This is CBS I On The World. I'm John Vatstra visiting with my colleagues, Judy Dempsey,

who's in Berlin. The very exciting Berlin right now, because not only is it the center

of Europe's ability to recover from the pandemic financially and in terms of manufacturing,

but also to do without Russian energy these Latin next years. And also now the question

of weapons of war. The Leopard tanks are part of a larger story called strategic autonomy,

which I learned from Judy's excellent feature where she asks questions of her colleagues.

Across Europe and the question right now is, is European strategic autonomy over? Some

have said it never started, some have said, well let's redefine strategic autonomy. So

I asked Judy first to make certain that I understand this. Judy, I would say this means

that Europe can defend itself, meaning financially, politically, diplomatically and militarily.

Is that what strategic autonomy means? No. Strategic autonomy means the ability of the European

Union to make decisions about its own defence and its own security and its own intelligence

and how to arrange itself militarily. And it has been dealing with this issue for some

time. It was instigated by President Emmanuel Macron and France, but it hasn't gone anywhere

because it won't go anywhere because of the differences among the member states and

the fears of what this would do for the NATO alliance and its support for Europe.

Yes, your colleague, Marta Dessu, beg pardon for pronunciation, says that one of the contributing

to this problem, this reluctance, is an unwillingness to pull, pull meaning military or financial

sources in order to gain the authority of all of Europe. I was reading from Henry Kissinger's

new book about six leaders. He mentions Adnauer as one of the leaders he profiles had a

lead. But in talking about Richard Nixon, whom he served as Secretary of State and National

Security Advisor, he makes a remark and then in an asterisk or a subhead, he says, EU is

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