EXPERT INTERVIEW — As a new year begins, with a long list of threats and global security challenges looming, we offer a view of those challenges from someone with a unique vantage point: the former head of the British intelligence service MI6, Sir Alex Younger. Younger also offers advice to the incoming Trump administration – along with a blend of praise and harsh criticism of what the President-elect has pledged to do when he takes office in less than three weeks.
Younger, who served as MI6 chief from 2014 to 2022, told The Cipher Brief that he fears that the U.S. hasn’t yet come to terms with the implications of the fact that, as he puts it, the “unipolar moment is over” – meaning the era in which global norms were set by the U.S. and its allies.
“The U.S. remains the prodigious power; you underestimate the U.S. at your peril,” Younger said. “But its capacity to make the rules across the globe, that's gone. So we're all in a fundamentally more complex environment.”
Younger spoke with Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kelly: I thought we'd start out by doing a quick tour around the world. When you sit back and look at the world, how do you even start to describe some of the challenges and then prioritize those challenges, for people who are trying to do a better job of navigating it all?
Younger: I think the problem that we have is our generation was brought up in an unusual time, almost an aberration, when the U.S. was the unipolar power and it had both the willingness and the ability to police the system it had created — at, I might add, a huge benefit to the United States, but also of course a huge benefit to its allies. And at that time, it was a dominant power. Economically, it was able to make the rules, and at least from our perspective (in the UK), it was a remarkably stable time and we convinced ourselves that history had ended and the rules had changed.
But in my world it was not like that at all. In my world, no one had gotten a memo about the end of history. Indeed, it was all about strong men and the unrestrained pursuit of interest, even if they pretended it was different. So this for me is kind of what it's always been like. This degree of ideological competition represents what the world is. But the new reality is that power is much more dispersed. The U.S. remains the prodigious power; you underestimate the U.S. at your peril. But its capacity to make the rules across the globe, that's gone. So we're all in a fundamentally more complex environment.
There is a thing that the U.S. needs to confront here. I'm a committed Atlanticist. I've served shoulder-to-shoulder with my U.S. compatriots. There are people all over the world who are alive because of what the U.S. agencies have done. I bow to no one in my admiration for the U.S. But there's a central thing about the world now, which is that it is multipolar. Power is dispersed, and it's much more chaotic. The unipolar moment is over and I think the last place that's really landed is Washington. I think that for a foreign policy to be successful now, it needs to recognize that as a central factor and needs to be much more agile and instrumental.
The playbook doesn't really feel like it's being updated. Now it's about to be radically updated. But I think that in Donald Trump's prescription, the diagnosis is pretty good, but the prescription is often not what we need.
Kelly: So you think some of what he would like to do is not necessarily bad, maybe offering a needed disruption to the system?
Younger: He knows something – that we are in a multipolar world, and a corollary of that is that inequality between states has been replaced by inequality within states, and people in developed democracies just feel they're getting the wrong end of the deal and it's blamed on globalization, although I think technology has got a very large part to play here. And there's a sense that the deal's gone wrong, and the U.S. is not a beneficiary of the system it's created.
Trump did us all a massive favor. He really gave Europeans a kicking on their free riding and unwillingness to spend on their own defense. That was a good move. And he called out China. That was a good move. I'm actually broadly with him on Iran.
But my problem is, What do dictators and autocrats really fear about us? And the answer is, our alliances. What's the thing that we can do that they can't do? Alliances. What's the thing Xi Jinping complains about the whole time? Being ganged up on. And ultimately, for all of the power that the United States possesses, it's its capacity for teamwork and partnership that has made it so dominant. And in denigrating that bit, I think Trump is dead wrong. (Europeans have) got to persuade our most important ally that alliances are worth it. And if we fail, it's a huge win for dictators. Because what is the foreign policy or the guiding philosophy of Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin? It's that Russia or China should be allowed to pursue their interests unfettered by other people or other states. And honestly, to a foreigner, “America First” sounds a bit like that too.
Kelly: There’s been a lot of speculation here about just how President-elect Trump is planning to end the war in Ukraine, and his seemingly high level of respect for Vladimir Putin, which is quite different from what the intelligence community in the U.S., for example, assesses. I wonder what you think about that.
Younger: I think it's interesting. The difference between the Middle East and Ukraine is that I think Trump has a relatively well-developed plan for the Middle East, which is a remarkable thing to say, given the intractable nature of the problems that we face there. I actually don't think he has a well-developed plan for Ukraine, other than an instinct that you can do a deal with Putin and make this go away.
I think we need to be open-minded about this. Set pride apart. Our policy hitherto hasn't worked particularly well. Putin thinks that he is winning, and there's no end to the war in sight. So I don't think anyone should denigrate a sincere attempt to end this war. But it should be one that aims at a sustainable solution. I've got a very strong view about what a sustainable solution is and what it isn't. And by the way, the Ukrainians themselves wouldn't agree with what I'm about to say because they are in a slightly different position, and I understand that and I respect it. We've got to all be extraordinarily conscious of the sacrifice that they have made.
To my mind, it is in the West's interest that Putin be seen to have failed. And if that is not the case, then he will be emboldened and do it again and peace will not be sustainable.
What is failure for Putin? Well, he's pretty well told us what success is, and it's not about territory, it's about sovereignty. He has said that Ukraine's continued existence as a country, let alone a Western-leaning country, is an unacceptable threat to Russia. And his peace terms, where he thinks he's winning, are going to be very, very clear. One, of course, is territory. But two is that Ukraine signs itself into non-existence in foreign policy and constitutional terms. The problem with that is, if we allow that second bit to happen, the land-for-peace deal won't stick because we've done this before. We did the Minsk Accords. We gave him what he wanted, but we had no mechanism to allow the residual Ukraine to stand up and defend itself. So that is what I would be saying to the President-elect: is this going to be a land deal? In a sense, that's the easy bit, which is not to denigrate the terrible experience that people living behind the lines will have. But if we allow Putin to dominate us into signing away Ukraine's right to defend itself, then I can assure you that that is not a stable solution. Then, for whatever reason, the land swap won't be deemed to be complete. It will erode and be encroached upon, and we won't have a leg to stand on.
This is the problem for us as Europeans. We need to recognize that President Trump's priorities lie in tariffs and migration and a set of domestic issues in the United States. The (war in Ukraine) is probably quite a long way down his list. But of course over here, it feels strong. And by the way, a key point in all of this – and this is much bigger than Trump – is that this is going to be owned by Europe. It’s coming Europe's way. So there's a parallel dynamic here, which is Europe needs to understand not only that it owns this, but that it can own it. It has an economy 10 times the size of Russia, and the Russian army has proved to be mediocre at best. We just have to organize for success.
Kelly: I know a part of the sustainable solution in your mind means security guarantees and that Ukraine becomes part of NATO. How can Europe step up and lead in this environment?
Younger: We need to be realistic. It would be theoretically marvelous to see Ukraine in NATO. I don't think it's going to happen. What Ukraine needs is to be an independent country, to be supported in the development of its military industrial complex, a bit like the relationship between Israel and the United States, to receive an unstinting and generous underpinning to its military capabilities. That seems to be a very practical way of holding Russia at threat because the Ukrainians have been remarkably capable of doing that. If we elevate this to a conversation about whether European families should send European children to serve on the territory of Ukraine, it's going to get very binary very quickly.
Kelly: The innovation that's been happening in the Ukrainian defense space is on everyone's radar. It's been almost game-changing. How important do you think that is?
Younger: I don't want to drink the Kool-Aid on tech. Fundamentally, mass matters and will matters. I do believe in the intrinsic superiority of systems that trust their people and are prepared to distribute power accordingly. And surely that's why Ukraine has been so brilliant. They have trusted their own people, dispersed power often actually at the point of a gun literally, and innovated like hell. And the way in which they have used that advantage has been nothing short of inspirational.
But the reason I want to put down the Kool-Aid is that at the end of the day, Russia has got more men and more artillery, and that is a very significant advantage. Ukraine needs to address its mobilization issues, and we as Europe more broadly need to massively step up our armament production capability. But where the edge comes is in an order-of-magnitude improvement in precision, the creation of attritable systems, exquisite intelligence, all of which allows you to use scarce resources much more effectively against a blundering machine that has zero respect for human life and absolutely no capacity scientifically to focus its effort. And when you combine that with the financial and economic power of Europe, you get a pretty formidable outcome.
It's important that we don't overstate Russian capabilities here. We in the intelligence community were incredibly clever in predicting that Putin was going to invade Ukraine. But we absolutely fell into the autocracy trap, just like everyone else, assuming that these big armies that look good on parade hadn't been rotted from within by the corruption that's endemic to an autocratic regime. And so it proved in Russia and, by the way, I think this is quite important also in the context of China.
Kelly: Let's shift to China. What do you think is going to be critical in the next four years in regards to China?
Younger: Here again, [Trump’s] diagnosis is spot on, but his prescription is, I think, wrong. His diagnosis is, essentially, that the admission of China into the global trading system was a mistake because China isn't a market economy and has through a set of subsidies and other measures utterly distorted its relationship in its favor – and by the way, weirdly, also very much at the expense of China's citizens, because there is massive financial suppression in China, all in pursuit of huge surpluses and Xi's absolute determination to focus on production and high technology in a way that augments China's security. This is all about his vision of China as a fortress. And we've got to call that out because those imbalances are killing us. Ultimately, they're creating huge distortions in our own economies and now in fact in our own politics. I agree with him wholeheartedly on all of that.
I think his obsession with the trade deficit is just bizarre, frankly. He can do that if he wants, but he's not going to affect the national security position. And by the way, ultimately, it won't even affect the trade deficit.
But the baby I really don't want him to see him throw out with the bath water is the imperfect but useful progress that the last administration made on technology. Because the thing that will dictate the choices my kids have relative to the ones that I've enjoyed are, who owns the digital commons of the world, hardware and software. And Xi Jinping knows this really well. In fact, he knows his only chance of controlling China and maintaining his dictatorship is his continued ability to master the digital and other worlds. It's existential for him. The “Made in China” strategy, which is basically working, is Xi's way of resolving this great contradiction that he has between growing the economy and asserting Communist Party control. We've got to stop making life easy for him on that point.
Now, the CHIPS Act was imperfect. The IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) was highly imperfect. My bid to Donald Trump would nonetheless be to realize that technology remains a vital ground. And alongside that, to recognize that China's play as a rather sophisticated sort of drug dealer-style ploy is to make other countries fundamentally dependent on its economy and its economic model. And if you go around doing economy first and whacking tariffs on everyone, you're just pushing them into the bosom of China, which I regard as highly counterproductive.
And by the way, it's important for them to talk and for them to try and do deals and understand each other. I think that's great. But in the end, the West has got to play to its strengths. China does China first, but the answer to it is all of us together.
Kelly: As alliances first.
Younger: Yes. Alliances first. There's a phrase.
Kelly: You spent so much of your life within MI6, living in the covert world and understanding and seeing the world in a different way than most of us who haven't lived that life. How are you at peace, understanding what an unstable world this is?
Younger: I'm a spy. We do tough stuff. We do stuff that you shouldn't do in your private life. And we do it in defense, not only of a set of interests, but a set of principles. And I found that that sort of soft power has been incredibly important alongside the hard version. And I found that was something that won widespread respect, including from countries that were ostensibly non-aligned.
And unaccountably, we've kind of decided that's not a thing. We've decided that we're weak. We're losing confidence. And I just don't get it because in the covert world, you see it super clearly. You see, ultimately, that people are queuing up to work for us, not to work for our opponents. And they're doing that because they attach to the things that we stand for and we want.
I think both sides of the political argument bear responsibility here. Both sides are conspiring to denigrate the power of what we are and who we are and what we do in their different ways. It's just nonsense. Come down to my world and you will understand very, very quickly how lucky we all are.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief.
