How Strong Is NATO?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2015
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
War in Ukraine and the threat of conflict in the Baltics raise fundamental questions about the West’s military alliance. What is NATO for? And is it up to the job? More countries have been joining the club, but those who foot the bill seem to be becoming less keen to do so. Do would-be aggressors still believe that an attack on one NATO member would be treated as an attack on all? Our witnesses include a former senior commander and the man who, until a few months ago, led the alliance.
(Photo: Romanian army soldiers from the guard regiment hold NATO membership countries' flags at NATO flag raising ceremony in Bucharest, 2004. Credit: Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. |
| 0:28.9 | Hi thanks for downloading the inquiry from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:34.0 | We're a weekly program. Our job is to add in-depth analysis to one question from the news. |
| 0:40.0 | We hope you like it. |
| 0:42.0 | BBC World Service, this is Helena Merriman with the inquiry. |
| 0:48.0 | This week we're asking, how strong is NATO. |
| 0:55.0 | On the morning of September 5th last year |
| 0:57.5 | Russian forces seized an Estonian security official. |
| 1:01.0 | A few hours later he appeared on Russian TV in handcuffs. |
| 1:05.9 | The Russians say he's a spy arrested on their side of the border. The Estonians say |
| 1:12.1 | he was abducted from within Estonia in an operation involving |
| 1:16.3 | smoke and stun grenades. |
| 1:20.4 | This is just one example of what Estonia describes as Russian provocations. |
| 1:25.0 | But it's not just Estonia that's worried. |
| 1:28.0 | Lithuania and Latvia are increasingly concerned about Russian ambitions. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.