Europe's defence dilemma

The Briefing Room

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.8 • 731 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Donald Trump has only been US president for just over a month and yet the world order seems to be changing by the day. Ukraine has been cut adrift with the pausing of US military aid and intelligence following President Zelensky’s disastrous meeting in the Oval Office. And Europe has been left wondering what is coming next as President Macron of France warns that the continent is "at a turning point in history." Europe faces not only having to support Ukraine without the US but potentially having to defend itself against Russia with no help from America. So can it do that? And how quickly could it fill the gaps left by the US?

Guests: Frank Gardner, BBC Security Correspondent Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor, The Economist Claudia Major, Director international security division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Fenella McGerty Senior Fellow for Defence Economics, International Institute for Strategic Studies

Presenter David Aaronovitch Producers: Kirsteen Knight, Beth Ashmead Latham, Caroline Bayley Sound Engineer: Rod Farquhar Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Vadon

(Image: Soldiers in silhouette. Credit: Photo by Martin Divisek/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:09.2	There are moments when the big assumptions you've made about the world around you suddenly dissolve.
0:15.8	The fall of the wall in 1989 was one such moment of total change.
0:23.4	The events of the last month, all originating in the new administration in the White House, feel like another. All that was solid about NATO
0:29.6	and European defence underpinned by the US alliance seems to be melting. Things are moving fast,
0:40.5	but underneath it all, is one central question.
0:46.6	What would it take for Europe to assume its own defence, including guaranteeing the survival of Ukraine? Step into the briefing room and together we'll begin to find out.
0:56.7	First, a reminder of how we've got to this point.
1:00.0	I'm joined by the BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner.
1:03.5	Frank, can you take us up to Monday's announcement that the US was pausing A to Ukraine?
1:07.8	How did we get there?
1:09.2	Well, I think this goes back to the Munich Security
1:10.9	Conference, which I had the privilege of reporting on. I mean, it was really a huge big wake-up
1:17.0	called, cold shower, whatever you want to call it, for Europe, because that really was the final
1:22.8	realization for Europe that America no longer has their back in terms of defence security cover for Europe.
1:29.9	It's not necessarily abandoning them. Nobody's saying that it's leaving NATO, although Elon Musk has
1:35.5	said he thinks to be a good idea if America did pull out of NATO, but America is still in NATO.
1:39.8	But nevertheless, the message there was very clear that there is now a transatlantic rift,
1:46.4	and that rift extends to the animosity clearly on display on Friday night, last Friday night,
1:53.9	between President Trump and President Zelensky, egged on, of course, by his Vice President J.D. Vance,
2:00.0	which was just the most extraordinary theatrics.
2:03.6	And you only had to look at the Ukrainian ambassador who had her head in her hands.
	...

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