Meet the London Defence Conference

This is Iain Martin’s weekly newsletter, exclusively for Reaction subscribers. 

On 23-24 May this year the inaugural London Defence Conference takes place at King’s College London in partnership with the School of Security Studies.

This is a new, annual, international gathering of representatives, policymakers and experts from friendly countries. In keynote speeches and panels the big questions will be addressed, on geopolitics, defence, security and technology, generating the exchange of ideas and insights that are vital if we are to navigate successfully this fast-changing and increasingly dangerous world.

The London Defence Conference is chaired by Lord Salisbury and run by me and our team at Reaction.

Last year, in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, we hosted with King’s College London the Defence of Europe conference.

It attracted such strong international interest and an extraordinary turnout from policymakers, diplomats, military, academia and media, that it was obvious this should be more than a one off gathering, and that it should range well beyond Europe.

At the London Defence Conference, there will be a strong focus on Ukraine’s fight for freedom and the European security situation in the light of Russian aggression. Our speakers and panelists will consider the Indo-Pacific, AUKUS, the role of the US, the vital Anglo-French relationship, the Baltic and shifts in European geopolitical gravity, resilience and security, the future of warfare and diplomacy, industrial capacity and investment, developments in space and technology, and more, over two action-packed days.

As you would expect, with our partners the King’s College London School of Security Studies as hosts, there will be a strong academic presence. The conference will feature leading politicians and is open to the media. In the heart of London, we are building an annual event that we hope will act as a hub for constructive discussion.

Putin’s barbaric campaign against the Ukrainian people is a wake up call for the democracies, a reminder that collectively we must pay more attention to our defence and security.

As we get closer to the conference in May, there will be regular updates on Reaction, 

If you are interested in hearing more, and if you want to support the conference, email me on info@londondefenceconference.com

German government behaviour on Ukraine bizarre

At Ramstein, Germany, some fifty countries met on Friday to coordinate sending more aid to Ukraine. The Russians are preparing a fresh campaign and there is not much time for Ukraine and its allies. The war is about to get even worse, because Putin needs to knock out Ukraine quickly. The US suggests the Russians are running out of ammunition, and the country’s economy does not right now have the industrial capacity to win a long war. He or a successor will have to rebuild that capacity. So this spring he will throw everything he has at defeating the Ukrainians now.

It was in this context that the German government blocked the delivery of the Leopard tanks Ukraine wants, and other countries want to send. The weapons were sold with conditions attached. Germany can prohibit re-export. The Poles (and Warsaw grows more important by the day) are hopping mad with the German government’s behaviour because this conflict is existential. Ukraine’s fight is Europe’s fight.

The Poles know that if Putin had rolled up Ukraine quickly, as he planned, then states such as Finland, Sweden and Poland would have been menaced, and potentially in time attacked. Also look at the Baltic nations on a map. They have no expanse of territory to fall back to. They have an aggressive Russia on one side of a thin strip and the sea on the other.

It is not that long ago that it was fashionable in Britain to laud the supposed sophistication of German politics. Yet its policy on Russia has turned out to be a total disaster, emboldening Putin. Whether it is romantic affinity with Russia or fear of nuclear escalation that is to blame, the government and perhaps a majority of German voters have concluded that sending tanks is too much of a provocation, as though Putin the invader can be placated and reasoned with. No, the Ukrainians need every assistance possible to win.

The irony is this. Germany is a great nation that has given considerable aid, yet in choosing to deny the Ukrainians these tanks its government has tarnished the country’s reputation in a decade-defining manner. 

The Leopards decision, a historic mistake, may yet be reversed under pressure from the Americans, but I doubt it will be forgotten.

China’s problem with the US and its allies

China has reopened, which means the Chinese are starting to travel again. “It’s over. The pandemic is over,” a visitor told me this week, when I asked about the situation following the sudden shift in policy, from draconian lockdowns to normal life.

For all that Xi Jinping has a grip on power, with rivals banished, he still had to shift following demonstrations against the lockdowns. Since then, Covid has swept through the population and there have been an unquantifiable number of deaths.

Now Chinese investors are keen to get back to business and the Chinese government, on the diplomatic offensive, is making statements that suggest it is baffled people in other countries view China with suspicion or as a potential threat.

Why the surprise? After the last three years and the Covid experience, and the trashing of Hong Kong and its people’s rights, the penetration of Western institutions, and then the aggressive moves on Taiwan, it is going to take a long period of peace before normalisation occurs. 

There is a bipartisan consensus in Washington that China is a threat and the war in Ukraine has just reminded the democracies that autocrats surrounded by yes-men can and do go on the offensive, taking territory by force or destabilising rivals. There is a historical pattern.

After Russia and Putin, it is surely unsurprising the main democracies take a “prepare for the worst and hope to be pleasantly surprised” approach to China. 

Rejoin the EU? The EU would say no

One of my favourite former Remainers took me for lunch this week. What with his taste in wine being so good, it made me break my never drink at lunchtime rule, a rule operational (on weekdays) since 2019.

We started out at lunch avoiding the subject of Brexit, yet by the time we’d finished our calves liver and bacon, and got most of the way through a bottle of red, we were drawn inevitably to the subject. The answer to the problems with Brexit, he suggested, is for France and Britain to merge, or join forces in a formal union of the kind envisaged by Churchill in 1940.

I said, politely, that while I can see the advantages of a merger, in terms of defence, gastronomy and the look on Nigel Farage’s face if it ever happened, it seems unlikely to be achievable given the political dispensation on both sides of the Channel, to say nothing of ancient rivalries.

My friend is, he admitted, not really all that keen on the EU despite all his Remainering. He merely thought in 2016 that leaving was not worth the hassle and that the British political class would make a mess of departure. How wrong that turned out to be…

We agreed that rejoining is the most ridiculous non-starter of a position, though I keep seeing ultra-Remainers on Twitter saying the polling proves it is coming.

Britain isn’t going to rejoin the EU. Imagine the negotiations in Brussels, lasting several years. Imagine the terms and guarantees demanded of the British. Imagine the campaign “Stay Out” could run against any major party that proposed in a manifesto inflicting the re-entry process and a referendum on the country.

Anticipating that the British, as is our way, would ask to get back in only to quibble about the terms and then vote to reject them, it is obviously a waste of time as an idea.

If we asked to rejoin, the EU would be amused at first, then appalled, and then say no.

We’re out, we need better relations with our closest neighbours and we all need to just get on with it.

What I’m watching

White Lotus. Series two is better than series one, and yet the final episode left me so disturbed I had trouble sleeping. It had seemed, until that episode, like a jolly romp through Sicily, punctuated by moments of cocaine-fuelled American madness. Yet, the concluding episode – I won’t spoil it for you – was so sinister it made me feel freaked out for 24 hours. How could the characters at the party in the palazzo do such a thing? Is that what usually happens on yachts moored off Sicily?

Deep down this sense of danger amid all the great beauty is what attracts us to Italy. We love the light, the architecture, the food, the booze, and the history, but turn a corner in a gallery or a church and there it is, some gruesome scene with ancient or biblical roots depicted to remind us of the darkness. Shudder. Back into the sunlight we go. Have a Campari!

White Lotus, for those of you who haven’t seen it, is set in a glamorous hotel. In series one the action happens in Hawaii and in series two it’s in Italy. Hold on, I said during episode one: I’ve been to that grand hotel in Taormina, Sicily, but it looks different. More than a decade ago, I was there with Dominic Lawson and a group of assorted journalists and politicians from across Europe. We were there pondering the reform of the European Union. We discussed whether such a thing would be possible, or might (it seemed unlikely) the Brits get so annoyed they could even (sharp intake of breath) vote to leave the EU?

The hotel where we met in Taormina was a former monastery, a proper European hotel with varnished floors, gloomy lighting, dark drapes and the original telephone booths in place. It was like an opera house, like Milan’s La Scala but with rooms with a view and a beach. “You’re some of the last people ever to enjoy this place as it was meant to be. It has been bought and is about to be ruined, I mean modernised,” our host told us. It has been blinged up quite a bit since.

With White Lotus doing wonders for Sicilian tourism, a clever friend suggested this week the producers should run a competition – Olympics-style – to choose the destination for the next series. Nice places by the sea, some perhaps a little frayed around the edges, could make televised bids to host series three of White Lotus. Bournemouth? La Rochelle? Arbroath?