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Farage 'Trumpifies' Tories, India Surprise and Europe Just Got a China ‘Wake Up Call’

Published Jun 7, 2024, 4:00 AM

Europe cannot rely on America for its long-term security, says Robin Niblett, distinguished fellow and former director of Chatham House. On this episode of Voternomics, Niblettt—who conceives of a multi-decade “structural conflict” between China and the US—says Europe has experienced a “wake up call.” 

Plus, Stephanie, Allegra and Adrian discuss Brexit architect Nigel Farage's decision to run in the UK election and reporter Swati Gupta joins to break down the India election surprise. 

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

I think we will have greater divisions than today between America and anyone who depends on America for their security, and let's call it China and potentially Russia. What I think is interesting is where will the rest of the world be in this divide.

Welcome to voter Nomics, where politics and markets collide. This year, voters around the world have the ability to affect markets, countries, and economies like never before. We've created this series to help you make sense of it all. I'm alegro Stratton, I made Room Wooldridge, and I'm Stephanie Flanders. So at the top of the show you just heard from our guests this week. He's the former director of the international affairs think tank Chathamhouse, Robin Niblett. He joins us for a conversation about how China will factor into the US and UK elections. Steph, we did that one together, didn't we.

Yeah, we did it. We did a few weeks back. We did not have the benefit of Adrian's wisdom, but it sort of took us back to China, which I guess we haven't focused on so much in the last few weeks and you know, he specifically you think of it a little bit when you see these sort of D Day commemorations. You know, he talks about the challenge for Europe of rethinking their position, their geopolitical positioning in the world, and whether or not governments are sort of stepping up sufficiently to that challenge, and actually contrast it with the Asia, where he feels they've always been much more engaged in the regional rivalry and the threat it pos.

Also on the show today, we're going to talk about India once again. On Monday, exit polls, suggested Prime Minister again, we should now know, I mean we should have known. We have all covered politics and to know that you should never talk about an elections for the actual results as well.

I mean, in our defense we did talk about it was just the exit poles. And Rushie Battier, who was correspondent on the ground, was mentioning that in some past elections the exit poles had not been very effective, but actually the last couple they had worked. And I think there is a very interesting question why Modi's BJP party performed so dramatically.

Okay, well, we'll cross back over to New Delhi later in the show when I'm going to speak to one of our reporters, Swatty Gupta, on how India voted and how those coalition talks are shaking out. But first of all, shall we guys dip into the election that is happening all around us. It feels like a very busy week it has been, and.

Adrian, I've been watching some of your tweets and writing this week and just you think things are just going to get worse for the Conservative Party.

Absolutely. I thought up to now that this was quite a boring election. You know, a Labor victory, a Tory defeat, and you know, a change of government. Everything was going predictably. But then Nigel Farage came in and that raises the possibility that we'll get a Labor super victory and a Tory super defeat and a real transformation in the nature of the right in this country, the Trumpification of the right in this country. That Farage really is a trumpest figure, both in style and in his beliefs. He's very close to Trump, He's very involved with with Trump World. And if he wins his the seat clacton which he's standing for, and if the Reform Party is significantly responsible for splitting the right vote. He will be a major player in British politics and may well force the Tory Party to move to the right.

So I guess the argument or the pushback on the longer term scenario would be, if they hadn't entered the race, you would have felt there was a strong ish possibility that Farage could become a leader of the Conservative Party after the election, and it would be the true trumplification because you would have what has often been the most sort of corrosive thing of having a established party taken over by a populist rather than an outside force that's going to find it harder to break through electorallease. You could argue that to have him double down on reform was long term less sort of if you like, dangerous for the nation.

I think putting him in Parliament gives him even more of a platform than he's already got. He is as well positioned as he could be to trumpefy the Conservative Party. Now we may see in the next few days and weeks a lot of money going to Farage. We may see the Reform Party excelling the Conservative Party in terms of its polling. We may see some very high profile defections from the Conservative Party. So this is the greatest nightmare you could possibly have for the Conservatives. Now, this is an ancient party, it's got deep roots, it's got a fantastic brand name. So perhaps I'm begging up this this.

Litter we have all we usually spend our time talking about how it's the most successful political party in the history of political party.

Absolutely, but it's been the most successful party partly because it's been willing to absorb other parties. You know, just could call the Conservative and Unionist Party and you know it's changed a lot over time, and perhaps we could see the Conservative and Reform Party.

It was interesting to look at the events of the week because, as you say, Tuesday of the week that we're recording in, it feels like a couple of months ago, doesn't it. Tuesday he announces in the morning, I'm going to make this emergency announcement. The world of Westminster didn't didn't. There was a number of options. In the end, he announces he's going to take over Reform, but he's also going to run, and that was the sort of more extreme end of what people were predicting. So you know, on all of the events have played out as you suggest around you know, the reform is showing it's it's nudging up in the polls and there's only two points behind the Tories. But then interestingly, when you then on Tuesday night, get that debate and it focuses so much on tax, and then the next day Faras is not really in the conversation when he's talking about immigration, which is what they want to talk about. They talk about it being the immigration election. He is, you know, enormously effective, and he sort of dominates the agenda, but I am not sure that when the agenda moves on to other items, which the Labor and Conservative Party are making it do because they want to talk about the economy and they want to talk about tax from their different perspectives. He has so much to say and to your point about you know, taking over taking over the Conservative Party, all of those all of those prospects and his ambition in that regard are not hidden, right. He talks about it, but he to do that, you have to have a slate of policies.

Sure it makes it, but it makes it more difficult for the two main parties to dominate the political agenda because both the Tory Party and Labor Party, for their own different reason, have a reason not to talk too much about immigration and the votes. Now, of course Farage has exactly the opposite set of incentives, so it makes it more difficult to fight on the old electoral battleground. You have these populous things which people are intensely worried about, particularly conservative voters, which the Conservative Party didn't want to talk about. Now they can't get away from. I also think in terms of the debate about the timing of the election this you know, a lot of Conservatives are very unhappy that Richi Suna called an election in the summer rather than in the autumn. And that is only accentuated now by Farage's arrival, because in November he would have been off in the United States doing his thing over there and acting as a lipspittle to Donald Trump. He's now, you know, using his summer doing what he likes to do.

Do you think he's running because he thinks he's going to win this? Remember he has run seven times before sitting and has a twenty six thousand majority. What wasn't the easiest one to pick.

It's a twenty six thousand majority, but it is pure Ukip Farag territories, white working class, you know, exiles, people who feel annoyed by multiculturalism, people who are very sensitive to the to the boats, people who are sort of down at heel.

And he's a county lines crime.

Problem, drugs and county line. He's a superstar and he really has galvanized this sort of thing. And if he does win, he's in a really good position to take over what is already a hollowed out party. I'm in the Conservative Party, but will be even more hollowed out after the election.

Can we just spend two minutes to think about the Labor Party's perspective on this, because if you imagine if Labor Party was as single minded as the Conservative Party often has been on the future, on party and maintaining its power, and not necessarily always so focused on the nation and the good of the nation. If you're in that mindset and your Labor of course the temptation would be to say, ah, this is us in power for the next ten years, because you've got the Conservatives tearing themselves apart and going slightly crazy in just the way that we did with Jeremy Corbyn. I guess the alternative is to tele Actually, this this takes all of our politics in a really dangerous direction, and we've already learned from the Brexit debate that that can become very toxic and make governing very difficult. So this is not necessarily something we should welcome.

Choice. It channels the opposition into foolish politics. From a political management point of view, from a Kars Starmer point of view, purely in the short term, it's great news. From the point of view of the health of our democracy, it's a really bad news because healthy democracies, particularly when you have a large, very centralized system like ours, demand a healthy, responsible opposition that can keep you into account. But if I was sitting in Downing Strader, I wouldn't say. What I really want is a healthy, biggest opposition. I want a crazy opposition that's tearing itself apart.

I mean, we're getting very ahead of ourselves. But I just wonder whether we be careful. You wish for a few of the Labor Party, because if you look at there is there is.

They will be across this. They want this is because.

But remember we had actually the last few years we have both We've all commented on it that actually politics have become more normal again, and if this takes us more in that direction, yes, the Labor Party may have a clear reign, may even win the next election after this one, but you could ultimately be a in a very unpleasant leant overall normalization.

I don't think people think that exclusively.

Just about to have European elections next week.

I'm just talking about the UK. We had two boring people who are very you know, we've been saying we've normalized British politics.

We are exciting people. Yes, be careful what you wish for.

And I'm in charge, an't I? So I've got to move. But I think we've done a podcast right there anyway, So we are going to go now from Nigel Faraj in the UK election to our on the ground voice for the week. It's Bloomberg's reporter Swati Gupta.

Swati, Hi, Hi, thank you for having me.

Sweaty. So did you see this result coming to.

Some extent, Yes, the reporting that we had done on the ground over the past six months, I would say, and the people that we had been spoken to, speaking to me and of a few colleagues in the office, it made us feel that unemployment and inflation would be major issues. Somehow they were not getting addressed when the campaigning began, and then the signs kind of silidified as soon as you know, the voting process began, which is over a period of six weeks. We spoke to party officials who started confirming a little bit that things may not be going that wealth for the B to B. It is really hard to estimate that in an electorate which is this large, and with the Prime Minister who is so incredibly popular.

Here, Soswati, is it right to say that broadly this is a rejection of Moody Noomics, which essentially was an agenda and economic agenda that largely benefited billionaires and to a lesser extent, the middle classes.

I would say it's a rejection Indians have overwhelmingly still voted for remnistroymoy and his allies. I think it is sort of, in a way, a check that the voters have delivered that yeah, everything else is fine, we are heading to the moon, or we are going to become a developed country by twenty forty seven. But don't forget that it is the poor people who elect leaders in this country. I think it's it's a reminder from the voters that you cannot forget the people at the lowest level and just forge ahead.

What will it mean for his agenda in the next parliament then, once once his coalition has been formed, will what do you think he actually does to your to your very eloquent phrase, you know, to not forget the less well off.

Yeah, I mean in the parliament. It is right now very difficult to estimate a lot of the things that they had scheduled for the first hundred days, and mister Body had been very clear that, oh, you know, we have it all planned out. That's now all gone up in the air. Because when you are running a coalition government in India, what you want no longer is a priority. You have to, you know, take everybody in the government along with you. And mister Body is not used to working in a collision. He never has. He's always ruled with absolute majority. So it would be interesting to see which of his reforms that will be sidelined. He was very keen to do labor reforms in India, but that pretty much, as an analyst told me a few days ago, that'll be in cold storage.

Well, one thing is for sure, Spatia, you're going to be really, really busy. Thank you very much for taking time to come and speak to us here on a voteronomics and we'll speak to you again.

Thank you.

Now to a conversation Stephanie and I had with Robin Niblett. He's the former director of the international affairs think tank Chatham House. Nibbler also recently published a book called The New Cold War, How the Contest between the US and China will shape our Century. As he explains it, the book's central thesis is that the division between the US and China and the mistrust is unbridgable and it's here to stay. The two sides are, he thinks, reversing into a Cold War, and they're bringing in partners into either side of the conflict, one of China's partners being Russia.

And I decided to ask him about Russia's invasion of Ukraine two years ago because I remembered him saying at the time that he felt it could serve as a wake up call to the West both to decarbonize the economies quicker because they'd want to reduce their alliance on Russian gas, but also to spur new alliances and a rethinking of European security, and having remembered him saying that, I just wanted to ask him whether he thought the West had actually seized those opportunities out of the crisis.

My bottom line is yes. Now. Obviously, in democracies, turning a wake up call into action is difficult, and it requires explicit language and narrative. And I think it's been especially difficult for Europeans to adapt because the whole notion of European integration was built as a peace project, not as a war project. Easier in some ways for Australia, Japan, South Korea to get with the program more quickly because that sense of insecurity has been so much more present, and they've got US troops still deployed there and exercises carried out in much more explicit ways. But has it been a wake up call and have people acted? Absolutely?

I guess the pushback on that would be there has been great rhetoric, but in terms of actual sacrifices being made in order to do more on defense, politicians governments have been quite unwilling to actually spend a lot more. I mean, climate was the other thing that looked like there was an opportunity. But actually, if anything, there's been quite a lot of backsliding. So I guess what you could say when it comes down to it, Actually politicians aren't willing to let people pay a price for this kind of change.

Yes, there's a kind of transition phase which has to take place within a democracy. But it strikes me that where the German government, let's say, in particular on its climate change transition is taking place, is that it is dropped adaptations that would have an immediate short term impact on consumers heat pump requirements for example. At the energy production level, the transition is fully underway. They're trying to give something to their publics with one hand, but if you look at the reduction of gas importation and the adaptation of that away from Russia, that's carrying real cost. It's much more expensive to bring it in from the US. It's more expensive to bring it in from Katar. But the long term contracts have been signed by the German government on Katar gas for example, again at the great announceo of one hundred billion euros and be put more into German defense. Look, the problem is that they're so far behind the curve in Germany and being ready. The one hundred billion has literally been soaked up like water put into a garden that's parched. It's just disappeared and you see no added value. But that's because Germany was so unprepared. But Germany is hitting two percent of its GDP this year. That is a remarkable figure. Where we've come from in Europe and where we've got to in a democratic context. Things impressive.

But it's two percent enough.

Yeah, look, it's a fair question. It's two percent enough if we look ahead. If this is a new Cold War I believe it is. Then if we're looking ahead ten twenty years, two percent won't be enough. You could get to maybe two point five three percent. I think it would be enough.

But let's just look think that is enough?

Yeah, totally Without the US, European GDP is ten times Russia. So America could pull out uld say, and theoretically we should have the capacity to be able to take Russia on Ukraine. So this is not just about the amounts, it's about how the money you're spent. So, as people have always said, the problem with Europe is the defense part has been a kind of free rider. The ten Kin kind of thing on top of the European project. And now people are realizing that you're perhaps going to have to start, for example, borrowing money to spend on defense.

Are people talking about that?

Absolutely, this is one of the new projects. Could you extend what was the two year renew Europe post COVID seven hundred and ninety billion euro fund that was created for two years to adapt the economies to a post COVID and to a more energy efficient environment, that is meant to end at the end of two years. Europe could collectively in the market borrow very large amounts to then be able to apply to defense production, for example, to start building up long term ammunitions production. So it's not the amounts, it's the organization. Europe has not been organized around security and defense. And I think this wake up call and the fact that America is not reliable for European security at least in the long term, I think his acting is a wake up call. So I'm frank. I'm not worried about the two percent. To be honest, most people never thought Germany would get to two percent within two years. There are on one point three. This is a big chunk of money. When you look at the size of the German defense budget.

But in nineteen eighty nine the US was spending six percent something like that, and then probably most countries, certainly the UK was probably spending something like that seven percent of GDP. So I guess if we're in the kind of really transformed situation geopolitically that you describe in the book, I just it feels like that conversation around twenty two percent is symbolic of politician's willingness to really say, look, we're in a different world now. We can no longer be sort of enjoying the benefits of this peace diffideny that is gone that since nineteen eighty nine, we have to face up to things being different. But are we anyway close to that? We're looking for these two massive elections.

I think the most important point I want to make it is that we're not sitting on a trigger environment across a long front line between a nuclear armed Soviet forces. They were at the time potentially about to pour through the Folder gap, which led to the kind of high levels of events, spending, and high levels of concern and conscription that you had during the last Cold War. We're talking about a Cold War with China, which from a European standpoint is a long way away, and where the competition is going to be competed much more geoeconomically and in competition with the global seuse and in competition over regulation on AI. Then it is going to be in the kind of Cold War. I spent a lot of time in the book is talking about that. What's different about this cold water the last war? We can take on Russia with two percent of GDP. The problem is that if we're going to see China as a competitor globally, we're going to have to be rethink on our economic model in a different way, and that'll be expensive, but you won't see it on the defense budget.

So that's interesting we were talking about as an Allegra has been on the inside of some of these conversations about how the approach to China, how you describe it to people all. Do you think there is an understanding within the government that you we need to reframe our relationship with China. What does that even look like?

Well, the new language they're now using is that they want to not decouple, but they want to de risk. So to explain they're framing it's let's get with the program. We have these huge economic dependencies on China. There's going to be a price impact if we pull out, or it's not to pull out too aggressively. But equally there's all these industries where it's highly sensitive. Every time they try to stake out that new position, they get pushed and pushed by new allegations of China's interference in the UK. So I think that I think we probably haven't seen a settled position on this from the government, but I'd love to know what you think.

I agree there's not a settled position, and it's interesting compared to the US one as well, where they thought the administration in a way, the Biden administration jumped on a Sula vander Lyon's term of de risking because they realized the decoupling language, which was, as you said, starting to dominate the debate, was too extreme even for America, which had its largest trade ever with China in twenty twenty three, and of course would like to be able to keep a lot of that trade in agricultural products. Think of the air market. Can Boeing survive as a global air carrier and not be penetrated to the Chinese market, which is already by passenger numbers apparently the largest market in the world, overtaking the US recently. So either bid demonstration jumped on that more subtle framing. Should we say that the European side is provided that Oliver Dowden actually repeated about de risking being the goal and not decoupling. The problem is that de risking implies that you understand the boundaries of the threat, and the initial notion of de risking, and the initial notion of the Jake Sullivan US National Security Advisor, We're going to build a small yard with a high fence of protections, was that it would be artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and semiconductors. Fine, you could say, we don't want those areas China to be contributing to China's capacity to use those technologies to further improve its military threats to US, given that we do see China's arrival in the Indo Pacific and who knows what they're going to provide maybe to Russia some day down the line. The problem is that we've already discovered, even in the technological military space, cloud computing could be an alternative to having to use lots of very high end the semiconductors and ships from America. Why not just lob into cloud computing? And you said that when then be able to draw the models and the imaging you've had biotechnology. Now people are worried that biotech could be used in a military sense and for military purposes. So suddenly it's already expanded.

And in the UK example, evs are interesting, aren't they because in the high fence they wouldn't necessarily be in the yard, would they? Exactly that they might be regarding to America. But in the UK a lot of people think we need cheap evs in order to make some of those EV targets possible. But then there's all these concerns about the tech that could be in the cars if they were imported, whether or not that's.

Exactly right they're mongering or not. Joe Biden has warned that Chinese cars in the tech could be a national security threat as they're driving around they're picking up information. But the Chinese already did that. The Chinese don't allow Tesla cars to drive near government areas in China today, So I said, the Chinese are always one step ahead on.

This with a slightly more kind of economic bent. It's just that it's it's not a stable equilibrium. Even just the idea of we were going to draw lines between things that are economically are important to our national security and economic areas where we can continue to be entangled. The logic of everything you've described, as long as you have two distinct blocks, or at least superpowers with fundamentally different values, a fundamentally different approach to governing, one authoritarian, one more open, it's not a stable situation to have the degree of economic entanglement that we have now. And once you accept that you're going to decouple in some areas, that the decoupling will have its own momentum or is just not all means nothing. I just wonder whether you think, if you're writing this book in twenty or thirty years time, that we will be in a much more divided global economy, that we will have much more lines between the two sides, Will.

We will have deep divisions and greater divisions than today. Between America and its allies, are both Pacific and Atlantic, European and Pacific, anyone who depends on America for their security, and let's call it China and potentially Russia, which in particular they are joined at the hip at the moment for all the reasons we know. What I think is interesting is where will the rest of the world be in this divide. I talk about the countries in the Global South term we all use now having much more agency in this new Cold War, a more capacity to triangulate between the two sides, play one off the other, which they've done. Certainly a country like India has done effectively. You could argue some of the Southeast Asians like Indonesia doing it quite effectively. Saudi so far has done it quite effectively. Thy worried a little the Middle East may force it a little bit back into the American camp. But the interesting thing is will a country like Indonesia be forced to choose between the two technologies or not? I think not. Will countries in Latin America be forced to choose between the two? I think not because they do not rely on America for their security and China in a way is not a direct threat to them. So the question is then are they able to pick and choose between different options? Should be called literally Chinese evs and Chinese technology mixed up, maybe with some European or American technology and say we will play, we will take both and force the two to compete. That's the kind of almost positive side of the New Cold War, if I can call it. I try to be a little bit positive in the book, and I do talk about the fact that in a way the Agency, the economic heft and weight of these emerging and growing markets in terms of population, in terms of resources, in terms of markets, gives them some capacity to say we will not be dominated by the new Cold War of the Northern hemisphere. As real as that is and as dominant as that is. Now, if we end up in war hot war, all bets are off and then you're forced to choose sides.

And I just want to hear you on the price implication or all of this, The price is implication for UK punters to use the crew the term that Stephanie and I you always used to use back when we were both in TV having to go in to report some of these issues. If we have that economic distance thing from China, what are the price implications for the voters.

Anything that minimizes the capacity for the efficient exchange of goods financing technology is going to have a price increasing impact. The question is how much, in what segments and how important are they for day to day living for let's call it middle class voters. And the biggest risk is probably in the energy space, because energy is an important component, whether it's through transport or through heating bills and so on for the average a voter. So the using questions, can we do an energy transition, which we in Europe desperately need to do. America doesn't without Chinese inputs because the Chinese inputs give us speed and cheap price. So I think we're going to face some real conundrums here. I think you can probably get away in terms of central price impacts with the new Cold War. Life would be a bit more expensive, but not cataclysmically so except on energy. And energy is the area where I think we could see a divergence as well between America and Europe in how he managed the Chinese relationship.

Robin, what does a president Trump the second do for all of this?

It does not change the fundamentals of their being a new Cold War, the dangers it could It's unlikely, but it's possible that he could hot it up. But I think the biggest risk of it is what it does to the alliance is that the Bide administration has been trying to build to manage this new Cold War. Personally, I think he's got four years. Four years are not going to change the dynamic of America needing allies to compete against China and Russia. And although it might be a bumpy phase for four years with Trump, I don't think he's going to destroy the infrastructure of this competition. But yeah, I suppose my big risk for who's in this administration hows he manage it? If we get very personally here, we go unstructural and we go down to literally personalities, because if we know from the last Trump administration he wants to do one thing one day, he wants to do something the next, and whoever advises him last has most impact. There are people who served in the Trump administration. There are people on the hard right in the Republican Party who believe we should not be managing this new Cold War, which should be winning it.

It's interesting ran Chatham House for all those years, the sort of premiere think tank on international affairs that I guess reflects the sort of foreign policy establishment, certainly in Europe, certainly in the UK. So the fact that you're not projecting the end of the world if Donald Trump gets re elected, I think is interesting and shows the sort of long view that you're taking. But I guess if you were judging President Trump by the results of his leadership as opposed to what he said day to day, he probably did more to increase European defense spending and commitment to natively than President Obama had ever done. If you look at President Biden's approach to the Middle East crisis, that has, if anything, diminished a sense of US power and ability to influence very close allies. And when it comes to China, to have an unstable genius as he did, or what does he say there were very stable genius, have an unstable non genius who's very unpredictable, contradictory in his statements, never quite clear about whether whether he's in with the Hawks or with the people who would coexist with China. Is that actually, ironically the kind of leader we might need in this weird period of transition, which would prevent the Chinese from really knowing what they were dealing with.

No. I say no for one reason, though not because I do not discount the points you make. You could add, you know, obviously we've done two things after Trump number one, he asked two things, spend more new defense and don't buy your gas from Russia, ending you what the hell you're doing. Of course, we're now doing the other thing he asked, which is buying the bulk of ar liquified natural gas from America rather from from Russia. He's definitely got what he wanted. There's one problem, however, I was looking at these figures recently for a little article I wrote Foreign Policy Magazine. The G seven has a larger trade deficit in goods with America today than China has with America.

Except the US. But the UK is the UK is.

Seven seven billion exactly. Think we got seven billion the last number I saw exactly trade deficit with America. So we might be left out of his revenge. But the danger is that he would create instability in the emerging what I call G seven plus G nine grouping of countries that are allied to America. That America needs to take on China and Russia, and we need America to take on China and Russia. So the danger is that he could break those alliances by making a much more transactional imposing tarists on. However, as I said, this is a structural conflict that's going to go on for twenty thirty years. To be honest, I think the G seven will just do like Japan did with the transpecific partnership. Now, do you know what, We'll hang together while America's out. We'll wait for America to come back, because America is not going to be able to manage this new call war without our lives.

Robin Niblett, thank you so much.

Okay, two quick things that I found interesting. Firstly, he thinks that defense spending should go to about three percent, but that that will be manageable. Obviously we're at two point five now, but it isn't that kind of quantin point five percent difference will be interesting. And then also he did accept that it will make things more expensive for domestic audiences, having this Jake Sullivan high fence small yard policy around, for instance, China's exporting of evs.

Which we had heard. We've had that discussion with a few other people whether that was going to become a bigger, bigger thing. And I can't help given that we're recording this on the day of the commemorations of eighty years since the D Day landings. It is quite striking, and we've written about it today and Bloomberg that Vladimir Putin's not invited to those commemorations. He has participated in the past. He participated ten years ago. Soviet Union lost more people than anybody in the fight against Nazi Germany, and arguably Stalingrad was as significant Russians would say, much more significant on the Eastern Front and defeating Hitler than D Day was. And it just sort of goes to some of the points that Robin was making about the challenge that Europe has had in rethinking its approach to security.

I think he tore up his own invitation and he invaded you great, Yeah, exactly.

I'm not saying, but it sort of it just it shows, you know, we're still hanging on quite rightly to this very important date and what it symbolizes, and yet we have this completely new environment, and I think we are we are just struggling to hold those two things in our minds because.

We're moving from a post war world to a pre war world, or what feels increasing like a pre war world. I'm afraid one of the things that strung me about what Nimble was saying, and what interests me about his book is that he's focused on China and that he's unusual for a European to be focused on China. What you get at the moment is Europeans tend to be focused on Russia and the East, and the Americans are absolutely obsessed by China. And I think our debate in this continent is behind the US debate. We're not sufficiently thinking about China.

So I think are we behind? Are we in a different economic position, which is we need them more?

America also needs them, But I don't think we have recognized the extent to which China is an aggressive military threat.

Right.

I think that's it for now from Votomics. Thanks for listening to this week's Votonomics from Bloomberg. This episode was hosted by Stephanie Flanders, Adrian Woodridge, and myself at Legostratum. It was produced by Samasadi with help from Chris Martlou and Julia Mann's. Sound designed by Moses and am Brendan. Francis Newnham is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is head of Podcasts and Special Thanks to Robin Niblett and Swati Gupta. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts.

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