Europe is up for military independence and stepping up its defenses to depend less on the US, the former director general of European Union military staff Lieutenant General David Leakey says.
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00:00I mean Europe is essentially getting the message here from Washington that it has
00:05to stand on its own two feet. It's not a new message, they've heard it in not so
00:11many words in the first Trump presidency. Are they up to it? Not at the moment no
00:17and the Europeans have acknowledged that and I think everybody has acknowledged
00:23any dispassionate observer of the Europeans would say that to a certain
00:27extent the Europeans have have depended on the insurance policy which has been
00:35underwritten by the US both politically and military and that that is
00:40acknowledged that's a given and are the Europeans up for it? I think so when you
00:46see you with the the very strong resolve by for example these Scandinavian
00:52countries and the Germans their Parliament has authorized a complete and
00:58historic change to the country's borrowing rules so that they can
01:04invest in rearming and in their defense industry. The European Union has said
01:10that it will make available I think it's 800 billion euros over a period of time
01:15so the Europeans are stepping up to the plate now. It is going to take some
01:20time. Developing a defense capability isn't something that happens overnight.