Military alliance is a relic from the cold war back then it was relevant and even necessary today it is an alliance in search of a mission that search has almost completely entailed eastern expansion towards russia but a lingering question remains is the average american and western european interested in a war over the sovereignty of dystonia and montenegro. Talking the Atlantic Alliance im joined by my guest loop of a in brussels hes an independent journalist in paris we have emmanuelle gave she is a french lawyer and in oxford we cross to mark owen he is the director of the Crisis Research institute or across the uk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it lets go to our guest in paris the many well you have president mccrone just recently said that nato. Is brain dead how do you reflect upon that because the nato summit is coming up next week and its been shortened to 2 days because a lot of people are worried that. Donald trump will start some kind of Dumpster Fire as he tends to do when it comes to nato so what how is the Nato Alliance stand right now because you have Jeremy Corbyn going into election mode doubting the alliance the necessity here so i mean is mccrone right is nato brain dead go ahead. Well to be honest i am afraid that this time i find myself on the same page as mr my core which is something its something unusual for me and stopped me right time twice a day its but what we have to look at is that mr mccloy saying it is a brand this is true but why because what he wants in bottom line is to make an alliance with germany and to sell our french army to the german that has been agenda since the beginning their big idea is to think europe and to kind of congregate everyone in this type of imperial europe they have as an idea a kind of napoleon type of and and this is a very big challenge for us french because that would mean obviously losing our army losing our sovereignty so he is using this nato this nato thing which is right to have he has a hidden agenda if i could say which is to bind our army with the german army and this is something us the french have to look after because losing our army means losing our sovereignty means losing our identity so i think were probably going to come back in the 2nd part on what is the real combat today its not communism any more well know what the civilization issue is and obviously nato is not the one up for it so thats my point of view on that i would say with a lot of market in oxford but i would make the argument that all 27 from United States being the 28 member of nato their sovereignty is compromised as well and if you look at Public Opinion polls its been pretty. Trending. More and more people in western europe in the United States have doubts about you know having a collective Security Treaty Organization for a countries that are so far away. And then what you know whats france in the u. K. In the United States want to get into a military conflict over you know a country like. A stone ian i mean is that something people are interested in to poll say people arent go ahead mark or i think this is always the problem with a Large Alliance that you find that the fringe areas the border areas are remote from centers of Population Centers of contribution by the british the french and so on so its true not just for Eastern Europe but also for the south if we think about france italy and spain in nato the the immediate Security Threat comes from islam missed terrorist groups operating in north africa and perhaps potentially threatening them a long way away weve heard mention of the potomac complex we have to remember that moscow is much further from the western border of russia in 1812. 00 than it is today and one of president macros controversial ideas from the point of view of the standard nato for is of course hes talking about reassessing the relations with russia because he doesnt feel as president of france that russia poses a threat to firms ok well lets go to lou came in in brussels i mean you know you im sure youve all been following this ridiculous circus called the impeachment process in the United States and you know i watched some of the hearings i didnt know that ukraine was a National Security interest of the United States and its news to me oh my goodness its not part of nato there are no obligations to protect ukraines sovereignty but you wouldnt know that from the Mainstream Media go ahead look. Ok well the collapse of ukraine its of course started it all of course and the sanctions that were imposed both way both ways made it worse and gave nato. A reason to have aggressive language to with russia i think what happens now in the wake up call given by michael is for once excellent in the sense that by accepting to discuss with russia to discuss a memorandum on intermediate myside nuclear science. Will probably gain points in europe everywhere and he would probably come to a result because this is early 001 proposal of common European Defense failed like most of his proposals actually over the last few years they failed miserably and so this one marks exceed one he said that nato was brain dead he had no no substance in the speech really about this but president putin gave him substance that by proposing to discuss by by hand by giving a hand to nato nato had said no were not interested we can believe in it you can believe in it why dont you discuss it 1st so thats probably what michael is saying this week to worm to the nato general secretary generals stoltenberg whos in paris for that precisely so nato would probably changes this course its speech about. The russia and the threats that russia could represent ok many many you know thats an interesting point but i mean without you know the russian bogeyman then theres even more doubts about what nato is purposes because the in my mind nato is primary mission is to exist ok thats what they want they have 5000 bureaucrats working for nato in brussels. So existence is the mission ok but thats a Dangerous Mission because of what something that mark said earlier is that we have a Large Alliance like this with divergent views and interests and actually been going to happen in and then there are some people that want that to happen here go ahead many well in paris yes i think thats a very good question obviously its like taxes once they all voted its very rare that you come back on it so nato has its own existence its a kind of artifact in itself it stays because it is and this is always a problem we have when we create a monster you we you have walking dead frankenstein and this is what we have today but i think President Trump addressed this question 2 days ago and said well i think if we had to reassign maybe a mission to nato it would be today to deal with the enemies or of our civilization and who are the enemies nowadays its not communism anymore its something far more real and it is something that is that doesnt really a war per se were not going to build trenches were not going to put silo my cells we have we have a civilization war so is nato adapted to that type of war is the question and the 2nd we we question we have us french as you probably have seen in the recent news we lost 13 men in mali yeah 3 days ago in an operation that promptly was. Bumping into each other the sunda what we dont know so do we have the means of saying no to nato also if we dont put more money into our defense french im saying because every year the Defense Budget is going down and so you know theres a saying in no way i think its an done mark if you dont have an army you have the army of the country next door you know well we dont have an army anymore in france so whos the country next door a good point you know you know market the. Trump is already been mentioned here and again you know im agreeing with mccrone and trump on the same program i think everybody is on this one which is a landmark in itself on this program but you know hes complained about the lack of defense spending by european allies and i mean some people can say take it counterintuitive way of looking at him saying you know make it so exorbitant that they say they dont want to pay for it ok and that will give a reason for trump to say ok if i will go home if you dont want to pay for your own security if youre so afraid of russia why dont you pay for it i mean thats a very good argument ok and of course the europeans are not going to go along with it but i hope to get back to that dr go ahead mark in oxford. Here but he also we have to remember that the europeans are primary focused on their immediate vicinity even if they dispute which is the direction of threat or concern but the americans are global and one of the things i think we shouldnt perhaps obsess too much about is trump personally because i think quite often we overlook that the American Security establishment shows strums dissatisfaction with the europeans probably because it wants to spend more money in asia its primary concern is the growth of chinese power and whole issues to in east asia so they want the europeans to provide more selfsufficiency so that america will still be the lead in nato but it will be having to develop came in recent years that mara think thats a very thats a very good point here and i think that that would erode if i was a european i would be very irritated by it so you want us to pay more money but youre still in charge how does that work ok i can see the in the idea about that keep going mark. But i think this is where we see tensions both between washington and its allies in europe but also within europe because we can see that the if you like the 3 big players in your britain from germany are all moving in slightly Different Directions mrs merkel after all was the 1st to criticize trump when he became president and say that perhaps germany in the europeans would have to do more for their defense and then the germans suddenly thought we have to pay for it. We dont want to and we as a culture germany has been transformed the british are moving closer to the United States leaving European Union and so from speak comes the central player but as weve heard from a menu of the problem is that france wants to play a role that it cant really afford to pay for so actually all of this discussion reveals really how fragile the situation is and at the same time its sort of bureaucracy continues to plow forwards ignoring the fact that Public Opinion domestic politics in the Member States is beginning to drift more and more away from it. Ok im going to jump in here were going to go to a short break and after that short break well continue our discussion on the Atlantic Alliance stay with us. This idea as you point out the anecdotally cheney fired all the cia agents in the field because they were too sympathetic to the locals and he felt that was a liability in the major media spheres of washington d. C. They dont want those reporters those stars do rub elbows in the great unwashed of the flyover states because they may become sympathetic to the working class they may become sympathetic to the disenfranchised. Leeks long. When you. But. Its still its a bit. Just to. Welcome back across top where all things are considered im Peter Lavelle to remind you were discussing the Atlantic Alliance. Ok lets go back to luke in brussels i want to reflect upon something that emanuel was talking about these outer Area Operations under the. The banner of the flag of nato here it seems to me that thats also. Europe is being used as like an Aircraft Carrier as it were a base for american objectives of going into africa i mean you know if you look back you know the chinese for whatever you think of them they are building a huge amount of ins infrastructure in africa the United States is putting in more and more military bases ok and again this is this kind of. Effect the nato in say in search of a mission you know what lets go to outer area right now lets go to afghanistan and see how that worked out ok i mean nato is constantly looking for something to do to justify itself and at the same time it will not answer overtures for im russia and i to be give you my opinion even if they did now i wouldnt trust them ok then with the eastern expansion all the way to russias border and now this nonsense going on in ukraine this is not a partner you can trust because their motives are very very unclear go ahead look. Well totally agree with you in the sense that. Europe doesnt pay for its defense so donald trump is right about that and has other priorities than europe understandable to so and so the the warsaw pact to be at it is this appeared in the ninetys i mean why still keep nato so of course hold the military in the National Armies composing nato in europe there are salivating at the idea of the Shopping List that theyre going to give to work in germany for example to a k k 2 on the minister of defense new minister of defense germany is accepted again in poland and presence of the of my can pay off for example that is accepted again to pay 2 percent and it will be in a few years that they have reached out level so there will be a huge improvement of European Defense but potentially wherever it is as you say africa is very important for the moment i mean the french are fighting nearly alone there in mali for the moment with some help but the trickle from the u. K. From belgium from all the armies so the hope is that if europe wants to improve its defense it will not be by looking at russia as an enemy and the letter sent by president putin could well change the face of the world order in the coming years because nato now under pressure by my craw and its good of him to do that well have to think again about its purpose and about what it does its much more important to look at the Southern Front here of europe and the problems that are created by immigration and by thinks of the kind and so the french need help in mali we dont have logistics enough in the european armies even the french or the british that fulfill the 2 percent requested by by the americans so we need to make a big improvement and then only can we speak about European Defense so michael had a point this one isnt. So none of your own friends i contacted to any peace today and they said that they are of course curious what will happen but that they agree with the president just like ok lets go back to paris to many well i mean the poles have talked about creating. Trump the poles i lived there for many years even under communism theyre one of the most proamerican countries in europe but you know showing theyre being proamerican actually has a price tag to it and its something that i would have liked in that we had to say i mean building a European Defense against what ok what do you need all these planes and tanks for is it to defend the no boundaries in the sovereignty of these countries are they or is it just to make them spend money so these arms can Companies Get all of these contracts i mean it seems to me that again theyre. Creating monsters to slay that dont exist in their real monsters out there that youre dismissing like the Southern Tier of nato with immigration in the mediterranean you have islamic charism it seems to me nato is a blunt object and its just expensive go ahead emmanuel. I think you are right on this point its official machine they are creating their own needs and bottom line is when you speak to persons in the army they are saying that their most of the time their planes are in really bad condition when you are in mali for example that the sand was a big problem i was talking to a european m. P. 2 weeks before the event in mali and he said to me we are going to have big problems there because our men are just trying to stay alive they knew that and 2 weeks after we see that so i found there is a deckard to me between what nato asks for and what we really have to work with what the layman what down to earth men have to do when they are on missions. They have to work with the equipment they have i dont know where all the money spent on nato goes but i know its not on our guys because they have to do with very little of it and. You know its saying they are tigers led by donkeys really if you think about. And i think that i think we did i think will change the title of the program just to that i think that there mark if you if again Public Opinion polls that the majority of germans would like to see american troops go home ok i mean thats and thats not reported widely in the Mainstream Media of course i read antiwar dot com and they made a big deal about it but the average american has no idea that theyre not wanted in germany anymore theres a lot of troops in germany and thats as for operations the United States is running in the middle east ok again using europe as a conduit a menu well brings up a very very good point is that you know these militaries are not high tech theres not a lot of money put into it there its not high prestige as far as i understand but its for washington its an important public figure leaf you know that they have this big expensive shiny alliance but its more for ego t