This is John Batchel, a conversation with Anatole Levin of the Quincy Institute about the

often repeated and then denied idea of a European army, a European military that can deploy

into Ukraine and secure the borders and secure the peace, secure the ceasefire.

Zelensky has mentioned 200,000.

They've also talked in Ukraine about 40 or 50,000 peacekeepers.

Macron over the years has talked about a European army.

Is it real?

Can it be real?

Not NATO, a European army.

Here's Anatol on the idea.

One more time. More of this later.

Well, it's talking a lot about, you know, increased military spending, which is necessary.

But the thing is, you know, given both the weakness of the U.S. militaries, but also the deep divisions in Europe, between countries and within countries, it seems to me, I mean, either extremely unlikely or extremely dangerous to think that the Europeans could continue existing policies towards Russia and towards the Ukraine

war without the United States. Not that, you know, Trump is going to withdraw from Europe,

I mean, militarily. Europe is far too important to the U.S. as a base, you know, for projecting

American power. But, I mean, he could encourage the

Europeans to do a lot more on their own that they cannot in fact do. Because, of course,

the other thing to keep in mind is, it's probable that in 2027, Marine Le Pen, or one of her people,

will become president of France.

I mean, all over Europe, you see the rise of populist parties which want to end confrontation

with Russia, not necessarily because they're pro-Russian, but because they really want to concentrate

on domestic issues, migration, economic growth, social welfare.

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