Former MI6 boss (2014-2020) Sir Alex Younger participated at the BBC Newsnight programme and shared his views about US-Russia talks. We present some fragments from Alex Younger’s commnets.

We are in a new era

I think we are in a new era where, by and large, international relations aren't going to be determined by rules and multilateral institutions. They're going to be determined by strongmen and deals. I think of the Yalta Treaty at the end of 1945, where three strongmen decided the fate of small countries.

I think that's Donald Trump's mindset. It's certainly Putin's mindset. It's Xi Jinping's mindset.
It's not Europe's mindset. That's the world we're going into for a whole set of reasons, and I don't think we're going back to the one we had before.

The one we had before was based on the unipolar moment, where America had both the means and the will to assert itself across the world. It created what we call globalisation, the international security structure. It's now a significantly smaller player relative to others than it was.



It still remains a prodigious country, but its ability to make rules across the world, that's not there now.

I think we are seeing deals, we're seeing a conversation about spheres of influence. And I think the only people who haven't woken up to this reality is us, Europe.

“Entry ticket” and “strange art of the deal”

There's an entry ticket to this [Trump-Putin] conversation, it appears. And sadly, it's not our soft power or our values, it's hard power. And it leaves the category challenge for us in Europe. How do we develop that to get ourselves a seat in this conversation?

I don't know whether Donald Trump actually buys the Russian line, but I think the Russians probably think he does, and I think that significantly diminishes his leverage.

And I saw this happen in Afghanistan, where he gave away the biggest concession before we even started. It's a strange art of the deal, honestly.

Trump and Putin are talking about different things

These [U.S.-Russia] negotiations are at a very early stage. They're going to be highly complicated. Russia has gone maximal to the point that they may even have overreached.

It's going to be very, very hard for Trump to cut through this in a way that produces anything that isn't an abject humiliation.

The issue is that Trump and Putin are talking about different things. So Trump thinks this is about territory, characteristically as a real estate guy. It's about land, giving land to Russia in return for peace.

And Putin said it's about sovereignty. Putin was super clear when he started this war that the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign and free country was an unacceptable affront to Russian security. He will not stop until Ukraine isn't a country anymore.

And that is a completely different conversation. And by the way, there's more. There's NATO putting constraints on its presence in Eastern Europe and going back to previous borders in 1997.

They will build up their capabilities

The Russian army is not going to march into Warsaw tomorrow. But nor should we obscure the fact that this will be hugely emboldening. And over time, they will build up their capabilities.

We absolutely have the capability to build up the necessary military forces to resist this. But if we don't do that, then yes, this is the stuff of nightmares.

We need to organise to effect and demonstrate that we're prepared to play a role, take control of our own environment, recognise that we've got to develop our power, and that's got to happen quickly. Donald Trump is not wrong about everything. We were free-riding, there was free-riding in Europe, and this needs to be sorted out.