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00:00In regards to a possible ceasefire, military chiefs from over 30 countries are currently
00:05at the French capital for talks on creating an international force to deter future Russian
00:11aggression once a ceasefire is established. They include troop size, location, and most
00:17crucially, military options in the aim to dissuade Moscow from launching another offensive
00:24after any ceasefire in Ukraine comes into effect. The long list of participants in these
00:30discussions include Asian and nations such as Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. Joining me now
00:36from Glasgow is Dr Gavin Hall, a NATO specialist at the University of Strathclyde. Dr Hall, thank
00:42you very much for your time. Now, according to media reports, the emphasis today is being on
00:49what sort of international peacekeeping force could be in place to deter another large-scale
00:55Russian offensive after the implementation of a ceasefire. So, from where you're standing,
01:02what can we expect to emerge from these talks, given the incredible logistical complexity
01:08of creating such an operation? Yes, good afternoon. And you're certainly right there
01:14to say that it is an incredible logistical challenge and it's not necessarily one that
01:21European countries have a particular capability to do at the moment, particularly without sort
01:28of American support and underwriting it. So, there's lots of discussion around who and how
01:35far they're actually be prepared to extend security guarantees, particularly involving
01:41France and the United Kingdom and the ultimate deterrent of nuclear weapons, whether these would
01:46be prepared to be underwriting what this sort of peacekeeping force would translate to.
01:53But it's a little bit more fundamental than that is that we have an organization in
01:58NATO that's been secure in Europe for 75-odd years. The logical solution would be for
02:06NATO to take the lead and take the role in securing Europe's borders and deterring Russia.
02:12Establishing a new type of institution or organization to be able to take on this
02:18particular challenge and sort of counter Russia's insistence that Ukraine can't be a member of NATO
02:25has a whole host of problems to it, particularly to do with separating them and ensuring there's
02:30enough separation from NATO to enable Russia to essentially be appeased and be happy with it,
02:36to allow it as a peacekeeping option. So, there are many problems there in how people want to
02:44contribute their militaries, what type of strength they're going to be willing to risk and actually
02:49put troops on the ground. Is that going to be all of these 30 countries or is it more going to be
02:54reliant on the UK, who've already said they're going to prepare to put troops on the ground,
03:00and others? But more fundamentally, is this kind of sort of pre-empting what could happen,
03:07is it actually going to be helpful in terms of the peace negotiations? Is it going to be aid
03:13bringing about a ceasefire or is it effectively sort of encouraging the conflict to carry on
03:22further because there's this sort of promised backstop of potential military options down the
03:29line in the future? As I mentioned there, some 30 nations are taking part in these discussions,
03:36including Asian countries and also other nations such as Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
03:42NATO member Turkey has also been invited. Again, you mentioned there about NATO being the obvious
03:49sort of in charge of all this, but surely such an operation goes way beyond a normal NATO scenario,
03:56given the broad international scope. So, is NATO capable of leading such an operation?
04:04The short answer to that is yes, and it's demonstrated so with the ISAF mission in
04:09Afghanistan, which managed 71 partners, I think it was, including Australia, Japan and various
04:16other Asian countries. So, one of the big assets that NATO has is the integrated military
04:22command that enables different countries to supply military force and capabilities that can then be
04:29managed and dealt with. So, NATO has a history of being able to do this. A new organization starting
04:36from scratch, that all has to be built and developed and that's not an easy process to do,
04:43which is one of the reasons why NATO still exists in the post-Cold War world.
04:49And do we have any idea at this stage, I mean, you mentioned there obviously the British having
04:53talked about committing troops to the ground, but what other commitments have been made or
04:58talked about, including funding and logistical support for this proposed security force?
05:05Yeah, well, as I'm sure you are well aware, there may be certain funding issues,
05:11European-wide generally. Most countries are probably not spending enough on their
05:17defense. Talk about increasing the sort of defense spending up towards two and a half,
05:233% of GDP European-wide. That will certainly help, but it's coming from a position of decline,
05:32whereby even the UK's recent increase to two and a half percent of GDP is still down in real terms
05:39than the position in 2009. So there's lots of catch up that needs to be done to offer us any
05:45form of credibility, which is the key here for how such a security force could actually operate
05:54and could actually function specifically. But most countries have generally been
05:59sort of broad statements. We agree in principle that this type of thing could be something that
06:05we want to encourage and look at rather than actually making any firm specific commitments,
06:11because one of the critiques of the UK position, I think by Germany particularly, was
06:19why are you offering this now? Peace talks haven't even started yet. Ceasefire negotiations
06:24haven't taken place. You're jumping the gun. It's too early. So it's good to talk and have an idea
06:31and a feel of what different countries may or may not be prepared to do. But firm commitments
06:36are unlikely at this stage. And as you mentioned earlier, there's been some caution from a number
06:42of Western officials that there's several stages to a peace plan, and certainly a broader range
06:48of countries could join the coalition later on. However, the first step surely would be a one
06:55month halt to fighting, let's say. But even to do that, certainly doesn't there have to be an
07:00international presence on the ground to begin with? Not necessarily. And I think part of the
07:06reason why sort of the initial focus of this proposed ceasefire seems to be on air and
07:13missiles and also in the Black Sea, there's no trust between Ukraine and Russia. Whatever either
07:19side says, the other side simply isn't going to accept that at face value. So trust has to be
07:24built. And in many ways, one side needs to make effectively a leap to trust to say we're prepared
07:30to trust this. So it'll be a ceasefire that's incorporated on a sort of a stage basis,
07:38slowly building up to a full ceasefire. So I think ideally, the initial phase would be, right,
07:44let's get something agreed, it holding and working, thereby you can then start to build trust
07:50that can then feed into relatively the subsequent peace talks and things. That said, I think Russia
07:57could gain a significant political propaganda advantage by unilaterally declaring a ceasefire
08:05and saying, we're going to stop now, and then leave it up to Ukraine to decide how it wants
08:11to respond. Does Ukraine keep on attacking into Russia? Or it puts it in a very awkward situation,
08:17because the moment you agree a ceasefire, the position on the ground effectively becomes the
08:22default negotiating position, which is the territorial gains that Russia has inside Ukraine
08:28at the moment. And finally, Dr. Hall, just sort of broadening out this chat further. I mean,
08:34clearly, there's been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about boosting European defence,
08:40and certainly with Washington pivoting away from Europe. Is all of this not inevitable,
08:47in that the time has come for Europe to defend itself and to start off by helping Ukraine?
08:56Yes. And this is, in a way, this is a conversation that's been going on over
09:00many years, as I'm sure you're aware. You've had common European security and foreign policies
09:07organised by the EU, which would be the logical body to have an independent European
09:14defence capability. But it always comes back to the question, who's actually going to be
09:20in charge of this? And France and Germany tend to always be competing and not necessarily
09:27willing to give up or acknowledge the other's ability to be in command. So there's inherent
09:34political tensions within the European Union as to what should actually be the driving force that's
09:40going on there. And it kind of always comes back to the ultimate security guarantee,
09:46nuclear weapons. Is France prepared to hand over, not control, but the ability to use into a
09:55European command structure, or does it want to maintain them as an independent capability?
10:01If it's the latter, then it's effectively France's underwriting and securing the future
10:08of the European Union, which might well be a position that France would be happy with. But
10:14is it something that is actually sustainable and has a degree of credibility to it because
10:20they would actually be prepared to come to the aid of the Baltic states or Poland?
10:26Dr Hall, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much.