I'm John Batchel with my colleague and friend, Gregor Copley, editor and publisher of defense and foreign affairs.

He's traveling. He's in London. And we're looking at the European states and the question of self-defense.

The Ukraine war is an example of how the U.S. and NATO are very much still the defense of Europe

from aggression, from predators. But on and off, over these last three years of the war in Ukraine,

voices have been raised about increasing our budgets for self-defense or a European army for self-defense or in some fashion

shifting the burden of defending Europe and defending Europe from disorder from the United States

to say Brussels or Brussels for NATO, Brussels for the EU. Gregory, is that all magical thinking that Europe could defend itself or contribute more of a European military presence, not just cash?

Well, they certainly could do more for their own defense, but first they have to understand what their national goals are and what they

are defending against and what they are fighting for. What we've seen since Britain withdrew from

the European Union after the 2016 referendum is that we see NATO in its European context

literally being the same as the European Union.

And the European Union is in collapse.

NATO itself has lost its point of existence, its reason for being,

because it was there to stop the westward march of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty Organization states.

And that threat has now gone.

So what we're seeing now is Europe in decline because it's lost its way and it's attempted to create, in a sense sense a new Soviet Union in Western Europe with the

European Union. It's created this draconian super state which doesn't contribute a thing to

the national productivity of the states of the European Union. So what we're seeing now is the

European Union is fracturing even day by day and therefore NATO is still searching for a role, and it's

unfortunately tied to the collapse of the European Union. So, well, we've got to start seeing

that many of the European states, including Germany itself, are going to take a more

nationalistic role. But as Italy is doing, as many of the other European states are doing,

...