tim was saying they're not traveling to bornea any province anymore because of the security situation. they say that being a talked by on to groups the vehicles destroyed and now with a suspension of military convoys along that truth. the situation is just getting worse for them. after we left, those security escorts resumed in the region. it's been under military rule since may when the government declared a state of emergency. why that when the failure to me, we have done the 1st phase of the rebel cleanup. we have secured government territories. we have to get somebody that you are not accessible because of the security situation. now we are going into the 2nd phase to get them completely out of civilian areas and then neutralize calling these drivers back in september and not optimistic. they say they've lost many of their loved ones in their property and have listened to many government promises for way too long without seeing security improve. catherine alters era in not give a province in

a democratic republic of congo. ah, this is al jazeera, these, your top stories are charlie's prime minister, has defended a new security deal saying a renewed alliance for the u. s. and the u. k. shouldn't come as a surprise. scott morrison has rejected criticism from china and france about the agreement with just doing what we need to do to keep the straight inside and protect our national interests. i mean, china do the same thing. they have massive investments in the military capabilities, including the, in this area and astride it doesn't rise issues around that. all countries will take decisions in the national interest. we believe this will lead to the piece instability and security of the region. and that is, i think, a view that is widely shared about the impact of this arrangement. and we encourage all countries in the region to engage in that way. leaders from the west african

regional blog eco, s have impose sanctions on guineas military rulers. and they are demanding elections be held within 6 months. giddy was suspended for me was last week off its military, remove the president from power in a qu. poles now open across russia. upon them entry elections, people have 3 days to cost their ballots. the representatives and the duma many opposition candidates have been excluded from the ballot. thousands of microns, the gathering under a bridge between mexico and the u. s. state of texas. they waiting to be processed by us immigration. us board agents say they're providing basic services for the migrants who are mostly from haiti, cuba, and found his way to cuba has expanded his math vaccination. dr. children as young as to it is the only country in the world to vaccinate children that young okay, does he had lost news, continues here on al jazeera, after inside story,

stay with us here. this thing has become a dangerous business. one or one of those who refuse to be silent for now can europe in union defend itself? it's needed, says the block should increase its military capabilities and not rely so much on us . lead nicer. but what's holding it back from achieving that goal? this is inside story. ah, ah, hello and welcome to the program. i'm the star the attain now. many european leaders have long pushed for a big military role. one that's independence of the u. s. lead nato alliance. the need for this increased military capability was recently made clear during the

chaotic evacuations, from couple airport european nations had to rely almost entirely on the united states. now european commission, president of love on the lion says the block needs the political will to stand on its own. she says the you should be able to deploy a military force without relying on the us. busy or nato, but many in europe have strongly rejected the idea of an active european military force, while others say the time has come for europe to increase its military presence. that are your opinion is a unique security provider. there will be mission where nato, all the united nations will not be present. but where you up should be. you can have the most advanced forces in the world. but if you never prepared to use them of what use are they? what us has helped us back until now is not just a shortfall of capacity. it is the lack of political will. while the

nasal secretary general warned earlier this month and you defense force should not stretch nature resources, you installs and bugs as we welcome more us its own defense. but that cannot replace nato. it should not duplicate. and a 3rd because we have one set of forces and we have gas resources. on earlier this month, you minister's debated creating a $5000.00 troops force to deploy during emergencies. and that plan faces opposition from some countries that are also members of nato, particularly those bordering russia. in 2007 so called battle groups of 1500 soldiers drawn from each member state were created, but never actually used low defense spending among european countries as seen as a major obstacle to the continent. military independence, european naser members spent 1.64 percent of their g, d, p on military expenditure last year. that's well below the line says 2 percent

target and germany and france though, amongst the biggest spend is they both increase their military budgets. ah, well let's bring in our gas now in brussels. we have theresa fallon, the director of the center for russia, europe, asia studies in washington, d. c. david roche associate professor at the national defense university and also a former nature operations director of the joint chiefs of staff also in brussels. nicholas, why it's an international affair strategist and senior director for global solutions at a p. c o. worldwide. thank you for joining us. and welcome to the program. i do want to start with the practicalities here. i think they're very important, really just how realistic this all is. so there's obviously isn't a new idea. and it's been debated and discussed so much that we get to the point where some member states actually roll their eyes every time it comes up. so david, what's actually stops the you from establishing a military force they fall?

well i, i have to disagree with miss franka. it's a lack of capacity. look, you know, i came back from a nato summit in 2006 and my son met me at the airport. he was 4 years old. and in the course of talking he said, i'm going to grow a beard. and i said, good for you kid. it's going to take a lot of time and determinations. and then as i drove home, i realized that was kinda like what i had heard about european strategic economy on the trips. people have been talking about it for a very long time. they've never done anything. and when they try to do something, they give it over to their militaries, which proposed headquarters. you know, european battle group is a great idea, but they didn't create infantry battalions. they created a headquarters that means, you know, the staff that does the staff work on. this creates a lot of jobs for kernels and majors and generals. those are very expensive. they're pop here because they're jobs for senior officers. but you know, a general is the equivalent of an infantry squad. and so what you get are your

draining precious resources out of the same shrinking pool of defense things and you're creating duplicates of headquarters that are commanding the same 3 infantry battalions. so, you know, i mean it's a good idea, but if it would have been done, it would've been done already. and it's gonna take a long time. if people decide to do it will show you this is all going to take a huge amount of resources as well as building the existing capacity. i'm curious teresa because i could see you nodding that you, i believe were also part of the strategic advisors group today. so now, if you will, the e u, why not just actually contribute more to nato, or if nato is so irrelevant? why does nature exist at all? well, that's another issue that has been long discussed having a strengthened european pillar within nato, so that there wouldn't be duplication. and that's a key issue. and i think right now we had the state of the union address yesterday, which you had some tape of the vendor line, but she didn't mention in her speech strategic autonomy. so i think that's

a really important point to know is what wasn't said. it seems like france is pretty much, very loud about the strategic autonomy debate. and then in addition to that, we see this big inter pacific announcement made today everyone has been waiting for it for such a long time. and that was kind of under cut by the u. s. u k, australia, new strategic partnership. so i think that europe is kind of really right now, and they're not sure what they're going to do. they've had a year where breaths it, you know, back to has left the u. k was one of the biggest defense providers and they were trying to think of a way for the e, u and u. k. to continue to work together. but because of what just happened, it's clear that the u. k is working far more closely with the u. s. and australia. so i think that was kind of reeling from that as well. and today at the much touted europeans in the. busy pacific strategy, all of the questions, all of them were about the new strategic julia,

u. k. u. s. so it seems that they're pick me that on the international stage when it comes to defense issue turns i do want to dig into some of the pacific stuff and just a moment as plenty to discuss that. but nicholas, i want to bring you in here because we're talking about you political well, not just in terms of finding the money to do all of this, but also in terms of spending it on the right things and also dealing with the whole nature issue. so in your mind, nicholas, what's actually holding the thought on there are a couple of things. one of them is be mentioned by both my colleagues already, which is the fear of duplication between the resort, where to go into a show the results of my go into the you. i'm a little bit skeptical about this. to be honest, because actually this is, these are resorts that are going to be used one way or the other anyway. and i'm not sure it makes such a big difference which helps people are wearing when they're, when they're under

a particular taking a particular mission. but we must forget that there's another strand within the u as well, which is those countries that are not members of national sweden, walter, cypress. these are not big you member states. but at the same time that you as a creature of consensus. and it's quite difficult to build a defense structure that will civil tenuously satisfy those like friends who want to see a strong european defense and those whose national approach has been a bit more cautious and perhaps been a bit more un focused thus. and then the other issue and again you have mentioned that france is very keen on this. ready germany's last team, germany, of course, has an election very, very soon. the german government does emerges from that selection is going to have a very important port. germany as has historically been very reluctant to make any moves that are too strong in the military domain. for perfectly understandable historical reasons. and i think a combination of german reluctance failures convinced neutrals and fear of

duplication with nato. have been the reasons that we have not seen this progress since they've told us 4 year old son pierce. you're someone 19, by the way. i wonder if he's tried and he has the beard and he has a beard. well, we'll see if a manager may get a bit. i do want to ask you all about the timing of this, right? because as you just alluded to that, nicholas, they're all, not just one crucial election in germany, but also very crucial elections in france. and so, well, both many in france where the promotion of this idea to begin with and clearly the french, i'm much more keen on it right now. and i see that macross is the pass on who's supposed to be chairing this. you defend summit, alina, some nice opportunity for him to, to be quite prominent and flex and muscle. so, teresa, let me ask you, then, is that the political will for this some member states as we've been here? and obviously not very keen. well, that's the key question. is there a political will? we saw that france left afghanistan 6 years ago. there also preparing to leave the

soho, which will give an opportunity for russia to come in there. and so they are leaving the stage and the fact that macro intimately called nato brain dead hasn't been missed by many analysts. and after the nato summit, the communicate which every t, every i is carefully vetted beforehand. there are no surprises in any of that macro . and said, i never, and it was the 1st time they really mentioned china several times in a communicate. so we saw that micro afterwards. so they never saw china in the north atlantic. so it was kind of a strange comment to make. and i think that there's questions about the reliability of some of these partners. we thought the munich security conference, joe biden, who has always been attending this actually attended the 1st time as president. it was done virtually, but his, his speech wasn't really very warmly received,

at least that was the impression of many analysts. and both mccrory and merkle said, we do not want to join any sort of counter balancing democratic force against china . so i think that the newest developments kind of show that well, all right, if you're not with us, that's fine. you've made your choice. at the same time we see china kind of almost punishing germany. germany has under merkel, has been very cautious to bounce values and interests. and they, 1st time in 20 years, they sent of the buyer and german frigate to the south time c region and trying to ask them to come to the shanghai later. they turned the tables and said, you can't come to shanghai. this was the nuns as well. yesterday, so it was kind of the tightness, seismic shift in brussels. all of these things coming together all at once. and that in many respects it was to humiliate germany and angel merkel has been a huge friend and partner of she, jim ping. so it was interesting timing and this kind of china narrative,

it will be very difficult, i think, for china, for europe to continue down this kind of road of careful, carefully cultivated sitting on the fence and avoid making decisions. because in many respects, it's china that's making them make decisions and clearly political will is left well as really interesting, this whole idea of pushing back against trying to cuz we had a lot more of that than we have in the past from on the line in her speech yesterday and she talked about pushing back on or banding products produced by force labor. that's obviously a and in relation to what's happening and shinji young, the need for independence when it comes to producing semiconductors and microchips within the you really trying to take a step back from the pacific. and david previously seen a us realignment here of the strategic priorities towards the endo pacific. i mean the submarine deal with the you can us a case in point? do you think that the u. s. and you share a common view of the world now?

well, it's converging, i mean, you know, there's always some friction. i mean, you know, in, in a large part of the european b and pins on community, the european union has replaced christianity as the religion of choice. and so there's a lot of decisions made for the european union that quite frankly, don't really comport with a strict definition of national interest. there seems to be this idea that everything nato has a european union has to have perhaps better. but that being aside, most of what the u. s. wants out of europe in confronting china, is not really military because we recognize there's a lack of capacity and the limited capacity can be best spent in defending against russia. you know, possibly mass migration from the south, things like that. it's simple. what we're concerned about, or things like having chinese infrastructure and backdoors. hard wired into their electric backbone, stuff like that. and the european union can deal with that. so i think that there will be cordial, helpful, and developing relations with the

e u on the security issue, but it won't be hard. security issue of tanks, ships, airplanes, it will be more things like this sort of broadband of chinese communist party capture of economic sectors and kia for structure sectors in europe. so we are going to be getting more details. i believe this week about the use in the pacific strategy, but it does feel like the temperature is rising there. and i know that you was already planning to launch this so called global gateway initiative to really compete with china's belton road initiative. nicholas in your mind, is there a new cold war brewing here? and what does that then means that you security and the china is not a hard security threat to the you or to you interest. so i think we should be careful, separate these things out for america. it's a big difference because american house, strong defense commitments. and in that course the world's teacher pounding more importantly to well. but for your, there is still a threat from china and that's seen very clearly. i thought lines best line in her

speech yesterday was that the you should not be trapped into building wonderful roads that are still from a chinese mine to a chinese own portion. in africa or wherever. so i think it's, it's seen as real some in the you would say defensively. there's actually they have loads of initiatives already which added up together would make would be equivalent to. ready chinese belts and rosena. ready ship, that's not the public reception. i attendance of the china eastern europe so much in sophia 3 years ago as which of the chinese prime minister, astonished to everybody by saying that china favors european integration, a strong european single currency. which i guess just shows sometimes you can be nice to your, to the people who are missing. so i think we, it's a complex situation. but for your not a hard security question in

a way to assist for america. i think one of the things is happening in europe, and you've alluded to a couple of times is a quest for relevance and credibility. and you know, we have your opinion and just picking up on something davis says, the people want to put you flag on everything that was under pressure, like all systems, government or to deliver for the systems. and one of the things that it feels it should be able to deliver better. all that is doing at the moment is physical, hard security. and that's part of what's driving this conversation. i saw, well let me bring in teresa here. then i see your agreeing with nicholas in hands of relevant of the you, right? you, you need to have some kind of common policy. that's the whole idea of the you, especially when it comes to security. and presumably that means that you need to have some common sense of foreign policy interests. and when you're looking at the rest of the outside world, i mean, this seems fairly obvious. i know spain's military official was saying exactly this just a couple of weeks ago that creating a european army means having common foreign policy that we all share the same

interest. i mean, to read is that even vaguely likely given the ease, lack of ability to even put together a single asylum, seek a policy for you. well, when you have 27 members said with diverging interest, it's usually always, you know, leaving from the bottom. and that's what you saw in a tweet issued by a k, k. germany is defense minister yesterday hash tag with coalitions of the willing. so i think everyone understands that there will never be unanimity with in the you on any of these issues that nato is definitely the organ that they need to work through and that they will work through coalitions of the willing. for example, the you is hamstrung by hungry, which kind of stops everything that, that you wants to do towards china, or there are other countries with various interests who will block things. so it's almost impossible to get unanimity. so from that point of view, it's extremely difficult and unrealistic to think of it, and then the other way. in addition, they've brought over 7 of me who originally had worked at nato. so there's an

interesting tie there are over 60 discussion groups between you and nato. so i think that this is a rich area that can improve and i think that there are many people work in various levels that want that politically. some in france like to have a different narrative, but i think what it's clear is that it's not just burden sharing any longer with the us and its allies, its burden shifting us is focusing more on the indo pacific. and europe is going to have to up their game in order to take care of their own neighborhood and their own security issues there. and it's not a question of going to china. china is coming to europe. they have invested in over 10 percent of european ports. we've seen russia, china maritime exercises in the mediterranean, in the baltic. we've seen lots fire exercises with them off the coast of clinical, near clinic grad. so i think that, you know, europe doesn't have this kind of the goober is laying back and thinking china's far away. it's happening right here in their own neighborhood. while you spoke there

a little bit about the context of the u. s. while pulling out and pulling back in certain parts of the world, particularly obviously in afghanistan over the last few weeks. david, this was always a us lead mission though that started with counter terrorism, became nation building. really, the europeans were always there because of natural law, school 5 out of solidarity with the u. s. so because this was always a washington initiative. why is it that you feel quite so betrayed at the moment? well, it's a good question. i think it's because of the way in which the withdrawal was announced, it was set out that the press there wasn't really, you know, there was consultations on any eventual withdrawal. i think. but i don't think there was consultations on the way the, the timeframe that withdrawal would occur, that it occurred over the summer that caused a lot of allies by surprise. and, you know, it really showed the allies, they had the choice of withdrawing on the u. s. time table,

or not withdrawing at all. and you know, that's a, that's a moment of strategic confront. her ability that was exposed, pretty pretty. you know, pretty importantly, but you know, we get the shocks to our partners, but they happen repeatedly and then they're just sort of filed away. so if you look at the libyan campaign, that was supposed to be european lead operation, where your parents do most of the work there. and the united states was to just provide, you know, intelligence surveillance, reconnaissance area refueling. a few key capabilities within 2 weeks. the european capacity was exhausted, the united states was in lead. and, you know, president obama says that's the biggest mistake of his life, was 1st off, he described his role as, as leading from behind, which was ridiculed viciously in the united states. but secondly, you know, it showed the lack of european capacity for, you know, what was a very major security concern, you know, because of the threat of mass migration and all that. and unfortunately in our

european partners, have never got down to building the basic capacity. they handed over to the bureaucracy which builds headquarters and again, you know, more majors and colonels, devising plans for the same 3 infantry battalions will now wander lions saying she wants an expeditionary force. and i've been wondering what the troops are actually meant to be doing. something really struck me in her speech. she said there will be missions when they say, well, the us will not be present, but where the you should be on the ground. our soldiers went side by side with police officers, lawyers, doctors, humanitarian work as human rights defend, as teachers, engineers. we can combine military and civilian along with diplomacy and development, and we have a long history and building and protecting piece nicholas. that sounds an awful lot like nation building to me. i see they've also launched this european piece facility to provide weapons and trainers to non european military forces around the world. is the huge think wanting to take on a more interventionist role here that he was always

b installation building. let's be clear about this. and this is the whole point of the original lunch project. tracy was to support state structures among the 6 countries that originally joined. and if you look at what you've been doing in terms of development and colleagues to be like critical as that you've never been free on vision. let's not forget that there have been a number of moderately successful if rather small military security missions. and the place for this has been most active, most recently is africa, and particularly west africa, subsaharan central north central africa. and you know, if you look at the map, you can see why this is and this also addresses the migration point. so i think we should be clear that there isn't, i maybe, maybe nobody wants to says out loud, but this is the obvious, takes much more so than the canister where europe interests are at stake. and american interests on the who are not. we had, we, we've had the violence changed the government into those countries in the last

couple of weeks childs and again, a concrete several others are a festive instability and all of this is direct feed feeding into the you. so i think that last answers your question, if i want to say one other thing, i think we've concentrated the last here on the obstacles towards crazy in the few military. those obstacles are real and serious. it's going to be a political process. it's going to be led by micro and by others. it's also and i was glad to reason the inspection. going to go stephan nieto, who is one of the most gifted diplomats i've ever come across. so if there's somebody who constituent these pieces together and turn it into something, looking more like division the founder line, put in their speech yesterday. it's probably him. maybe somebody stepped on your net, i'm sorry to interrupt you. i want to bring teresa in here just very briefly because there was a lot of talk about the soul of the e u, and on the line speech, especially around trying to come together around some kind of common interest. so

to me, let me give you the last one here. do you see there being some kind of coalescence around this idea? we're looking into the future the european. so we'll know when we see it. i think that there is a lot of skepticism. and depending where you sit in europe, for example, the baltics, i was just at the leonard mary conference in the stonier, they're very skeptical about friends guarding their interest. we saw even with coping in how the, the gaped when, when it came to mask. so italy was angry, france because they shut off masks for them. do you think that they're going to trust them if they have any sort of need for military intervention? so i think that this is one of the things that will deeply divide europe if the european army continues the snare. because you have the baltics, you have poland, who are very, very skeptical about these. they're even the way the recently was, you know, kind of put it on the naughty set by china and because we're leaving the 17 plus

one and there was no use all the dairy or very, very little of it that we're going to have to see if we do actually eventually find any solid hours here around this issue. we're out of time. so i do want to say thank you to all of our guests theresa fallon, david de roche, and nicholas white. and you to for watching. you can see this program again, any time by visiting our website out there a dot com and have other discussion do go to our facebook page that facebook dot com forward slash 8 inside story. we can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is a inside story for me to say, hey, i'm hoping by the when freedom of the press is under threat in, oh, you just con, thought genuinely about your thoughts toward the vacant government step outside the

mainstream. there has been a implement here just some of access points to shift the focus. the panoramic that's turned out to be a handy little pretext for the prime minister to clamp down on the press covering the waves. the news is covered the listing post on the news news news news news

with me. ready i. ready ready russians had to the poles for parliamentary elections, but many opposition candidates excluded from the ballot. ah, i'm not inside. this is out there alive from joe. also coming up. australia is prime minister defends a new security impact with the u. s. u k that we'll see.