World War III -- go see the movie
Plus Britain's woes (again) and a new CIA Russia book
This week’s must-read is the Lithuanian intelligence community’s annual threat assessment . Key points: Russia’s not ready for another right now, but there’s plenty else to worry about. Not least nihilistic “lone wolves”. Read the whole thing.
You can hear me for 30 mins in this podcast (after an opening 15 mins in Lithuanian)
I gave the closing keynote at the Media Freedom Forum in London. I could have walloped the government for its uselessness on SLAPPs, transnational repression etc but I didn’t. Here’s what I said.
We’ve had a wonderful conference, though I am filled with shame and grief that we need to be here at all. Everyone of us here in the hall has better things to do – we should be out there exercising our media freedom, exposing injustice, holding decision-makers to account, or engaging in polemic, satire and speculation, rather than being huddled in here trying to defend our right to do anything at all.
I thought of starting off by responding to yesterday’s opening keynote speech from FCDO Minister Chris Elmore.
There are two reasons why I’m not going to do that
One is that despite eight emails since yesterday afternoon, and four phone calls today, I’ve been unable to extract the text of his remarks from the FCDO.
It strikes me that if the government is serious about championing media freedom it could start by making life simple and easier for journalists trying to do their job.
Another reason I’m not going to do that is that it would be too easy.
I think everyone here understands that the dimensions of the say-do gap between what the government promised, particularly what it promised in opposition, and what they’ve actually done. The failure to get to grips with SLAPPs is just the most glaring example of a much broader failure to understand and deal with the threat to media freedom in particular and also to democracy in general.
The really galling thing about this is that reform wouldn’t involve spending a lot of taxpayers’ money. It would of course be inconvenient for other people, those who like spending a lot of money in order to buy political influence, silence criticism, escape scrutiny and make even more money. Also lawyers.
I could at this point talk — entirely hypothetically — about dodgy peerages, and unleashing a notoriously oligarch-friendly attack dog PR firm on journalists who ask awkward questions. But having fought one SLAPP during my time at the Economist, which cost me six months of my life, and cost us, or rather our insurer, half a million pounds, I have no desire to do that again. So just for the record, all members of the House of Lords are saints, all private intelligence companies and PR firms are reputable, all media lawyers adhere strictly to their codes of professional ethics, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing, past, present or future, by any of these [REDACTED]
What I want to do instead is to encourage us to think a little bit more broadly about the problem. Most people here are or were media practitioners or work in the media ecosystem. That’s not just tremendous fun but also a great privilege. My mother is 96. She still wonders when I am going to get a proper job.
But most people aren’t journalists and most of the people we need to persuade are not journalists. They may not even like journalists very much. So if we campaign solely on the basis that journalists are a wonderful and that media freedom is ipso facto good, we are limiting our appeal.
So I’d like to suggest that we broaden our argument a bit.
I’m delighted that the media freedom ambassador from Finland here because her country is perhaps the prime example in Europe or even the world of a comprehensive model of national defence. It involves whole of government but also the whole of society.
That doesn’t compromise journalistic freedom. But it does mean that Finnish journalists think about national security, and that the guardians of national security think about journalism.
Some of you may know that Russia has spent the last year conducting a vociferous information campaign against Finn trying to depict it – seriously – as a hot bed of neo-nazism. The unrepentant perpetrator of horrific war crimes. A hell hole of repressive ultra woke persecution of children. And much more besides.
The remarkable thing about this is the Finnish reaction. Or lack of it.
Finns understand that information is part of Russia’s sub-threshold arsenal and that it can be used as a weapon. And that the best response is sometimes to say nothing. So Finnish journalists do not demand that their decision-makers respond to their disgraceful Russian attacks. Nor do they give them huge prominence. There is no huge competition to get the scoop or make the splash. That would be playing into the Russians’ hands. Editorial decision-making is not just about commercial and professional competition. It fits into a broader picture. However much media freedom we enjoy, it won’t last if our national security system fails us.
Finnish decision-makers also understand that the information ecosystem is part of national defence. That means that public broadcasting is important, and treating journalists properly is important. Like answering their emails. As a foreign journalist, I find it easier to get information from the Finnish authorities than I do from my own government.
Finland also has excellent soft target protection covering not journalists but campaigners, academics think tankers and others who may be targeted by the repressive organ of the Russian Federation. It’s vital to ensure that the information system works, without intimidation or distortion.
Finns don’t like talking about this. And I can see ambassador Katya Pehrman is already squirming with embarrassment. She would love it we could switch the conversation to something else such as the fact that Santa Claus comes from Lapland. That message discipline again.
My point is, there’s a very strong national security argument for having a resilient capable information ecosystem. You don’t have to love journalists as a species or admire the editorial stance of our big news outlets, to believe that you don’t want hostile state actors and other enemies spreading disinformation or playing divide and rule in the stress points and fractures in our societies.
Just to be clear: I don’t think the national security argument should be front and centre. That’s what Vladimir Putin does in Russia. We won’t protect our society against Putinist attacks by Putinising it. But for people who care first and foremost about national security, highlighting the importance of a resilient, capable media as part of a national information ecosystem is a powerful argument.
A second and even bigger argument involves morals. We are never going to establish long-term media freedom through legislative means, any more than we can expect it through the operation of the free market. Both good laws and a solid business model are important, even necessary conditions, But they are not sufficient ones. We can’t outsource our freedom to lawmakers and regulators, any more than we can rely on the profit motive. The most powerful pressure — even more than the threat of criminal sanctions, lawsuits and losing money, is normative. Media freedom is not just about functionality, staying in business and out of court. In the end it’s about right and wrong. The buck stops with us, as producers and consumers of information, and as citizens.
Some of you may know the work of the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency, which has just published a magnificent 30-chapter study on how to defend democracy. It covers all sorts of aspects, but the one that really struck me was the chapter on morals.
Key quote
To counter disinformation is to engage in moral reasoning.
The key point here is that we have to introduce, or reintroduce, a normative dimension. It’s bad to tell lies. It’s bad to repeat them. It’s bad to bully people. It’s bad to stay silent in the face of injustice.
We get quite uncomfortable about discussions of ethics. Perhaps because our own personalise one to stand up to the scrutiny that we like to apply to others. But we need to show that our ideas of right and wrong is not just about narrow fact-checking, whether we get billions and millions the right way round (I’ve always found that a challenge), or about a tick-box approach to journalistic ethics. We are moral beings, operating in a moral universe, in our professional lives as well as our personal ones. If we choose to abdicate from moral reasoning, that is in itself a moral choice.
My phone has been buzzing and I have a suspicion that it may be the FCDO, which has finally mastered the complicated operational techniques of copy, paste send.
And that’s perhaps my final point. Just as there are no prizes for coming second in war, there is not consolation for us in being right but late. We have been far too slow to see the way that rich and powerful people are using the technological, commercial and legal environment to create a plutocratic world order in which their power cannot scrutinised, let alone challenged. So please, all of you, act with urgency. As journalists, we all appreciate the importance of deadlines (I’m not speaking personally here). On this one, we are up against the greatest deadline of our lives. I wish we had been doing this ten, twenty years ago. Let’s not delay any longer. This is the biggest story of our lives. Don’t miss it.
My Times column this week was another rant about British weakness and our tortured relationship with the US. [warning— contains French words]
Our feeble defences need a Macron-style boost
The UK’s loveless marriage with America has exposed our vulnerability in dangerous times
Thumbed noses prompt cold shoulders. Supposedly an indispensable American ally, Britain stood prissily aside as the United States embarked on its biggest war in years, making tortuous legalistic excuses, first for inaction and then for token participation.
Like the Europeans who have stayed out of this, we are right in principle. This war stems from botched diplomacy, impetuous decision-making and wildly optimistic assumptions. It will cost a lot and end messily, probably spawning new dangers. Britain has had bust-ups with the Americans before. They stabbed us in the back during our attempt, with France and Israel, to retake the Suez canal in 1956; we stayed out of Vietnam; they dithered on the Falklands in 1982 and in 1983 invaded Grenada, a Commonwealth country, without telling us.
But defence without the US is messy too. It was already unlikely that Donald Trump would go to war with Russia on Europe’s behalf. Now that chance is even slimmer. One reason is practicality. Modern warfare wears down stockpiles at an alarming rate. Much of what the US would need to defend Europe is going up in smoke right now. Another is political. Why should any US administration shoulder risks and costs for persistently unreliable allies? US forces will stay in Europe: they need the bases and listening posts. But that does not mean they will fight for us, certainly not always and everywhere.
Europeans may loathe Trump but are not ready to fill the gaps. All significant military headquarters in Europe are run by Americans; the most important (nominally headed by a British admiral) is Joint Forces Command in faraway Norfolk, Virginia. Don’t bet on that working smoothly in a crisis where the US administration wants to stay out of trouble.
European leaders cannot even take political decisions, such as freezing Russian assets or imposing sanctions, effectively. Thinking in Brussels is paralysed by parochial squabbles about defence procurement, exemplified by French efforts to keep British industry out of contracts paid for by the EU’s new borrowing splurge.
Europeans also lack the high-tech weapons, high-end intelligence, logistics expertise and “mass” (quantity) that the Americans have provided since D-Day. We could have easily started filling these gaps years ago. Now it will be costly and dangerous, if we manage at all. A crisis has turned into an emergency, says Keir Giles, author of the prescient and gloomy book Who Will Defend Europe? (spoiler: nobody).
One result is a renewed emphasis on national defence plans. Under US tutelage, Nato allies were forced to contribute to common security. Everyone grumbled, but everyone benefited. It is less certain now that the handful of capable military powers such as Finland and Poland will automatically provide scarce military resources for their neighbours. If you don’t believe the Americans will come and make other allies show up, you husband your strength for homeland defence. Such sentiments are low-key but growing. They herald a fragmented defence effort that will be less than the sum of its parts rather than greater.
Foes see this more clearly than we do. The chances of a Russian stunt somewhere in Europe have just increased — not to conquer territory but to expose our division and impotence: a prelude for a new age of menace. I am particularly worried about the undefended Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, demilitarised under an international treaty signed in 1920. Russia already has a foothold there in a semi-derelict, spy-infested mining settlement. Anything Norway does to defend Svalbard will count as a provocation in Russian eyes. I worry about this country too: the drone attack on our sovereign base in Cyprus exposed our pitiful weakness: a mere gaggle of seaworthy warships, a grossly overstretched army, a half-power air force, gaping budget holes and a near-complete lack of air defences.
Europe has no chance of building a credible defence quickly. But a better deterrent might still work. France is filling the security vacuum with a dramatic, well-prepared speech on nuclear doctrine this week from President Macron. He announced more warheads and joint nuclear exercises with allies: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Macron’s grip on power may be shaky but he knows how to think big and how to bargain. The former British Conservative politician Michael Gove, once an ardent Atlanticist, remarked admiringly: “Je voudrais Gaullisme pour le Royaume-Uni.” [I would like Gaullism for the UK]
France already has a nuclear deal with Britain. But its nuclear arsenal is truly independent and also flexible, with smaller warheads and more ways of delivering them. We have only our one-shot doomsday weapon, the strategic warheads carried on our clapped-out nuclear submarines (only one of which is currently seaworthy). Britain will be getting new, US-made nuclear bombs, but these can be dropped only by the new F-35A US-made warplane, which requires mid-air refuelling (another US capability that Europe lacks) to reach Russia. No European ally is going to find such dependence on a capricious Washington very reassuring.
Yet that dependence is the hallmark of British defence and security policy, since Winston Churchill coined the phrase “special relationship” in his Fulton, Missouri, speech 80 years ago today. We are tied to the Americans in a loveless marriage. Life outside it is unimaginable. Life inside it is increasingly intolerable. The US is already contemptuous of our “pearl-clutching” prevarication (Pentagon boss Pete Hegseth’s scornful term) and our military weakness.
As chaos looms, France is seizing the lead in a last-ditch, long-shot attempt to fix Europe’s security. Britain’s choice now is to embark on a crash rearmament programme, to suck up to Paris— or to stay writhing on the sidelines.
My weekly 600 words were on why we shouldn’t be asking about the imminent start of "World War III”
WW3? Go see the movie
Big labels and simple categories are convenient but distracting
Is this the start of World War Three? As the US-Israeli special military operation against Iran begins to look like a longer conflict, with alarming economic and military ripples right across the globe, headlines are sprouting. Doom-mongers say yes, optimists say no. Both are wrong. The question is misleading.
Leave aside for now the “this” in the question and try to define “start”? Did World War Two begin when Adolf Hitler attacked Poland in September 1939? Or when he attacked the Soviet Union in 1941? Some countries joined much later (Turkey waited until February 1945; the Soviet Union declared war on Japan only on August 9, a week before the surrender).
Or did it start earlier? The Czechs and the Slovaks would date the outbreak to the Munich agreement of 1938. Others would cite that deal’s even more cynical result, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Or blame the events that made this “might-is-right” world possible: Italy’s attack on Abyssinia in 1935, which capsized the League of Nations, or Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
Nor is it clear when World War Two finally ended. Was it with the capitulation of Germany and Japan? Or with the crushing of the armed resistance movements in the Soviet empire: the Baltic states, Ukraine, Romania and elsewhere? For Ukrainians the two world wars of the last century are just episodes in a much longer story about Russian imperialism, dating back to 1169 (when Andrei Bogolyubsky, the prince of Vladimir-Suzdal, besieged and ravaged Kyiv, then the capital of Rus’)
In short, wars are not like football matches, where the players form up on opposing sides, the referee blows a whistle and the game begins. They are messy and muddling to the observer: events often become significant only in retrospect. Whatever the “this” in the opening question, something else probably matters more.
It is also a mistake to focus on only one kind of warfare, such as the danger of “nuclear conflict”. These weapons have not been deployed in action since 1945. But they are routinely used for coercion. Russia’s nuclear sabre-ratting so scared the Biden administration (looking at you, Jake Sullivan) that it starved Ukraine of the weapons it needed to repel the invasion. Beware artificial geographical limits too. The much-celebrated “long peace” of post-war Europe after 1945 would have come as a surprise to those involved in terrorist conflicts in Spain, Germany, Italy or Northern Ireland, or in the all-out wars that divided Cyprus and the former Yugoslavia. “Peace” in this context has a special definition, not in the dictionary, which means “not within earshot of Brussels”.
Most important of all, no clear line separates war and peace, at least for the Kremlin, which sees conflict as an eternal feature of relations between states. The only question is the level of intensity. A little mild subversion and cyber-espionage? A full-blown sub-threshold attack involving sabotage, assassinations and attempts to bribe or blackmail decision-makers? A landgrab? These are questions of degree not principle.
Instead of thumb-sucking about how, when and where “World War Three” may start, it would be far better to concentrate on defence and deterrence in the conflict that is already raging, under our noses. Not just the bombing of Iran, with all its unpredictable consequences for regional stability, alliance cohesion and American credibility; and not just the war in Ukraine, now out of the headlines but still the biggest determinant of Europe’s security. Russia (and China) are playing divide-and-rule right across Europe, right now, and with alarming success. Leave “World War Three” to the scriptwriters. Concentrate on winning the fight that is already under way.
I also reviewed for Foreign Policy Sean Wiswesser’s sizzling new book about Russian tradecraft.
Shadow Boxing With the Kremlin
A CIA veteran depicts Moscow’s espionage arsenal. What is the West going to do about it?
Tradecraft, Tactics and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War, Sean M. Wiswesser, Naval Institute Press, 288 pp., $36.95, April 2026
U.S. and British intelligence officers never really believed the old Cold War was over. Even at the height of the 1990s East-West love-in, when U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton poured money into supporting Boris Yeltsin’s rickety grip on the Kremlin, Russian spies were trying to steal secrets, exert influence, spot potential recruits, and penetrate foreign spy services.
Sean Wiswesser’s new book is Delphic about the details of his 30-year career in U.S. spookdom, chiefly at the CIA. But readers will infer that he recruited Russian intelligence officers, ran them as agents, and helped catch those who tried to spy on the United States and its allies. Now out of the shadows, he is continuing the fight against what in U.S. spy parlance are the Russian Intelligence Services (RIS). The avowed aim of this book, his first, is “to damage RIS capabilities … and to empower our services and those of our allies to counter RIS actions more effectively.”