I'm Wolfgang Munchau and this is a podcast on current affairs in the European Union.

Today I'm speaking with Lieutenant General Ben Hodges,

who served as commanding general of the United States Army in Europe,

as well as as as commander of NATO's allied land command in Turkey.

He now holds the Pershing chair in strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

We'll be discussing the Transatlantic Relationship, the German Foreign Policy Balancing Act,

and the contentious 2% NATO spending target.

Thank you for joining us, General Hodges. I'll start by saying I cannot

recall another time when Europe was facing so many simultaneous foreign policy challenges.

There's the failing revolution in Belarus, rising tensions with Russia, Russia from China

in areas like 5G development, and conflicts in the eastern Mediterranean.

Many of these issues will be coming to a head in the near term, and it's all happening

while the transatlantic relationship is at a low point.

Europe is dealing with China, Russia and Turkey, but is doing so with less support from the

United States.

General Hodges, could you help me unscramble

what is happening right now?

Volfkhan, thanks for the chance to speak with you here and to be a part of this. The thing

that struck me about this long list of challenges that you just laid out is that Germany

is in the middle of all of them. Not only is Germany

of the geopolitical center of the map of Europe, it's at the geopolitical center of NATO.

Obviously, it's at the geopolitical center of the European Union. And so each of these challenges

...