Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Thanks for joining us here on France 24.
00:12Well, the Munich Security Conference opens this Friday with the war in Ukraine, of course,
00:17at the top of the agenda.
00:20Questions about where Washington's loyalties lie have swirled since Donald Trump caught
00:23EU allies off guard earlier this week when he held a phone call with Vladimir Putin.
00:29But comments from J.D. Vance ahead of the meeting threw another curveball, this time
00:34at the Kremlin.
00:36The U.S. vice president warning Russia that Washington could hit Moscow with more sanctions
00:40if it does not agree to a good peace deal with Ukraine.
00:44Those remarks coming ahead of his planned meeting with Vladimir Zelensky.
00:48Well, for more on this, Dr. Gavin Hall joins us now on the program.
00:52He's a NATO expert and teaching fellow in political science and international security
00:56at the University of Strathclyde.
00:58Thank you very much for joining us, professor.
01:01So we saw earlier this week Donald Trump breaking with the rest of the West by holding that
01:06direct call with Vladimir Putin.
01:08Then we heard some kind of conflicting comments from J.D. Vance today.
01:12Are we seeing conflicting messaging then coming out of the White House?
01:18Good afternoon.
01:19And yes, I think it's fair to say there are some conflicting messages that are coming
01:23out of the White House.
01:25And I don't think this is particularly uncommon with the Trumpian rhetoric that we first got
01:30used to in 2016, 2020, and also more recently, whereby their initial statements sort of moving,
01:38that appear to be moving in one direction and quite firm, and then some subsequent clarifications
01:43and things that come forward.
01:46Also in this, the U.S. defense secretary, Hegsefi, initially said that Ukraine's definitely
01:53not going to be part of NATO.
01:55Any peacekeeping forces in Ukraine wouldn't be covered by Article 5 protection.
02:02But has since sort of clarified and rode back on that a little bit.
02:05So there's definitely some mixed messages going on.
02:09And partly this is likely to be the product of meetings that have been had both with President
02:15Zelensky and also conversations with other European leaders and things who are curious
02:22about where they're going to sit within the overall plan.
02:25But I think it's important to emphasize that this is not actually peace talks that have
02:31negotiated.
02:32This is sort of the preliminary posturing that's going on to try and establish what
02:38the parameters are going to be for those peace negotiations, which in reality are a continuation
02:44of the conflict, just by nonviolent means.
02:48So the EU and NATO really, I think, have been watching all of this with quite a bit
02:53of anxiety.
02:55If Washington does pursue the path of prioritizing Vladimir Putin's objectives in any possible
03:01peace deal, does the EU have any leverage at all to try and push for an alternative
03:05plan?
03:06Well, if there's a bilateral arrangement between President Trump and President Putin, then
03:14it's up to Ukraine and the other European Union and the UK members to say, do we accept
03:23this?
03:24Do we want to go along with this?
03:25Or are we going to publicly refute it?
03:29Is there much they could actually do about it?
03:32Well, that depends on the level of challenge.
03:35But I think if there's sufficient resistance, then that arguably helps to achieve one of
03:41Putin's goals, which is effectively trying to weaken the cohesion of the European Union
03:50and the North Atlantic security body to a point whereby it's unable to actually operate
03:58and offer credible deterrence.
04:00So speaking of that, what do you think this all means or signals for the survival or credibility
04:07of NATO moving forward with the possibility of a peace deal or not aside?
04:11All of this political bickering, the divisions, I mean, it's already weakening the alliance.
04:16Well, it is and it isn't.
04:19In one sense, it's also nothing new.
04:21There have been many challenges to NATO cohesion over the past 80 years.
04:27But the alliance has always found a way through to it.
04:30What we're really seeing now is President Trump, partly as his make America great again
04:36kind of rhetoric, trying to assert American hegemony and dominance moving forward.
04:44But at the same time, he's also saying to the European members, you need to be spending
04:50more on your defense.
04:51You need to be inputting more, you need to be more active and things are not just relying
04:56on the US.
04:57He's effectively saying, not only do we want to lead, but we want you to pay for it as
05:02well.
05:03And for a country that was founded after a revolution based on taxation without representation,
05:10it's quite a sort of staggering about turn.
05:13But once again, we're at the sort of preliminary stages of things and it's going to move into
05:18a ceasefire agreement, then agreements with how to disengage and a potential peace plan
05:24is going to be fraught with difficulties and challenges, and it's likely to be multistaged
05:29anyway.
05:31So you are a NATO expert.
05:33You've been researching these themes for quite some time now.
05:36Have you ever seen a more dangerous tipping point in terms of the reshaping of the international
05:41rules based order than now?
05:44Well, the big substantive change to happen with the rules based order was 1991 and the
05:49end of the Cold War and what that new settlement was going to look like, moving from the bilateral
05:55superpower countries into a more multipolar world, which is then seen with the weather,
06:05the former East Germany is going to be reunifying with the West, moving into issues to do with
06:15nuclear weapons, potential future NATO expansions.
06:20There were substantive challenges then, but you can go back even further and say 1967,
06:27when there was the Harmel Report, looking into building more detente with Russia and
06:33things.
06:34So there have been several challenges like this historically, but the key thing is by
06:39consensus operation, NATO members coming together and speaking with one voice, being
06:45able to find a way through them.
06:47We'll see if they're able to pull it off again at this conference then.
06:51Dr. Gavin Hall of Strathclyde University, thank you very much.