Two years of war in Ukraine: Power players at the Munich Security Conference weigh in

TRANSCRIPT: Two years of war in Ukraine: Power players at the Munich Security Conference weigh in

Mircea Geoana:

Ukraine will become a member of NATO. They'll also become a member of the EU. The obligation we have now is to continue to help them prevail in this war because in the end, if they don't prevail, there's no NATO, there's no EU.

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today I'm coming to you from Munich, Germany, host city to the largest annual gathering of security and defense officials in the world.

Since 1963, the Munich Security Conference has featured discussion and debate about the biggest geopolitical challenges of the moment from the Cold War, to Vietnam, to 9/11 and this year. In a marked contrast to the United States, Ukraine was once again front and center. As the devastating war enters its third year, how will it end and how long can the unity we've seen among NATO nations last?

I'm talking to two power players of the conference and the European continent. First, you'll hear from NATO's Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana, and later the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Let's get to it.

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Ian Bremmer:

NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana, so good to see you again.

Mircea Geoana:

Good to see you again.

Ian Bremmer:

Mircea, I don't want to surprise you, but I am literally just hearing that Alexei Navalny is apparently dead according to The International Wires, fell ill after a walk and is no longer with us. Right at the beginning of the Munich Security Conference. What do we think about a Russian government, a Russian leadership that continues to act in this way?

Mircea Geoana:

I would say that this is a huge loss for the democratic world and for Russians because there are lots of Russians that will love to live in a different country. This is the sinister continuation of a tradition of gulags, of Russian history. I met Navalny's wife and kid in Europe a few months back, and I think on a personal note, I think they were ready for him to make the ultimate sacrifice when he decided to go back-

Ian Bremmer:

To get on the plane. Absolutely.

Mircea Geoana:

When he decided to go back, he knew that. I know that this kind of despotic instincts that are rediscovered now in Russia are doing Russia no good. I think Navalny, even after his sacrifice for Russia's future will become even more of a symbol and a martyr. And to his family and to his young children, all our condolences. We are losing a great, great, great fighter for freedom. To be honest, I'm not surprised that this is the kind of instinct of the despotic regimes is to eliminate even physically all competition.

Ian Bremmer:

It does drive home the point of why NATO is essential, of the kind of system that we will not tolerate our own populations living under.

Mircea Geoana:

I don't like to describe the world, and you don't do that either, Ian, into an epic struggle between democracies and authoritarian regimes. But here, we have that kind of that issue. If somebody has any whimper of romanticism when it comes to Russia in this period, I think the day they're gone. That's a repressive regime not allowing any dissent, just one thinking, one rule. And in the end, this will backfire.

You cannot keep... I know from Romania. I've seen dictatorship with my own eyes. You think you are immortal in power. And one day the people will find out that there is something else. I only hope that the sacrifice of Alexei Navalny will not be in vain. I hope that this will be an example for the young Russians, the ones who know that there is also another kind of life possible for them. I hope that his inspiration will stay for the young ones.

Ian Bremmer:

Here we're at the Munich Security Conference, the war in Ukraine now a couple of years on. Tell me where you think it stands militarily right now.

Mircea Geoana:

We gave the somber prediction at the beginning of the war this will be a war that will be long. We are not changing our prediction that we don't see on either side enough resources to basically change the dynamic of the war, at least for the short term. I think we also made in strategic communication a little bit of over-optimism, those before the counter-offensive. And now I think there is a little bit of over-pessimism. I think that the truth is somewhere in between. You see the Russians becoming more dynamic on the frontline. You see the Ukrainians doing massive-

Ian Bremmer:

Taking out a lot of the fleet actually.

Mircea Geoana:

There are things that I think we should take them at face value and don't rush into conclusions, but it's clear that this will be prolonged. Politically and militarily, we don't see the conditions for any form of cessation of hostilities. I think the easiest way is for Mr. Putin to order to stop the invasion that he ordered two years ago.

Ian Bremmer:

But nobody's expecting that anytime.

Mircea Geoana:

Of course not. Also we don't expect Ukrainians, President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people to give up on their sovereign land. So yeah, this is here to stay with us. We have the obligation and the interest to continue to support Ukraine. 99% of the support for Ukraine comes from NATO allies, and we anticipate that this topic will be front and center at the Washington Summit, our anniversary summit in July in Washington, DC.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, what I don't expect is going to be front and center of the Washington Summit is a commitment for Ukraine to join NATO. Or certainly, I mean a timeframe. Even though the Secretary General has still said that that is the intention that they will eventually become members. We don't know how. We don't know when. Do you think that there's any possibility there's movement on that?

Mircea Geoana:

Ukraine is getting closer to NATO every day. They're becoming more interoperable with us. There's a level of trust and synergies, and I do not anticipate a firm commitment in terms of a date in Washington to be announced. But I think Washington will be a very interesting bridge towards NATO membership eventually with NATO playing a bigger role in interoperability in the future of forces in Ukraine, in making sure that we help them transform in a way that will be fully compatible with us.

What Secretary General Stoltenberg says, what all of us are saying, and also the key allies are saying, Jake Sullivan said this issue also when he visited with us 10 days ago, is that Ukraine will become a member of NATO as a Romanian. They'll also become a member of the EU. The obligation we have now is to continue to help them prevail in this war because in the end, if they don't prevail, there's no NATO, there's no EU. It's just a return to this fear of influence of Russia, which is something I believe Ukrainians are fighting against and also we are fighting against.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, when you say if they don't prevail, I haven't heard anyone credibly believe that the Ukrainians are going to be able to militarily get their land back. When I say their land, I mean I guess I should be saying all of their land. But at a minimum, at an absolute minimum, that territorial boundaries that existed before the Russian invasion on February 24th. Do we have to increasingly understand that as a reality?

Mircea Geoana:

Listen, wars are unpredictable by definition, and these very difficult to make a forecast, a foresight of where these things would go. But I know one thing, that Ukrainians without help recuperated 50% of the territory occupied by Russia in initial stages of the war. There is room for them to do even better. This depends on their own capacity to continue to mobilize the public opinion, and of course to have enough forces for us to do better in helping them. Even if we see Russia now in an economy of war and we still have a little bit of slow return to industrial production in the West, we are making progress. We talked with European Union, with Thierry Breton in NATO just last week. And I see slowly our industrial base coming back into higher gear.

Ian Bremmer:

Military production you're talking about here.

Mircea Geoana:

Yeah. Especially ammunition, especially also components and spare parts. I see in my home country of Romania, the training of F-16 Ukrainian pilots coming to age with the help of Netherlands and Denmark and the others. I'm saying tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops continue to be trained by us. I would say the one thing, if they continue to have the same determination and bravery to fight, and I don't see any change in that, and if we continue to help them at levels that are appropriate to the intensity of the war, they have all the chances in the world to do even better on the battlefield.

Ian Bremmer:

Unfortunately, a big piece of that relies on the consistent military economic and therefore political support coming from the United States, which has done the lion's share of the lifting so far. And of course, that has become a very significant bone of contention for the Biden Administration inside the House of Representatives. It increasingly looks like a much bigger challenge to be able to continue to get that funding. And even if it happens, probably at lower levels and maybe this is the last time around. What is that doing? That process has been going on for a few months now. How is that affecting NATO allies? How is that affecting the Ukrainians?

Mircea Geoana:

Let me put a little bit support for Ukrainian perspective because we speak here of a military support and US has the lion's share because of the size of the country and the industrial and military might of the U.S. But if you put all the support for Ukraine in the last two years, military, economic, macroeconomic, humanitarian, name it, European allies or non-US allies of America did more in terms of footing the bill. More than 50% of the support for Ukraine comes from non-allies.

I'm also seeing, and Sally Jones Totenberg released a public report about defense spending in Europe. There was a big conversation in US for good reasons that you just cannot expect you, the American taxpayer, to foot the bill for European security. Europeans have to do better, and we are doing better. The number that we have now is far from being perfect. Our 18, France is 2% will be 19 allies today. But if you put on aggregate what the non-US allies in NATO are doing, we are 2% on aggregate because Poland is 4.5 because Romania is 2.5 because the Baltics.

I think there is a political conversation in the US, but as someone who knows America well, I think that there is beyond this very partisan period of election, that's democracies. I think there is a realization in the end that Ukraine is more than Ukraine, and Ukraine is more than European security. That Ukraine is an indicator of the willingness and the capacity of the US to be able to cope with challenges coming from China or anywhere else. And if you see also from an American perspective, which is a global superpower, that you see Russia China, North Korea and Iran ganging up, you start seeing a world that you need your allies.

I know that there is a very complicated discussion in the US Congress. European Union had a very difficult conversation about the 50 billion euros. Finally, they managed-

Ian Bremmer:

They squeezed Hungary pretty hard. Yeah, absolutely.

Mircea Geoana:

Yeah. But in the end it's done.

Ian Bremmer:

They got it done. That's right.

Mircea Geoana:

Also in the US, the complexities, I think this will be done and I'm convinced that this would not be the last one coming from the US, provided that all the others, us in Europe, all the other allies in NATO will be understanding that it's also high time for Europe, not only to do more for Ukraine, but to do more for our defense and really do shouldering the American, European and global efforts. I think in the end, this alliance, 75 years in the next few weeks, will be as indispensable to America and to all of us like it has been since the inception three quarters of a century back.

Ian Bremmer:

You seem not overly bothered by the Trump comments that if allies don't pay, the Russians should be able to do whatever they want.

Mircea Geoana:

Listen, we worked with President Trump and Secretary General Stoltenberg worked with him. I worked only for two years in the second part of his first term. There was a very complicated conversation at that time too. Of course, questioning the sacrosanct nature of this alliance had some ripple effects. But again, we know from our long history of NATO, there were crises in NATO before. There was a crisis during the Suez Canal. There were crises during the Iraq war. There were crises and there was always a question mark.

But in the end, if you draw the line, I'm not saying I'm optimistic, but I say that is the best American national interest to keep its allies close because the other ones have lots of things to compete against the interest of America. But America has one thing, so many allies around the world and in Europe, and NATO is something that is so important to American national interest. Is it important to European allies?

Ian Bremmer:

In the last few weeks, we've seen much more talk about the Russians increasing their troop levels on the Estonian border. For example, the Estonian Prime Minister now on this wanted list for Russia. There was of course this one gas pipeline and fiber line connecting the Nordics with the Baltics that suddenly blew up. We don't know exactly who was behind it. Is this an environment where NATO governments, NATO allies are thinking more seriously that they could be in a direct, not a proxy fight, not a war in Ukraine, but in a direct war with Russia?

Mircea Geoana:

We are undergoing, as we speak in NATO, the most important transformation of our deterrence and defense, military planning, command and control, force structure, multi-domain operation, exercising. That's why the Defender is still going on.

Ian Bremmer:

That's the largest exercise?

Mircea Geoana:

Since 1988.

Ian Bremmer:

Since 88, yeah.

Mircea Geoana:

The business of NATO, and this is something we know, and Russia knows, that the best deterrence is strong defense. In a way, this discussion about Russia moving, they don't have many troops to move, to be honest, because most of the troops are boggled down in Ukraine.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, the Finland border doesn't look very busy at all.

Mircea Geoana:

This is my point. They're now harvesting the seeds of their own strategic era. In attacking Ukraine, they had Finland and Sweden, two very staunch neutral countries. Sweden has been neutral since 1812, Finland more recently. So now what we have, we have a NATO and Russia has to deal with the NATO that is having an eastern flank from the Bering Sea, from the North Sea, to the Baltic, to the Black, and to the Mediterranean Seas. We are doing our part. So we don't see from Russia the capacity, and to be honest, not even the intent today to go against the NATO ally.

But we also see Russia being exceptionally unpredictable, very dangerous. I think that we could suspect for the next period for them to focus on Ukraine and also really unleashing against all of us, all the instruments of hybrid warfare, cyber attacks, disinformation, speaking of undersea critical infrastructures, speaking of the Middle East, or the Balkans or Africa. I would say that we are not seeing an imminent risk against us. The more we do, we defense. The more our plans become executable, the least chances for Russia to dare to do something against us, against us. Russia is unpredictable and you have this kind of self-perpetuation of leadership at the top.

There is also a risk that staying for too long in power, you start seeing the world with lenses that are not realistic anymore. This is something that we do well. We don't see an imminent threat to our alliance. The more we do things together, the slower the chance. Can we rule it out totally? No. Russia remains aggressive, unpredictable, and this kind of very personalized leadership at the top can always create surprises. We better be prepared.

Ian Bremmer:

The last question I want to ask you is about the future of the NATO Alliance and the increasingly global nature of the NATO Alliance. Of course, we see the Japanese, the South Koreans sending their leaders to meet with NATO leaders with regularity, now attending summits. We of course see that the Russians are increasingly in partnership with even military alliance with some ways the North Koreans, the Iranians. We have a major confrontation going on that is spilling over from Gaza and Israel into the Middle East more broadly. How does NATO need to adapt to a security environment that is increasingly becoming a global challenge for the United States and for the West?

Mircea Geoana:

We are and remain a regional alliance. That's the Western treaty. That's how we are constituted. We are a transatlantic regional organization. The nature of risk is global. NATO has to adapt to global risks that are affecting our transatlantic security. When we talk and we engage with our Indo-Pacific partners, to give you an example, Australia, an Australian AWACS plane is in the skies of Poland. They came and they're showing solidarity with us and with Ukraine, with that matter, with Japan. Speaking of Germany and Munich, where we are having this conversation, Germany, we call this in German, [German 00:21:15]. I don't know how you call [German 00:21:16] in Japanese.

Ian Bremmer:

I don't know.

Mircea Geoana:

Because it's a similar thing, because they also decided to have 2% GDP.

Ian Bremmer:

2% GDP. They announced it over a year ago.

Mircea Geoana:

So it doesn't mean that they're coming to become NATO members, but the level of intimacy between us and South Korea, Australia, Japan and New Zealand is just, but NATO has 36 nations as our partners. We are keenly interested in supporting Georgia, supporting Moldova, in supporting the Western Balkans, and in supporting our partners in the Middle East and North Africa. We have a partner in Colombia as NATO. I know that in Washington we'll be discussing a lot about deterrence and defense, about burden sharing, about Ukraine, but also about our global partnerships.

I'm very happy that in one of the sessions like with the two previous summits will have NATO leaders, EU leaders, and Indo-Pacific leaders in one place. This is a sign that our democratic world is trying to find synergies to react to this very unpredictable world.

Ian Bremmer:

Mircea Geoana, thanks for joining us on GZERO World.

Mircea Geoana:

Bremmer, thank you and your wonderful team.

Ian Bremmer:

And now to another power player at the conference and on the continent. Here's my conversation with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, so good to be with you again.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

Thank you and good to be with you.

Ian Bremmer:

I wanted to start off talking about artificial intelligence in part because you are participating in this announcement we're seeing on a Munich Accord on artificial intelligence. I'm calling it a Munich Compact, which is meant to combat fake AI generated content around elections. Tell me a little bit about why you think it's so important to be participating in this.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

Because I think this is a very, very worrisome development. Imagine you're running a campaign and suddenly on Friday before the election, it's a back out period. You can't say or do anything. A fake video or a fake audio of you appears being bribed by someone. What do you do? How do you react? How do you respond? How quickly is this fake piece generated by AI going to go viral? The fact that we're recognizing that this is actually something that can happen, that the tech companies have a responsibility to address it themselves, but that this does not replace the obligation in our case of our European family, the European Union, to regulate this space, I think is an important acknowledgement by the tech companies.

I think the more we talk about it, the more we explain to people, even visualizing what AI can actually do and how convincing some of these deep fakes can be, the more people I think will also understand that if they see something which doesn't really seem to be very logical or very correct, they shouldn't really take the bait. As much as it is important to have the technology to protect against these developments, it's also very important to educate the public that they need to be suspicious and this is something which is actually going to happen. It has already happened in elections. In Slovakia, it happened. It could happen anywhere. And of course, 2024 being a huge electoral year, I think it is important that this is part of the public discourse.

Ian Bremmer:

Here we are at the Munich Security Conference. You just saw that Navalny, the leading opposition member, former, is now not only in jail, but has passed away, probably killed at the end of the day. The Ukrainian fight is not going so well. It does not feel like NATO is getting stronger, if I'm being honest. It feels like NATO is under more threat. It feels like Ukraine is losing some momentum, and it feels like the most important military alliance in the world is losing some momentum. Am I wrong?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

I think you're right to be skeptical and we have a right to be concerned. Having said that, we at the European Council delivered the 50 billion that we had committed to Ukraine. I do hope that Congress does the same over the next weeks, understanding how important it is to provide Ukraine the necessary financial support to continue fighting for their independence. Again, every day we see what the Russian regime is capable of. You mentioned the Navalny tragedy, another wake-up call in terms of what we're actually dealing with.

At the same time, this is also a wake-up call for Europe. I've been advocating for quite some time about what we call European strategic autonomy, which is a necessity to spend more on European defense and do it in a smarter way and mobilize more funds. I'm glad that also the Commission President came out with an interview today in the same line. And I think this is going to be an important topic also for the European elections. We do our own part as Greece. We spend more than 3% of our GDP on defense. But if you look at European procurement, it's a mess. European defense cooperation, we're clearly not where we want to be.

Ian Bremmer:

Troop readiness is not anywhere close to where it needs to be.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

Innovation, focus, investing in innovation, not where we want to be. We to understand, but we've made some progress. For example, if you look at the new fiscal rules, there's an exception for defense spending. They don't count in the same way towards the excessive deficit procedures. I've lobbied very hard for this, but at the time, one, we need to spend more on climate. We clearly need to spend more on defense. We already have a lot of debt. Actually in Greece, the debt is coming down at a very fast pace, but that's not true for all countries. And we're faced with high interest rates.

There is a colossal problem of how do we finance these investments. And this of course means, first of all, we need value for money, which means we need more effective procurement. We need to very much focus on the innovative technologies around warfare. This is not just going to be about the very expensive planes or the very expensive ships. There's a lot to learn from the Ukrainian conflict. We need, for example, the EIB to be more involved in defense financing, even if this means taking a longer term view and assuming more risk. Maybe we will need more own resources at the European level dedicated to defense.

So just some thoughts about how I see the agenda being developed from a European perspective.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, very recently in your country, you spearheaded the legalization of same-sex marriage, a conservative government. I mean, maybe you got a lot of closeted votes from that, but how did it feel to put that on the agenda and get it done?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

Well, three years ago, we came out with a very sort of disciplined LGBTQ strategy, which include various different policy initiatives, but of course, what we call marriage equality, legalization of same-sex marriage was the pinnacle of our strategy. Many people thought, "Are you taking a risk as a leader of a center right party?" And yes. I mean, I knew from the beginning that there are a lot of people also within my party that did not agree with this, but we went through extensive public consultation.

We had a very vigorous debate in Greece. We had few extreme voices. We explained to people why this is important, why it is important, for example, for children who already exist to same sex from same sex couples that they have actually two parents, because if one parent dies and there's no legal sort of framework what happens to the kid? We made these stories very, very real. At the end of the day, human rights is about protecting smaller groups. Otherwise, you have a tyranny of the majority. For us being able to get it through, more than two thirds of my MPs voted for it, I did not impose party discipline because we never do so in these issues of principle I think was an important step in the right direction. I'm happy about it. I was very happy when I saw the faces of the people who were in the gallery.

Ian Bremmer:

It looks festive in Greece, right?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

Well, I think about also the faces of the people who were in the galleries in Parliament, some very moving speeches by homosexual MPs who described our stories and the pain of growing up in... For example, there's going to be a kid in rural Greece today that's 15 years old struggling with sexuality, and they're going to feel more comfortable. This is important at the end of the day, and this is why one of the reasons why we did this and the fact that it was a center right government that did it. The previous government of the radical left did not dare to do it.

Ian Bremmer:

You're like Nixon going to China on this one, right?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

Yeah, in a sense. In a sense maybe. But again, we worked very hard to explain to people what we're doing, and we fully respect that, those who disagreed. Because I understand the arguments on the other side. I don't share them, but we never ever pointed the figure at those who disagreed. I think the experience shows that once one crosses the Rubicon, then we are already at more than 50% approval, if I believe the polls. But then it becomes part of daily fabric. People understand that at the end of the day, this something that helps a few people and it doesn't threaten anyone. This is why it's so important.

Ian Bremmer:

Prime Minister Mitsotakis, as always, great to see you.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis:

Thank you very much and good to be with you.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course, you did. Why don't you check us out at GZEROmedia.com and take a moment to sign up for our newsletter. It's called GZERO Daily.

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The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our lead sponsor, Prologis. Prologis helps businesses across the globe scale their supply chains with an expansive portfolio of logistics real estate, and the only end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today. Learn more at Prologis.com.

This podcast is also brought to you by the feature film One Life. One Life tells the incredible true story of Nicholas Nicky Winton, a young man who helped rescue hundreds of predominantly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in a race against time before Nazi occupation closed the borders on the verge of World War II. 50 years later, Nicky played by Sir Anthony Hopkins, is haunted by the fate of those he wasn't able to bring to safety. Also starring Helena Bonham Carter and Jonathan Price, Variety calls One Life, "Stirring. A testament to the power of good." The Daily Beast says "Hopkins gives a stunning performance." Only in theaters March 15th.

And from our friends at Foreign Policy each week on Foreign Policy Live Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal sits down with world leaders and policy experts to discuss the issues that matter most from the US-China relationship and the Israel-Hamas War to the Global South's crowing clout. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.