earth a home worth saving google engineers tell stories of creative people and innovative projects around the world ideas to protect the climate and boost green energy solutions by global ideas the environment series of global three thousand on d w and online. alone a very warm welcome indeed to quadriga coming to you from the cost of labor the focus it is all of nato the north atlantic treaty organization which this week is marking its seventieth anniversary and seven decades of peace and prosperity however the celebrations in washington a clouded by grave concerns about the future of the military gets us president donald trump a nato secretary general. say the alliance will only stay strong if as president

trump has demanded member countries step up defense spending a message above all directed of course at germany meanwhile with nato members like turkey and hungry but also president trump himself openly flirting with letting it points in question here. is nato at seventy who is the enemy and to discuss that question i'm joined by three astute observers beginning with and various clues editor in chief for hundreds but today argues that militarily nato is as strong as ever politically it's in crisis that's trump's fault but also says andreas. found also with his cloudy in my year all senior associate at the german institute for international and security affairs who says how germany responds to questions like the two percent spending pledge. to terence a new clue. weapons will be crucial for europe's security comes to fans under

thirty will continue to recur for a policy follower of the european council of foreign relations and believes that germany's received news international credibility from dismal to realize well well well rica let me begin with you nato of course styles itself as the most successful military alliance in history is it right to do so i think it is right to do so because nato is indeed the most successful military alliance in nato for the last seventy years has guaranteed peace within europe peace in the transatlantic relationship and in fact really is a big and very important part of the transatlantic relationship and it seems to me that sometimes when we talk about the military aspect we seem to forget that this is also just the core pillar. the transatlantic relationship which as we all know at the moment you know has its major problems and various a seven decade success story maybe but the celebrations to mark the anniversary in washington have been

described variously as restrained low key or even ugly what's the problem the problem is that there's a separation between the american public the american elite as represented in congress and the american president and if you notice the american public there's a bunch of new polls out is still for nato and has barely budged in europe but europe is also still for nato but has gone down a little republicans of course are much more skeptical which republicans though and that's where that is the second constituency to just mention is congress they invited. the secretary general of nato to address a joint session and that's a great way of sending a signal i believe that's the way americans and a signal to the white house they did the same when they in the congress did the same when they invited benjamin netanyahu to address a joint session during the obama years that was a way of saying to obama hey paid. you're going to treat this guy better because we

want you to treat him well congress's before nato and behind nato and the republicans as well i think it is just really trump and his character characters around him that have sowed so much down ok cloutier v u k guardian newspaper carried a piece saying that the secrets of nato's long life i'm quoting here is that it is not just a military alliance a point we heard earlier if you go along with that yes i think that the particular strength of nato of twenty nine and soon thirty member states if all those countries agree if they stick together if they really show solidarity that's a really strong signal so that means that the political cohesion the political credibility actually makes a military slings if you talk one country or you have the whole nato that's going to respond and that's an enormous sign of strains that we're sending that also means if there are internal problems. the military weakness and the political

weakness is getting bigger and that's a problem which we have in the moment we have on the one hand problems inside europe with germany was turkey would see ok so there are struggles potent and then in addition we have the transatlantic problems so one of the big kind of a half how we keep the inner cohesion how they keep us on a devotee but because only if it's united they say lions it's going to be strong it's going to be credible in terms of defense and deterrence and that's a major challenge at the moment ok some very interesting opening statements there lots to talk about before we do that talking let's have a look at what the nato military alliance is all about and we're going to begin at the beginning with the signing in one thousand nine hundred forty nine of the north atlantic treaty often called the washington treaty. shortly after the second world war ended twelve countries founded the north atlantic treaty organization among them britain france belgium the united states and canada. the western allies saw

a need to contain the soviet union and mount a swift defense against a potential soviet attack the principle was that an attack on any nato member would be seen as an attack against all. the fall of the berlin wall and the soviet union's breakup brought a fundamental shift in the geopolitical situation. nato excepted eastern european and baltic countries as members of the threat from asymmetrical conflicts and terrorism worldwide forced the alliance to revise its strategies. u.s. president trump has injected uncertainty into the nato alliance how does the future look for nato. orica when we talk about the future of nato who in essence at this point in time who all watch is the enemy is it in essence vladimir putin and vladimir putin's russia. as if it is always the case the answer is more complicated than that no i wouldn't say that the main enemy

is russia i don't think that that's the situation at the moment that being said you know in terms of actual military threats yes i do think that europe is still somewhat threatened militarily by russia and that's why it is important also important to have nato but nato really goes beyond that and that's what i meant with my opening statement nato is about you know political cohesion nato is about the alliance the political alliance between the transatlantic countries so it's not i don't think it's helpful to frame with this idea of you know who is the main threats and he says we must not be naive about the russian opposition. and i and i agree with that and i think you know within within europe there's a lot of the bad about about russia's intentions are no one really knows and there is a lot of this agreement among european allies on that and so yes we absolutely shouldn't be naive but i don't i don't want to make the argument that we need to nato only because russia time has moved on we're no longer in

a cold war and nato has been doing many things other than you know just the fend against russia there are many other threats out there it's a story world i made my list claudio chart of cyber threats terrorism hybrid warfare and migration out of the war you have to. continue the continue to defend successfully nine hundred and thirty million from twenty nine different countries against all those for. my first my first reaction white surprised too but i think the precondition to actually think about successful defense is sticking together as a political union because only if you have all countries agreeing that you need to do something nato remains relevant and then you have to think about what's the short term problem and what's the long term problem so in the short term or middle term you obviously have russia russia just why elated the. the one which abolished of a bit intermediate nuclear weapons system so there's

a problem they have a military problem in the same time you have civilization issues on the southern flank of nato so failing states of corruption all this what you have in the in the kind of southern area of europe and that's and then you have to look beyond i think one of the issues about the europeans need to thing and they took needs to think is china the americans agree that the next life would be for the covered like what he actually is a great power competition russia and mainly china so the question for us europeans is do we agree what does it mean do we have an active role to play do we have a kind of more passive role to play so i think we need to differentiate what i've had to do now and tomorrow what we have to do in the future and it really important question what can they to do on its own military things and for what it needs partners there are many things like the i would say i think you mentioned or what does cyber war that's when they do has only a little role to play with the european union or states have much more to offer so

i think there are many questions we need to answer first. those questions well you've put up twenty of them in the last five seconds but i mean the i would say i completely agree that it's not the russia is not the only threat and that nato we've had this for twenty thirty years out of area or out of business this debate of where should you know how far should nato go but i think russia is the most immediate threat and in fact the more immediate it is as a threat the more easily nato will the twenty nine soon thirty will be able to maintain that political cohesion and just remain reminded of that famous definition of nato from the very first secretary general the word is made who said they just purposes to keep the americans in the russians out and the germans down and it's interesting what has changed and what hasn't we're worried a little bit because of trump and some others in america about america's staying in we're still what hasn't changes we're still want to keep the russians out and what's completely changed is the germans we don't want nobody wants to keep them

down except they themselves and that's part of the problem so if you think of law it is misquote i mean we would do well to focus on the immediate threat and by the way cyber warfare and russia are almost the same threat so we have that i mean there's also from others so that's the same threats hybrid warfare as again russia i mean they wouldn't go in with tanks into the baltics they would send green men and take down a few computers and spread fake news go out again after they would make nato look foolish so that nato starts bickering with each other that's the problem so i think it is russia. as before and not all the members are playing you know playing their fair share at the moment can i just briefly because you said. about the united states i think we worry quite a lot about the united states leaving and withdrawing from nature and this isn't just a trump issue i mean we've all seen these reports and in your time to elsewhere well

. donald trump said that he's considering withdrawing from nato and it is true that congress doesn't want that nevertheless for the united states the search egypt outlook in the world really hostile and i do think that you know in terms of interests united states interests in europe are different now than they were while seventy years ago but even fifty or thirty years ago the united states still needs europe to some extent and the united states still needs europe to be you know peaceful but if you think that the outlook is way more towards the east towards asia towards china and i think we as europeans and others crucially important we as europeans need to understand that there is a change of you know american interests and keeping the american in in is an important aspect of it but also europeans need to build up their own capabilities can you quantify the likelihood that donald trump will announce the u.s. withdrawal from nato in the year this year. it has been actively room the german i was talking about these articles from the us you know the and we've got back as

well saying that as there's great concern among the europeans about the next sweets there is there is one small thing mode militarily america has been building up its nature commitment and the rhetoric from the president is going the other way but that's when even the secretary general is concerned there's a tweet is going to land on his table or in his mobile device the donald trump is going to announce it's the end of the story but i think the i mean we have to sort obviously one is he just moves out everybody is shocked but i think it's a maybe most dangerous more dangerous scenario is that he's just not interested in that he doesn't leave tonight night it does need to leave nato to me to weaken it if the u.s. is politically less committed if their military less committed if they don't talk we be highly about nato and the allies if they just say i'm evil but people under so maybe germany is not a good ally maybe a way to committed that's already a problem because again the credibility of nato is all countries be. being together

and if the biggest ally the most important and military political and nuclear terms if this says actually i don't wally care anymore than i do has a major problem and then become towards or rekha funk i just mentioned. what is our european i'm so ready to take questions and i say to me or you read one. contributor a journalist sorry but it's time for the europeans to tend to their own garden. you know in the ninety's when the bottom will start as one of the european politicians says this is you know if you've up and you know what happened afterwards it wasn't the all of europe so i'm all of us a bit concerned i think it's the europeans don't have a choice they need to do more in security on them from the want to do it they need to do a lot more. but they should have little bit shy away from this big rhetoric which we often have in europe so we need to think about what we should do what we can do

without the us always a little more experience with points shy away from the big resurrects the big rhetoric that i know for example from the big security conference an influential voice here in germany said it is time now europe's political task is its own emancipation it's not too much first of all i'd like your metaphor that huge hold up of tendinitis on gardening is that what is that evokes bunch of aging europeans cutting rosebushes well very tanks on the outside so that tending the garden is exactly the problem i know one thing is sure is that she did call so do a lot of people i don't see any of it even on the horizon again the germans are part of the problem we can i'm sure get to that but they don't have the same military or geostrategic traditions the french the germans the others and they attack it in the typical european way with bureaucracy and acronyms so you have a lot of things they're named pescado and card but they can't even agree that that's a point you've made claudia the french germans can't even agree on what what arms

to export to which countries given that they supply components to the same weapons sometimes they're there at loggerheads over everything and i think the chance that pushed that if there was an actual security crisis like the russian attack of some sort that these armies would fight as one army in the coming generation is very low . just sort of talking about the possibilities that the europeans have the options that the europeans need to address of the top of the show in your statement cloudier you talked about nuclear weapons were you talking about germany or possibly accessing a nuclear option at some stage in the future no i was talking i was talking more largely about deterrence in europe that last year the us openly accused russia of violating the un of treaty and now both countries are going to walk out of the treaty that was a milestone of a security order in europe and that actually shows that we have

a return of nuclear weapons in security and in defense of your that's a very unpleasant topic but the question so europeans need to ask is what are we going to do if russia has nuclear weapons pointed to europe what does our answer in europe we see us is it a conventional answer is it the disarmament initiative so we don't like that topic particularly we don't like it in germany but we need to talk about what is our reaction and the second nuclear topic which we have is if the us is less interested in europe. but in the same time as u.s. provides a nuclear umbrella that protects europe yes it's less interested what we are going to do is that every placement is to find british and so it's a european answer and this is a question as the germans because the germans participate and they don't get it happens was epic airplanes which are too old and needs to be replaced so that you can questions coming from all angles and particularly in germany it's a very easy unpleasant topic but we need to talk about it and that's going to be

i'm afraid it's going to be a big mess as you ok let's talk about germany donald trump has repeatedly suggested that american allies above all germany freeload and there are other nato members who believe that germany is not exactly what might be seen as a reliable partner let's just get a taste of the case for and against germany. germany is helping in mali with troops supporting the united nations mission in this west african trouble spot there training mali and security forces among other tasks. and in afghanistan with some twelve hundred troops the german military is the second biggest contributor of personnel to nato is resolute support mission after the u.s. . and with the rapid response force germany is currently leading the spearhead of nato. it was formed as the ukraine crisis unfolded as a deterrent against russia. something of a deterrent to germany's contribution is its defense budget. finance minister old

off shots plans to cut it back to one point two three percent of g.d.p. by two thousand and twenty three far below nato's invision goal of two percent. chance that america is still counting on one and a half percent until two thousand and twenty four. for us to fulfill this stated obligation i stand behind that and so does the german government. can the nato partners rely on germany. andreas earlier this year german foreign minister as an affront to lyon said nato is about decency and dependability and not just cash in contributions the word dependability is important that more and more of germany's allies are beginning to doubt that germany is a reliable act so what's your take on the left they're not wrong i mean i'm not sure they're right but they're not wrong and this goes back you have to understand this is not about trump this goes back several administrations. defense secretary

gates in the bush administration came out strongly criticizing the germans they've just been more diplomatic and that's just the americans but the other partners as well and germany clearly has the thanks of has been trying to cash in its alleged peace dividend after the cold war and it has let its army navy and air force just go to rags i mean there's a submarines that don't float and airplanes that don't fly and all of that and that's now well documented and that's not and that goes against the grain and i think the germans are now wrong as merkel and her finance minister scholtz as they like to do is to split hairs over how whether a percentage of g.d.p. is a good figure or not you know that would suggest you get a recession if you can somebody make this right you don't want to take that has become an incredibly important symbolic debate was actually is willing to pull its weight it's not just symbolic i mean number one i think it chip relatively clear

that germany needs to invest more in its military simply in terms of capabilities as was mentioned there are so many systems that do not work we haven't we don't have as many people in uniform as we would like to so i think there's first of all a need for more investment that needs to be fulfilled but the second point of course is the dependability and i travel a lot you know within europe i go to paris i go to walsall and i don't think berlin realizes to what extent it has lost really that the trust of kooser and i want to be one. further you mean the berlin political analyst leadership there's no items and i don't know the whole study know that germany's credibility is at risk but whenever i talk to them they tell me oh you know what don't trust the numbers we currently have on the table it's going to go up i mean defense spending right it's going to go up in the budget process of going to be fine we're going to get towards the one point five percent from what do you say to that sofa straight when it's presented to you i say i look at the numbers that are actually on the table as though all the other european and transatlantic allies and we see that we are

nowhere near the one point five the germany said it's going to achieve and of course we are nowhere near the two point two percent that germany set it by twenty twenty four and this isn't a terrible signal and quite honestly you know i don't think that the berlin establishment really realizes how have you to reflect on the dynamic i've been seeing is is intriguing to me if i want to test it on you i believe that for the last few years since then president gallup gave a speech at the munich security conference that the berlin elites the people around this part of town actually do understand that germany's allies are having doubts but there's no but the german public is completely uncoupled from the elite and there's no zero courage on the part of members of this elite to explain it to them they all thought specially in the in the social democratic party and stuff you do not want to touch is like the third rail of german politics so i think no one's

actually brought foreign policy security policy and the need to arm for real threats to the public in a very no that the public doesn't want to doesn't want to interact with that it wouldn't be that sure i think the public actually is well they're willing to listen to that but the problem is not to talk about numbers we talk about one points we want one for one point five don't we to talk about defense and we don't really talk about strategy and the thing one of the major problems germany has a dozen knots in defense i mean if you look at the defense budget ten years ago or twenty thirty. team there were thirty three billion though we had forty three so things moved indeed and germany is doing a lot to nato but on the other hand then comes the domestic debate in the kind of party politics and then germany is sending mixed messages which you mention so the question is restrict or not stream not stream to the pipeline and then the same time to do lots of deterrence and defense in the east so our partners say what you actually want you want to do that up on projects or russians or you want to defend us against the russians then we have to export problem on the one hand we want to

build a strategic autonomous europe is friends with big industrial flexible projects but then we don't want to export them so our partners say yeah obviously in terms of credibility of deniability we don't really know what you want and that's the same with a one point five or two percent defense budget become a talk about what you that's what isn't the whole day and then it's about strengthening the institutions to do what it actually does and they to you you when you say maybe not so there is a kind of gap between what we do and what we talk about and that's a major problem and if these two are not doing well. i couldn't say it any better if you see the the the seven decade problems have been since we're talking about the on the seventieth birthday of nato for seven decades germany has outsourced its security to the big brother the united states and it has it has basically shirked in studio and it it hasn't understood that it that the big brother is fed up with

that and it has to do something itself and it is just in denial and that's the part of the public debate i was criticizing. maybe just one point on the public it is true that the german public tends to be more pacifist than in other countries and doesn't like the military as much that's all true however i increasingly get the impression that german politicians almost like to hide behind this alleged public opinion because i do think that almost no one even takes the initiative to try to explain these kind of fundamental. about military capabilities about the nature of all the transatlantic relationship of a nation ship you know our the fans and kind of friends this to the public so i think we're hiding behind and if no one even tries to make the argument well then public opinion also isn't going to change i'm afraid we're going to have to look at that thank you very much all three of you for being with us i will feel hundred go i hope we have given you plenty of food for thought on the question also at seventeen who reached me anime you've enjoyed the show come by next week until one

bye bye until.

now for. coming president to the head of the ranger out in front of. the rebel army and did the one nine hundred ninety four genocide it wasn't a loophole in the rules it wasn't windows to be you. need to reinforce the controversial leader whose success is beyond question he could turn. on the wanted tragedy in fifteen minutes on g.w. . you know that seventy seven percent because younger than sixty.

that's me and me. and you know what it's time all voices. on the seventy seven percent talk about the issue. for all the politics to flash from how's that going to top this is what. welcome to the seventy seven percent. of people six g.w. . i'm not laughing at the germans because sometimes i am but they stand up and with the time of the budget i think deep into german culture. new to take this drama. it's all about who they know i'm right so join me to meet the japanese on the gulf coast. coach of the

. league school africa and the world store link to exceptional stories and discussions from one uses easy to our website d w two comes from africa join us on facebook. the first. place it doesn't live so long it's not easy to go to another country you know nothing about the film to do this because we can't stay out of venezuela. that i closely global news that matters t.w. made for mines. and extravagant didn't. really know their stuff.

which is good and to finish. the party and check with musicians from around the world. groups every week. german chancellor angela merkel has been in dublin for braggs it talks with her irish counterpart. this comes nine days before britain could leave the european union with a deal which put in danger that open border between the republic of ireland and e.u. member and northern ireland which is part of the united kingdom.