484. War in Europe, Trump's Destruction of Institutions, and Britain’s National Treasures (Question Time)

0:00Thank you so much for listening to The Rest is Politics. here's the thought for Christmas. You can gift somebody membership to The Rest is Politics plus add free listening, bonus episodes, early access to Q &A, book discounts. So spread a little political peace and goodwill. Head to therest ispolitics.com and click gifts. How far is Putin prepared to go? Russia could annex eastern Ukraine and have a go at the Baltic at the same time as China goes after Taiwan. Then think about what happens to the global economic system as everybody scrabbles to impose sanctions on China, cut off Russian gas, rearm.

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2:00Happy New Year and welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alistair Campbell, also wishing you all a Happy New Year. So, Rory, let me ask the first question. This is asking us to look ahead with greater purse capacity, whatever that word is, than when you were predicting the outcome of the last US presidential election. What will the world look like at the end of 2026? And more importantly, this is from Douglas, a TripPlus member from South Australia. What didn't you see coming in 2025? And with that in mind, what will the world look like at the end of 2026?

2:38Well, this is a really good question. Very, very grateful for this one. So if you listen back to the episode we did exactly a year ago. Did you really do that? Yep, I did. I listened back to the episode we did exactly a year ago. Right, give us a few highlights. What we correctly predicted is we said Trump would come in and it would be a big, big shock to the world order. So we said there would be tariffs. We said that there would be a cut in international development spending. We said that he would move away from a rules-based international order. And we talked about Stephen Miller coming in and a more extreme views on things like immigration.

3:20Now, what we didn't predict is what that was actually going to look like. So let's just take one by one tariffs. What turned out to be astonishing in 2025 is that it wasn't just small amount of tariffs going in targeted at, for example, China, the big US adversary. What we ended up with was very heavy tariffs hitting Switzerland, 50 % tariffs against India, tariffs against Canada. Secondly, we didn't predict that what he would do is he'd put up the tariffs, he'd bring down the tariffs, he'd put up the tariffs, he'd bring down the tariffs. Thirdly, on tariffs, we imagined that there would be much clearer consequences.

4:01So the normal economic analysis would have been you put up the tariffs and you will find inflation in goods, and then the US markets will come down. And you might even find yourself in stagflation, inflation going up, growth coming down. In tariffs and in the other things that I'm going to mention, a theme keeps coming through, which is Trump did much more radical, unpredictable things with less moral consequence and less pushback than you ever could have acknowledged. So let's take immigration for another one, right? We projected that he would be doing stuff on immigration and that that would have an effect on the US economy.

4:35We did not begin to imagine just how horrendous ICE would be, the way in which these masked agents would be storming into people's houses. We certainly weren't predicting the National Guard and the military being deployed into California, Washington, Portland. We weren't imagining, I think, the lack of pushback from the US system. And let's take another one, Congress. I don't think we would have imagined that if he tried to do what he basically did, which is ignore all the congressional appropriations, literally the legally binding decisions made by the US Congress on the budgets going forward, that there would be no pushback for that, or that he would be able to abolish USAID almost on day one, sack all the staff, stop all this funding immediately, and that the Congress and legal systems wouldn't be able to push back.

5:31And again, I don't think we certainly didn't predict that the US would strike Iran. We didn't predict that Israel would strike Doha, but we also probably would have struggled to imagine that those things could happen with much less real world impact than you would have imagined. doing those things would normally have a big risk of world war three israel's striking catalby catastrophically huge event so what trump did is he did much sharper things but partly because of this up and down up and down up and down business the reaction from markets congress the courts europe and his allies was much more muted instead what you had is endless people compromising, accommodating, being obsequious, and him creating a new normal of chaos with less consequence than you would imagine.

6:20Over to you. While you were talking, I've just had a quick look through some of the highlights from the discussion that we had last year. You're right. I think we got a lot right. We got a few things wrong. Well, is this wrong? We basically said Elon Musk would be more dangerous to the world than Donald Trump. I think we got that wrong. I still think Trump Musk is a major menace in the world and X has become an utter disgusting cesspit. And it's revolting that he sort of set so much store and becoming the world's first trillionaire. But I think we got that wrong. We predicted that the Democratic Party would go into a bit of a slump until it found some compelling leadership.

6:59We also said there'd be major geopolitical shocks and we included in those Syria. Whereas actually, Syria has maybe turned out thus far better than was feared. That'd be fair. Absolutely. But I think thus far, I mean, I think the structural issues in Syria haven't gone away. I mean, it's still the case that the Kurds have de facto ignored the Syrian government in everything east of the Euphrates, that the Druze and white populations are not really reconciling with the central government, that Israel is continuing to intervene and often strike Syria. And so the question of whether Trump lifting sanctions and embracing Mohammed al-Shara will be enough for him to deal with the fact that the Syrian economy is so fragile, the ethnic sectarian divisions remain so deep.

7:53I'm afraid, sadly, I'm praying sera will be okay but if it were to collapse in 2026 it wouldn't be very difficult to explain why yeah here's one roy that i i think i will take some no i won't take any pleasure in repeating this actually but i think it's worth saying again populism i said will keep gaining unless the establishment parties improve their storytelling um and i do think i think the one if there's one thing to learn from Trump, it is you've got to keep storytelling. Now, in his case, that means making up stuff and bullying people and lying and intimidating. I don't think we should go for that.

8:32But I think understanding that what the populace do better than the established parties is to kind of engage with people on a kind of emotional and a strategic level. I still don't think that the mainstream parties across Europe are doing that remotely well enough. I think the one who's getting closer to it, it's not in Europe, but he's very much an ally of Europe, and that's Mark Carney in Canada. But I think an awful lot of them are not telling a story about who they are, what they're doing, why they're doing it, and how it relates to your life. Do you agree with me, though, that one of the things that's been strange is the sense that we would have predicted, I think, in 2024, that there would be more clear consequences for his Maybe this is our own addiction to storytelling.

9:17Let's say a narrative, I don't know, film is about, you know, escalating drama and crisis. And then there's a reaction and there's a resolution. and and so if you i guess if you were a traditional american official and you were giving advice to president trump and he was saying i'm going to whack tariffs on india up to 50 i'm going to throw tariffs on canada up like this i'm going to strike iran i'm going to uh ignore the congressional budget i'm going to send anything you would say no no no mr president you know those things will have very dangerous consequences. What I think we're seeing is a world where you don't see the short-term consequences.

9:56What you see is the medium-term hollowing, erosion, degradation of all our institutions. So you don't get the pushback. Congress doesn't really step up. The courts don't step up. Europe doesn't really step up. The international democracies don't stand up to him. The Middle Eastern states don't stand up to him. It turns out that what instead happens is you keep names, you keep the idea of a Western alliance, you keep the slogan of NATO, but inside, my analogy is here, because I'm going to go rest this history on you, as the Roman Empire began to splinter, a lot of the institutions remained there, and nobody saw it happening.

10:39There was still a Senate, there was still consuls, there was still an emperor, and they didn't really acknowledge that in effect regional warlords were now running different parts of the thing because the story remains the same and I feel that's maybe what happens that we're addicted to clear stories and clear crises here's the moment what we may instead be in in a world where it's very difficult to see here's the moment because what Trump's doing is is rotting the system from within well let's go to the next question then because it relates to this will Europe go to war with Russia in 2026. That is a question from Tony Mara says, might Europe give Putin an ultimatum to withdraw from Ukraine or they'll enter the war?

11:21Now, there are people in Europe, when we were in Poland talking to Radek Sikorsky, he said, so far as we're concerned, Russia is already at war with us. Now, Poland is part of Europe. Poland is right at the border there of this war that's taking place and i think you could argue when you go back to litvinenko being killed was that what was that is we could you say that was part of a hybrid war is all the sort of cyber security stuff and the attacks on our companies that russia does is that part of a war uh the skripals and the death of a british woman when they tried to wipe out a what they define as a russian traitor So this has all been going on for a long time.

12:08What the question we have to keep asking ourselves is how far is Putin prepared to go? And the thing that Sikorsky said that really has stuck with me since he said it, he said, if Ukraine falls, we're next. Well, we, to him in that context, obviously means Poland. But Poland is, unlike Ukraine, part of the European Union. Poland is an important part of NATO. This becomes a whole different ballgame. And I wonder, I just wonder whether one of the questions that we need to ask is whether, within the NATO context, Article 5 means what it did. So that if Europe does go to war with Russia, whether it's this year, next year, whatever, whether actually that is as Europe, European Union plus allies, with or without America.

12:54That is a very, very big question. Yeah. And the problem is that Trump and Vance have suddenly raised that question completely unnecessarily. I mean, the Article 5 guarantee, which is an attack on one is an attack on all, which is America saying from the 1940s onwards, that if Russia or then the Soviet Union were to attack a NATO country, America would effectively launch its nuclear weapons to defend it, all you need to do to hold that article is just say it clearly, unambiguously, that an attack on one is an attack on all. And of course, if Soviet Union or Russia were to attack a NATO country, we would defend them.

13:43What Trump has done is completely unnecessarily destroyed all that confidence. He thinks it's about saving money and proving that Europe was ripping them off and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it doesn't cost America anything to say that. And it's about, again, to return to your story, it's about story, it's about communication. It's not actually, in the end, that much about American defense spending. They have the nukes already. They can already fire them at Moscow. They don't actually have to change much in their defense posture just to keep underlying that line. And as you say, that's gone.

14:17Let's add to that. Where else could there be conflicts? Still perfectly possible that in 2026 there could be conflict China-Taiwan. China could invade Taiwan, and as we keep reminding people, Taiwan produces 90 % of the world's advanced semiconductors, 50 % of the world's semiconductors in general. Ethiopia could go to war with Eritrea. There could be a confrontation in the South China Sea. Let's make it even worse if we're talking about black swans. All those things could happen simultaneously. Right? Russia could annex eastern Ukraine and have a go at the Baltic at the same time as China goes after Taiwan.

14:52Then think about what happens to the global economic system as everybody scrabbles to impose sanctions on China, cut off Russian gas, rearm. You're then into a very, very odd world. And there the question is, is the US going to be the stabilizing power acting to reinforce international laws, get people back on the straight and narrow, bail out the global financial system? Remember 2008, a lot of that was the story about the US Treasury and the US Central Bank sitting down with European countries to try to put the American financial system behind stabilizing the global financial system. Do we think that's like the end of Trump?

15:32No. And let's add to this, let's say 2020, I'm going to add 2026, let's say there's a climate tipping point. We suddenly hit one of these extraordinary, horrible moments in global climate, where it's not just a continuation of a few more floods, but actually we cross some threshold and much more chaotic and extreme things happens. Imagine if there is a real disaster with AI, then things become much more unstable. And that's where Trump's irresponsibility, chaos, and selfishness becomes much more important. It's not just a sort of reality TV show. It's that you've removed the central linchpin of the international system and its ability to be resilient in crisis.

16:15Yeah. Well, you know, I mentioned when we were in the Christmas episodes and we were doing our book of the year, and mine was this book, If Russia Wins. it's a sort of it's called a scenario it's not quite a novel because it's partly based on real events but it then predicts what might happen and where the story goes is that russia mounts a very small iteration on a very small part of estonia and just sort of sends in the troops and takes this place over and it gives all its logic the reasons and all the all the sort of russian tv hosts talk about why this is necessary and then the debate that gets sparked in america is are we really going to shed American blood for some village in Estonia that we've never heard of?

16:56And that is the end of Article 5. And of course, this is all consistent. It's why I said that I thought the most consequential speech of the year was just, I still think it was J.D. Vance of the Munich Security Conference. It's all consistent with this message of saying, you lot aren't as serious as we think you should be. You're not as reliable as we think you should. You're kind of on your own. So then when, back to Poland, when the drones did start coming into Polish airspace and Trump was asked about it and he said, oh, well, it's probably a mistake. Why does he say that? Because he always defaults to this sort of pro-Putin position.

17:31And this goes back to what we talked about yesterday with Alexander Stubb. Trump wants this world of chaos disorder where strong men have their own spheres of influence. He gets the West, China gets the East, Russia gets what they want, and he's not taking into account the South and what Russia and China are doing there. So Alastair, here's a question for you from Ted Chu. Will we see national service in the UK or other countries? Well, Macron in France recently announced a kind of voluntary national service. There's all sorts of developments of national service. I think it's in Finland where they already have it for men and now women are kind of demanding that they have equal rights to the national service, which sort of indicates the way the debate is going there.

18:12There are other countries where this debate is definitely happening. we've said many times on the podcast through 2025 that i'm really not convinced that the british mindset is fully cognizant of just how dangerous a world we're in right now and whether this debate may have to start taking shape in within the uk what do you think well i i think we should do it and i think we should make it a national citizen service where you can also opt to do other things You could opt to work as a hospital porter. You could opt to volunteer for charities. You could opt to do community projects as well as the military thing.

18:51But I don't see what the downside is. I mean, there's a substantial fiscal cost to doing it. But in a world which is increasingly unequal and divided, it is a chance to build solidarity between people from different parts of the country, different classes, and bring them together. Be a military element to that. Be a civilian element to that. Now, hold on. But Ted's question is very much about the about the military element. I mean, yours sounds like a kind of nice touchy feely hybrid. Let's just think. Do you think we should because our armed forces have been paired back pretty substantially? Do you think we should move towards a place where young men, I guess, are expected to do some kind of military service?

19:34I think the route into that is my hybrid. I think you could, I believe, and I think there's reasonable data to support this, that a very large number of young men would choose to do military training rather than choose to do their voluntary social work. It'll be a question of personalities and you would end up with many, many more young people trained in the military, but it would be a way of selling it to the population, which is relevant. And it's also balanced because what you're doing is you're saying there are many other things that this could do. I mean, one thing that actually the military was very good at when National Service existed is providing educational and vocational training to people.

20:15Very, very strong on literacy programs. The Army Education Corps, very strong on giving people crafts and trades. So I think the way to get it into the public is to explain it as something which, even if we didn't go to war with Russia, would be a general social good. So the whole thing doesn't rest on going to war with Russia. But yes, I think you could rarely, this is one of those rare examples in politics where I think you can do both at the same time. And I think it would be wonderful to see the government step up for that and provide a progressive, exciting argument, which is yes, partly about discipline and military training, but also about vocational training, trades, support for social work.

20:56I mean, if we're taking less and less people from other countries in and we're facing a crisis in the care sector and the hospital sector at the lower skill level, why is this something that young people couldn't do? I mean, a lot of what's happening in care, some of it is very specialized, but some of it is. Helping somebody get change, providing company to them, talking to them. some of the tasks performed in hospitals don't require very high levels of skill and could be a very good thing for somebody to do in a year of service. Okay. Okay. I should point out to our listeners and viewers that when we put out an appeal for questions for this new year episode, that question about whether Europe and Russia are likely to be at war came way ahead of anything else.

21:41So that suggests that where a lot of our listeners our minds are going as we go into 2026 diana ward trip plus member from pulton le fielde asking this why not move the g20 meeting scheduled for florida in 2026 given the u.s did not show up the last one and has already disinvited south africa from g20 2026 why reward in quotes such poor behavior i'm with that i'm with all that i mean i disinviting is completely outrageous you You can't disinvite the G20 country. I mean, it's not the G20 then. Especially as the reason is founded on this kind of myth that is all part of his sort of white supremacist approach to immigration and race and these issues that he keeps banging on about.

22:30I actually thought the G20 summit went pretty well without the United States. It's sort of beyond imagining. I mean, look at who is in the G20. you know there could be some pretty strong reasons not to have the russians there given that what they're actually doing is killing hundreds of thousands of people on the european borders and invading another country there could even be reasons you know if you wanted to be controversial not have china there given what they do in tibet what they do in singjiang what they do in internal human rights you could even have reasons not to have india there given the fact that indian intelligence officers and now appear to be associated in court cases in the us and canada with assassinating citizens and other people's countries of all the countries to disinvite from the g20 south africa seems to me the most bizarre thing and you know what is going on in their heads where are the standards where's the logic in any of this and also i wonder whether the johannesburg g20 whether any of the other 19 uh because america weren't there said listen listen they're not here we've got quite a lot done it's meant to be in florida if we go to florida next year it's all going to be about america rather than about the g20 why don't we just decide to have it somewhere else and invite him but this goes back to our bigger point which is we now are beginning to realize that basically the whole world since 1945 invited america into its body like a parasite we we put this huge virus inside our body politic called the United States.

24:03And the reason why he's able to do everything he does is that they are indispensable. They're wired into every element of our systems, our financial systems, our trade systems, our defense systems. So the reason he can do this is that it's almost impossible, as Mark Carney is finding. Mark Carney, when he confronts the US, then has to face what that really means, which is it will literally wipe out growth in the Canadian economy, almost impossible to divert and rebalance away their oil and gas exports. So getting ourselves resilient, independent of the US and able to say, thank you very much, we will proceed with the G20 without you, is not possible at the moment because we've spent 80 years being lured into having bodies that are not really our own bodies.

24:58They're bodies controlled by this alien parasite. Bloody hell, Rory. That's pretty strong stuff. Take a burner phone next time you go to America. Okay, Alastair, on that cheery note, let's take a quick break and then back for more questions. See you in a minute.

25:18Welcome back to the rest of the podcast question time with me, Alastair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. But question for you, Pedro Crass, is AI 2027 still in trajectory to happen? Well, it's happening. But Rory, I don't know if that's a question for me. You are absolutely obsessed with AI and have been for some time. And you're halfway through this mini-series that you've been doing about AI. So that is definitely a question for you. This is a big year because 2627 is when a lot of the tech leaders predicted artificial general intelligence would emerge. and we don't know yet whether these enormous energy sucking large language models are going to hit natural barriers or whether they're going to break through and create this general purpose super intelligence um in a way for the world's sake it might be no bad thing if they don't break through if we had a few more years to try to think this through and think about what the boundaries Because if they do break through, to return to my theme from before the break, these large language models sit in the United States and we would be even more dependent on America for everything that runs our economy and public services.

26:29But also, these things could be very, very dangerous if they became super intelligent. And it's not clear to me that actually we have really thought about how to control them, regulate them or deal with them. um the other big question i suppose is a geopolitical question that again most of the discussion around ai and i'll come to you on this what one of the things that um we've been thinking about in the mini series is that the model in britain over the last two years is to say what we need to do is make ourselves much closer to the u.s ai systems and uh distance ourselves as quickly as possible from the Chinese systems.

27:08And that obviously is the story led from Washington, California, that there's a binary black and white choice, US or China. And obviously what Europe needs to do is do everything it can to let the US system win, put the US system right at the heart of everything we do. Does that sound to you, if you were prime minister, as though that's the right decision? I think it's a very hard decision not to make in the current political context, but I wonder whether it is the right decision. One of the most interesting things of recent months, and it really has been recent months, when you and I are out and about talking to different audiences.

27:44We did this when we were on tour. I've done it at a lot of business events we've done. And this is this question we ask people about whether America or China is the greater threat to global stability, to supply chains, and to all these other things that we talk about. And I did one in Dublin, where the US ambassador to Ireland was there. And I think he was really quite taken aback. Because in that audience, and in virtually every other audience that we've done in recent months, people have looked at America, the United States as a bigger threat to some of these issues. So might there be a case actually for facing down the kind of right wing of the Conservative Party, the Ian Duncan Smiths, who are really kind of very much opposed to closer relations with China.

28:32I don't know, because unlike you, I don't really know enough about the way this technology is working. What I do know is that that is the choice that all countries in the world are having to face because America and China are so far ahead of everybody else. And I think there was a point at which maybe we were trying to, I think we're probably in the second league order, and that's a good place to be. But I think that But in making that choice, I think there are broader geopolitical questions that are very, very tough for a European leader to make right now. And this comes to threat assessment.