Sir John Sawers has given a significant speech at King’s College London on the Limits of Security.

Here is the ‘official’ website version.

And here is my piece for Daily Telegraph Comment mentioning it with (as you can see) my disclaimer mentioning that I worked with Sir John on his speech, his first after stepping down as Chief of MI6:

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon warns of a “real and present danger” that Vladimir Putin will launch a campaign of undercover attacks to destabilise the Baltic states on NATO’s eastern flank, testing NATO’s resolve with the same Kremlin-backed subversion used in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Mr Fallon said that NATO “must” be prepared to repel Russian aggression in “whatever form it takes”.

Sounds as if things are getting serious. Or are they? Over on the UK Ministry of Defence website there are 16 Policies, with Defending the UK and its NATO Allies from Russian Destabilisation prominently not mentioned.

Sir John Sawers also talked about Russia in his first speech following the end of his time as Chief of MI6 (disclaimer: I worked with Sir John in preparing the speech):

Mr Putin insists that Russia’s own security is at stake in Ukraine. That European Values and European Order for Ukraine undermine Russian Values and Russian Order.

This position flatly contradicts all the agreements Russia itself has signed – and helped negotiate – supporting European order and values. But we deal with the Russia we have, not the Russia we’d like to have.

We could take on Moscow, stepping up our response. Provide weapons to Ukraine so it can defend itself. More stringent sanctions. But how would Mr Putin respond?

As long as Mr Putin sees the issue in terms of Russia’s own security he will be prepared to go further than us. So he would respond with further escalation on the ground. Perhaps cyber attacks against us.

We have thousands of deaths in Ukraine. We could start to get tens of thousands. Then what?

Good question.

The best thing about helping draft a speech for someone whose words have extra public weight is that the best lines get quoted in the media. And/or the ideas get taken up and prompt public discussion. Vicarious fame.

Here is James Robbins (BBC) giving his sensible thoughts on the part of Sir John’s speech that tackled Libya:

Sir John’s speech this week was particularly timely and interesting, coinciding with one of those moments when the harsh light of brutal events suddenly focuses attention on how much has changed in the world.

This was his view of Libya in 2011:

“When crisis erupted in Libya, we didn’t feel it right to sit by as Gaddafi crushed decent Libyans demanding an end to dictatorship.

“But we didn’t want to get embroiled in Libya’s problems by sending in ground forces. After Gaddafi was ousted, no-one held the ring to help manage a transition to something better, as the US, Britain and other allies had done in Baghdad and Kabul.

“Libya had no institutions. Who or what would take over?

The answer? Those with the weapons. Result? Growing chaos, exploited by fanatics.”

In other words, although the former spy chief didn’t put it this way, Britain did some demolition in Libya.

It gave regime-change a shove, but only from the air and didn’t hang around to rebuild the country. It really needed rebuilding, not just physically, but politically…

Most foreign policy analysts seem to agree that the major Western powers, Britain included, are now caught in a sort of policy no-man’s land between intervention and non-intervention.

Politicians are trying to satisfy citizens who continue to expect security and protection, but who also seem increasingly unwilling to tolerate the sort of defence spending that protection might require, and, more importantly, the scale of sacrifice in soldiers’ lives which ground combat inevitably brings.

What Libya got was neither full intervention nor complete non-intervention, but a sort of limited intervention…

The huge difficulty with limited intervention, of course, is the unpredictability of outcomes.

That fickle and unfathomable “law of unintended consequences” delivered catastrophic results in Libya.

Western policy relied on maintaining the unity of anti-Gaddafi forces once they had dealt with their shared enemy.

Light-touch Western efforts to help Libyans put aside their tribal and factional differences forever and embrace power-sharing through representative government based on national unity, have comprehensively collapsed.

As evidence of that, you need look no further than today’s Benghazi – Libya’s second city, home to the revolution.

Western airpower helped protect it from destruction by Gaddafi.

Instead, in recent months the revolutionaries have reduced large swathes of the city to ruins by fighting each other. The wider collapse of the state has now allowed in elements of so-called Islamic State.

They have recruited ideological allies and gained a significant foothold from which to open a new front beyond Syria and Iraq.

Let’s leave the last words to Sir John Sawers, from his speech at the beginning of this week.

“Yes, intervening has huge risks and costs. Not intervening also has huge risks and costs,” he said.

“Afghanistan and Iraq? Or Syria and Libya? Which outcome is worse? Perhaps it’s too early to say.

We need to have that debate.”

 By all means. Happy to contribute.