È la domanda che  Judy Dempsey rivolge a quattro esperti di politica internazionale:  Balázs Jarábik, Michael Leigh, Gianni Riotta, Eugeniusz Smolar.

Il commento di Gianni Riotta:

Defense. The UK has fewer soldiers today than in 1815, when Lord Wellington checked Napoleon at Waterloo. U.S. armed forces in Europe are not the formidable opponent they used to be during the Cold War. Today, there are about 67,000 U.S. troops in Europe, down from 400,000 at the height of the Cold War; there are 7,000 U.S. sailors, down from 40,000; and there are some 170 airplanes, down from 800 in the early 1990s.

NATO countries have agreed to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. Yet while the United States forks out 4.1 percent, the average defense spending of the alliance’s European members is a puny 1.6 percent. During his recent trip to Europe, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a blunt message: help us with NATO, as we cannot do it by ourselves. But France and the UK continue to slash defense spending, while the rest of the continent has lagged behind for decades. After World War II, Winston Churchill proposed a European army to slash costs and improve efficiency and readiness. His suggestion remains a valid one.

Russia has lost the punch the Red Army used to have. Russian President Vladimir Putin has focused instead on “special wars” like those in Georgia, Chechnya, and Crimea, based on a mix of irregular militias, agents provocateurs, diplomatic blackmail, and propaganda. So far, his efforts have worked beautifully for the Kremlin. Now, Sweden and Poland are rearming, the Baltic countries are worried, but the EU lacks a common plan and vision. It may pay a bitter price for this sin of omission.