School of War - Boris Johnson on Why Europe and America Still Need Each Other

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

As war in Ukraine grinds towards its fifth year and tensions strain the transatlantic alliance, former British prime minister Boris Johnson says he remains convinced that the West has the power to prevail: “Putin has got to lose.” Today, Johnson joins School of War to discuss how the West can bring the Russian president to the negotiating table, why Europe’s dream of “strategic autonomy” is a “sham, a snare and a delusion,” and why he believes predictions of American decline and Chinese dominance have it backward. 02:20 — When Boris Johnson Knew Putin Would Invade Ukraine 05:46 — Why Europe Didn’t Believe an Invasion Was Coming 09:12 — Did Boris Johnson Stop a Ukraine-Russia Peace Deal? 11:19 — Could Ukraine Trade Land for Peace? 13:43 — What Johnson Saw on Ukraine’s Front Lines 17:06 — How Economic Warfare Could Pressure Putin 18:00 — “Putin Has Got to Lose” 20:00 — The Growing Divide Between America and Europe 22:19 — Can Britain Still Defend Itself? 26:20 —  JD Vance’s Critique of Europe 30:12 — Britain, Free Speech, and the Culture War 34:39 — Can Europe Achieve “Strategic Autonomy”? 39:07 — Why America Should Still Care About NATO 41:01 — The Fight Over the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia 46:12 — Why Johnson Is Still Betting on America Over China This episode of School of War is brought to you by Maven Smart System, the builder platform for the American warfighter, fielded across the force and live on the frontline today. Learn more at palantir.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today on School of War, we talked to Boris Johnson, who was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022, a period that saw Brexit, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and much more besides. We'll talk about Ukraine, his experience is there recently, but also his leadership back in 2022, elements of which were quite controversial. We'll talk about the Atlantic relationship between the United States, the UK, and Europe.

European complaints about President Trump, American complaints about the Brits. Things get a little bristly at times. Let's get into it. It is for war. The Loxia invasion of Hawaii. December 7, 19, 40, which will live. bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state.

We continue to face the grave situation in grand. Standing wrong. And he'll fight in the fields and in the streets, which you'll never know that. Hi, I'm Erin McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome to the show today. Boris Johnson, once Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he's been twice mayor of London, the Foreign Secretary, leader of the Conservative Party,

led Britain through a tumultuous period of Breggis. Brexit, COVID, the Russian full invasion, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Thank you so much, sir, for coming on the show. Pleasure. Nice to see you. Let's start with Ukraine. I know you travel there frequently, and I want to get to where we are in the road ahead. But before we do that, I want to take you back to 2021, 2022 when you were in office.

Yeah. And just talk through those events, because I think it will be very interesting to listeners and viewers. Do you remember when you first realized that the invasion of the invasion of the invasion of the invasion of the was going to happen, that it was real? Well, it's a very, very good question, because I think that I've got to pay tribute to my defense secretary, a guy called Ben Wallace, because back in the summer of 21, he read Putin's crazy kind of Nostradamus essay about, you know, Ukraine is part of Russia, all this of nonsense.

And he came to me, and Ben said, look, I really think he's serious. I really think he's going to invade. And so over that autumn, and I read it too, and I could see that there was something very nasty, was going to happen. And we decided to see what we could do to help. Because we've been helping Ukraine for a long time since the first invasion in 2014. And the UK was always very heavily pro-Ukraine, you know, trying to keep Putin under control and back the Ukrainians. And it was a sort of answer to a question, you know, when did we know? By the end of that year, by end of 21, beginning of 22, we had very little doubt.

And to be frank, the SIGINT and the intelligence that we were getting from your guys, our guys, it was overwhelming. And we knew he was planning something very bad. And the funny thing was that we couldn't convince our best friends. We couldn't convince the French, we couldn't convince the Germans, maybe because they had so much emotionally invested in the idea that this wasn't going to happen. And even on the eve of war, it still wasn't clear to them. And right up until, I remember in February 22 going to Ukraine, you know, before the invasion, just before, and talking to Volodymya Zelenskyy.

And even then he was being ambiguous about whether or not he thought it was actually going to happen. And but that was because he didn't want to scare people in his own country. I think he knew it was going to happen. So I would say turn of the year 21, beginning of 22, certainly by the Munich Security Conference, we were pretty sure. And British policy was really leaning into the prospect of this invasion. You supplied anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainians quite early on in 2022. Though to be fair, don't forget, we did. I'm very proud of what we did.

We sent them some things called Enlaws, which were a very useful anti-tank shoulder-launch thing made in Belfast by what was Short Brothers, Nautilis. But the credit, really, for breaking the taboo on sending very important lethal weaponry belongs to Trump. I mean, I don't know, I can't know when or exactly who. I mean, maybe it was John Bolton or somebody who told him, but he sent them the javelins.

Yeah. Fantastic thing to do. Yeah, it was in that era. I think it was. And that made a real difference to our, that enabled us to do it and to make the case to our friends. Do you remember on the other side of the ledger in terms of speaking to folks who were skeptics? Because there were a lot of skeptics right up essentially to the moment of the invasion itself that it was actually going to happen. Do you remember conversations that you had, perhaps with Macron or others, where they expressed skepticism that this was going to come? What was the nature of European skepticism? I think it was a desperate hope that it wasn't going to come.

And, you know, they, you know, I was saying, come on, we've got to put sanctions on these guys to stop them doing it. And I remember Olaf, the German guy was very much against that. Emmanuel, you know, if you remember what happened with the Ukraine dossier, it was from 2014 onwards because we basically cocked up at the Normandy celebrations in that, not commemorations. in that, I guess it's July, isn't it? We hadn't been at the right thing, the right meeting. So the Normandy format was France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, right? Because treating the conflict as though it was a domestic dispute between Russia and Ukraine. And we weren't there.

And I think the French and the Germans owned it. They owned the problem. They were meant to be sorely out. They were like marriage guidance counselor. Whereas, of course, it was a vicious attack by one party on another. But they were kind of pretending to manage this nightmare in a kind of even-handed way. And so they were very, very much against, they couldn't accept that Putin was really going to do this. And we had to say, look, you should hear what we're hearing.

We can hear them giving the orders to the battalion tactical groups to move to the front. We can hear all this stuff, you know. And they didn't want to hear. And I do remember one conversation in particular with the Germans, where I went to who it was, but there was one particular senior representative of the Chancellor's staff who said, you know, if this is going to happen,

wouldn't it be better if it just happened quickly and the Ukrainians are lost and it was all over? Yeah. And I mean, I can see why he said that. And I mean, I, of course, profoundly disagreed. But we are now four and a half years after the outbreak of that, after that invasion by Putin and with so many people who were being killed and injured and so much disaster and suffering.

I can see why he said that. I still think he was wrong. But, you know, he was trying to say, look, this is going to be a disaster, going to be a nightmare for the whole world, it'll be a night for Ukraine, for Ukraine, it's going to be a nightmare for Russia. Maybe you'd better get it over quickly. And I thought that was profoundly wrong. And I thought that we should help the Ukrainians to resist.

Yeah. So there was a lot of that. And, you know, they wanted to resist. exist. They wanted to fight. They wanted to defend their country. And that is, you know, amongst the most powerful human emotions, right? Yeah. And there was no stopping it. I mean, people, people now say there's this, this is absolute bollocks that, if I can use that word on your illustrious show. You may. You can use worse if you like. Maybe I will. But some people accuse me, or the Kremlin

accuses me sometimes. You may have seen this thing. They say that in the, after the invasion, after the their forces had been repelled from the Kiev area, and there was a period in

April when there was real progress being made on a negotiated outcome, a solution. And this was your first trip. This was famously, you're the first, certainly European leader there. And they said that if if I went to they said that I did go they said that my trip to to Kiev in that April

was responsible for stopping those peace negotiations they said I queered the pitch that I made it impossible for a peace deal to be done it's total total total of utter bollus I mean there was no European leader no Western leader who could conceivably have stopped the Ukrainians for

fighting for their country. It just wasn't going to happen. All I was saying to them, I wanted to say to Volodymya Zelensky, you know, after this appalling thing that they had been through, when they'd succeeded against all the odds in pushing, you know, the second biggest army in the world out of the Kiev area, you know, they'd pushed them back in the east a bit too. They'd done fantastic. They've done wonders. All I wanted to say to him was, look, you know, I can't be more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians. We can't, but if you want to fight on, then we're going to be with you. That's all I said. And I had a strong mandate from my, from my cabinet and from Parliament to say that. And that's the position, that remains the

position of the British people. Right. Well, let me ask you this then. So four and a half years on, even supporters of the Ukrainian cause, you know, have to confront the fact that it's been a bit of stalemate. At times the pendulum swings more in the Russian direction. At times it swings more in the Ukrainian direction. Recent months have seemed more favorable to the Ukrainians. It's possible that pendulum will swing back. Do you think there was a moment? Maybe spring of 2022 wasn't the right one. Maybe fall of 2022 when the Russians really were on the run. I mean, that was a rough time for Putin that fall. They had lost a great deal of what they had already captured. Yes. Was there a time when... He wouldn't have done... Okay.

Look, at every stage it has been open to Putin to bank his gains and say no more. But every stage, the Ukrainians, I think, have been, you know, I've no doubt at all that Volodymyr Zelensky would do a deal. He wouldn't say this and he couldn't say this. But I've no doubt at all that he would de facto trade. land for peace, not de jure, but de facto, you'd accept that Putin, you know, you freeze it at the point of contact, provided the West gave some sort of guarantee that Ukraine would be protected, that they'd be fortified, you'd have a sort of steel porcupine strategy and so on. But Putin has never come close to accepting that. Show me any time in the last four and a half years when he's actually

said that he will stop fighting, he'll stop sending his troops. The only reason he moved out of the areas that he was in was because the Ukrainian forces heroically repelled him. Yeah. That's all. He's done nothing for peace. And I think it's very interesting. I think you completely accurately characterize the state of the war at the moment. It's, I think a lot of people in the last couple of months have got the impression that Ukraine is doing a lot better. It is. I mean, it's doing fantastically. Their technology is amazing. They're doing some spectacular things. But on the ground, it's a nightmare. Absolutely nightmare. You were just there earlier this year. What did you see? I was. Well, I mean, I saw the horror of what it's like to be a Ukrainian soldier in those forward positions.

And, you know, as you know, you're a military expert, but, well, I'm not really, but at all. But, you know, what you realize is how hugely the drones have changed the face of war. Yeah. And how terrifying they are. And this is a, you know, the, it really affects people's psychology that any moment this thing, the death can come from the sky like this, boom, you know, this buzzing little mosquito can kill you. And I saw all that, and I saw how hard pressed they are. So Putin's trying to, he was trying to take Zaporizia really, really hard.

The city to the south, famous city in the south of Ukraine, built, by the way, very largely by Americans, or built with American help, the dam built with American help in the third. It's an incredible story. You did that for most of Afghanistan, too. This was in the 19th century. This was in the sort of, you know, the Herbert Hoover era. Yeah, that's right. And the incredible place.

But Putin wants it because he controls that. He's much closer to getting the route through to Odessa, and he can really stuff up Ukraine. And so the fighting's very hard there. And I saw, you know, the places I went to, sadly, some of the villages I saw. What it's like for these guys is, you know, you're in a house in a village. And, of course, the other villages, I mean, one of the sad features of the war is that they're in these Ukrainian villages. The soldiers have to, they're defending the village, they have to find somewhere to stay,

and they're staying in the bunkers in the houses. That means that homes in that village get bombed. And so if you're a civilian in this, but you start to resent the fact that that's happening to your. life being destroyed in that way. Places I was, a few months ago now, February, it was, they're now being overrun. So you're right to say the Ukrainians are doing better, but Russia's pushing on. They're pushing and pushing. So, you know, back to your point, Putin doesn't have the big incentive now to what he never has had in his mind, an incentive to stop.

And, you know, that's good news that today, we've got this thing in the Senate and Congress, we've got the Lindsey Graham bill is going through. It hasn't quite gone through yet, but it's going to happen, I hope, right? It's looking promising. Now, that's a serious utensil of pressure on Putin. That's a 100% tariff on anybody who buys a... Russian oil and gas or oil and gas products. That should, and there are five big countries that do it.

That should be, China, India, so on. That should really hurt. That should, and that should hurt Putin. Is this your prescription, economic warfare? Yeah, it's got to be done. Yeah. But it's great that it's really, really great that the United States is doing this today. And by the way, you know, since I'm here in Washington, you know, I should make a general

point about the United States, which is for all the criticism that is leveled at the White House and everybody for the handling of Ukraine or whatever, if it were not for the USA, Ukraine would not today be an independent country, right? Be in no doubt that America remains the arsenal of democracy. And the stuff that America, the intelligence support, Stalin, whatever, all that sort of stuff. That commitment continues to keep Ukraine going. What in my view, we need to do, I mean, I think it would be great if this came from the US, is we need to have a far clearer commitment that Putin has got to lose. Right? I mean, I think Donald Trump has done some great things on this area. You know, I mentioned the javelins. This bill going through. Fantastic.

That's tough stuff. That's harder. That's bigger stuff than the Europeans have done, right, in terms of, in terms of sanctions. It will be. Secondary sanctions. Should it get it, should it get enforced. I think the issue is less can it pass and more can it get enforced. That's right. That's what I'm coming to. Trump has the sticks right now. This is a massive club. Yeah. With which to thud Putin on the bonds, right? Yeah. He needs to do that. Because the problem is, from where Putin sits,

he's not entirely sure that the United States is committed to a free sovereign and independent Ukraine. He's not entirely sure. There are moments when I'm not sure Americans are entirely sure if they're committed to that. And I think that if this bill, if the dollars, the president were to use this tool, that Lindsay bless his, bless his memory, if he would use this tool seriously, and to mean it, and if he were to say to Putin, look, seriously,

this thing's been going on too long, it's not just I want the war to end, I want you out, I want you to stop, I want you to recognize that Ukraine's a free country. If he said that, and he coupled that declaration with a real willingness to use the sanctions in this bill, I think that would have a powerful effect in the Kremlin. And we haven't, you know, we've had a long time now,

we've had a long buildup, we haven't seen that. There's a massive opportunity for him. Warm praise for transatlanticism, the U.S. European, U.S. British relationship, just to step back and put all this in context. It's harder and harder to find on both sides of the Atlantic. Yes. The remarks you just gave, sort of encouraging

American policy from a position of of warm friendliness. I see less and less of it. I think it's a mistake. I want to address this. Well, let me be frank. You know, I think it's, look, it's been a lot worse in the past.

You know, it's been under no illusions about the transatlantic relationship. It's been through some terrible times. You know, it wasn't clear that, you know, we had to deal with Jean-Cart Patrick over the Falklands and all sorts of, you know, we've had all sorts of, Reagan invaded Grenada.

You know, terrible things happen, right? There's constant friction. But honestly, I think that when I agree with Tony Blair about a lot of this, I'm afraid, which is not a popular thing to say in the UK. But I think that you don't necessarily have to agree with or endorse. American strategy in Iran or see exactly how it's supposed to work. But if the President of the United States says, folks, fellow members of NATO, we've got a problem,

I've got to be honest with you, I didn't realize they were in close the Straits of Hormuz, I mean, God knows why they didn't realize out there, but we need help. Can you help us sort it out, legit? statistically, the job of NATO really and truly is to say, you bet, I think. That's certainly what would have happened if I had been there, if I was prime minister to the UK. And what I mean by that is you don't have to endorse the methods. You don't have to take part in strikes on Iran.

But when you've got a grade A global economic problem, like Iranian closure of, of, of a vital artery. Well, you've got to be... I think we were slow, as my view. Could the British Navy help now? What is the situation with your Navy? Of course we could help. Of course we could help.

And we should have done more. Okay. I wouldn't have this sort of, you know... There's too much running down in Britain. I notice a bit of this. There's a bit of sort of... I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is.

sort of deep-seated snickering about the royal. For me, it's not snickering. It's genuine concern. Genuine concern about British defense spending. Honestly, I think that we have fantastic armed forces. I think we need to expand them. And I think the, you know, pretend that it was all much easier and better when I was in power. But we certainly had a plan to go up to 3% of GDP very, very quickly.

if you talk to our mutual friend, John Bue, who was writing the strategy back in the back in the day, you know, there was no way we could avoid it. We were spending money on so many things. Now, the difficulty with defense spending is, you know, you spend a trillion dollars a year, right? Pretty much. That's where we are. The president wants to go to $1.5 trillion. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it's easily done because you can buy a huge amount of, you know, a

very, very flash-looking machines, right? You know, F-35s or whatever, supercarriers. And then, you know, tanks, okay? And it's not clear to me that tanks have so far been decisive in Ukraine, right? In fact, tanks have been heavy armor, which has such been a big, ticket item, right? Drones have been very important. So I think before, you mustn't,

you mustn't fetishize spending for spending's sake. You've got to find, you've got to find the right kit. And sorry, there's a Labor Minister who says, I think he resigned actually, but there was a guy who was either making the right points on this. It's very, very easy to spend prodigious sums on defense and get very bad value for money, is what I'm saying. So spending alone is not the answer.

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I'm just speaking as a proud Brit who wants to help. But I want to. I tell you what. I want to get your response. You know, I don't, you know, we did lose a lot of people in Afghanistan. by our standards, right? Of course. And so I didn't want to hear that nickel and dime, okay?

And it was sad when we pulled out in the precipitous way that we did. And I think that was mishandled, to be honest. You know, I looked back at that episode, which was 2021. In the summer and autumn of 2021. I think that was probably one of the triggers for the full-scale invasion. I certainly didn't help. and so what am I trying to say here

I don't mind a bit of snickering but there's a limit right let me let me sharpen the critique for you because I actually think let's think about for example the vice president J.D. Vance and what he says from time to time about Europe in the face we could go through the European critique of the United States right now which would involve

Greenland and very sharp held diplomacy and all this kind of stuff but from Vance I think it's more of a critique at a civilizational level That's what I get from the vice president. It's not sort of small ball stuff. It's from the vice president's a sense that progressivism has run amok in Europe and as a civilization, it is lost.

I suppose there's two things. I suppose I'm partly sort of nettled because I know it's true. I mean, there's an element of truth in it. There's an element of truth in it, right? So like, you know, last night somebody said on stage just before I went on, Britain, you know, they had, you know, they had 12,000 people arrested for stuff on Twitter or something like that.

And I thought that that can't possibly be true. So I quickly started sort of Googling it before I had to go on and see it. Turned out actually there was a, you know, of course it wasn't just Twitter. It was, you know, online extremism, whatever, whatever, whatever. You know, viewing extreme child material, whatever. There was lots of things. But the basic point is right. I think there probably is in our country too much interference with free speech now. I think that is probably a fair, a fair criticism. But I think, you know, to talk about our civilization being erased, there I draw that.

There I draw, there I don't think that's quite true. I mean, I think that it depends on how you manage it. When I look at London in New York, I actually see very analogous cities. When I was running London, which I did for eight years, we had about 40% of the population border abroad. It's roughly the same in New York. Here in America, I think about 30% of people are either first or second generation immigrants, right? This is by tradition the country of immigration. The question is, what happens when you come here? And are you made to believe in the country? And I think that, you know, where it's probably reasonable,

I think where J.D. has a point is that in the UK, we have been sometimes a bit limpristed in enforcing our culture and values. You know, I think it's probably true that things like female genital mutilation go on in the UK. I mean, not a huge amount, but probably too much. And I think it's probably true that left liberal people feel that it's sort of colonialist and imperialist to try and stamp out that sort of thing.

I think it might well be true. And I think we should be a lot tougher and insisting on people speak English and all that kind of thing. But just for the benefit of you, I see no risk that British civilization is going to be wiped out. In fact, in this 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, I've just reminded you that your civilization is built entirely on our civilization.

And we invented you. And you are the product of 18th century British Enlightenment. And remains so. And thank God for that. Thank God for that. And I would say that, you know, the strengths that we have together are still far, far great. than that weaknesses. I'm curious what you think the countermeasures

to this kind of stuff should be. Your thoughts would have went to policy. But you know, you're a classically educated guy. I'm curious your thoughts on the role of education and all this. I just, one incident that just caught my eye this week was this, not that there's tremendous policy relevance to this silly story, but this Cambridge professor who appears to have been a fraud.

Turned fraud. But what caught my eye in the story with the Times reporter who got called by the police for sending him questions. Well, no, no, no. And that was terrible. Of course, I'm referring to Jason Ardei, this fabulous, allegedly, who is a professor at Cambridge University. All sorts of details about his biography appear to be essentially manufactured. His academic work appears to be largely invented from whole cloth.

You know, who are the racists in this thing? Okay. Who are the racists? In my view, it's the people at Cambridge University, which I did not attend, just so you know. who decided to appoint this guy. Who had been a terrible face. Who decided to appoint this guy when he had no discernible academic. It's a professor at Cambridge.

I mean, I've got to tell you, this is one of the top ten, top five universities in the world. And professor means something different in the UK than it does in the United States. Professor can be a junior role here. To have a professorial chair is a very big deal. At a great university in like Cambridge, it's a very big deal. And he was given this chair at the age of 37. He had no, he had done, he said nothing, done nothing of any conceivable academic interest. They did it because of the color of his skin.

That was the truth. And they admitted it. And they wanted to feel better about themselves of having a, you know, a companionable young black guy who was going to be, in the senior common room or in the, you know, on the faculty and being a professor. And they wanted to signal their virtue by doing that, right? And it was deeply, deeply cruel. Because they didn't care about the students who wouldn't learn anything from them, or the taxpayer who was paying this, they didn't care above.

They didn't care about him, right? Because he was bound to be found out. And he has been very, very, you know, cruelly found out. And it's sad for him. It's sad for everybody. But they did it just for political correctness. And I think that was a massive goof. And yeah, I think, you know, our universities are,

so, by the way, you know, too quokwe. I mean, so is America, right? I mean, I look at some of the things happening on American campuses. Very peculiar. It was a genuine question about what you think the role of education and culture could play about this, because I agree. I think there are issues here as well. There are.

But I think that we've got. want to believe in our, I mean, that's a slightly different thing. You know, this guy, I'm sure he's not a bad guy. I'm sure he's not a bad guy at all. I feel, I feel really genuinely very sorry for him. I mean, you know, he's a bit of a fabulous, but he's been used by these people. Do you have you remember trading places? Yes, I do. Remember Raymond and Mortimer Duke? Yes, I do. I remember very clearly. He's there Eddie Murphy. Yeah, yeah. It's terrible. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's a cynical, callous thing that they've done. Anyway, it's not the end of the world.

It's certainly at the end of Cambridge. It'll recover. But, yeah, I think you're on to something. I think that the UK is, you know, there's too much work, career, it's too expensive. The police shouldn't be wasting their time. In America, you've got the first of member of the Constitution, right? So we do.

I mean, would you get, would a police officer ring you up if you put something out on Twitter? It would be legally very difficult. The nature of what you had out on Twitter would have to be more than the expression of a political opinion. It would have to involve threats of violence and things like that. Yeah. I don't know. Look, I couldn't explain that.

The 12,000 sounded like a lot. But when I dug into it, the top, the headline number was real. What wasn't clear was exactly what type of suspected offenses they were. It wasn't clear. So to take it back to strategy in military. military policy, whenever I talk to our friends on the other side of the channel, the Europeans, the Germans, especially the French, there's a great deal of a discussion of so-called strategic autonomy.

Don and a break. What you are, if what you're proposing, which is these turbulent times between the United States and the UK and Europe, somehow continue to be turbulent, that the solution is for Europe to become somehow its own thing in rural affairs, sort of move past NATO, is sort of what I take the upshot of it to be. Your response is one of skepticism. Can you flesh that out? Well, look, so the first thing is that it's not, yeah, fine, if you're willing to spend much more of your GDP on defense and you're willing to equip yourself with the kind of stuff that America currently provides. At the moment, Europe's nuclear umbrella is provided virtually

100% by the United States of America, depending on whether you believe in the French force to frap or not whether you think it works. We have an independent nuclear deterrent, but as you know, as you know, ever since the Second World War, we've been in a state of co-dependence on you, or dependence on you. So the nuclear thing.

Second is the fundamental problem is that any kind of military pact since the Peloponnesian War or before, long before, depends on a hegemonic power, right? there has to be a hegemonic power in Europe. Right. And that is the United States of America and has been ever since the Second World War. And SACU is the most important military figure in Europe.

And that's an American. And that is just because America has the throwaway. I mean, you know, what have you got? 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers, the Chinese only have about one or two, 100 bases around the world. some of them absolutely huge bases in every NATO country

5,000 nuclear warheads a trillion dollars a year on on defense if the Europeans want strategic autonomy then they're going to have to try to match that potential and they're going to have to find a leader now is it going to be the French

I don't think the Italians will be very keen is it going to be the Germans I think a lot of people won't be very keen As you're going to be Brits, I think a lot of people weren't very keen on that either. That would be a very good idea, of course. Who's he going to be? The Belgian? Donne me a break. Myzami.

The European strategic autonomy is a sham, a snare and a delusion. And the best strategy for Europe is the strategy that the British have been urging for a long time, which is that we should all spend more on, or certainly my government, not necessarily the Labour government, we should all spend more on defence, we should listen actually to what President Trump has been saying, which hasn't been foolish at all, Europeans need to spend more on defence,

and we should sedulously manage and keep alive the Transatlantic Alliance. Because the Transatlantic Alliance, whatever you say about it, has, you know, it won two world wars, right? It defeated an appalling Soviet tyranny in the Cold War. It liberated literally dozens of countries from communist oppression. And it was a fantastic, it remains a fantastic thing. And, you know, I hope that standing together,

when it comes to things like, problems like Ukraine, we will continue to back freedom and succeed. So I think the Europeans can talk about strategic autonomy, but if it actually undermines NATO and the reality of the way the world operates, that would be very, very foolish in my view. I mean, you're familiar with the horror movie trope that, you know, the bad guys inside of the house. I mean, that's a very interesting critique of these European calls.

bad guy in the house? Well, there's a lot of discussion here in Washington about the utility of NATO. You say SACCure is the most important military figure in NATO. But there's always been the case. It's more acute now. It's more acute now. Actually, what I want to ask you... Dwight D. Eisenhower said, you know, don't, you know, don't like Uncle Sam become Uncle Sucker or whatever. I agree. It's a recurring phenomenon, but it is acute right now. And there are people for, just to give you an example. Rightly. I'm conscious, as I said all that, I was thinking, if I was an American taxpayer watching this guy, I think, you know, you're picking my pocket so that, so that we can look after you. Make the case to that taxpayer.

So I would just say that. Because there are people at Pentagon right now who don't want to accurate to be American. They want to give it back. I can understand that. I just would just say to Americans that I really think it's to our collective advantage to have a strong

transatlantic alliance stop the erosion of the eastern boundaries of Europe by Putin prevent the collapse of countries back into communism because you know whatever you're paying now and America has you know huge commitments all over the world if this if this crumbles

again then remember what happened in 1917 and remember what happened in 1942 and how you had to come in twice to pull our chestnuts out of the fire when things went wrong and you know go to the those beaches in Omaha and and look at the sacrifice that Americans made because the Europeans stuffed it up and because, you know, keep the lid on this thing. And it's relatively cheap. It's relatively cheap to keep a lid on it,

keep American leadership, keep it that way. That's what I think. And I think the world's better off. I think America's better off. And you have massive loyal friends and supporters in Europe as a result. One of the more specific controversies in terms of the structure of American power around the world

and the European relationship is this question of the Chagos Islands. This American base, Diego Garcia, British base as well that's out there. Strategically, if the Iran War has made nothing else clear, locations like this, if you look at it on the map, it's just sort of in the middle of nowhere in the Indian Ocean, but actually it matters a great deal for the Middle East, for the future with China. What's going to have, the Brits have been trying to divest themselves of this? Not the Brits, it's the Labor government.

Okay, what's going on and what's going to happen? I mean, it's insane. So this is, this is the, the Mauritians have a theoretical. claim to the Chegos Islands, which arose mysteriously when the UK government decided that it was no longer going to pay overseas development aid to Mauritius. And so out of revenge, they started a completely unmerited case against us for the sovereignty of the Chegos Islands. And it was a scam. And the Chinese weighed in. And I remember watching it.

And they could see the way they could manipulate the situation. because they're friends with Mauritius, and they have a big clack, as you know, in the UN General Assembly, and they manipulated various UN resolutions and a resolution of international court so as to make it look as if the UK had to hand the Chegos Islands over to Mauritius, when, of course, it was rubbish. And when I was Prime Minister, we just batted it all the time. It's had very good relations to the Mauritius. How are you? Love me to see you. No, no, no, no, don't worry about that change.

We're talking about us some other time. That's the thing to do, right? It was insane. Labor gets in. It's full of guys who hate the British Empire, which was a wonderful thing, by the way, who think, who hate the vestiges of colonialism, any kind. The British government wasn't altogether a wonderful thing. for just, you know, what I'm doing. It had lots of good aspects, so.

And the possession of the Chegos Islands was one of them. I mean, you know, there's hardly anybody living there. And we should hang on to it. And one of the most absurd things in this whole conversation was it always used to be posed as the need to get the Chegos, to respect the rights of the Chegos Islanders to return to their island. Of course, actually, they don't want to return to their island at all.

to their honor at all. They won't come and live in Croydon as it turns. It's nothing to do with their right to return to the Cheagos Islands. It's crazy left-wing nonsense. That's what it is. I hoped that the House of Lords was going to kill it. I thought it was dead. I thought that President Trump had done a brilliant job of killing it, by the way, with Stama. But I see that Andy Burdom says he wants to revive it. So I don't know where we are with Cheggos, I'm afraid. Okay. My strong advice to the president would be, you know, if the Brits continue with this mad policy, then cut out the middleman, make a deal with Mauritius.

You know, I think it's... And somehow buy it for the United States? Whatever, yeah. He's an inquisitive sort of guy. He likes... So we've noticed. So we've noticed. On this theme of the British Empire, I just have to say, and this may be a minority view,

you caught a lot of flack at the time, but when you were, I suppose, the foreign minister, You were traveling in Myanmar, and there was this wonderful incident, which I've treasured ever since. I don't know if you have thought memories of it, of reciting Kipling and Mandalay while at a temple. It became this pressed storm. And I thought, what's the issue? Looking lazy out to sea, there's a Burma girl sitting in. I know she thinks of me. When the wind are in the palm trees and temple bells, they say, come you back, you English soldier.

Come you back to Mandalay. Now, the only reason I said that was because we were in this huge temple. a pagoda and the guys were tonking the bell and so I thought it was an opposite thing to mention and I felt confident

to say it even though it was written by Rudid Kipling everybody now deprecates but because I knew and known gone on very well with Aung Sang Suu Kyi who's a wonderful woman

and by the way the story of Burma is an absolute tragedy with no one does enough about and she and I used to recite these things to each other And we used to do back and forth to tennis rally about the old war main pagoda. So I thought I was okay. But not the Guardian, didn't.

The ambassador, yes, this is a great video of the ambassador disapproving strongly. Yes. You're coming. Well, this is the issue, of course, in the United States, just at a very high level is there is basically no element within US politics that wants to accept something like the responsibilities

of the British Empire. And to the extent that the United States de facto does. I think that that's very wise. Ideology and rhetoric of it entirely. I agree. But that doesn't mean that the strategic hegemonical responsibilities aren't there.

Let me just, let me just for, you know, because this is a big, look, big picture, right? The other day, President Trump goes to see Xi Jinping in China. And Xi Jinping says, hmm, I don't know, I don't want to me. the text you mean, he says, we must, we must solve the suicidides trap, right? Indeed, yes. And we must make sure that we don't fall into the Thucydides trap. And, you know, I just, I don't know

these red Thucydides, but I never heard of a little rubbish in all my life. Because it's all totally the wrong way around, right? The idea that America is Sparta, the entrenched but sinking, falling power and China is Athens, the rising power, rubbish. Other way, Ryan. It's China that's Sparta, the closed autocratic society. It's America that is and always has been the Athenian style, open society. We've been talking about it, open democracy, say what you want, live your life as you please pride, you do no harm to others, vote for your leaders. That's that. That's Athens. that's America, right? And what's actually happening in the world is not the decline of America and the rise of China. No, look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. And I disagree totally

with Elon Musk and all these people. Look at what's actually happening in the world. America continues unbelievably to be about 25% or more of global GDP, 65% of world stock market value, 58% of world currency reserves are held in dollars. We've discussed the size of U.S. armed forces. China is the old ancient center of population, long being ruled as an autocracy. And the demographics are very striking. Because America is already vastly richer, even though it's a much younger country, 250 years, right? What, $93,000 a head per capita in America?

15,000 per head in China. But look at what, look at the birth rates. Look at the population densities. This beautiful country, incredible place. No one here. Fly over America, which I do a lot. You look down. Where is everybody?

It's enormous, cultivable plains, umbrageous forests, navigable rivers, whatever. No one here. by comparison with Europe or India or China. And so the population of America is going to keep going up, probably hit, you know, 430, 500 million by the end of this century. China, on the contrary, is entering a really serious demographic downturn, one baby per woman of childbirthing age now.

And, you know, the numbers I saw suggest that by the end of this century, they'll be down to like 680 million, right, from 1.4 billion now. So America already has a huge, huge per capita GDP advantage, which I don't think it will lose very rapidly, or as rapidly as some predict. And China is actually, you know, visibly getting older before it gets richer, or, well, certainly not getting richer fast enough to catch up with America.

And so, you know, when Xi Jinping, being talked about the Thucydides trap, that is what I think Trump should have said. He should have got the ball back straight over the net. Because that's what Thucydides, you read Thucydides. He's saying something very different. And you, go and look at the remains of Athens and Sparta. Compare the what Athens is left behind and what Sparta has left behind.

Sparta the autocracy, Athens, the democracy. You go to the ruins of Sparta. just a few tumble down, you know, old bits of masonry and some sort of some goats, you know. Athens, history, philosophy, comedy, tragedy, lyric, everything. Architecture, sculpture. So much of your answer depends on this distinction in regime type that we're a democracy, the Chinese or an autocracy. Allison would reject all of this, that school of international relations. Graham Allison, the originator.

of the Thracidides trap idea. Was he thinking about America and China? He was. I've read it. I've read his stuff. I mean, I just think he needs to rethink it. But that whole world, the Mearsheimers, the IR realists, they don't think the fact that we're a democracy and they're an autocracy matters at all.

It's all raw power calculations and sort of billiard balls intersecting on the table. Well, fine. Go and look at what the democracies have left behind, what Athenian democracy left behind and what a Spartan oligarchy. left behind. That's what I would tell the Meersheimers and the Allisons of this world. I'm sure a very distinguished from brilliant people. But seriously. And I think it's still true, by the way, that, yeah, I mean, with effort and with guidance, Russia can produce, Soviet Russia can produce a Concord-Ski and it can produce, you know, medical and scientific breakthroughs dictated by

party carders and China can certainly produce some incredible things. And of course, China's an amazing country full of many, many millions of brilliant people. But, you know, maybe this is just sort of, you know, wishful thinking. But when I look at America, I still see the environment of freedom, which we were talking about before. I think there's a direct link, by the way, between, freedom of speech, which is so important and freedom of thought and the ability to innovate. And, you know, unbelievable what America has done in the last few years.

America's way in the lead on AI. I mean, China's doing well, but America's still way in the... But China's doing well because the state is directing Chinese entrepreneurs to catch up. Whereas America is doing well because someone says, hey, we could do that, or we could go to Mars or some crazy thing. And then they try and do it. so you know I kind of I kind of still put my money on the democracies I think that they you know just in in raw power terms

just in terms of producing the economic results that enable you to pay for the Navy on the scale that I was talking about and all the rest of it you know who produces the music who produces where is Hollywood Hollywood's obviously in Hollywood that locks in London now though actually But, you know, that's, there's a link. There's a link between democratic freedom and innovation and people of talent wanting to live in your country

and population growth and long-term economic prosperity. I would say. I've been pushing you on strategy, defense policy, all these areas of high politics. But I want to ask you the question before we wrap that's most of my mind. Yes, how long we got? Just a couple of minutes.

Have you seen Christopher Nolan's Odyssey? I loved it. Yeah, I did. Say more. Same more. Because a lot of people apparently, a lot of people with classical educations apparently didn't. Yeah, okay, so look, nobody's ever done The Odyssey.

You can't do it on film. It's impossible. But Christopher Nolan has come closer than anybody I've ever seen to producing a genuine cinematic tribute to Homer, which has got a fee. And it's only one aspect of the Odyssey. So the terrible truth about Odysseus is that, I mean like, you know, that's old Anne Hathaway, looking beautiful, waiting for him in Ithaca. I've got to tell you in Homer, the epic, which wasn't clear from Nolan's version, he's not particularly faithful to, okay, I'm going to break it to your, you're sensitive.

viewers, you know, he has it away with, with, with, uh, calypso. They can fast for your children in the car. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, you just, just shut your ears. He has it away with calypso, big time, a long time. He has it away with Circe. I mean, you know, uh, and that, and that wasn't clear at all in the, in the film. And also, um, there was one fundamental thing that was wrong.

I mean, lots of fundamental things were wrong. I mean, this is Hollywood. They were doing their best. but Adisuse they kind of turned it into a weird sort of guilt thing he got these terrible Nam flashbacks

about the fall of Troy and he blamed himself for the Trojan horse oh my God you know the terrible things he did and he wakes up sort of sweating

you know like apoc now and this sort of thing but that's total balls adisius was polymatus polytropon. He was a man of many

wiles, right? He would have, he thought it was brilliant to come up with wheezes like the Trojan horse. He rejoiced in deceiving polyphemus the Cyclops and, you know, the

most famous joke in, or the earliest joke in literature, right? This will take too long to tell. You have to cut it, but I'll tell you anyway. Please. The only joke in literature, it was If you remember what happens is, Adysius is trapped in the cave of the Cyclops. The Cyclops, you know, starts to eat his men, like Cronos eating his children.

And Odysseus blinds him. He's only got one eye. So he blinds him by sticking a sharpened stake through one eye. And the Cyclops, sorry, I've ruined this joke. He's earlier told, the Cyclops says, who are you? Yes. Who are you? And Odysseus says, Utis, which means nobody.

And so after he's been by the cyclops rushes outside and screams, always, help me, help me. Somebody's blinded me. And they say, who's done it to you? And he says, Utis has done it to me. If nobody's done it to you, then what are you complaining about? Anyway, that's the first joke in Western literature. But which was cut, probably rightly, given how long it's taken me to tell it.

It's a three-hour movie. by Christopher Nelson. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 2019 to 2020. This has been a really fun conversation. I think an informative one. Thank you so much for making the time. Thank you.