192. Are We On The Brink Of World War III? (Odd Arne Westad)

24:12Put yourself inside Xi Jinping's mind now. What does he actually want to happen with regard to Iran and with regard to Ukraine? There he is. We're talking around the time that Trump's just been to see him, then Putin went to see him. I presume those conversations were very, very different. What was he saying to Putin about what he'd like to happen in Ukraine? And what was he saying to Putin about what he'd like to see in Iran? So I think with regard to Iran, I think the Chinese point of view is almost entirely connected to the fact that so much of China's energy needs come out through the Straits of Hormuz.

24:47So they need that blockade in all of its forms to end and set up a free flow of oil and gas out of the Gulf. I think that is the key aim for China. The worry on the Chinese side is that the longer the U.S. blockade goes on, the more of a hold, more of control on China's critical energy needs the United States is able to get, is able to be in a position to control. That worries China a great deal. And that's one of the many reasons why a ceasefire and an opening of the Straits is so important from Xi Jinping's perspective. When it comes to war in Ukraine, I think this is a typical example of why we are living in a multipolar world today.

25:32I mean, it wasn't the Chinese that got the Russians to invade Ukraine. It's something that the Russians decided to do for the most possible motives themselves. And then they got stuck. The Chinese have been gently pushing for some time to find some kind of end to the active war, meaning some kind of ceasefire. I'm sure that came up during the conversations in Beijing now as well. The Chinese were surprised by the lack of success of the Russian military with regard to Ukraine. I remember meeting one Chinese leader at the provincial level who was explaining to me that, you know, he said it's really hard to explain to the comrades, he said, why the Russian army, which we had such tremendous respect for, ended up in this kind of situation in Ukraine, right?

26:18And that, I think, informs the Chinese point of view. It's not very high up on the Chinese agenda. China, in many ways, likes that American resources up to recently and European resources are bound up to the Ukrainian conflict rather than looking more closely at China's own neighborhoods. But I think on balance, and this is actually rather important, on balance, I think China would be in favor of a ceasefire in Ukraine.

26:43Rory Stewart:One of the things that I think is surprising compared to the kind of Cold War period is how often we're not really looking at two big powers against each other, but smaller powers spiking things off. So maybe the most dramatic example is Israel, which has over the last two and a half years launched these huge conflicts in Gaza, attacks on Lebanon, attacks on Syria, and now attacks on Iran. But you could also have a similar story around UAE, where there was this standoff with Saudi and Yemen and now UAE involvement in the war in Sudan. You could find some examples in Asia, where things are spinning back and forth across borders.

27:25We're beginning to get a sense that medium powers, particularly in the Middle East at the moment, are behaving more like rogue states.

27:34Rory Stewart:They seem to feel that they don't have to ask for permission from the great superpowers before doing things. Yeah. And that's exactly the kind of fragmentation that we had in the early 20th century as well. It's part of the challenges of multipolarity is that you have a diffusion of power at all levels. And what we saw in the early 20th century, I mean, part of the reason why these challenges are so difficult to handle was exactly that, that you had medium or even smaller countries that engaged in behavior that if you had had, as we had back in the 19th century, more of an understanding among the great powers about rules of the road and general behavior, probably would not have happened.

28:20I mean, it's part of that age of fragmentation that we live in today that you see that kind of behavior. And then you see great powers, as in the U.S. relationship with Israel, that are trying to draw on what these middle powers are doing for their own interests, for their own strategic satisfaction. And that's a dangerous game. I mean, this is very, very similar to what we saw before 1914. And I worry about it quite intensely today. I mean, this is one of the reasons why the Middle East, for instance, and you have worked a lot on, that we are seeing today, I think in a global sense, is entirely different from what we saw only a few years ago.

28:59And all of that has happened over the last two to three years. One of the other parallels you draw from different periods of history is the sort of very broad theme of globalization and also technological development as well and the role that globalization's ups and downs have played in preparing the ground for war and technology as well. So bringing that into the modern era, what can we draw from previous experience of the rise or collapse of globalization and the development of technology that maybe should make us less or more worried about the period we're in now? No, that's a good question.

29:39I mean, it was actually the end of globalization or globalizations that first got me interested in writing this book, because it seemed to me that our own moment is so similar to what we had in the early 20th century with a very long period of globalization, economically, socially, that had been going on for a very, very long time. And it seemed to be very successful for most of the countries involved until what was then the predominant powers started turning against it because they felt that globalization was not working for them. Just like the United States, in many ways, was the leader in trying to break away from a globalizing international economic system that the United States itself had created in the middle and late 20th century.

30:28And that is really striking. I mean, how quick those processes can be, right? I mean, I remember when I was working in London in the early 2010s, and some of us, I was at the LSE, a good place for this, started talking about industrial policy. And people were saying, industrial policy? Isn't that like the 1950s? It doesn't belong to our time. And then you see how quickly things have changed, including to a very high extent for Britain itself, right? So that is a similarity. The other similarity that I find is with regard to technology, both civilian and military technology. The world around 1900 went through a technological revolution, the like of which the world hadn't seen up to that.

31:12Telephone, telegraph, railways, steamships, the first aircraft, all that kind of stuff. And people just weren't able to handle it. I mean, very similar to the kind of situation that we have now with AI and other forms of technological transformations. Instead of creating a better connected world, what happened back then and what is happening now, I think, is that it filled people with fear. Fear that others would be able to take advantage of these technologies, especially in military terms, and turn them against their enemies better than what they would be able to do. And this was one of the biggest problems in 1914, was that debilitating fear, very much technology dependent, that you found when things were starting to move towards war towards the end of July 1914.

31:59Rory Stewart:One of the things that strikes me is that it's not just the rise of China, but the collapse of Europe and the West, which is part of this story. Take the story back not very long. In 2003, the Chinese economy is still the seventh largest economy in the world. It's smaller than the Italian economy. And when Alistair was in office, Britain, France, Germany were, in relative terms, much, much more substantial powers. You know, their economic weight was bigger than that of China. And cumulatively, they were closer to the United States. Even in 2008, the size of the European economy was the same size as the American economy.

32:40Rory Stewart:It's now 50 % smaller very quickly. So is part of the story here that we've lost what Britain, France, Germany, the European Union was able to contribute, maybe from 1989 through to the mid-2000s in terms of a third leg to this tool? That's in part true, at least, I think, Rory. I mean, the main issue is what you pointed to in terms of the speed with which these transformations have taken place. I mean, the speed of the rise of China, and I think other rising powers following not far behind China, such as India, it's not only the dimensions in it, it is just how quickly it has happened. So it's not surprising that other countries, maybe especially Europe, find it very, very difficult to catch up.

33:31I mean, I often make this point when I'm in China that as an old-fashioned European myself, I do find it difficult to catch up, as I sometimes feel in the United States, which I then use to make the point that the United States and China, at least in some respects, for instance, with regard to technology, have more in common than what either of them have with Europe, certainly at this point. So it's not surprising that people find it difficult to catch up. What is more surprising, I think, in a European context is that so little is done to try to deal with the consequences of this rapid change.

34:06that it's only very recently that you have found the large-scale movements in terms of the major European countries towards looking at their own industries, looking at developing an industrial policy, developing the kind of integration within the European Union, which could be Europe's greatest strength, in order to facilitate research and development and the project development that comes out of that. And then finally, and perhaps most importantly right at the moment we're in now, an integrated European defense, which I think is overdue. I mean, hopefully as a leg within NATO, but if needed be, even outside of NATO, the way that alliance has worked up to now.

34:51The European security situation is really difficult at the moment because the American guarantee, the Article 5 guarantee under the NATO treaty, in many ways is no longer believable. So that integration has to happen much more quickly than most people, I think, foresee at the moment. And Britain, of course, also needs to be a part of that for the sake of its own defense. What your explanation, particularly about the speed, makes me wonder is the extent to which China has had an incredible advantage in terms of its own development by not being a democracy. And I sometimes wonder whether one of the reasons why Donald Trump displays such dictatorial tendencies himself is because he's very conscious of that.

35:36he wants things done at speed whether that and okay we may see them in terms of his own personal wealth and his own personal status and what have you but he doesn't want all these obstacles in his way and xi jinping has managed to you know to get rid of an awful lot of obstacles that might have been in his way so should we be worried maybe that ultimately there's a bigger battle going on here and that dictatorship and the lack of democratic values is is projecting itself as being far more efficient, far more effective, and in the end, far more lucrative for people than the democracy that we hang on to.

36:14And that's certainly what the current Chinese leadership wants us to believe, and has been able to sell quite successfully to many people in China, not everyone. I constantly meet people who are deeply skeptical of that authoritarian argument in China, and in many cases are willing to voice the skepticism. But overall, it's not difficult if you live in China and look at what's happening in the United States of late, to say, thank you very much. I much prefer the kind of system that we live under, even if it's non-democratic, because it's stable, it's safe. It seems to deliver year-on-year economic improvement for most people.

36:51It seems to be better able to deal with issues such as inequality. I think that's a surface judgment, but it's a judgment that you can see being made. So I think the main issue is not that we should try to understand what has happened in China or elsewhere as a success of authoritarian route, but it is a success of planning. And the question is whether democratic systems are capable of thinking in terms of medium term, at least, hopefully also long term planning. Now, I rarely use this term, as Rory will know, because we have been teaching together, that history shows. But history does show, in this case, that if you have democracy without the ability to think long term, to have some degree of priority set at the national level, you end up in a lot of trouble, right?

37:46But a good version of this is that democracies have had the capacity in the past, Britain is a really good example of this, to learn from history with regard to these issues and understand that even in a very competitive democratic electoral environment, it is a good thing to have longer term plans for national economic development. And I think that's what we have to learn. And if we have to learn from the Chinese in part how to do this, well, so be it. I think there are a lot of things we can learn from China when it comes to long-term planning in terms of how they have, over a very short period of time, been able to catapult the biggest country in the world in terms of population out of poverty.

38:27They are proud of that. And there are good reasons why they're proud of it, that we should learn from some of the directions that they have taken. But the lesson is not authoritarianism. The lesson is being capable of uniform action that would also be in place some years down the line. That is the big challenge.

38:45Rory Stewart:Alistair, Arnie, let's take a quick break and then back for more. this episode is brought to you by Vauxhall electric cars have become part of life on the road and Vauxhall is supporting the UK's transition to electrification well how are they doing that well to start their electric streets of Britain initiative aims to support local authorities in accelerating the UK's on-street charging infrastructure and it's exactly what you want to see from Vauxhall which is of course a British brand a proud partner of Team GB Vauxhall's also supporting the next generation of athletes on their journey to the 2028 Olympics.

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41:56Rory Stewart:China, going forward, how do we balance one story, which is this is this amazing planning country. You actually were a professor at Xinhua University where we hear they're producing the best engineering graduates in the world. They're catching up on AI. They're right there with rare earths and critical minerals and renewables. That's one story. And the other story is they're in real trouble. Their population is declining. They're getting old. There's youth unemployment. All the shops and restaurants are shut in Shanghai. The property sector's collapsed. China's about to hit the kind of wall that Japan hit in 1990.

42:31Rory Stewart:What's your instincts on this? How do you think about a world, put in really brutal terms, are you imagining a world where in 20 years' time, China is wealthier and more powerful in the US or less wealthy and powerful in the US? So I think the general direction now, when we look at what's happening inside the United states and what's happening inside of China, is that China, relatively speaking, will do quite well over the next decade. But there are significant problems on the Chinese side as well. You mentioned demographics. I mean, Chinese demographics is an absolute disaster. So that could be said for a lot of countries, but it's much worse in China because of the speed with which it will happen because of the, in my view, misguided one-child policy.

43:14I mean, even people who are mathematically challenged, like myself, can figure out what happens to your population when you have a one-child policy. The problem is that that half that then will remain after a generation, many of them will be old and sick. China will be the first country in the world that is old before it's rich. I mean, the Chinese GDP per capita is still only about one-seventh of what it is in the United States. So there is a great need to catch up. That's why China needs two things. It needs peace in order to be able to do that. And it needs to be able to deal with the consequences of its own policy, first and foremost, in terms of demographics.

43:54But there are other economic challenges as well. If you were to ask me, Rory, I would say that if you think about the longer term future, I don't think either the United States or China are particularly well placed to become the predominant great powers of the future. If you look at a country like India, over time. I think they are much better placed to achieve the kind of integrated form of development over time that China has benefited from more recently, not least because they would have a much younger population. Are there any other countries that you can see with that kind of potential? Yeah, I think there are.

44:29It depends on the timeframe, Alistair, that you look at this too. So I think the first beneficiary of that kind of development, what we see in a healthy demographic profile, a development of basic education, an element of involving people in terms of the economic transformation. The region that is best placed, in my view, is Southeast Asia by far. I think we're going to see the highest growth potential in that region compared to anywhere else in the world over the next half generation or so. I think India is not very far behind. The big question is what's going to happen in Africa. I mean, as you know, last year, 2025, was the first year in human history where we had no natural population growth in any country outside of Africa.

45:17And the consequences of that are going to be enormous in the longer run, which basically means that we will find, predominantly, we will find young people in one continent only. And of course, that is going to have a tremendous impact in terms of production and in terms of where things are actually happening. Not in ways that are unproblematic, for sure, for African countries themselves as well, but gives an enormous amount of potential when you think about it's slightly more long-term. So it could be Nigeria. It could be Indonesia. I think both Nigeria and Indonesia are going to be massively important when you look at generations down the road.

45:54Indonesia is going to be by far the predominant country in what is the most successful region in the world in terms of growth, Southeast Asia. And Nigeria, if it is able to avoid tearing itself apart over its own domestic internal conflicts, of which, of course, there are many, it's also extremely well placed for economic development, both in and by itself, but also because it is the center of a much larger region in West Africa that is growing very fast.

46:22Rory Stewart:Okay. Well, then that maybe shifts us off the US-European focus that we have. Talk us a little bit about India-China relations and whether that couldn't be the possible spark of a conflict? I'm really worried about relations between China and India. They are bad now. There has been this idea in the United States, and I've seen it reflected in Britain as well, that because of Trump's policy emphasizing trade advantages with regard to India, that India would pull closer to China. Don't wait for it. I mean, it's not going to happen. China and India are locked in a conflict that is really, really difficult to resolve.

47:01A very important part of it is Pakistan. I mean, India, especially under Modi, but I think any future prime minister that I can imagine, is going to be set on being the predominant power within its own region, within South Asia. And as long as China is there backing up its regional rival, Pakistan, that is going to be very difficult. That's what creates a kind of relationship here that is really, really problematic. And in addition to that, China and India are the only great powers that really have an ongoing border conflict amongst themselves. And that conflict, as we have seen very recently, could easily end in a greater war, in a greater confrontation, as it has already done in the past.

47:45That worries me a lot. And I spend a lot of time, both when I'm in Beijing and elsewhere, talking about that relationship. I think in Europe and in Britain, we do not pay enough attention to that critical relationship, both in terms of the potential instability that is there, but also the overall significance of this in terms of the future. And Arnie, what about your part of the world? We did a miniseries on the rest of politics a few months ago now about the Arctic and the possibility that the Arctic is the place that lights the spark, not least because the so-called great powers are all engaged and all involved.

48:22So two questions in one, really. How realistic do you think that is, that it could be the Arctic that kicks this off? And secondly, the role of the middle powers like Norway, like Canada, like the UK, what role should they be playing that they're currently not playing to try not to fall into the trap that you talked about before of the world not doing enough about the smaller conflicts? So I think when it comes to the Nordic countries and when it comes to Northern Europe as a whole, So I think the main point is to have a better coordination, both of foreign policy and maybe especially at this point of defense policy amongst them.

48:59I mean, I think that is critically important because, as you say, it's very clear to me that the Arctic area, Britain large, is going to have mainly, unfortunately, because of climate change, is going to have a much greater significance over the next generation than what it has had before. And you see that when you're in China, when you talk to Chinese leaders about this. This is one of their main interests with regard to Europe. It has to do with the northern areas, has to do with communications, has to do with resources. And of course, you see it even more clearly in terms of Donald Trump's somewhat farcical, but still, I think, genuine preoccupation with taking over Greenland.

49:41So this is going to be significant. Will it be, in terms of potential, the cause for a greater conflagration? At the moment, it doesn't look like that. But I do think that if, for instance, there were going to be a direction, I think quite likely over the next generation from the Chinese side, that's going to emphasize China's role in transport and communications across the North Pole. then of course that strategic picture will change. And it will change to becoming perhaps the most important communications area in the world, a little bit like the Hormuz Straits or the Straits of Malacca are today.

50:21Rory Stewart:Ani, Hormuz, I can see big problems coming there. The Chinese economy at the moment, they've got big oil reserves, but it will begin to hurt them. They get a lot of their oil from the Middle East and they are a manufacturing economy that depends a great deal on this stuff. And the South Korean economy, the Japanese economy, a lot of the Asian economies are now under strain because of what's happening there. At some point, I can imagine a situation where senior Chinese leaders say, enough, right? The United States and Israel are basically choking our economy here. We are going to send in the Chinese Navy to start escorting the oil that we've paid for, the gas that we've paid for from Qatar through the Straits of Hormuz.

51:04Rory Stewart:We're not going to allow them to block the straits. Can we get there? What would happen to make us get there? Why haven't we got there yet? What's going on here? We haven't got there yet for one good reason, or you already referred to it, and that is China's strategic oil reserves, which are very, very significant and which will carry them through in the short-term future. But it's absolutely clear that China cannot allow an other great power to control its essential access to energy. It just will not happen. Now, I think American leaders realize that. I mean, there is strategic stupidity and strategic stupidity.

51:41I mean, this choking of Hormuz forever, trying to control China through controlling its oil inputs, I don't think is on the book, even with this American administration. But of course, the longer that blockade goes on, the more people in China will think exactly along the lines of what you said, that the real aim here is to prevent China from controlling its own energy future. And you saw in the first reports that we have of the meetings between Xi Jinping and Putin, how significant the energy aspects of that relationship now have become. And it gives Russia opportunities in order to sell more of its energy to China longer term, in order to achieve that kind of strategic stability that Xi Jinping so often talks about.

52:28But it's very, very interesting to see the consequences that that has for the Sino-Russian relationship, as well as China's worries. So, I mean, to answer your question more directly, could we see a Chinese attempt at forcing the Straits of Hormuz open? Absolutely. There is nothing else that China could do at the point when it really starts to run low on oil. It would kill the Chinese economy, and they will not allow that to happen. And my final question relates to the picture of human rights and all the stuff that we used to say about China. You'd see these succession of leaders go to China that all raise human rights, and today we would raise the Uyghurs.

53:06Am I right that part of the deal with China at the moment is that if you want to get on with them you really got to be very very careful about even raising those kind of questions which we used to do as a matter of course and is that a reflection of their own feeling of their own power now because they still do an awful lot of bad stuff and yet we don't have the western leaders going through beijing saying hey deal with the uigurs better liberate your freedom of information etc etc is that just an expression of their own power that they they're basically saying to people like us just shut up about it.

53:39They certainly do. And that's been part of the approach that Xi Jinping has had to international affairs ever since he came into power. And he has more to go on now, as we have explored, in terms of being able to say that. So how should one react to that? I think it depends, obviously, on who you are and what kind of situation that you are in. It's somewhat easier for countries further away from China, although they may not themselves always believe that, to stick to these kinds of principles, valuable principles, in public than it is for countries that are closer to China or more dependent on China.

54:17Under any circumstance, I think it is important, and you will know this, to differentiate among two kinds of approaches here. One is what you declare in public. And I can see good reasons why political leaders in many countries, including in European countries, as we saw, by the way, in my own country and Norway over the conflict over the Nobel Peace Prize to Xi 'an Bo, where Norway had a complete retreat in terms of Chinese pressure, that it's easier to say things in private to the Chinese about human rights than it is to say it in public. And I think, you know, I would understand that. I do think that in terms of the direction that you now have, in terms of global economic power, I can see why many leaders are unwilling to engage publicly with China on human rights.

55:01But one of the lessons to make that comparison for once in this discussion that we can draw from the Cold War is that it's different in terms of what you say in public and what you say in private. I mean, some of the Western leaders who are more successful with regard to Eastern Europe, and for that matter, the Soviet Union in the latter stage in raising human rights issues and problems, were those who were able to do so in private and to do it persistently and consistently in terms of dealing with Eastern European and Soviet leaders. And I think overall, that is the policy we should follow with regard to China as well.

55:35Rory Stewart:On your book, The Coming Storm, now out, highly recommended. And I just wanted to finish my own final question with thinking a little bit about the question of personalities and strategy and culture. Because part of the story, I think, is a story about how accident judgment individuals can suddenly trigger us into these horrible global conflicts, which you can't really see coming. And there was some strange resonances. One of them is you point out in your book that people really struggle to get Austria-Hungary to define what its strategic objectives are in Serbia, right? And that, of course, echoes with, you know, what on earth is the US strategic objective supposed to be in Iran?

56:17Rory Stewart:I mean, it keeps shifting around, right? Then the second one, which is this strange sense that Kaiser Wilhelm, the German Kaiser, alternates a bit like Donald Trump between sometimes sounding like he's on the side of peace and isolation, and then sounding like he's on the side of reckless intervention. And one of the very odd things in those few days that you describe is that his position seems to shift around in 12, 24 hours between it's all going to be fine, no need to do anything, to we're going to push forward and stuff. So maybe just finish by developing some of these questions, because I do think the oddity of the inability of policy elites to define what their strategic objectives are, and yet nevertheless go to war, the sense that people who we trusted to be on one side suddenly end up being on another, and that actually their ability to read each other is so bad, because part of the reason they all go to war is that they all assume that they can get away with it, and the other one isn't going to respond, and finally that it's their last chance.

57:12Rory Stewart:I mean, this is something we hear a lot from Israel. We've got to go into Iran now because we don't go in now. This is our only opportunity. They're going to get stronger. They're going to get an equal one. Well, that is the problem. I mean, as you and I know, because we've been teaching in the grand strategy program at Yale and trying to get to grips with some of these issues in a more generalized discussion with wonderful undergraduates who have a fresh mind on these kinds of matters. You know, it's difficult. But the problem that we are facing at the moment, in my view, is that for all the great powers, that strategic understanding of the other powers, and certainly about one's own strategic objectives, seems to be pointing downward in terms of understanding rather than upward.

57:52And I think some of this is connected to domestic issues and the preoccupation with domestic issues and how that works. Some of it is connected to personalities, to people who are coming into power and they're finding it impossible to stake out in relatively simple terms, which is what you have to do, what their own country's strategic interests really consist of. And then going from there, trying to understand often the very different basis on which other leaders in other countries are going to act. Instead, we are facing a world very similar to 1914, where leaders let events run away with them.

58:34I mean, that they are incapable of finding out how are we going to, on the one hand, pursue our own strategic interests as best we see them. On the other hand, create the kind of at least medium stability in international affairs where we can avoid great power war. And that inability, I think, which you can explain, And I'm sure future historians, hopefully writing about how we avoided war in 2026 or 2027, right? When they explain that, I think they're going to put a lot of emphasis on the ability after all, at least of some leaders, of thinking through those kinds of issues and deciding we may have to take a few steps back.

59:16We may have to find compromise where it's possible to find compromise. We have to play for stability, even if it's not the kind of stability that we ideally would have wanted to see. So those are the kinds of things that I find missing up to. Now, can we get there? For sure. It's not given that we are in some kind of pre-war situation. But I'm fearful, Rory, that if we don't start acting now on these kinds of issues, then we could get into really dicey territory very soon. On that very, very happy note. Thank you for your time. said about this book, Alistair, that it's not something you should read late at night.

59:54No, no, no. Unless you have a strong drink or whatever, you need to calm yourself down. I will still recommend it. Don't worry. So do we. So do we. Anyway, lovely to talk to you. Thank you, Ani, very much. Thank you so much. This was great.

1:00:09Rory Stewart:One of the things that I was just thinking right at the very end that he was saying there is he was talking about compromise, not always getting everything that you want, not always getting the absolute security. And that really resonated with me when I'm thinking about Netanyahu in Israel. Because there is a real tendency there to say we need absolute guarantees, absolute security, and this is our opportunity. And we're going to push on until we get the regime change, we get no nuclear weapons. And one of the things that makes that possible, I think, is modern technology, the sense that suddenly you have weapons that give you the illusion that you can win wars with no consequences, that you don't have to compromise.

1:00:45I thought you were going to say that that made you think of Trump, because Trump is very kind of, you know, win-win, not really quid pro quo, I'm always right, etc. Listen, I thought he was great. I thought he was absolutely fascinating. I just love people who've got so much knowledge, but they wear it quite lightly. And, but I just think the way that he relates, you know, you can't apply everything in history to what's happening now. But I just think the way that he does it is so kind of, so clever. look i think that he didn't quite say this but the the sense you got from him is his point about sort of the quality of leaders that we have i think is a really big part of this because having read a lot of the stuff that he'd done i thought that he was very much much more about you know it's not really about the leaders it's about the systems etc and there's there's a lot of that but i think he is he was much more pessimistic than i thought he was going to be he was much more he was I've always sensed he's got quite an optimistic outlook.

1:01:43He thinks we'll somehow work our way through this. But to admit that you shouldn't read your book, he's not helping his sales here, that you shouldn't read the book before you go to sleep. Because that's where most people do read books, I think. But no, I thought that was great. I'm really glad we did that. I think our listeners will love that.

1:01:57Rory Stewart:Great. And such a lovely, without sounding too pro-European, such a lovely advertisement for a Norwegian. I mean, massively multilingual, effortlessly comfortable, talking about speaking to Chinese generals, being in India, Indonesia, Africa. Anyway, thank you for joining us, Alistair. And by the way, that is so important. I mean, I'm struck by, you know, traveling around the place and you quite often run into diplomats from different parts who are stationed abroad in different parts of the world. And you do meet quite a lot of people that say, oh, you don't need to worry about the language too much because everybody speaks, everybody we deal with speaks English.

1:02:33But you get so much more if you can, particularly a country like China, you know where because you have you're not having just to read and understand you're having to analyze it as well because they don't necessarily communicate in the same way but no i thought it

1:02:47Rory Stewart:was great really good thank you also have a great day bye-bye see you soon bye