so they can plant crops and trying to lead us into. floods and droughts climate change become the main driver of mass migration you can write any apocalyptic scenario if you want and probably more time to come to. the climate exodus starts it will thirtieth on t.w. . alone a very warm welcome indeed to quadriga coming to you from the top of the world and the focus is on the later 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 are clouded by grave concerns about the future of the military gets us presidents donald trump and nato secretary

general young starting 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 reports 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 and various kluges editor in chief for hundreds but to do anything argues that militarily nato is as strong as ever politically though it's in crisis that's trump's fault but also says andre has. found also with his cloudy in my year all senior associate of the german institute for international and security of france who says how germany responds to questions like the two percent spending pledge arms exports to terence and nuclear war. things will be crucial for europe's

security and defense under thirty will already confront her opponents and fellow at the european council on foreign relations and believes that germany is risking its international credibility. dismal to realize 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 a deep 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 a corpse off the trance of 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 pay attention. 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 cloutier the u.k. guardian newspaper carried a piece in there the secrets of nato's 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 strengths of nato equation of twenty nine and soon thirty member states if all those countries agree if they stick together if they really show sort of devotee that's a really strong signal so that means that the political cohesion the political credibility actually makes a military slings if you attack one country you attack 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 c ok so there are struggles potent and then in addition we have the transatlantic problems so one of the big kind of ways 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 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 us with 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. clerical when we talk about the future of 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 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 us 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 threat. 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 so yes we absolutely shouldn't be naive but i don't i don't want to make the argument that we need to 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 see the fend against russia there are many other threats out there it's a story world i made my list claudio china cyber threats terrorism hybrid warfare and migration i don't know what you have to our. continued they continue to defend successfully nine hundred and thirty million from twenty nine different countries against all verbs 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 we 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 i never the one which abolished overbid intermediate nuclear weapons systems 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 on 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 do it needs to think of china the americans agree that the next life would be for the covered like what we've 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 we 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 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 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 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 china ok 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 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 and to me 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 it is true that congress doesn't want that nevertheless for the united states the strategic 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 and as crucially important we as europeans need to understand that there is a change of you know american interests and keeping the american in the 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 we've got back as well

saying that as there's great concern among the europeans about the next tweets there is there is one small foot load 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 they have to sit obviously want to see just move 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 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 in military political and nuclear terms if this 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 your i read one. contributor a journalist sorry but it's time for the europeans to tens 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 o.p.'s don't have a choice they need to do more in security and. they need to do a lot more. but they should do little bit shy away from this big event to make the to be 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 rhetoric the big rhetoric. 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 well 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 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 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 to the shows that we have

a return of nuclear weapons in security and in defense in europe 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 we're on set in europe we see us is it a conventional answer is it the disarmament initiative so we don't like that topic particularly 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 attack to europe yes it's less interested what we're going to do is that every placement is a british and so it's a european answer and this is a nuclear question as the germans because the germans participate in the new credit heavens 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 above all germany freeloader this 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. the 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 twenty twenty four. that's it for us to fulfill their stated obligation i stand behind that and so does the german government. can the nato partners rely on germany. various early this year german foreign minister is an affront to lyon said nato is about decency and dependability and not just caution 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 in germany clearly has to do things to this been trying to cash in its alleged peace dividend after the cold war and it has let its army navy air force just go to rags i mean this is a submarine 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 so many men that's right you don't want them to just become an incredibly important symbolic debate whether the actual money is willing to pull its weight it's not just symbolic i mean number one i think it chip eve 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 there the trust all they have coups are in the you know i want to be one. further you mean the berlin political analyst leadership there is no i don't and i don't think those little 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 gonna go up in the budget process of going to be fine we're going to get towards the one point five percent but what do you say to that sofa st 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 by twenty twenty four and this isn't a terrible signal and quite honestly no i don't think that the berlin establishment really realizes how badly that reflects. 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 the actual action 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. you 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 dozen knots in defense i mean if you look at the defense budget ten years ago or twenty thirty. thirty three billion i'll get 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 what 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 for so russians or you want to defend us against the russians then we have to export problem on the one hand he 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 honestly in terms of credibility deniability we don't really know what you want and that's the same with a one point five or two percent defense budget we come out 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 is 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 these two are not doing what. i couldn't say it any better you see the the the seven decade problems have been 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 its duty in it it hasn't understood that it that the big brother is fed up with it

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 the relationship you know our the fans and kind of brings this to the public's i think 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 get there thank you very much else reason for being here today with me on quadriga i hope we have given you plenty of fruitful souls on the question also seventeen who is the enemy you've enjoyed the show come by next week

until one bye bye until she was.

john. in space. wherever they go unions leave trash. in space poses a hazard to have to start. cleaning up the danger is clear. to. thirty minutes to. be in good

shape. cigarettes are the latest trend but the long term health of facts are still on no. good you could call it the biggest field study that's taking place in the health sector worldwide and. we asked the expert. on d w. city in ruins maro a. symbol of a long conflict in the philippines. between the muslims and the christian population. last financed my first documented the city center

seventeen president to tears his response was told. by the terrorists will never again look old. the reconquest turned into tragedy. is not the kind of freedom that we want. how did not become a gateway to islamist terror until now the sorry god in my city has the result of an exclusive report from a destroyed city. philippines in the sun. starts april eleventh on g.w. .

fifty news live from the. one person floats their ideas for rival extensions used general tusk is said to be proposing a flexible twelve month delay for the u.k. . series a may once the june thirtieth deadline will be weighing up the possibilities without london and brussels correspondent also coming up fears of carnage as militia troops reach the outskirts of the libyan capital tripoli a regional war is preparing to drive out internationally bad.