Aspen Security Forum 2023 DC Edition: Foreign Secretary’s speech
Foreign Secretary David Cameron gave a speech at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington DC.
Thank you, it’s great to be with you this morning.
About a month ago, before I took this job, if someone said to me “come to Aspen”, it probably meant come for a skiing holiday. Now it means come and speak at a conference, but I couldn’t be more delighted to be in this job at this time because there are so many difficult issues that we have to get to grips with.
It made me think the other day about the first job I ever had in politics, which was in 1988, 1989 when I went to work for Margaret Thatcher.
I had just left university and I looked back to that time: the Berlin Wall was falling, the Soviet Union was breaking up, Russia was becoming a friend, China was joining the World Trade Organisation, democracy was spreading across Europe, and in many ways across the world, more and more countries were adopting market-based economics. It wasn’t the end of history, but it felt like a time where we were making extraordinary progress.
You contrast that with today and it really couldn’t be more different.
A war in Europe; a conventional war in Europe. This crisis in the Middle East, a much more aggressive China, an unbelievably aggressive Russia. Instead of free trade spreading, more and more countries adopting protectionism.
I think the first thing to realise in this different world is just how much has changed and how unlikely it is to snap back. Liberally-minded conservatives like me have a bit of an optimism bias. We always think things are going to go back to how they were.
In fact, I remember a conversation I had with Barack Obama at a G7 and I said: “Barack, you know, Britain and America are the 2 fastest growing economies. We should be so proud that we’re doing such a great job,” and he said: “Yes, David, we are the 2 best looking horses in the glue factory.” At the time, I thought well, you’re just a bit gloomy Barack, but now I realise, in fact, what he was saying is really the world had changed; things were much more difficult, and we had to recognise that.
I think it is really important to do that because, at this time, its never been more important to strengthen our defences, to harden and protect our systems, to build on our key alliances, to work with our closest friends and allies, and that’s why I’m here in the United States today.
I think we should also be frank about something which is our domestic politics are actually making it harder not only to do that, but also to engage in the world in the way that we need to, to try and build the security and stability that we need.
I heard this on the Hill yesterday over and over again, but I hear it also back at home, which is why should we meet these challenges overseas when there are so many challenges at home?
I think we should be frank that there are some things that are fundamentally upended and have changed our politics.
The pressures that we have from mass movement of people and illegal migration, the fact that globalisation hasn’t benefited every part of our country equally, there are people in places left behind and, of course, the incredible amplification to these 2 problems, if you like, economic dislocation and social dislocation, the incredible amplification that comes through social media.
I’m not one of those people who just says: “Well just ignore that and don’t think about that. Just get on and make the arguments for engagement.” We have to deal with those problems. We will only be strong internationally if we can be strong and prosperous domestically.
That’s why I think it doesn’t matter whether you’re Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Labour; we’ve all got to meet those domestic challenges in order to engage but nonetheless, the arguments for engagement are stronger than ever, and we’ve got to make them however hard it is.
It’s a difficult point to make here, but it is true.
Our people live all over the world, our businesses trade all over the world, we benefit massively from investing in that engagement to try and deliver the security and the stability that we need.
The biggest beneficiary of Pax Americana was America and it’s worth making that argument over and over again.
So how do we do it?
Well, let’s start with the Middle East. I absolutely stand squarely with you in the United States in recognising that the attacks on the seventh of October, were an appalling terrorist act. An invasion of another country.
I stood in Kibbutz Be’eri and saw what had happened. Children massacred in front of their parents, parents murdered in front of their children, and we’re right to support Israel as they try and deal with the Hamas terrorist threat.
People who call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire do need to understand that if you stop now, with Hamas, still in charge of even a part of Gaza, there can never be a two-state solution.
So I think it’s important we support Israel, while at the same time arguing about the importance of international humanitarian law, the importance of reducing civilian casualties, and we will make those points over and over again.
But I want to make this point as we look ahead and think about the future and how we try and build a future for Israel and for Palestinian people to live in dignity and justice, the D bit of FCDO - the Development part - is going to be every bit as important and it’s the same in America.
We’re going to have to try and work out how to build up the Palestinian Authority and revitalise it. We’re going to have to work out how to engage the Arab states how to try and rebuild what the Palestinians have and what they need.
And to people who say: “Well, this development bit, it’s a rather soft bit of your foreign policy or your security policy and really the issue is China.” I would just make this point that we need Britain and America and the countries that believe in democracy and freedom. We need to offer other countries an alternative to China. As Larry Summers once said: “It’s no good if you go to an African country and they say ‘yes, it’s great, China builds us a bridge, you just give us a lecture’.”
That’s no good. We’ve got to offer that alternative and I think it’s really important that we can work together to make sure we’re able to put investments into those countries, rather than leave them to the mercy of Chinese debt traps.
But crucially what I want to talk about today and why I’m here is Ukraine.
I have a very simple and straightforward view about this. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was the worst example of one state invading and wrecking the sovereignty of another state that we have seen since the Second World War.
And it is a huge challenge to us. I’m not worried about the strength and unity and consensus and bravery of the Ukrainian people. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it for myself. I’m worried that we’re not going to do what we need to do.
Add up the economies of the countries that are on the side of Ukraine; we outmatch Russia by 30 to 1 in terms of the size of our economies, the size of our GDPs. We’ve just got to make that size count and we’ve got to make sure we give them the weapons, the economic support, the moral support, the diplomatic support but crucially that military support that can make a difference.
And I want to just take a few moments to try and take on some of the arguments that you hear against this engagement.
The first thing you hear is: “It’s failing, it’s not working.” I think that is nonsense. If you look at what the Ukrainians have done, they have taken back half of the territory that Russia stole. Yes, it’s something of a deadlock on land at the moment. But I was standing in the Odesa port just a couple of weeks ago, where the Ukrainians have pushed the Russian Navy back right across the Black Sea. In the process, they’ve sunk about a fifth of the Russian Black Sea fleet. They’ve opened up a maritime way so they can export their goods and their grain and over 200 ships have used that maritime lane since that amazing work was done. So they are exporting again, they’re growing again.
Their economy is succeeding again, and we should be backing them on that basis.
Now the second thing you hear is, is Europe pulling its weight? Isn’t this all the US and are we doing enough?
You are doing an incredible job; the weapons you supply the economic support you give but the figures now show that actually European countries are doing, if you add up the economic support and the military support, are doing twice as much as the United States.
So the support really is there and if you vote through this package, however you do it and whatever you have to connect it with in Congress, it will give an enormous fillip to those European countries.
But the other thing I’d say is, yes sometimes in the past Europe has been rather disunited but I was in the NATO conference in Brussels a couple of weeks ago and I’ve never seen NATO so united, so engaged and with Finland and Sweden joining, actually growing and succeeding. That is already a massive failure for Putin that he has managed to bring about that unity.
Now the next thing you hear is, is the strategy clear enough? Do we know what we’re trying to do?
Yes, we’re trying to help the Ukrainians through what is going to be a difficult winter. And we want to supply them so they can rebuild next year and sustain what they’re doing.
Why is that so important? Anything less than that is a victory for Putin.
And if there is a victory for Putin, it won’t be the end of this. I stood in Tbilisi in Georgia in 2008 when he took a part of that country and warned this would happen and now it has happened in Ukraine and if we let him win in Ukraine it will be somewhere else next. And it won’t just be American money that’s at risk, it might be a NATO country so it could be American lives.
The value for money of what you have put in is astounding. What is it? Something like maybe 10% of your defence budget used by the Ukrainians has destroyed half of Russia’s pre-war assets. Now if that isn’t a good investment, I don’t know what is.
I think the final point that people raise is: What about Ukraine? Is it corrupt? Should we be helping this country?
Of course Ukraine isn’t perfect but it is a democracy, it’s a democracy that voted in a referendum, every part of that country, Crimea included and Donbas included, to be an independent sovereign country. It is a democracy, it has a remarkable President Zelenskyy and it’s passing laws that are tougher on corruption than anything that exists in your country or in my country.
So I see it as the great test for our generation, the great challenge for our generation. Are we going to defend this democracy? Are we going to recognise that European security is also American security?
We should stay united on this and we should pass this money to the Ukrainians. We should back them and make sure that it’s Putin that loses. Because if that money doesn’t get voted through, there are only 2 people that will be smiling: one of them is Vladimir Putin in Russia, the other is Xi Jinping in Beijing.
And I don’t know about you but I don’t want to give either of those people a Christmas present.
Thank you very much.