I'm John Baxter with Jacob Grego.

He is a professor at Catholic University of America,

is at the Marathon Initiative and at the Hoover Institution,

writing most recently about the European challenges of the Ukraine conflict.

There are American challenges as well, but we divide the two transnational organizations, the EU27 states and NATO larger, because it includes new additions from the Balkans and from Eastern Europe. A professor is Europe divided in a fashion that is

important to this debate. The Eastern flank so-called the Baltic states, Poland, down to Romania, see the threat

and want to respond presently. And the Western states that would include the best of the economies of the Western states,

I'm thinking of NATO, are less engaged. Is that a part of the problem, Professor?

Yes, but I would say that, you know say that it's not so within NATO their divisions themselves

namely between as you call them eastern flanks which goes now goes from you Nordic states, Finland, and others down through essentially the Black Sea,

through the Baltic republics, Poland, and down to Romania.

And those are quite, those states are quite aware and alert

to the Russian menace that has been building up over the past two decades.

The Western European states, and particularly Germany and Italy,

and certainly with France and UK is a little bit different case are less worried. It's just simple

geography. Their assessment of the threat that they face is different. Russia is

simply not their neighbor directly and they think that they can

find some sort of modus Vivendi with Moscow. Moreover, particularly for the southern the Mediterranean state and particular Italy, it's

the modern, the Mediterranean state, and particular Italy, the main security problem is not Russia.

It's the Mediterranean Sea and the instability that is in that region

with all the migration flows that come from North Africa and of mostly men that come from

sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and the migrant problem.

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