Transcript of North Korean troops in Russia: How dangerous is the world right now? | BBC News

I think the world is as dangerous as I've known it, in some respects more dangerous than the Cold War.

Sitting alongside us, we have General Sir Patrick Sanders, Chief of the General Staff, in other words, Head of the British Army between June 2022 and June this year. Patrick, welcome to our studio. Thanks, Victoria. Thank you very much for being with us. Obviously, you were high up, although not the head of the British Army, when the full scale invasion broke out. What was that period like? What can you recall for our listeners around the world?

So I was doing one of the other chief's jobs. I was in charge of an organization called Strategic Command, which is where we have all the intelligence, special forces, cyber, space capabilities, and so on. And that meant that I was seeing the intelligence build up, which was extraordinarily detailed. And the only thing that we couldn't do was to draw a line between all of the forces that were building up and the planning that the Russians were doing. And and Putin's intent. And a lot of people misread Putin's intent, as we know. Did you expect Ukraine to last this long? No, I mean, no one did. In fact, most of the military planning that we were doing, because, of course, we've been there since 2014 We've had a presence in Ukraine. We've been working with them and trying to build up their capabilities. And we thought that it would be the Russian... We overestimated the Russian army, and there was a lot of hubris in how they conducted it. I think there was an arrogance, an assumption by the Russians that Ukraine would collapse, and of course, they didn't. I don't think anyone really read just how determined, how strong, how courageous, and how skillful the Ukrainians would be, particularly in those early weeks and months.

Before we get into the specifics of what's going on in this conflict right now, I just want you to cast an eye back over your 40-year career and give us an assessment of how unsafe the world feels now compared to previous periods in your career.

I've had an almost circular career because I joined at the latter stages of the Cold War. My first four years, five years were in the Cold War. Then we went through the end of history, if you like, if you believed Francis Fukuyama, and that wonderful unipolar moment, which we really fritted away. And now here we are back into a potential conflict, certainly a really, really serious competition with great powers, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, this axis, if you like. And I think the world is as dangerous as I've known it, in some respects more dangerous than the Cold War, because the system, the so-called international order, which kept us safe, had us in a period of extraordinary peace and prosperity for most of our lives has ended. And we're reminded that actually that was almost unique in human history. Take the Russian experience between 1900 and 1900. They only had one 25-year period of uninterrupted peace. So war is normal. It is, sadly, part of the human condition. And we've now got these great powers, this axis of powers, trying to overturn a world order. And I don't think that peace with Russia is possible.

I think that- Ever? Certainly for the time being, Russia sees itself in an existential conflict with the West. Putin's aims are- When you say Russia, do you mean Russia Or do you mean Putin? Putin's Russia. I think Putin is a product of Russian strategic culture. He's not the architect of it. And whatever follows Putin, we should assume will be just as difficult. Not as powerful, but just as difficult.