Yes. When I talk about the dysfunctional west, I mean that.... I'm sure you don't want to get into a large discussion about the current U.S. administration, but they are a significant issue right now in the sense that the views of the current U.S. President are promoting massive instability. People are uncertain as to what's going on. The United Kingdom hasn't taken a major decision in a year and a half. Monsieur Macron is concerned about what's going on with les gilets jaunes. Germany is preoccupied with replacing Mrs. Merkel, and God knows what the Italians are doing.
My point is that while we're worrying about these major issues, we're giving an opportunity for Russia and China in particular to poke and prod in a way that they could not do if we were a little bit more together. I'm not suggesting the world's coming to an end. I really am not, but I think our adversaries—and I call them adversaries, not enemies—are very active. They take advantage of every opportunity. I think we need to start rebuilding those close ties that we've had amongst some countries since World War II.
I also think we need to realize more than we do—it's one of the pathways that I think we need to talk about—and appreciate that Russia and China are, in their own way, great countries. They've made great contributions to civilization. But right now they are fundamentally unhappy with their position on this planet and they're trying to change it, using virtually any method. I don't think we think about this very much. If we don't think about it and try to do something about it, we're really behind the eight ball.
I think the first thing is to develop a greater understanding of what's happening. Somebody asked me the other day in the media why Russia went to Syria. There's no prospect of territorial acquisition, except that they are trying to cause trouble, and they have effectively succeeded. They delayed the elimination of the caliphate. They're doing this in a whole raft of areas. They played with the elections in the United States, Germany, France, and I believe Italy. All they're trying to do is not really shift who's going to win; they're trying to diminish public confidence in public institutions.
All of this, I think, needs to be talked about more. We need to get a grip amongst particularly core western countries, about how serious the problem is. Parts of the U.S. administration consider this more important that we do sometimes. The Brits are at another level. We need a consensus in the west that we have a problem. The U.S. has just shifted their national security priorities to great power conflict, after being on terrorism for the last many years. Well, if that's the case, we need to think about what we're going to do about Russia and China, without going to war, which is not what I'm advocating. We need to be talking about it, understanding the nature of the threat and developing closer ties internationally. I do firmly believe that national security is not national, not in the way it's run today; we need to work with everybody.