This week on Stop the World, we were delighted to host Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the UK Prime Minister’s special representative on AUKUS. Dave speaks to Sir Stephen about the UK and US reviews of AUKUS, what success looks like for pillars one and two and where we need to move more quickly, including focusing on specific capabilities in pillar two.

It’s a frank conversation and Sir Stephen conveys a vigilant confidence that AUKUS is on a good track provided it gets the attention and nurturing that it deserves. He describes AUKUS as the most monumental strategic partnership in decades and, although it will evolve over time, with commitment from all three countries, the partnership will succeed.

For a brief spell after the Cold War, the idea of an international community that would coordinate and intervene in conflicts for the global good felt like an aspiration on the move.

It feels distant today, but all is not lost. Comfort Ero, the President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, gives us her take on the toughest conflicts plaguing humanity in recent times. Rather than feeling dispirited and paralysed by dysfunction at the global level, we should concentrate on tackling each crisis with the tools available and making a difference one step at a time, whatever it takes.

It’s a tough but ultimately inspiring message as Comfort talks about some of the conflicts that rarely trouble the front pages—Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—as well as the bigger picture amid the collapse of the rules-based order. Practicality and pragmatism, not magic multilateral wands, are what organisations like the Crisis Group have to work with.

Seasoned diplomat and politician Jüri Luik, who has one of the more impressive CVs we’ve ever seen, gives us his readout on last week’s NATO summit in the Hague and the perspective from the Baltic nations that border Russia to the north of Ukraine.

Estonia has an impressive defence spending record, currently at 3.4 percent of its GDP, with a plan to raise that to 5.4 percent starting next year. Jüri discusses shifts already underway in NATO, further modernisation plans, the trajectory of the war in Ukraine and the rising levels of public concern about Russia’s intentions towards the rest of Europe.

He also discusses the realities of the US presence in Europe and how to manage its gradual withdrawal. Along the way, Jüri offers up an interesting fact about Portugal.