It is now clear that President Putin’s ‘new model Russia’ cannot be constructively accommodated into the international system. The war in Ukraine, in part the result of the West's laissez-faire approach to Russia, demonstrates the need for a new Western strategy towards Russia.

The Russian Challenge - a major new report by six authors from the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House - argues that a new strategy must recognise that:                  

• The decline of the Russian economy, the costs of confrontation and the rise of China mean that the Putin regime is now facing the most serious challenge of its 15 years in power.  The West has neither the wish nor the means to promote regime change in Russia. But Western countries need to consider the possible consequences of a chaotic end to the Putin system.             
• A critical element in the new geo-economic competition between the West and Russia is the extent of Western support for Ukraine, whose reconstruction as an effective sovereign state, capable of standing up for itself, is crucial. This will require much greater resources than have been invested up until now.                  
• Russia has rapidly developed its armed forces and information warfare capabilities since the war in Georgia in 2008. The West must invest in defensive strategic communications and media support to counter the Kremlin’s false narratives and restore its conventional deterrent capabilities as a matter of urgency. In particular, NATO needs to demonstrate that the response to ‘ambiguous’ or ‘hybrid’ war will be robust.                  
• Sanctions are exerting economic pressure on the Russian leadership and should remain in place until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is properly restored. In particular, it is self-defeating to link the lifting of sanctions solely to implementation of the poorly crafted and inherently fragile Minsk accords.                  
• While deterrence and constraint are essential in the short term, the West must also prepare for an eventual change of leadership in Russia. There is a reasonable chance that current pressures will incline a future Russian leadership to want to re-engage with the West.

James Nixey, Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, said:  

'Pursuing these goals and achieving these objectives will ensure that the West is better prepared for any further deterioration in relations with Russia. The events of the last 18 months have demonstrated conclusively that when dealing with Russia, optimism is not a strategy.'

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Efforts to address illegal logging and reduce the trade in illegal timber have borne fruit and prompted some positive reforms in producer countries, a new report from Chatham House has found. However, changes in the sector mean overall trade in illegal timber has not fallen in the last decade. 
  
EU and US policies designed to reduce demand for illegal timber have helped cut illegal imports to those markets. These reforms and the EU’s partnership agreements with producer countries have prompted improvements in forest governance and a fall in large-scale illegal timber production.

But growth of demand in emerging markets means that the progressive policies of so-called ‘sensitive markets’ are now less influential. China is now the world’s largest importer and consumer of wood-based products, as well as a key processing hub. India, South Korea, and Vietnam are also growing markets. The increasing role of small-scale producers, whose activities often fall outside legal frameworks, and a rapid increase in illegal forest conversion, also present new challenges. 
  
Alison Hoare: 'The EU and US have spearheaded some progressive and effective reforms. However, the changing scale and nature of the problem demands more coordinated international action. To stop further deforestation and associated carbon emissions, and to help achieve global objectives for sustainable development, the EU and US need to maintain their leadership while other countries - especially China, Japan, India and South Korea - need to step up their efforts to tackle illegal logging.'

The Chatham House report, which is based on the studies of 19 countries, which include key producers, consumers, or processors of timber, and is an update of a 2010 study found: 

Timber production

• More than 80 million m3 of timber was illegally produced in 2013 in the nine producer countries assessed, accounting for about one-third of their combined total production.
• An estimated 60% of this illegal timber is destined for these countries’ domestic markets.
• Small-scale producers are increasingly important – for example, in Cameroon, the DRC and Ghana, they account for an estimated 50, 90 and 70% respectively of annual timber production. The majority of this is illegal.
• For the nine producer countries, the area of forest under voluntary legality verification or sustainability certification schemes increased by nearly 80% between 2000 and 2013. 

Imports of illegal wood-based products 

• In most of the consumer and producer countries assessed, the volume of illegal imports of wood-based products fell during the period 2000–13. 
• The exceptions were China, and India and Vietnam where the volume of illegal imports more than doubled. 
• As a proportion of the whole, illegal imports declined for nearly all countries. 
• However, at the global level, the proportion of illegal timber imports remained steady at 10% - a result of the growth of the Chinese market. 

The EU and US 

• The volumes of illegal imports into the UK, France and the Netherlands nearly halved over the period 2000-13, from just under 4 million m3 to 2 million m3. 
• The volume of illegal imports into the US increased between 2000 and 2006, from around 5 to 9 million m3, and then declined to just under 6 million m3 in 2013. 
• In 2013, more than 60% of illegal imports of wood-based products to the UK and US came from China.

China

• The volume of illegal imports into China doubled between 2000 and 2013 from 17 to 33 million m3; but as a proportion of the whole illegal imports fell, from 26 to 17%.
•  The volume of exports of wood-based products (legal and illegal) from the nine producer countries to China nearly tripled, from 12 million m3 in 2000 to 34 million m3 in 2013.

The Chatham House report makes the following recommendations:

• The EU and US need to maintain and reinforce current efforts 
• Other countries need to take stronger action – China in particular, but also India, Japan and South Korea
• Strong international cooperation is needed to maintain & reinforce current efforts – the G20 could provide a forum to galvanise international action
• Producer countries need to focus on strengthening efforts to tackle corruption, improving legality within the small-scale sector, and reforming land-use governance 

     
Alison Hoare: 'Developing countries are losing significant amounts of potential revenue from illegal logging, which is also causing the loss and degradation of forests, depleting livelihoods, and contributing to social conflict and corruption. Tackling illegal logging and strengthening forest governance are essential for achieving critical climate and development goals. Having seen the progress that can be made, it’s imperative that governments agree to work together to rise to new challenges and promote a more sustainable forest sector for the benefit of all.'   

Read the report >>

During this event, Dr Constanze Stelzenmüller will discuss the findings of the Transatlantic Trends 2014 Survey. Transatlantic Trends is a comprehensive annual survey measuring public opinion in the United States, Turkey, Russia, and 10 European Union member states. This year’s survey examines key issues facing the transatlantic community, such as European and US responses to the crisis in Ukraine, the state of the transatlantic relationship in the wake of the NSA scandal, the future of European integration, Russian foreign policy preferences, and views on major foreign policy issues like NATO’s future and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 

Megan Greene will join us for a discussion on the prospect of future economic and political uncertainty on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first year of Donald Trump’s presidency and the ongoing saga of Brexit negotiations underscore the amount of uncertainty about the economic future on both sides of the Atlantic.

Despite that, business and consumer confidence in the US and continental Europe have soared. Are we still stuck in secular stagnation, or are we breaking out of the low growth, low inflation, low rate environment we’ve been in for years?

What opportunities and risks are posed by this year’s elections in France and Germany, the upcoming elections in Italy, and the mid-term elections in the US?

This event is part of the US and Americas Programme ongoing series on Transatlantic Perspectives on Common Economic Challenges. This series examines some of the principal global challenges that we face today and potentially differing perspectives from across Europe and the US.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.

President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.

In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.

Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?

Comparing different approaches

Some have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.

Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.

And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.

Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.

This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.

Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.

Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.

Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.

Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:

• The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)
• The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patients
• How many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findings
• What was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparedness

In addition, further actions should be taken:

• Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.
• Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.
• All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.
• There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.

And at the international level:

• The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
• States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.
• Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.

COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on the cybersecurity landscape - both amplifying already-existing cyber threats and creating new vulnerabilities for state and non-state actors. The crisis has highlighted the importance of protecting key national and international infrastructures, with the World Health Organization, US Department of Health and Human Services and hospitals across Europe suffering cyber-attacks, undermining their ability to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. Changing patterns of work resulting from widespread lockdowns are also creating new vulnerabilities for organizations with many employees now working from home and using personal devices to work remotely.

In light of these developments, the panellists will discuss the evolving cyber threats resulting from the pandemic. How are they impacting ongoing conversations around cybersecurity? How can governments, private sector and civil society organizations work together to effectively mitigate and respond to them? And what could the implications of such cooperation be beyond the crisis? 

This event is part of a fortnightly series of 'Business in Focus' webinars reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on areas of particular professional interest for our corporate members and giving circles.

Not a corporate member? Find out more.

A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.

President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.

In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.

Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?

Comparing different approaches

Some have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.

Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.

And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.

Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.

This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.

Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.

Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.

Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.

Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:

• The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)
• The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patients
• How many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findings
• What was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparedness

In addition, further actions should be taken:

• Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.
• Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.
• All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.
• There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.

And at the international level:

• The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
• States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.
• Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.

COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.