Four former British ambassadors to the United States have expressed concern about the future of intelligence sharing with the US following the re-election of Donald Trump.
Sir David Manning, who served as ambassador between 2003 and 2007, told a parliamentary committee some of Trump's appointees had "strange track records" which would create a "problem on the intelligence front".
Dame Karen Pierce, who only left the role last month, said intelligence sharing would continue "even if at the top level there might be things we might wish to be circumspect about".
Sir Nigel Sheinwald, ambassador from 2007 to 2012, said the relationship would be "trickier to handle than probably at any other time".
He said some of the people appointed by Trump to lead intelligence and security could "present some difficulties in terms of their view of us and views of co-operation".
He did not specify who he was referring to, however concern has been raised about the US president's pick to be his director of national intelligence.
Tulsi Gabbard has previously echoed Russia's justification for invading Ukraine and her appointment to the role was welcomed by Russian state media.
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Sir Peter Westmacott, who was in Washington from 2012 to 2016, said problems might be caused by a changing culture in US government institutions adding that "a lot of very good people are being thrown out because they do not pass the [Trump] loyalty test."
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It's an interesting article from a unusual point of view (and an unusual source).
From a macroeconomic point of view, a major problem for Russia’s civilian industry could be a lack of labour (in addition to what the article suggests regarding returning soldiers' psychological problems), as stated by several (Russian) economists. And even Russian media admitted that private companies in other sectors than military are operating at around 80% of capacity due to a lack of labour. According to the Russian consultancy Yakov and Partners, Russia could reach a worker shortage of 2 to 4 million people by 2030.
Another problem for Russia on the economic road to peace could be the banks. Sberbank and TVB, both state-owned, have been required by law to fund companies from the military complex at state-subsidised rates, not in the least because Russia’s central bank had to raise interest rates to 21% to curb a devastating inflation. Some other sectors (agriculture, construction) also benefited from state-sponsored lower-than-market rates (these public funds does not count as Russia’s official budget of 40% for military spending afaik).
According to official numbers by the bank of Russia, this led to an increase of profits for both Sberbank and VTB, but these loans -which essentially means that banks could 'mint' a large amount of money within a short time span - now amount to 16% of Russian commercial banks’ total assets. This poses a high risk to the banking sector, and it increases once the war is over and peace breaks out. Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has warned already late last year that the Russian banking sector’s capital adequacy ratio has dropped by 2 percentage points in the course of 2024, reaching 12.5%. (Simply speaking, the Capital Adequacy Ratio is a metric used by regulators around the globe measuring a bank’s ability to absorb a sufficient amount of loss before they loose depositor funds.) Russia’s ratio is still above the minimum requirement under the so-called Basel III rules (which is 10.5% if I am not mistaken), but the drop is significant, meaning that Russian banks could be quickly running out of cushion to avoid insolvency once the situation changes.
Russia has also lost its most important economic lifeline, oil and gas, and Europe won’t come back as buyers given that the Kremlin is posing a threat to the continent.
And all this must be seen as even now, as the war is raging, the Russian economy, despite coming from a relatively low level, is already slowing down. The IMF expects a growth rate of 1.3% this year and 1.2% in 2026. Some time ago, Russian economist Natalia Zubarevich said that in Russia “there will be no collapses, but rather a viscous, slow sinking into backwardness.” Maybe she is right?
[Edit typo.]