Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. I'm Caroline Hepkee, and this is Here's Why, where we take one news story and explain it in just a few minutes with our experts here at Bloomberg. In nineteen eighty nine, the Berlin Wall fell and the US became the world's only military superpower. NATO, the alliance that was founded forty years earlier on a
pact of mutual defense, had effectively achieved its aim. But now that same alliance faces a new threat from its old adversary, and possibly another one from its largest member. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has created an inflection point for the military alliance. It's something That's been made all the more acute by Donald Trump's frequent criticism, both whilst he was in office and now that he's running for a second I have.
Been very very direct with Secretary of Staltenberg and members of the Alliance in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations. NATO was busted until I came along. I said, everybody's going to pay. They said, well, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect US. I said, you didn't pay. You're delinquent. He said, yes, let's say
that happened. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.
You got to pay. This summer, advisors for the Republican presidential nominee floated the idea of demanding that NATO allah Is spend three percent of their GDP on defense, a warning shot that signals even more tension if the former president does return to the White House. So here's why Europe is unprepared to defend itself and why it may need to. Joining me now to discuss is Bloomberg's executive editor, Flavia Kraus Jackson, who oversees our EMEA and Latin America
Economics and government coverage. Lavia, thank you so much. How much of a concern is it in Europe that a Trump administration could pull the US back from its native commitment?
Short answer is extreme worry. And I think you know, is your able to defend itself? Actually we can't. There's been chronic underfunding on the defense spending. And you can argue that Trump, with his sort of outlandish talk, has actually given Europe the proverbial kickup to bottom that it needed. And you know, even when you look at someone like Jen Staltenberg, the outgoing NATO Secretary General, sort of eccentially
acknowledges that much. And Rutter, who was a former Dutch prime minister who's now incoming known as a Trump whisperer, has essentially been saying listen, He's been saying the quiet part out loud, folks. We really need to be able to do it. I mean, the problem, of course is having diagnosed the problem, how do you fix it? Because the essential problem here is that you have twenty first century wars with twenty century kit and there wasn't really
an understanding of where the conflict would be. Like hindsight being twenty twenty, we all remember President Macran saying that NATO was brain dead. We also remember NATO essentially kind of putting its focus more in the Middle East with Syria, so sort of it didn't almost see coming the conflict in Ukraine, even though the writing was kind of on the wall terms of Russian expansionism right twousand and eight, Georgia twenty fourteen, Annexation of Crimea twenty twenty two, sending
the jets to Syria. So there's a question of why NATO hadn't pivoted in the way it should have.
And even to me a non defense expert, I can see from the data, you know, how few planes, how few ships. The comparison between Europe, the US and other countries China, for example, it is starkly illustrated. How big is Europe's fighting force? Does it have the capability then to act without US backing the other? Big big question?
It simply can't, right, I mean, and you're sort of scraping the barrel right now. Twenty three out of the thirty two members are hitting the two percent target. Even if they were to up this to three point five, it still wouldn't be enough. You can't conjure an army out of nothing. And it's not just about the numbers. It's also about the quality of the kit, the training. If it's been basically left to gather rust. You're now in a situation where you've got the check initiative, you're
having to revive old Slovak factories. In the meantime, you have Putin, who's turned his economy into a war economy, pumping the money. So Europe simply isn't able to keep up with that, And the most important point is is you as willing to keep its commitment because as we well know, there could be a change of God. Trump
is the worst case scenario for Zelenski. But I don't I think we should assume that things are going to be that much better under a Harris administration, especially when you see it to a degree what some might say the double standard. I mean, if you have a crisis in Israel with Hamas and Hizbola, you're essentially giving a carte blanche to NITAYAHUO. No matter how tense that relationship is,
it's still the more important relationship. It's still seen as much more vital to the US, and the US simply cannot sort of be the world's policeman of fighting two conflicts and potentially even a third one in Taiwan.
The head of the UK's Armed Forces has talked about the need to be ready for a major direct conflict by twenty twenty seven. This's got a lot of eyeballs. You know that it was so soon, you know, a major war increasingly likely for Europe.
Yeah, absolutely, twenty twenty seven is the sort of the day that everyone has in mind in terms of when potentially China decides that's when it's going to go for it, right, So that data is sort of out there in the ether. But you know, there was also the words of a General Sir Patrick earlier this summer that kind of revives
question about UK conscription. Right, if you think back, it was in the Great Wars that there was a conscription and some of his words were slightly misinterpreted, but he essentially reintroduced the topic of like how fit is the UK, especially sort of post Brexit. Right, you have France, it's the nuclear power, you have the UK. You have Germany for all sorts of reasons that we know well is an economic power, but not a military one in spite
of having committed one hundred billion. That's a very long term concept. So when you're looking at the numbers, what could France and the UK can draw between themselves in terms of men and within a month you're looking at maybe twenty thousand for France and about thirty twenty thousand for the UK. That simply isn't very much, especially when you sort of compare that to the terrible figures and casualties.
You know, thirty one thousand Ukrainian casualties, so when you're playing the sort of the numbers game, you can see how in Russia can play the long game and wait it out.
That was, of course, General Sir Patrick Sanders who made that comment around conscription in the UK, and you only have to look at the newspaper coverage at the time of those comments that understand the gap between public understanding and this kind of reporting and what the military and
what the defense industry is kind of thinking about. My thanks to Bloomberg's executive editor Flavia kraus Jackson for joining us for more explanations like this one from our team of two thousand, seven hundred journalists and analysts around the world. Search for Quick Take on the Bloomberg website and the Bloomberg Business app. I'm Caroline Hepger. This is Here's Why, and we'll be back next week with more. Thanks for listening.