Ukraine - what would Margaret Thatcher have done?

My interview with Flemming Rose

The Danish writer and journalist, Flemming Rose, who is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, interviewed me recently. His article, which records thd main points of our one-hour-plus conversation, was produced in a Danish journal.

A translation of hte article is below, reproduced with Flemming’s permission.

Just to say, with the benefit of age and hindsight, I wouldn’t endorcee a Thatcherite econmoic agenda today. My main point was about her approach to deterrence and diplomacy.

This provides a fuller insight into my views on a range of issues related to the war in Ukraine and its buildup. I hope you find it interesting.

BEGINS

For this week’s Free Thought, I spoke to former diplomat Ian Proud, who was employed by the British Foreign Service from 1999 to 2023. Proud recently published his memoirs about four-and-a-half years at the British Embassy in Moscow from 2014 to 2019, where he held a variety of roles. The book is titled A Misfit in Moscow: How British Diplomacy in Russia Failed, 2014-2019.

In 2013, Proud was responsible for organising the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, the last to be attended by Vladimir Putin. Proud himself describes the cooperation with the Prime Minister’s Office in Downing Street as a chaotic nightmare.

Proud was also behind the organisation of the London Conference on Libya in 2011, which was attended by 50 foreign ministers and the UN Secretary-General, and in 2010 he was deployed to Helmand province in Afghanistan with responsibility for strategic communications, where he served alongside the Danish force. Before that he served four years at the British Embassy in Bangkok.

Ian Proud was one of the British Foreign Service’s most renowned crisis experts. He managed the British response to the Gujarat earthquake in India, was involved in the response to the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the terrorist attacks on Bali in 2002, the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, the Arab Spring in 2011, the Japanese tsunami and the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011 and the Russian nerve gas attack in Salisbury in 2018.

You can follow Ian Proud’s ongoing commentary on international politics on his Substack, or on his website.

Enjoy.

Thatcher was visionary and pragmatic

Ian Proud has no doubts when I ask him who Britain's best prime minister since Winston Churchill has been:

"Margaret Thatcher," he says promptly.

What do you admire about Thatcher as a politician and prime minister?

"She had a vision, and that vision is certainly outdated now, but I believed it was the right vision for Britain at a time when the country was going through a painful economic decline. We were the sick man of Europe then, a title that today belongs to Germany, but in the 1970s it was us, and she had a vision to change that."

What else?

"In addition to a vision, she also had clear goals, and she was prepared to have a dialogue with the country that at that time represented the great strategic threat to us, namely the Soviet Union. So she was both visionary and pragmatic enough to make deals with her enemies. For that she deserves our admiration."

Ready to fight

Are there other reasons why you consider her the best prime minister since Churchill?

“Yes, when it really mattered, she was ready to fight. In 1982, she sent a fleet of naval vessels thousands of miles out into the South Atlantic to throw the Argentines out of the Falklands, taking enormous risks. Unlike anyone else in the British system, who were afraid of their own shadows, she was ready to take a risk. We see that with Russia today, where both strength and pragmatism are needed, but we haven’t demonstrated either. That’s really our fundamental problem.”

So you think Thatcher would have handled the current situation differently?

“Thatcher would have escalated on the military side, while at the same time talking to the Russians and doing diplomacy.”

Why?

“To reach a pragmatic solution, even if the solution was that Ukraine could not join NATO. But there would be a military response if Russia took aggressive action. So the pragmatic solution would be: No to NATO, but if you take more of Ukraine, there will be a military reaction from NATO.”

The Special Relationship

On both sides of the Atlantic, there has been talk of the special relationship between the US and Britain since World War II. How does it stand from your vantage point?

“It has taken some bruises, particularly under Trump, because there is a strong Trump-phobic narrative in the British establishment and media. Even after Zelensky’s Oval Office brawl last week, the shock and anger was on Zelensky’s side, not Trump’s.

On the other hand, I also see signs of pragmatism, the invitation to Trump for his second official state visit to the UK is important. I think we need a trade deal with the US so we don't have to pay import tariffs. We need that more than we need the cost of supporting a losing war in Ukraine, and I think that's driving the change in tone that's happened in our relationship with the US.”

Proud adds:

“We are the junior partner, and there is a recognition of that, and if we get on board with the process of ending the war in Ukraine, it will help to breathe new life into an otherwise rather run-down relationship with the US. I don’t think the Americans see it the same way. It’s a bit like the Russians playing on their special relationship with China. I don’t think China sees Russia the same way the Russians see their relationship with China, because they are so much bigger. That also applies to us in our relationship with the US.”

But don’t the Russians have more to offer the Chinese than the UK has to offer the US?

“They have both good and bad things to offer the Chinese. They have more resources, but there is also the risk that they have a lot of land that the Chinese have their eye on, so it is a balancing act.”

Need for better relations with the EU

What about the relationship between the UK and Europe after Brexit?

“The younger generation would not have voted to leave the EU, and I would not have either, but I was in Moscow and did not vote, which I regret. The question is whether we will at some point return. I am not sure we need that, we can also have a relationship with the EU like Norway or Switzerland. In any case, we need a better relationship than now.”

Ian Proud is nevertheless sceptical about developments within the EU.

He says:

“The EU faces some major challenges as a result of the ambition to pursue a federal and more centralised foreign policy. I believe that there is a risk that Europe will become a bad version of itself when moving from the original focus on economic, social and cultural relations to ever more centralisation. This is exemplified by the current EU “foreign minister” Kaja Kallas, who, without any democratic mandate, creates an enormous political risk for the EU through her virulent anti-Russia rhetoric, and in particular sows division through central Europe. I think we in the UK are happy right now that we are not part of these extreme and unhelpful centralising trends.”

Kaja Kallas as Mini-Me

But it is not just Kaja Kallas, is it? The same trend is represented by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen?

“Yes, Kallas is like a kind of Mini-Me of von der Leyen, but I think that the strong centralisation led by self-interested bureaucrats is dangerous in general, and the same can be said about NATO.

If you look at NATO as a bureaucracy rather than as a military alliance, then it is easier to understand what the problem with NATO is. It is the lack of democratic control. I find that development deeply worrying, and the chaotic and poorly thought-out foreign policy, led by people without a democratic mandate, creates enormous risks. Right now, Europe needs to focus on itself, look inward and find out what Europe needs, not least Europe's economic needs, but I am sceptical about whether that is possible in the current situation.”

NATO will survive

Do you think NATO will survive?

“In one form or another, yes, and for many years to come, but the principles of how NATO works may change. The alliance may become less formalised, but as I said, NATO has the same problem as the EU. When you appoint a Secretary General with the status of a head of government, of course they will do everything they can to remain relevant. NATO has to fight for its relevance and to be taken seriously. You’ll never see Von der Leyen or Rutte making the case for budget cuts in their institutions.

That is why NATO exists as a bureaucratic institution. But I think there needs to be a showdown on the future of NATO and the question of continued enlargement and the NATO Treaty itself, but I do not see any decisive changes in that direction in this decade.”

So what do you see?

“The Americans have made it possible for the Europeans to pursue a more value-based and less realistic policy, because the United States has guaranteed our security. I think that this is a luxury that Europe will have a hard time maintaining, because Europe cannot afford to stick to this purely normative approach to its relationship with Russia, unless you have the American military umbrella and the United States’ military support for Ukraine.

So, yes, there is now an inherent tension between the value-based and normative line in the EU and a more realistic United States that we see under Trump. However, I am starting to see signs of a more rational approach when it comes to the individual states in Europe that are moving towards greater realism, which is helpful. I don’t see this in the institutions of the EU Commission in Brussels and the European Parliament in Strasbourg, however.”

The Foreign Office’s deletions

You have written a book about your five years as a diplomat at the British embassy in Moscow. I understand that you had it checked by the British Foreign Office before it was approved for publication. What did you have to throw out?

“Everywhere I mentioned the British intelligence service MI6 or other intelligence services. But I also had to remove descriptions of specific meetings with specific Russians, so everything had to be generalised with vague wording. For example, I couldn’t write that I had a meeting with this specific Russian and that we talked about this specific topic. They also removed any references to specific situations where the Russian security service compromised British personnel using, for example, honey traps (espionage carried out by romantic partners, ed.). I also had to drop any passages that indicated my understanding of how Russian intelligence operates against us in Russia.”

The Salisbury nerve gas attack

You were stationed at the British embassy in Moscow in the spring of 2018 when the convicted and later pardoned and exchanged British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury, according to the British authorities, by two Russian officers with ties to the GRU military intelligence service. Has the public been given the full story?

“I was in Moscow at the time, so if I have an assessment, I won’t share it with you. Do we have the full picture? I think it was a Russian assassination attempt. I personally think it was a freelance operation rather than instructions from Putin. It was a rather clumsy assassination attempt. What made them do it? I think there were forces within the Russian state that wanted to spoil the warmer relationship between Russia and Britain that was developing in the run-up to the World Cup in Russia in the summer of 2018. There were some who didn’t like that, because we were also active on the intelligence side, so they saw it as a double standard and said: Fuck you, Britain, see what we can do.”

Could the West have done more?

During your time at the British Embassy in Moscow, you were also responsible for the British government’s sanctions policy following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014 and the start of the war in eastern Ukraine. Today, it is widely believed that the West did too little to deter and stop Putin. Is that a correct reading of the story, and were there other things the West could have done but failed to do at the time?

“It is easy to be backward-thinking and to adapt history to the current situation, and that applies to both the Russians and us.

There are things that we should not have done, but that we did. We supported a coup in Kyiv, which was the spark that later led to Crimea and to Russia actively supporting the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Many say that we did not sanction Russia enough. That is easy to say. But when you think about it, that would simply have caused the type of economic damage to Europe that we see today with the deindustrialization of Germany and high energy prices. That process of deindustrialisation and economic decline would simply have been accelerated if we had imposed more sanctions in 2014. Europe was not ready for that at that time, and Europe clearly was not ready for that in 2022 either. Meanwhile, Russia has shifted its focus to its relations with Asia, primarily India and China, which are also happening at a faster pace, and Russia’s economy is holding up much better than ours. If that be so, how can sanctions be viewed as anything other than a self-defeating failure?”

No concessions from Moscow

But would tougher sanctions in 2014 have hurt Russia more?

“Tougher sanctions would have clearly caused significant economic pain in 2014. Oil prices collapsed in November 2014, and that hurt, so if you had combined that with the toughest sanctions from the beginning, it would have really hurt.

The delay and incrementalism of sanctions gave Russia more time to prepare for the much bigger sanctions that were introduced in2022.

However, I have not seen any serious indications that Putin would have acted differently if the biggest sanctions were introduced in 2014. He would not have bowed to the West but simply begun his pivot to Asia earlier. Yes, Russia was going through a period of economic pain, but it learned to live with it, calculating that any concession to Europe would be tantamount to capitulation.”

Was military deterrence an option?

The sanctions back in 2014 also meant that Russia stopped importing food from Europe, and that was the starting point for a process in which Russia has since developed into a superpower when it comes to food production, because it could replace Western products with domestically produced ones without competition. That would never have happened without sanctions, but what about the military area? Could the West have resorted to military deterrence of Russia back in 2014 and in that way imposed its will on Russia?

“The Western military reasoning and advice was the same then as now, namely that the cost of military intervention in Crimea and eastern Ukraine would be far too high in terms of loss of life from a direct armed confrontation with Russia. There has always been this fear of teasing the bear and a rapid escalation to nuclear weapons. I personally think that fear is exaggerated, but it was there in 2014 and again in 2022, so it was considered, but it was quickly dismissed as too dangerous.”

Proud continues:

“If NATO had decided to respond militarily, it would have taken several weeks to mobilize and be combat-ready. However, it is entirely plausible that such a decision to mobilize alone would have forced rapid negotiations. It would have forced everyone to deal with the elephant in the room, which is NATO. So in a way I would have preferred an escalation that would have actually paved the way for negotiations.”

Proud adds:

“Instead, we rejected any negotiation, so by refusing to talk to Russia on the one hand, while acting weakly on the other, we made the Russians despise us even more. We gave them an open space to do whatever they wanted, and they did.”

The Elephant in the Room

When you talk about military escalation in 2014 to get real negotiations going between the West and Russia, and you mention NATO as the elephant in the room, do you think that would have resulted in Ukraine’s NATO membership being definitively taken off the table as part of the settlement of relations between Russia and the West?

“Yes, that’s correct. I think Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership should have been taken off the table. It’s been a Russian red line since 2008, actually back to 2006, when the Baltic States joined NATO. It was a mistake not to recognize NATO as a legitimate security concern for Russia. It is fine for people like Boris Johnson to say that Ukraine has a right to choose which club they want to be a member of, and of course they do, but Russia also has a right to say that such a move would go against its core strategic interests. This is why there should be negotiations on NATO membership, rather than ignoring the issue and hoping Russia would forget about it.”

Surely the West also has the right to say no, referring to the clause in the Atlantic Treaty that says that new members must contribute to the overall security of the alliance?

“Exactly, the West has its right to say no to Ukraine, so there is no permanent open-door policy, because NATO does not have to say yes. Russia can also disagree, and then Ukraine must decide how to handle its relationship with the West and Russia. The West’s policy has basically been to make Ukraine choose a side, but without any guarantees to defend Ukraine if things went badly wrong, which they did.”

Violation of the democratic procedure

I have a definitional question. When you say we supported a coup in Kyiv in 2014, are you referring to the ouster of President Yanukovych because it was in violation of the Ukrainian constitution and therefore qualifies as a coup?

“At best, it could be questionable in terms of the constitution, since legally there were not enough votes in parliament to oust the sitting president, so on a very basic constitutional level it was questionable, but there were also big questions about how it actually happened.”

What do you think?

“Why did the Americans interfere in the EU’s association agreement with Ukraine, which was a core point of contention between President Yanukovych and the protesters on the Maidan in Kyiv from the fall of 2013? The US had no stake in that deal and was not a party to it, so why should it take the lead – not just in the effort to oust Yanukovych, but also in the question of who would replace him, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who took over as head of government? The US was remarkably silent on the circumstances of Yanukovych’s departure and the killings on Maidan Square in February 2014, and who was responsible. The suggestion that ultra-nationalist Ukrainians might have been involved has never been properly investigated, so it looks like a cover-up.”

Ian Proud adds:

“We just accepted it all as a fait accompli, and Yanukovych certainly had serious flaws, but there were also positives. Was he more corrupt than the leaders who came before and after him? I’m not sure you can say that he was. This was more about removing a more pro-Russian president with a more pro-Western leader, perhaps a more pro-American leader. It had nothing to do with the constitutional demands for democracy in Ukraine that we claim to be promoting.”

Stop diplomacy

How did you perceive, from your vantage point in Moscow, the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West from the time you arrived in 2014 until you left in 2019?

“We simply stopped talking to Russia. We were physically present, and formally we talked to them, but all the things we had talked about before, economic cooperation and other forms of cooperation, were suspended. Direct communication between our prime minister and the Russian president stopped, as did meetings between ministers.”

Why did you do that?

“Because we believed that dialogue was a prize that Putin had to earn, and if we talked to him, we would give him something he was interested in, like a small child, so we fell back on a single tool, namely sanctions, and we linked the sanctions to the full implementation of the Minsk 2 agreement of 2015 between Ukraine, the separatists, Russia, Germany and France, which also included the Ukrainians. However, we did not make any demands on the Ukrainians to fulfil their obligations under the agreement, and Ukraine finally buried it in January 2022.”

How?

“They declared that there would never be any transfer of power from Kyiv to the regions of eastern Ukraine, as they had committed to under the agreement, and thus the process was dead. The Ukrainians concluded that they could do whatever they wanted and that we would support them no matter what, and if the Russians were to threaten them, the West would come to their aid, but the West did not. We did not send any troops, we did not impose a no-fly zone, they had to deal with that themselves.”

That sounds familiar and reminds me of Georgia in 2008, when President Saakashvili also believed that the West would come to his military aid when he attacked South Ossetia and several Russian troops were killed, after which Russia invaded Georgia.

“Exactly, but people have short memories. Most people cannot think back further than a month. 2008 seems like prehistoric times, but it is only 16–17 years ago. It is clear that no one has learned anything.”

Can Putin be trusted?

It seems that Trump has changed course and is betting on diplomacy with Putin, while the EU is skeptical, so the question is, can we trust Putin, and is that the right question to ask?

“I don’t think that’s the right question, because we could also ask, ‘Does Putin trust us?’ He doesn’t, and we don’t trust him, but I think Putin wants a deal as much as we want a way out of this war that we can no longer afford to pay for. I don’t think Putin wants to continue the war indefinitely, because even though the Russian economy has done well – better than the economies of Europe - a war economy and the strain it is on the treasury are not sustainable in the long run, so both sides need a deal. That’s the key. Zelensky is the only one who doesn’t want a way out, as far as I can see. Despite everything he says, a ceasefire is bad for him personally.”

How so?

“If you believe the polls, he risks losing an election. When there is a ceasefire, there will be demands for elections, and he may lose. But right now he has absolute power in Ukraine, and there is no democratic control over what he does, so what will a ceasefire give Zelensky?”

Zelensky’s will to power

Do you think Zelensky is more concerned with himself and his own interests than with Ukraine’s?

“Isn’t that how most politicians are? They are fundamentally selfish, driven by their ambitions and the desire for power. We have elevated Zelensky and made him a modern hero, and he is lifted up by the unconditional admiration we meet him with, and that will disappear if he loses power. He may be rewarded with a professorship at an elite university in the US or Europe, or whatever else he finds to do when he is no longer president.”

Proud adds:

“I think history will judge him as the leader who should have made a peace deal in the spring of 2022 in Istanbul, where there were serious negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, but who said no.

The row in Washington between Trump and Zelensky a week ago shows two things: firstly, he doesn’t really listen to what the Trump administration is saying, and secondly, he wants to do everything he can to get the Europeans on his side. But even though we in Britain are talking about the bad Trump and the good Zelensky, I think the UK wants a free trade agreement with the US, and that Starmer believes that we also need to find a way out of this pointless war, now the US position has changed so radically.”

Security guarantees for Ukraine

How do you see it?

“We need to provide security guarantees in this coalition of the willing, which Starmer talked about a week ago, and then there has to be a way out of the war. We simply cannot continue this crazy course of fighting to the last Ukrainian. Compromises have to be made.

No one wants to throw Zelensky under the bus, but we are in a delicate balancing act. The Europeans are now hinting that he has to support a peace agreement with security guarantees in the event of another Russian invasion, and I think that is the right approach.”

Is it realistic if the US does not want to be involved? At the same time, there is no indication that Russia will accept troops from NATO countries in Ukraine.

“A security guarantee does not necessarily mean the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine. I think the Europeans want a ceasefire or a deal that Zelensky will take back to Trump, but I see it all in a slightly different perspective.”

How so?

“If the prospect of NATO membership is taken off the table, and I think that is the American position, what is the likelihood that the Russians will come back and invade Ukraine at a later date? Personally, I consider that risk to be quite small. That is precisely what the Russians have been asking for, for the past 11 years, a halt to NATO expansion, but we have consistently ignored them.”

Ian Proud continues:

“If we can get to a point where there is a radical normalisation of the Russian-American relationship and a reluctant but gradual normalisation of Europe’s relationship with Russia, where NATO membership is taken off the table, while on the other hand there is an acceleration of Ukraine’s accession to the EU – whether you see it as a good idea or not – then I see no obvious advantage for Russia in returning to Ukraine and starting over.

In this situation, security guarantees will be a symbolic thing. Theoretically, the Russians could come again, and then we could deploy our 18,000 combat-ready troops and 125 tanks together with the Germans, the French and the Danes – I was with the Danes in Helmand, Afghanistan, back in 2010, many thanks to them – but that is highly theoretical. It is good that the guarantee is there, so that the Russians know that Ukraine will not fight alone, but when the Russians get guarantees in relation to NATO membership, I think that question will disappear.”