Can the EU defend Ukraine (and itself)?

EU Confidential

POLITICO

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.4 • 175 Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Europe is waking up to the urgent need to strengthen its own defenses — especially as Donald Trump seems poised to capture the Republican nomination and possibly even the White House in November presidential elections. In this episode, host Sarah Wheaton is joined by Florence Gaub, director of research at the NATO Defence College in Rome and a futurist, along with Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO and president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (and a fellow podcaster: World Review with Ivo Daalder). They discuss the "Europeanization of NATO" and other tools that Europe has (or lacks) to support Ukraine and defend itself — with or without Washington. Later, some of POLITICO's in-house defense experts, Laura Kayali and Jan Cienski, discuss the brass-tacks realities of whether Europe can fend off a Russian attack on its own, and outline where it remains most vulnerable. Further reading: "Europe’s Trump challenge: Is it ready to fight Vladimir Putin alone?" by Laura Kayali "What another Trump presidency would mean for NATO" by Ivo Daalder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We were way over our heads in NATO.
0:04.0	And when I went in, I looked and I said, you're going to have to all pay or we're not going
0:09.0	to protect you any longer.
0:11.0	And I remember the head of a country stood up, said, does that mean that of Russia attacks my country?
0:16.0	You will not be there?
0:18.0	That's right.
0:19.0	That's what it means.
0:20.0	I will not protect you. I will not protect you.
0:20.8	I will not protect you.
0:23.6	See, here's a thing that we've learned about Donald Trump.
0:26.7	Even if he says something that seems outrageous, you should probably believe him.
0:31.9	And if you believe the recent polls, it shows he could end up back in the White House after the November elections in the
0:37.9	U.S. And here in Europe, people are worried this could all emboldened Vladimir Putin.
0:43.4	After all, you know, NATO's mutual defense commitment thing is a whole lot less scary if Uncle
0:47.8	Sam isn't going to come help fight Russia off. So we are seeing EU leaders get way more serious about their own defense, much more than we could have imagined even just a few years ago.
0:59.2	We will have to be ready to act, defend and support Ukraine whatever happens.
1:05.4	One after another, we hear European politicians declaring that Europe can and will defend Ukraine on its own.
1:12.2	Europe will be at Ukraine's side for every single day of this war and for every single day thereafter.
1:19.8	We are determined to make sure that Ukraine will get the military equipment they need.
1:25.3	The real cost of a Russian victory is too high for all of us.
1:29.9	But is there any reason to believe them?
1:33.9	I'm Sarah Wheaton, and in this episode,
	...

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