YouSaid · the spoken record

Alex Younger

lines on the record: 54
first: 2025-05-04
most recent: 2025-05-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“New technology and doesn't necessarily adapt as quickly as it could to changing circumstances is uncontestable. And in that sense, we shouldn't be complacent.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's mad. He's unaccountable. It's a big problem. But I absolutely, to answer your question too, and when I look at what Malay is doing in Argentina as well, I do. I think that government over time becomes sclerotic. And I think that bits of it inevitably have been created in a way that people have actually forgotten the initial purpose of what they did. I still honestly would find it hard to draw a line from some of the decisions we took in the NSC through the cabinet office to stuff happening. I actually don't have a problem with the idea of a sort of external and pretty dramatic look at how this operates. But I think that the approach that Doja has taken has been nihilistic. I mean, it's just been to switch the whole thing off and switch it on again. And that has been a somewhat arrogant approach. It is much more subtle than that. But the central idea the government has inertia and is too slow to adopt.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think the budget of some of those companies is bigger than many nation states in Europe. And I think that they are not accountable. And I think that's a problem because they're in charge of what my children think. So yes, I think it is a problem”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of states and non state actors, let alone All the other ones we've been dealing with, it's almost impossible to predict that stuff.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I would never have predicted when I joined as a fresh-faced young officer that it would be like it is now. And certainly, if you told me I was going to be the chief, I would have just laughed you out of the room. So we need to approach this with a large dose of humility. If you look at the premise on which intelligence and MI6 is based, which is about dispelling complexity and ambiguity and trying to give strategic shape to really complex issues, I don't think that's going away. If you look at the premium on human relationships, I don't think that's going away. If you look at the sort of ideological contest that animates all of that, I don't think that's going away. I think just about everything else, I have got no idea. I mean, we haven't talked about artificial intelligence yet, but what does that, you know, in what respect does that disrupt all of this? And what does the likes of Elon Musk and Zuckerberg say about the relative...”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think you ever can come to terms with it. It's a terrible thing, so terrible that you can't articulate it and I won't even try. A lesson I learned though is that you find the humanity in the oddest of places. And I've spoken about my job and its intensity. And the ferocity of the rivalry in all of that. In the aftermath of that, there was a curious time where we all developed some humanity and even some of our most applacable adversaries wanted to reach out to me and did in a strange way that gave me some hope.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On the Global South. I think it's just because we are terribly binary people. So, you know, it was when you were in government and I was in this icon, it was all about soft power, and now it's all about hard power. And these are sort of false distinctions. A thing that Britain could do rapidly to enhance its position is to be much better at integrating those two things with all deference to the development community. I never shared the idea that our development goals should be constitutionally divorced from our board of foreign policy goals. I think this all needs to come together. And I actually think at that point, it produces the sort of conclusion that you're pushing for. A more strategic approach, recognising, for instance, the inroads China's making into Africa are based as much on a positive economic offer as coercion. And question, what are we going to do about that? We're closer. We've got a great deal to bring to the party.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But do we have to accommodate it? No, I don't think so at all we should recognise, as I've already said, that in this world hard power accounts for a great deal, and if you haven't got any, you're not going to count for much. But as Europe we're capable, along with all of the other bits of the collective west that aren't America, we're capable of generating this hard power. We're strong economically. We've got a set of other attributes. The global south remains up for grabs. This is a very, very dynamic situation. But we do need to recognize, I mean, I think honestly Europe fell prey to hubris. We thought history had ended tomorrow. So we're just getting a bit of reality therapy, and we need to respond. And I've already said, I think I could actually be quite healthy.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that there is an issue here. I mean, I've spoken publicly about this a lot, and it's a rather overdone analogy, but I think that we are moving from the Helsinki world where states have rights regardless of their size to the Alta world where big countries get to call the shots. And spheres of influence and strongmen making deals. Now, we have to accept, I think, that that is what is happening, and there is a consequence slide from a world governed by institutions and rules to a world governed by strong men and deals. And to answer your question, do we do ourselves no service by pretending this isn't going on?”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is justified in seeking to respond. But at the end of all of this, the most powerful weapon that the United States has always had is its allies. The most earnest wish on Xi's part is that he can build a regional sphere of influence which China can dominate. And this policy is just handing that to Xi on a plate. He's alienating his allies and making it easy for Xi to build up. I mean, what would you do if you were Vietnamese or Cambodian at this point?”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Secondly, I think that it is Xi Jinping's golden foreign policy objective to see a split between the United States and Europe. And to your point, you can absolutely expect a ton of love from China, who are also, by the way, trying to sustain their export machine in the face of tariffs. So I think that tells you we should probably be careful about falling into that trap. And that gets you to some quite interesting decisions around electric vehicles and stuff. Thirdly, I think the regional stuff is on the money. And it's why I think the tariff effort from the White House is destined to fail. I actually think it's a reasonable enough ambition to deal with China in a way that China has historically dealt with us through a mercantilist set of trade policies. China, in this respect, is the worst offender of all. And I think it's being fundamentally destabilizing for the world economy. And to that extent, I think you...”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd be saying I'm a polite person, but I'd be thinking that's facile. I think that for all of our frustrations with Donald Trump, and he is a very frustrating character, can we not draw a moral equivalence between the United States and the Communist Party of China? And I think to your point, Rory, that's absolutely what's happening in some political quarters in Europe. And I've heard in continental Europe often this idea that Europe must carve a third way and not take a position on all of this. Really, in the end, who's really going to want to send their child to university in Beijing to be indoctrinated as opposed to going to Georgetown? Now, I am not saying, I'm not belittling the seriousness of what's happening in the United States, but this is nowhere near in my mind creating equivalence between the two.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, they're new. They've never had any experience in the business. Maybe this is going to happen. But the thing that really stunned me was that the US had put out an advisory only two months before to the effect, as I've already said, that the Chinese can be on any phone in the country. So it did look like a slightly surprising decision, if I'm to be honest.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the cyber stuff, I think we've all been surprised by the quality, absolutely. And I think while the US government was basically saying is that for a while they could go on to any phone they wanted in the United States, which is pretty extraordinary. So this needs to be taken seriously, but at that point, I think the comparison with Putin does break down. He regards himself as being at war with the West. I don't think it's reached that stage with China. But longer term, it is going to be the pacing threat for us. They are defining the technology that I think represents the benchmark.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not. And indeed, I think it's actually the bigger issue. It would be overstating it, though, to say that they were engaged in the intensity of hybrid conflict with us as Russia. That's absolutely not the case, even if as US revelations have shown their cyber intrusion into all of our networks and our capabilities. We've seen a readiness for them to use traditional espionage techniques to get into the fabric of our societies and all of that.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Disruption in the sabotage and the misinformation, but more so. And what he will be doing is probing for weakness. So I think he's got a really overstated reputation as a strategist. He isn't one. But what he's very good at doing is just insistently probing for weakness and then reinforcing success. So our task again, we can't let the best be the enemy of the good. We're not going to build up Russian scale military in that period of time. We've just got to make sure that we can rise to what will be a set of provocations or probes, recognizing that the reason he invaded Ukraine in the first place was he got the wrong idea about our willingness to respond to his aggression and slowly wouldn't have wanted to make that mistake again.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd sort of characteristically, I suppose, land about halfway between the two of those. I think that if Putin seemed to be vindicated in Ukraine, he will have been emboldened. But he's visited a terrible price on his people and he's going to have to make sure that it appears justified. I've already said in any case that he seeks more broadly to overturn what he sees as Western bad faith and an unjust order in Europe. He won't have the capability to do that. I think the Russian army will take at least five years to grow to the possibility where it has any expeditionary capability. I think it's much more likely that we just see really significant challenge in the hybrid space. So in the way that we've seen before, I think Moldova and Georgia are rapidly in trouble. And I think you get probing in the Russian-speaking communities and the Baltic states. You get all the sort of stuff that we're seeing already.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For 10 minutes, we thought that this was a settled thing, that the Soviet Union had collapsed, that Eastern European countries were now the same as Western European countries and had sovereign choices. I don't think we've ever thought of that being a contention. That's not how it looks to Russia. Subsequently, of course, in addition, Putin has actually optimized for war. You know, he's changed the structure of his economy. You can argue about how sustainable that is. Indeed, I don't think many people think he can keep on going for more than about 18 months before retrenching. But of course, there's nothing like that that's happened here. And that's why I think it's so interesting. And I think when you look at Germany, it's particularly interesting. Have we smelt the coffee? Are we going to change the structure, including of our economies? We don't have to go onto a war footing. If we all spent 3% at PPP, we'd match Russia. But we do have to do something.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, I want to be sober about this, but the reality is that the point where I knew Putin was going to invade wasn't so much where this exquisite intelligence was produced that predicted exactly his plans. It was the essay he wrote on the destiny of Ukraine and Russia. And that was about not just Ukraine and the fact that an independent sovereign Ukraine was anathema to a rising and great Russia, but also about the unacceptability of Eastern Europe in states formerly members of the Warsaw Pact, the Russian sphere of influence, having an independent foreign policy of their own and a demand that they put limits on their own choice, including by not being in NATO. He's been super clear about that. And when he talks about the root causes of the war, that's what he's talking about. So we shouldn't be under any illusion. For our part in the West, I don't think we've thought about that.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and where Europe has a choice about whether it continues to support Ukraine or not. Because in truth, Donald Trump pulling the plug isn't the worst case. The worst case is that Europe pulls the plug and Europe doesn't stand up.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think when Putin invaded his army was ready to go completely fresh. They had lots of ammunition and tanks and stuff. And it became rapidly obvious that they couldn't subjugate Ukraine. At the point where it was clear that Ukraine wasn't going to play along and just fold. It was obviously they didn't actually have the military capacity to subjugate a country the size of France. I think that's still true. And maybe the Russian army is bigger now, but disquality has fallen precipitately. So I do think if America removes its capabilities, the consequences for Ukraine and the rest of us will be dire. And certainly I can't see the front line holding. But equally, the idea that they're going to cut through and put tanks into Warsaw is overdone. I think what will happen is that you'll be into some sort of chronic insurgency where Russia makes very significant gains but can't consolidate them and where Ukraine holds on.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Knows that it can't take Ukraine but equally Ukraine can't push Putin out. You are in a position where Putin isn't going to achieve his aims, where Ukraine, I think, can hold on. I think where Putin is hoping that Trump will do quite a lot of his work for him, and where for all of the confusion at the end of this, it's obvious that Europe's going to own the problem. And then it gets to whether Europe has got what it takes to respond to this signal. And personally, I think that it has.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The tearful headlines that are coming out in some outlets today, I think the gap between Ukraine and Russia are still as wide as it ever was, and I think there's very little chance of any sustainable peace coming out of this. What does Donald Trump do in those circumstances? I think it's quite possible that he forces the guns to stop firing for long enough to claim victory and to leave. I think that is, if not the most likely case, it should be our planning assumption. And I think in those circumstances, you've got to ask two questions. One, can Ukraine hang on and two, what does Europe do? The reality for Ukraine is that it is a totally different country to that which it was when it was invaded. And in terms of its technological capability and its ability to produce cutting edge drones and other pieces of military technology, it's the most powerful in Europe. This is a completely different thing that Putin is dealing with.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, first of all, I don't think that's a remote possibility at all. I think that Putin has shown absolutely no sign that he's actually in practice willing to retreat from his maximalist aims, which are the subjugation of Ukraine, or at least condemning it to eternal instability. He's playing games at the moment. The game is to see how little he needs to do to keep Trump on the side. He's emboldened by the fact that Donald Trump, to a large extent, shares his worldview that big countries get additional rights over small countries and can have a sphere of influence. And that security is about deals between those spheres of influence. So I think he feels pretty emboldened. At the same time, whilst Zelensky has been put under a lot of pressure to concede, there's only so far he can go before it becomes untenable for him politically. And therefore, I think, not with”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is going to arbitrate whether my kids have the choices that I've enjoyed is actually whether we're at the front of the development of key emerging technologies. And I think that's the thing that's really kept Britain safe ever since the Industrial Revolution. So if you're talking about making hard power, focus on military stuff, of course. We've got to. cannot regain our place at the frontier of emerging technology, which we've voluntarily relinquished, I think that our security prospects will be pretty dim.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, of course, this is hugely topical because the strategic defense review is taking place and it's yet to publish and in fact it's been delayed a lot, but it's trying to answer exactly this question. And I think my suspicion, I don't know, is that Putin will be seen to have provided the answer, which is that it's going to be a NATO first Europe first approach. I can completely understand that, but we may come on to this. I think the pacing threat provided by China's mastery of key technologies is just as important to us. I think that when it comes to the generation of hard power, it is, of course, about military capability. It's about military industrial capability. It's about organization and culture in countries that need to organize the total defense. But to my mind, the thing that really...”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our relationship with the Americans. It's not healthy to be in this completely asymmetric dependent relationship where we're bringing stuff to the party ourselves. It will get much, much easier to deal with our most important allies. And I've seen that, by the way. So the thing about SIS is it does have some very powerful capabilities that the United States really value and need. And that creates a different dynamic. In some ways, I think that's an example of what we need to do more broadly.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, look, I mean, I sort of don't miss being a spy because I did it for 30 years. It was pretty exhausting. And it hasn't been healthy. And we should be extraordinarily grateful to America for its generosity and its provision of its security guarantee. But we should recognize a bit like a child that gets a trust fund. It's meant that we haven't had, through necessity, to develop a set of really important life skills, the most important of which I would describe as the creation and exercise of hard power. And that is now the problem that Europe's got. It's going to be awful. It's going to be difficult. We're going to have to make really difficult spending decisions. It's culturally alien, etc., etc. But my view is it's overdue. And in fact, I think we will be quite surprised by the way in which it changes us because we won't be passive spectators. And I recognize exactly what you say, Rory, by the way. It will feel different. I don't want to be hubristic about this. It will be tough. The other point is that I actually think it would import.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I worry about the sacking. I think that is a route to an intelligence failure because it is to invite yes men or yes people into the tent. And that's potentially disastrous. I think one of the things propelled Putin into his fateful decision to invade Ukraine, for instance. So not a fan of that. I'm not going to comment on the personalities. I'm not there. But I would say that I was, the intelligence chief last time Trump was in power and we absolutely did make it work. And whilst you shouldn't put ultimate this store by this, the reality is that the force of relationships between these different communities means that absent a direct order.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think there are various constellations within the covert world, Five Eyes being the most famous, I suppose, where we certainly have very strong analytical, common analytical relationships and often operational as well. And it's important for me to say, notwithstanding all the travails that we face from Washington, people on this podcast need to understand how many people are alive in Europe because of our cooperation with the US agencies over time in the caste terrorism struggle. So this stuff really works, but it works best where there's a really significant alignment and political consensus. So I think that's sort of answers your question on the Middle East, where there's a pretty divergent set of objectives.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was extremely important to Netanyahu that Hamas was quiescent. He wanted to focus on the West Bank. I think 75% of the deployed IDF were in the West Bank the day before. And so this would have surfaced as an inconvenient fact. Now, I'm not inside. I don't know whether it was something that was actively ignored, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been prioritized. So the politics do matter, even if you're striving as intelligent officers to be disinterested professionals.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, notwithstanding the grandstanding I'm doing, it's called intrinsically uncomfortable for me to talk about other services, intelligence failures. But nonetheless, I think it illustrates quite usefully a couple of aspects. One is what I would call technology hubris, a sense that because you've got all of the tech covered and that a mouse can't squeak without a red light flashing, you're safe. The relative Hamas employed levels of operational security that I don't think anybody would have anticipated has effectively went dark, eschewed all modern means of communication, and therefore evaded detection. And just to go back to the very start of this conversation, that is a reason why you need human sources. The second thing is that however much we strive to be objective, we are operating in a political environment. And the pretty strong reality in Israel on October 6th was that the”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then there's just the politics in Israel, which is that if there is a ceasefire, it's likely the net owner whose coalition will fall apart. And that will be difficult for him politically and personally. So all of this makes me very bearish. Intelligence has a big role to play in all of this. We haven't talked about Iran, but that is critical. Also, there are enormous lessons to be learned from October the 7th and what happened there, which kind of loop back to some of the conversations we've been having already.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there's a lot in those questions. I mean, firstly, I would say that I stick to my view, notwithstanding the unrealistic expectations attached to a two-state solution, particularly in the eyes of Israelis, and particularly given their history. But I stick to my view that while ordinary Palestinians and girls don't have an alternative to supporting Hamas, they will support Hamas. That's just the sort of political physics of this. And while that's true, It's almost self-fulfilling that this is just a cycle of violence after a cycle of violence. Alongside that Donald Trump effectively signaled to Netanyahu that he is happy for Netanyahu to just treat this as a security issue exclusively and just continue to apply military pressure to contain the problem with no real expectation that it will be solved, emboldened, of course, by this pretty mad idea that you move Gaza to Egypt, etc.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that was pretty well our last chance. I didn't predict the appalling humiliation that West was going to have visited on it in the end. But at that point, it became clear to the Taliban that we wanted this more than they did. And it's where this phrase, we were taunted by so many of the detainees came into currency, which famously is, you have the watches, but we have the time.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So at the time, I and we were pushing very hard and my predecessors, in fact, the need to advance a policy to integrate, albeit at the expense of compromises as much of the Taliban as we could into the governance of Afghanistan. And I'm pretty sure you would have agreed with that, Rory. And accepting there would be an irreconcilable rump as small as possible, which would be subject to military action. We pushed that hard. And in fact, I don't know if you remember, but there was a very public row. I don't know if you it sort of broke out into the open. The Afghan government were having none of it because they weren't prepared to make the compromises necessary. And frankly, the US were ambivalent as well. This was only what six or seven years after 2001 and the idea of treating this anything other than as a military problem was still in Athaba. Looking back, honestly,”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody had lost the plot. Look, I mean, so having sort of taken the fifth on Iraq because I was a junior officer, I need to be clear I was in the middle of things when I was head of station in Afghanistan. It's a completely different perspective. But spoiler alert, slightly self-serving narrative. When I was there, I think it was pretty clear to us on the UK side that there was no military solution to this problem, in large part, by the way, because there never is. terrorism and insurgency are ultimately intrinsically Things, and this is something I think Mr. Netanyahu needs perhaps to reflect on.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it needs to be fundamental to the way we are in our culture and our DNA that you have the courage to say what you think and where I get to the diversity point is that decision makers are grouped in a way that deliberately includes the widest possible range of dissent and points of view and challenge. I don't think honestly British society, let alone SIS, had a lot of that in the 90s. I think it's got more now.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it is a standing human feature which you have to guard against at every term. So whilst, of course, the Chilcourt inquiry, I think broadly supports what you've just said. The bottom line is it goes much, much more broadly.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I don't know. I wasn't in the center at that time. I was on the edge. I think, including through personal experience, I should say that and including as chief, that you cannot underestimate the pressure you feel to tell the person on the other side of the green base table what they want to hear.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Always be uncertainty. and doubt and that these are legendarily shards of light in the dark and that it has been very important not to overstate the certainty of what has been produced.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's interesting and it cuts the whole issue of what is objectivity and it cuts to Alita's question which is how do you sustain your objectivity whilst working for a set of politicians who very much want a particular thing to happen and a particular answer and it's all really difficult. I suppose I would adduce the Choolcott report which was produced after the Iraq invasion which actually looked in very technical terms admittedly at exactly this issue and that report should be credited with the advent of a steps change in intelligence tradecraft which put a real premium on validation and started to pull in in a way that means that the situation is transformed today the power of open source and the power of technology the power of behavioral science you name it to try and give the best sense of where the truth lies I think that we need to explain to politicians that we are not as good as explaining to them as we should be is of course though that the”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As the official, not the democratically elected person, it's important for us to fundamentally understand and empathize with the aims of our leaders and what they are seeking to achieve and to configure ourselves to be as useful as possible to them and by extension to our country and the public. I think that that does not extend, first of all, to a suspension of your own freightwork, moral framework that you bring. So that, I think, is a distinction between us and the Russians, for instance. So Donald Trump's decision to sack securecrats for doing their job seems to me to carry a very significant risk that the appetite for speaking truth to power will be diminished. And that generally leads to intelligence failure.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting at the human level how quickly this resolved into my personal experience of talking to Iraqis who has suffered at the hands of a genocidal dictator. And to go back to what we were talking about earlier, the nature of your motivationist stuff that you rapidly come to identify with that. And I think that's what was in my head. But to your very important question more broadly, the abiding lesson that I took for all that the term has become appropriated by all sorts of people is the value of diversity. And I think fundamentally, I don't know if you agree, Alistair, there was a group of people who wanted to come to the same conclusion reinforcing that conclusion in each other's minds. And at least an implicit culture that pushed out countervailing opinions. Honestly, I think that's what it was. And when I became the leader, I was very focused on our values. And one of those was to make sure that we had an environment.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think to Rory's point, it was for me a really important learning moment. I was pretty well of the view, honestly, that Saddam Hussein was one of Al-Qaeda's greatest enemies. So it was perplexing, to say the least, to hear a Kausa Veli that actually encompassed the idea that he was a friend of al-Qaeda. To be fair, the UK chose a different and more justifiable approach to dealing with him. But, you know, I was a reasonably junior officer at the time. I was in the region. You know, I was trying on my gas mask and talking to Iraqis.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which were to step up and stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends who'd suffered such an appalling and grievous attack. And of course, that was echoed by the Prime Minister at the time. And that was an unqualified and simple response, which I remain proud of. And as the smaller partner, admittedly, but with a sort of different set of capabilities and a different history, we were able to make a really substantial contribution. For all of the sort of complexity of counterterrorism in the end, it comes down to the quality of teamwork between allies. And I think it was really interesting to watch secret organizations configured to keep foreigners out actually have to learn to work with each other. It felt unrecognizable at the end as compared to the beginning.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Learned an enormous amount as a result of that shift, which was quite as violent as you describe, Rory. And I can remember sitting in my office and watching the towers going down and understanding that this did change everything. And it was a painful and difficult period for us because we had to relearn muscles that we hadn't really used since the 1950s, by which I mean alongside the duty of finding stuff out, we had to do stuff about the things that we knew, disrupt plots. And that brings me into a whole different area of physical and legal moral hazard that we were frankly unfamiliar with. And so, as is publicly documented, there were a set of growing pains which we learnt from. That aside, I'm deeply proud of our instincts.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The environment, as I've said, in which we operate, and probably the way in which we operate is fundamentally transformed by the winds of globalization and digitalization and all sorts of other stuff. The essence is exactly the same. It's about relationships of trust created across forbidding, linguistic and political and physical boundaries, which allow us to persuade people to give our country the intelligence that it needs to stay safe and puts on us the duty to keep those people who've placed their trust in us safe in return. And that model, that is the essence of it, and that hasn't changed. But to your question, Alistair, yes, it could be mediated online as easily as it could be done in Ulambatur. Doesn't remove the central premium on emotion and intelligence and a capacity to create connections and inspire trust.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an ep of faith, but I think at an instinctive level I understood two things. One, it's about curiosity. That's what drives it. And that is incredibly attractive at that age, as it has remained. And the other is that whilst it's wrong to glamorize espionage, which is a tough business, the premise is appealing, which is that humans can make a difference. Humans have agency. And you can do stuff that actually makes a difference. helplessness in the face of complexity is the most debilitating thing or feeling of An opportunity to be consequential one way or the other.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think you're dignifying something and it's flattery. I mean, you mentioned John Bucken earlier. At that age, you want an adventure and you want purpose. And however rude that is, it's a very powerful impulse and it's forced to then be into the army and other jobs. And the problem, at least then joining a secret organization was, well, the clues in the name. You have no idea what it actually does.”
2025-05-04 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 132. Former Head of MI6: Russia, China, and Trump (Sir Alex Younger) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source