It is great to see you all and it is also great to come back to this fine institution. It makes me quite emotional, which is not my usual setting, but when I got a chance to come to the UK after couple of years and we discussed the possibility to visit RSDS, I was really, sincerely pleased. When I come back to my time in the RCDS and I recall all the memories which we had from the keep, from London, elsewhere…It was a nice place. We had at the beginning some difficulties, but we were able to manage them through our wives. We behaved like we were told, gentlemen never put each other in trouble, so when we were asking to correct some deficiencies in the keep, we asked politely our commandant to consider some steps. And then our wives got bored and said enough. They spoke to commandant’s wife and within a week everything was resolved. It is good to be polite and diplomatic, but when you come to an impasse, call your wife.

I would like to say that it was mentioned in the introduction. My military professional career was quite amazing. I have to say that it quite often reminded of a fairy tale Alice in Wonderland. When I started my career as a former Warsaw pact paratrooper in special forces, I would never thought about going west through opened border, I could never imagine I would be ever in the United states - at that time our arch enemy, and then when I appeared there and I received the highest military award from the hands of chief of joint chiefs, it was simply unbelievable. And then when I finish my military service, I hoped to have some relax time to enjoy my retirement, doing some lectures for youth and telling them that the world is not only black and white, there is a lot of colours, and lot of opportunities to learn. I realised that there is a still a need for the service, because we don’t really have the opponents and enemies around and quite often, we have a big challenge internally. Because our country does not just lack democratic rulers, but we are also challenged by populism, we are also challenged by people who are attracted by different kinds of authoritarian rule. And if we want to face them, we simply have to take an action. That’s why I decided to step up again and offer my service to my country and here I am. Now I am in the position to do what I can to meet promises to my people, but also meet the standards, that I was used to meeting through whole my career. That means going up to be objective, being open and frank and stick to the partners and allies. This is what this institution is about. It is about cooperation, it is about dialogue, it is about finding new ways to communicate. Once I got here, we were told by someone that this institution will give us at a minimum three benefits. One is what we learn from this institution, what they can teach us. Second will, what we learn from each other. All of us, we are a source of experience, information, and background from so many countries, so many cultures, so many different environments. Third is the level and the number of contacts we make here. Because they will be used in the future. When I was sitting in your place and listening that some of us would be in the highest positions of our countries, we smiled, because by the time there was just one member who became a head of the state, and it was late president of Pakistan Musharraf and now it appears that I am the second. There might be others, don’t worry it will come. But for that it is necessary that you develop the relations that will allow you to benefit from them in the future. It makes my life so much easier when we get in trouble somewhere I can pick up the phone and call someone, call him by his first name and ask how are his wife and kids and then we address the problem. Suddenly, there is a solution because we understand each other, and we can help each other. This is a true asset; it comes out of this institution. And I really appeal on you to use at a maximum and then develop it further.

But I don’t want to talk about my impressions from this college. I would like to give you my view on number of global issues. When I was studying here in 2005, we discussed lot international terrorism, this after the breakout of bipolar world and breakout of the Soviet union and the Warsaw pact. We believed that we have only rosy times ahead of us full of cooperation and understanding. And quite soon we realised that it will not be the case. 9.11.2001 woke us up into a new reality and the global war of terror started, the war in Afghanistan, but the main enemy, the main challenge was the international terrorism. We didn’t have an idea at that time that we will be facing another competition, confrontation at a level of superpower, especially the powers with nuclear weapons. In 2005 Russia was still a partner, in 2004 there is a document setting up a framework of cooperation between Russia and NATO. And we still had two years to infamous speech of president Putin at Munich security conference, in fact setting the beginning of a new approach of Russia to international relations. Since then, lot of things has changed. Now, we are at the situation, where we have an aggressive war of Russia against the sovereign country, against Ukraine. We have a new confrontation at the global stage between China and democracies. And it is not a confrontation in terms of military, but it is a global strategic competition rather then confrontation. Some political scientists expect that in the near future we may have even a military conflict with China. I heard the dates, latest in 2027 we´ll see a military conflict between China and Taiwan, and then involving number of countries into this conflict. I don’t go that far, but it is fair to admit that we are entering an era of strategic competition between democracies on one side, between autocratic rulers of a different kind on the other side.

Potentially on the side of world democracies there will be a number of countries that are striving to be democratic, they still have some democratic deficit, but they are willing to cooperate, they are willing to agree at a low common denominator, these will form one group. On the other side will be those who want to change existing world order, rewrite the rules of international law, the rules of international trade, they would also like to get more influence and power over a number of countries. It´s not just Russia today trying to get influence over Ukraine, but Russian leaders do not hide their intentions to restore the greatness of the former USSR, to restore the zone of influence over Central, Eastern Europe and a number of Central Asian countries. In fact they are increasing their influence in Africa as well through number of measures, some of them is a private military group - Wagner group- still active in number of African countries.

And we also have China, which unlike Russia is not using military tool of power, but they can bite and that´s what they are doing, they are using their financial way, to their economic way to get influence where Russia was not successful by their military means. It also relates to Europe, because we were quite often attracted by the smell of money, and our vision was blurred when it comes to exertion of Chinese influence. When we tried in NATO to make a survey about a critical infrastructure, it was so sensitive that a number of countries were not willing to provide data. And then when you realized how many parts of our critical infrastructure are either entirely or partially owned by China, then we have to ask the question to what extent are we still independent in terms of our security. And it’s not just about the ports like one of the main sea entry points to south-eastern Europe in Greece, Piraeus , is owned by China, there are a number of ports around Europe that are partially owned by China, transport routes….China has monopole on communication lines, the cables between the continents. So, we have to really consider to what extent we still control the critical assets for our security and independence. And that´s why it is smart not to look only at the military power, but to look at the current conflict as multi-domain, because the influence that China is spreading all around the globe runs at multiple layers.

When I come back to the conflict with Ukraine, I would like to remind that very few of us, if anyone, believed that Ukraine could withstand the pressure of Russia, which was believed to have the second most powerful army in the world. Now, after more than one year, some would say, that Russia still has the second mightiest military, but in Ukraine. And it´s sign of miscalculation on the Russian side. When president Putin was expecting, having the experience from two decades of this century, that the West was not always strong enough in responses to their actions. We did not react to their military intervention to Georgia, our reaction to the annexation of Crimea was not strong enough, the sanction regime started to be circumvented by a number of countries very quickly after the annexation…So president Putin believed that the West will not be able to react. He believed and was convinced about the strength of his military, and it was kind of a Potemkin village, because Russians, whatever they are doing they have to present it to the world. So, whenever they has a new piece of equipment, the media were full of news about new missiles, and new tanks, and new aircraft, and it created a perception that Russian military is modernized by 90 % and it is really wise not to touch Russia and it ´s quite clear that they will prevail in whatever they do. And suddenly we saw thousands of problems that were hidden at that time, not only at the level of command, communication, intelligence, logistics, and almost everything. They also underestimated the willingness and determination of Ukraine to defend their country. And they also underestimated the ability of the West to come up quickly to a common position. And in this regard, I am really proud of my own country, as well as Britain, Poland and some other countries of Central and Eastern Europe who were the first to provide assistance to Ukraine, from the very first day of the war we were providing even heavy military equipment. A number of countries were hesitating to provide Ukraine armoured vehicles, tanks, artillery, because they didn´t want to push too hard on Russia. And again, it was the remnants of our approach to Russia not to provoke. There is no other way how to face the aggressor than to show determination and the strength and willingness to use it, because otherwise they will see it as our weakness. And that´s exactly what president Putin understood about us, that we are too weak to get rid of our comfort, because we want to preserve the living standards, we want to preserve our business, we won´t do anything to harm our own interest. And it took us almost half a year before we got to full support of Ukraine. I would say and I am repeating that  to the citizens of the Czech Republic when we discuss the necessity to support Ukraine, it is in our interest, because if we don´t want Russia and others to believe that whoever wants to promote their interest through aggression is actually free to do so, because we will not oppose him, then we have to react. It´s a matter of principle, it is not a question if we like Ukraine or not, it is not a question if we like Ukrainians or not, it is a matter of preserving the rules that are necessary to live in peace and cooperation. I believe that we all want that and that is why we should support Ukraine from the matter of principle, including their potential membership in the EU and NATO. I think if any nation showed clearly their interest, their determination, their will, it´s Ukrainians. Despite all the difficulties they have with corruption, with number of deficiencies in their industry, agriculture, and human rights, whatever, they are so determined to be a democratic sovereign country, to be in assistance of all of us, because they believe that the war they are fighting, they are fighting not just for themselves, but for us. That is why I think they deserve to be given something in return.

Obviously, they have to meet the criteria, they have to follow the process that is not short, but in the end we should admit that Ukraine deserves to be part of a family and that they have a lot to offer, especially with their approach to our common values, to our long-term interest and they can serve as an inspiration to many of our nations, how important it is to sacrifice something for our freedom. This is what they are doing and that´s why I am arguing so clearly to support them.

And one more point which I want to make beyond Russia and Ukraine, and I will come back to China. It is that if we want to preserve current world order with international norms of law, humans right and methods and procedures of our cooperation, we will have to come together and create sufficient counterweight to China, Russia, potentially other countries, that are now forming the block against what we can call the political West. Bbut it´s not just the west, it´s Europe, North America, it´s a number of countries on the other side of the globe, the Indo-Pacific, a number of countries that cooperate. The Czech prime minister was recently in the Indo-Pacific, visiting 7 countries, they are all interested in promoting cooperation with Europe to create some balance in their region vis-a-vis China. The don´t want to provoke any conflict or confrontation with China, they understand that having more business, having more contacts with the countries in Europe and North America will help them as well as it will help us. That´s why I really think that we have to put more attention to following our common interest and sometimes reduce our ambitions for having national profit only. In this environment I see as counter-productive competition in business and taxes between Europe and United States where we should rather go beyond these little, minor problems with the aim to work together in order to provide sufficient economic counterweight to China, otherwise we´ll be divided and China will use it to successfully promote their interest and work individually with our countries.

So, this is my introduction into my perception of global affairs. I haven´t touched everything, I don´t want to bother you more with a number of details, I would rather give you an opportunity to ask questions, if you have any.