from one party to plaster from the group top this is where. the seventy seven percent. of people sit on g.w. . a lot of very warm welcome indeed to quadriga coming to you from the cost of the world and the focus that is later being the all for treaty organization which this week is marking its seventieth anniversary and seven decades of peace and prosperity however the celebrations in washington and clouded by grave concerns about the future of the military gets us president donald trump and nato secretary

general back 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 flooding airports in question here on quadriga is nato at seventy who is the enemy and to discuss that question i'm joined by three astute observers beginning with various kluges editor in chief for hundreds black today who argues that militarily nato is as strong as ever politically though it's in crisis that's trumps folds but also says andre has just found also with his cloudy amar you all senior associate of the german institute for international and security affairs who says how germany responds to questions like the two percent spending pledge arms exports to terence a new clue. weapons will be crucial for europe's security and defense under thirty

will continue to recur from policy fellow at the european council on foreign relations and believes that germany is risky its international credibility. is not seen from real eyes well well. let me begin with you nato of course styles itself is 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 and 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 signaled 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 and it's just really trump and his character characters around him that have sowed so much they're ok quality of the u.k. guardian newspaper carried a piece saying that the secret of nato has long life i'm quoting here is that it is not just a military alliance and support 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 talk 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 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 bit because only if it's united this alliance 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 the 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. the threat from asymmetrical conflicts and terrorism worldwide forced the alliance to revise its strategies to. u.s. president trump has injected uncertainty into the nato alliance how does the future look for nato to. clarissa when we talk about the future of knights or who in essence at this point in time who all war 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 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 nature is about you know political cohesion nato us about the alliance the political alliances 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 acts as we must not be naive about the russian president. and i and i agree with that and i think you know within within europe there's a lot of the bad about about pressures and tension no one really knows and there is a lot of this agreement among european allies on that and 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 of russia time has moved on we're no longer in

a cold war and nato has been doing many things that you know just the fend against russia there are many other threats out there it's a story world i made my list claudio charted a cyber threats terrorism hybrid warfare and migration out of the war you have to are to. continue the continue to defend successfully nine hundred thirty million people from twenty nine different countries against all verbs for its. 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 a 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 the thing one of the issues about the europeans need to think and they do it needs to think of china the americans agree that the next life would be for the cover vital to 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 to do now and tomorrow what they 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 or what does cyber war that's when they go as only a little role to play with the european union or states have much more to offer so

i think that many questions we need to answer first. sometimes you have those questions well you've put up about 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 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 is 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 we worry a little bit about the united states i think we worry quite a lot about the united states leaving and withdrawing from nature this isn't just a trump issue i mean we've all seen these reports in the new york times elsewhere

well. donald trump said that he's considering withdrawing from nato and industry to the congress doesn't want that nevertheless for the united states the search engine 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 i do think that the outlook is way more towards the east towards asia towards china and i think we as europeans in this 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 u.s. 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 a very small foot mode militarily america has been building up its nato commitment 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 two scenarios are one is he just moved out of everybody else 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 so we do we can it if the u.s. is politically less committed if their military less committed if they don't talk with a highly of both nato and the allies if they just say. but people under so maybe germany is not a good. way to committed that's already a problem because again the credibility of nato is all countries be. and together

and if the biggest ally the most important in military political and nuclear terms is this all i say is actually i don't whately care anymore than i do has a major problem and then become towards or rick if i could just mention. what is our european onset aviv ready to take questions it's not a me or you read one. contributor 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 petition 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 always a bit concerned i think it's the europeans don't have a choice they need to do more in security and. 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 hard to predict what points shy away from the big resurrect 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 like your metaphor that you just pulled up a tendinitis on gardening is that what is that evokes bunch of aging europeans cutting rosebushes well there's a tanks on the outside so that tending the garden is exactly the problem i and i know one thing is sure is that you 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 pests go 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 the nuclear option at some stage in the future no i was talking i was talking more largely about deterrence in europe. 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 the europeans need to ask is what are we going to do if russia has nuclear weapons pointed to europe what is 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 us provides a nuclear umbrella that protects europe and the us is less interested what we are going to do is there a replacement is there frankel british answer is a european answer and this is a question as the germans because the germans but dissipate in the nuclear deterrence was epic planes which are too old and needs to be replaced so the new questions come in 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 above all germany are freeloaders 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 their 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. and finance minister

old off scholtz 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 their stated obligation i stand behind that and so does the german government. can the nato partners rely on germany. earlier this year german foreign minister and 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 what's your take on a lot 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 w. 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. thanks to this been trying to cash in its alleged peace dividend after the coal. the war and has let its army navy 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 scholz 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 i would suggest you get a recession as you can so many men started going to do is 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 they've 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 pen ability and i travel a lot you know within europe i go to paris i go to warsaw and i don't think berlin realizes to what extent it has lost really the the trust i think of cool you are in the you know i want to be with phillip you mean the berlin political analysts the leadership there's no items and i don't think those that will start 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 is going to be fine begin to get towards the one point five percent what do you say it's about social history when it's presented to you i say i look at the numbers that are actually on the table as do all the other european and transatlantic allies and we see that we were nowhere near the one point five the germany said it's going to

achieve that of course we are nowhere near the two point two percent that germany said it would cheat by twenty twenty four and this isn't a terrible signal and quite honestly you know i don't think that the the berlin establishment really realizes how badly it affects. the dynamic i've been seeing is is intriguing to me it's. 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 elite 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 this elite and there's no zero courage on the part of members of this elite to explain it to them they all for specially in the in the social democratic party and stuff you do not want to touch is that 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 hear is likely that it wouldn't be that sure and 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 we don't we to talk about defense and we don't really talk about strategy and i think one of the major problems germany has a doesn't lot in defense i mean if you look at the defense budget ten years ago or twenty thirty or thirty three billion or we had forty three so things moved indeed and germany so not a nato but on the other hand then comes the domestic debate in the kind of party politics and then germany is sending mixed messages what you mention so the question is we stick to an austrian 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 project was a russian so 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 your office 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. and then it's about strengthening the institutions to do what. you say maybe not so this kind of gap between what we do and what we talk about and that's a major problem and. i couldn't say it any better to the seven decade problem and since we're talking about that 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 from other countries 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 any kind of fundamental truths about military capabilities about. their relationship you know. kind of brings this to the public's i think hiding behind and tries to make the argument. i'm afraid we're going to have thank you very much all three of you for being here today. i hope we have given you plenty of food for thought on the question old. who is the enemy.

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it's like a huge laboratory all backstrom of. india. a society of children. aggressive by. bush's plan. but also serious conflict. looking toward the future. credible but. in seventy five minutes.

how's it feel of the world. where i come from a little boy that's good does this go it just like this chinese food does matter where i am always reminds me of home after decades of living in germany china so just one of the things i miss the most i bet taking a step back. i see things and it's a difference when our. men have good suppressed as undergone a sense that exists as a part of the watch haven't been implemented in china that's why you are not to china if the wondering if they're going to say it but if you don't have a ride to learn the focus of that is this is a job just out of the my how i see it and others why i left my job because i tried to do it exactly maybe an hour a day my name is out into it and i was added up you. win

the. fight for survival in the case i'll buy gets me but if i get one there's a flood of water comes up to your waist buy your clothes fast everyone meet him up the lack of water he's equally dangerous. there's junk you can see people move south so they can plant crops and find food the system. floods and droughts floods climate change become the main driver of mass migration you can write any apocalyptic scenario if you want and probably more spending. money exodus starts third on t w.

this is d.w. news live from berlin the german chancellor says she will work to the last minute to prevent a no deal on the macro visiting arland the e.u. state most vulnerable to possible brax of disruption but a delay to britain's exit now looks increasingly likely also coming up. a review for.