Dear {{first_name | Friend}},

A fortnight or so ago I was chatting to a noble gentleman - I can put it no more narrowly than that - who is exceptionally well versed in international affairs, and connected at the highest levels of governments in this country and others. He had been recently chatting to some spooks. Agitated, he said something which I have heard very often in recent years, and which my political antennae tell me you’re going to hear a lot more in the coming months and years - which is why I want to write about it this week. 

Britain is a country at war, behaving like it’s in peace-time. As a people, as a collective, of voters and citizens, we haven’t really noticed or admitted to ourselves what is going on. There are various reasons for this, and implications, most of them bad, and we may soon directly confront the consequences of our refusal to be honest about what is happening.

The main reason we haven’t noticed is that this is a Cold War. It is Cold War
Two. The first Cold War was America vs the Soviet Union, and capitalism vs communism. This one still involves those two mighty states, or their successors, and those rival economic systems too. But it has expanded. This time, Cold War Two is a fight between democracy and autocracy. It is a fight between the Western Alliance, still just about led by America, and still manifest in Nato; and an alliance of autocracies I call the CRINKlies. That stands for China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. I think CRINKlies works as an acronym because, North Korea aside, those autocracies are also gerontocracies, ruled by aging men who won’t let go. 

This alliance is real, very actively working in cahoots, and united by a loathing for the West. You can see it in the Kursk region of Western Russia. There, North Korean troops were sent to do Russia’s work. They used Iranian weapons. And China provided financial support. 

In a quite remarkable speech this week, the boss of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, said threats from foreign adversaries had quadrupled in the past decade. How much more evidence do we need before realising the extent of this warfare? Put aside the question of Russian interference in Brexit, where we have known for a while about attempts to degrade the truth and sow division with bots; put aside the Salisbury poisonings, in which many lethal doses of Novichok were used in an attack on UK soil. 

Focus rather on the - again, utterly shocking - fact that Russia has been using covert operations to attack Britain’s undersea cables for years, and may have placed explosives on many of the cables that are critical to our infrastructure - that is, cables that ensure you can get money out of your bank, contact your GP, or get to school on time. 

We are at war, we just haven’t (collectively) noticed yet. 

Cold War Two is, I think, the most useful paradigm here. It is true that Chinese markets and supply chains are much more embedded in the global economy than the autarkic Soviet Union ever was. There is an economic co-dependency today, between the West and China, that Cold War One lacked. But in other ways, the echoes are haunting. Above all, the threat of nuclear war. We have become a little relaxed about this in the West, but America’s actions - sorry, President Trump’s actions - increase rather than decrease the likelihood of nuclear proliferation: that is, the annihilation of whole continents. Especially because of his undermining of the rules-based order, and the multi-lateral institutions that uphold it. 

The other key similarity is just the fact of geopolitical bipolarity. As with Cold War One, the world is split essentially into two mega-blocks, and middle powers and smaller powers have to decide which they want to back. In this sense, there are also echoes of the Great Power struggles of the 19th century, in which empires and then nation states would spread their might in diminishing concentric circles of influence around them. It’s where those concentric circles clash that you get conflict. Ukraine is the clash between a Western sphere of influence - i.e. Nato - and a Russian sphere. The wars in Ukraine and Iran may come to be seen as the first hot wars of Cold War Two, just as the Korean War of 1950-53 was the first hot war of Cold War One.

The biggest difference between the Cold Wars of the 20th and 21st centuries is that where once we were united, today we are divided. President Trump’s decision to go easy on Russian sanctions and purchase diesel from the Kremlin, while at the same time saying Ukraine should replace President Zelensky, is beyond shocking. He is doing it in a vain attempt to reduce inflation ahead of the mid-terms - but that inflation is primarily driven by his catastrophic misjudgement over Iran. And by the way, Russia has been helping Iran to fight the Americans. You could not get a more incoherent foreign policy than the one currently pursued by the White House. 

The first quarter of the 21st century will be remembered by historians for the relative decay and decline of democracy, and the relative ascent of the autocracies. The moral and military exhaustion of the West, with its very short-term electoral cycles, and algorithmically battered attention spans, is at the moment a weak foe to the CRINKlies. 

One of the main arguments that our own government needs to prosecute is that we are at war, and being at war imposes certain requirements on us which we are failing to fulfil. In his Budget on October 28, John Healey needs to make the case for the British state to refocus from welfare to warfare. That is not an easy argument for a Labour Chancellor to make. But the epoch we have stumbled into demands it. What does such an argument look like? That will be the subject of next week’s newsletter. 

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I’m determined that our Monday episode - the Questions episode of ARC, which I’m calling QUARC - becomes as big and important a part of your week as this newsletter and the Thursday long-form interview. There are some podcasts that do a second episode as an after-thought. Others, like Political Currency, do it really well. You may have noticed I’m big on the idea of connection, and I really do want to emphasise the importance of community. It’s everything to me. The Monday episodes are a chance for you to really connect with the very clever and influential people we have in our studio. 

So. What’s the one question you want answered on AI?

Please tell me. It could be what makes AI different from standard computers, or what it could mean for jobs, or education, or drug discovery. It could be that you’re worried about data centres. Or you want to know about the men - and they are mostly men - in charge of the AI race. What’s your one question?

I’ll put it to one of the most influential men in British, and perhaps global, AI. 

Ian Hogarth is Chair of the UK AI Safety Institute. He is a hugely influential founder and investor, who aside from being Chair of Phasecraft, a Quantum Computing start-up, was the Founder of Songkick. I know Ian pretty well, and can tell you that his advice is sought by several of the most powerful people in global politics and technology. You get to ask him anything. What’s your one question?

Please send a video or voice note, maximum of 30 seconds, by email to [email protected] by the end of Monday 19 October. Or you can just send us an email. 

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If you haven’t watched or listened to our first Episode with Sir Gareth Southgate, please do. It really is a special conversation. You can watch it on YouTube; watch or listen on Spotify; hear it on Amazon Music; or hear (and soon watch) us on Apple Podcasts. We have had just the most brilliant, heartening response. And just because I know he’s going to read this, let me say here: thank you, Gareth. I appreciate your being our first guest so much. And see, I did drop the “Sir” (eventually). 

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It’s been quite the week. As you may have been able to tell from my social channels, sleep was a rare treat in the 7 days just passed. On Monday I was at a big do, and the highlight was meeting a member of this community, a fully paid-up ARC subscriber. She was a lovely and smart lady called Jo, and like the Helen I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m not mentioning her surname here. But I am saying a really deeply felt thanks for the very, very nice things she said about this newsletter. Oh and sorry for referencing the Frosty Kingdom in Peppa Pig when her mate started talking about the silver dress she was wearing. (This is a bit of a parent in-joke. Sorry.)

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One thing Jo said is that she liked the length of the newsletter and the various items. Some of you have been in touch to say you would like the main item to be longer: in particular, I received a lot of warmth, for which I was very grateful, on my early essay about the crisis of social connection. But then others wanted the main item to be shorter - a column of 1,000 words rather than an essay of 2,500 words. These ‘others’ include my mother-in-law, Carry, and because my mother-in-law is right about everything, always, and never to be questioned or resisted on any matter whatsoever, I have kept the main item shorter. Please let me know what you think, because Carry - who I love unconditionally - certainly will. 

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A weekly selection of life-enhancing delights, curated by your humble correspondent, in response to popular demand. I think you will enjoy them.

Visit:

We took Winston and a mate of his to this absolutely wild place in London Bridge. It’s called The Bermondsey Bierkeller. Upstairs: basically a German beer festival, with great food and drink; plus various arcades and games - Mariokart, axe throwing, pool, air hockey. Downstairs: go karting! Except you can’t overtake, go really fast and don’t have brakes. Hard to explain, but it was terrific, and the staff were so lovely. 

Read:

The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart. Published in 1957, Hoggart’s account of growing up in a working-class household in interwar Leeds is seminal. He casts books as nothing short of emancipatory, and it has been a profound influence on me. Given our current literacy crisis, we need it more than ever. One of Hoggart’s sons was the Guardian sketch-writer, Simon. 

Watch:

Continuing my occasional series on treasures of the BBC that are not sufficiently known, can I recommend in the strongest terms that if you have children aged between 3 and 7 (and I have 3), you get them going on Alphablocks and Numberblocks on the iPlayer. Naturally I’m not one to ever, ever suggest anything other than fully engaged parenting, showering your little ones with love and noble values while looking them in the eye, etc; but if you do find you need a little break to empty the dishwasher or do the laundry and want them to be learning during that time, these options are hard to beat. 

Listen: 

Talking Politics: History of Ideas, by David Runciman. Runciman spent years running politics and international relations at the University of Cambridge. These podcasts, which he recorded in the pandemic, are like off the cuff undergraduate lectures. They are just an unbeatable introduction to the modern history of political thought. Runciman exudes clarity and never goes in for jargon. He is also a natural story-teller. I must have listened to the episodes of Hobbes and Orwell a dozen times each. 

Have a great weekend - and thank you again for all your time and attention. This week was a biggie for The Amol Rajan Connection and I will never take your support for granted. 

Yours ARCfully, 

AMOL