiest country in the world. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. No, I mean, I actually think that empires, some empires in this world have been able to transition to become middle powers. And then the United Kingdom is the greatest example thereof. with your colonial past, with your Commonwealth past, to be able to find the position that you have in the world right now, I think is extraordinary. There are other countries that have not been able to deal with their past, and I think Russia is a good example thereof. They have not been able to cope with the past of the Soviet Union or Stalinism.

36:14Alastair Campbell:Germany has been able to cope with their past. So in that sense, I would give kudos to the United kingdom and continue to do what you do and please come back to the European Union at one stage. And if I may finish off with this to the British audience to say that I hope we're seeing a sequence whereby it took you seven years to negotiate yourselves out of the European Union. It'll take you seven years to regret it and then seven years to negotiate yourself back in there. We need you back. And maybe that's the point at which the UK can lead the debate about reform of the United

36:45Alexander Stubb:Nations Security Council. Why not? Exactly.

36:48Rory Stewart:Thank you very much. Thanks for your time. My pleasure.

36:50Alexander Stubb:Thank you.

36:53Alexander Stubb:OK, Rory. So Alexander Stubb, my God, he's in good shape.

36:58Rory Stewart:He's in great shape, isn't he? I mean, you know, as we go down the path of athlete leaders, we didn't explore completely this extraordinary fact that Stubb's angle, which has brought him to incredible prominence, is that he's a really, really good golf player, as well as being really good at ice hockey.

37:16Alexander Stubb:Well, he wants to be professional at some point.

37:17Rory Stewart:And he can spend nine hours on the golf course with Donald Trump. And you get a lot of conversation done, nine hours with President Trump. He's not quite as open, perhaps, as our interview with the government of California on how exactly Trump's talking to him as they're driving around in the golf buggy. But again, you can sort of see this strange world, which people don't maybe think about enough in British politics, which is all these kind of film style looks, sporting achievements, etc. being part anyway of what's modern politics and certainly part of what Trump likes in politics. You notice that Trump absolutely adores, even with his adversaries, these sort of strange putting his arm around Zoramem down.

37:57Rory Stewart:He's spraying the president of Syria with scent.

38:00Alexander Stubb:Yeah.

38:00Rory Stewart:Hanging out with Alexander Stubb. Yeah.

38:02Alexander Stubb:Yeah. Listen, he's a very, very smart guy. And you made the point. It's a bit like my friend Eddie Rama. Sometimes the small and medium sized countries need a leader who is a cliche punches above his weight. But he does. He's a big thinker. people i was with tony blair said he was you know saying what does stub think about this what is

38:22Rory Stewart:you know he's part of people's thinking huge opportunity for him and for mark carney that if people are saying what is stub thinking if they're saying the carney doctrine stub and carney's speeches and books are going to be there in every foreign policy article every foreign affairs article every conversation our security council so the question for them and i'd be interested to is what do they do next? Does Carney make another big speech? Does Stubb write another book? How do they operationalise this? Let's say they've got a vision. Britain back into the EU. New form of United Nations. I think he actually does actually now think he should have done a rectangle.

39:00Rory Stewart:I think he now thinks that Europe and the US are not the same thing anymore. Where does he drive? How do we make that happen over the next two years? And how is Stubb and Carney part of that story?

39:09Alexander Stubb:He's also still young. And the other thing I found really interesting was how much he hated being prime minister. how much he enjoyed being foreign minister, but prime minister, he hated it. And he was so relieved to get out of it. And now, because it's all foreign policy, he's president and that's his job. And I thought it was interesting in Keir Starmer's speech here, where he talks about almost sort of defensively saying why he has to take so much time on foreign policy. It is the driver of so much of the, how are we going to meet the challenges that all politicians are thinking about? And I think he's one of those guys, I mean, how does he take it forward?

39:42Alexander Stubb:I mean, he's president. Does he end up as the European Commission? I don't know. That's his background. That's where he comes from.

39:49Rory Stewart:I mean, just to finish, because I was with the Canadians yesterday. I think it's also partly about ideas, speeches, rhetoric, leadership, vision. It's not just about the details, the implementations. They can provide the dream. Well, anyway, I'm very lucky to have some time with you. Thank you very much.

40:13Rory Stewart:time. But so does laundry. So Rince will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rince. It's time to be great.