Episode 218: The Future of European Defense: Building Autonomy in a Dense Geopolitical Landscape with Dr. Nicolai von Ondarza

This week on The International Risk Podcast, Dominic Bowen sits down with Dr. Nicolai von Ondarza to discuss Europe’s evolving security landscape and its quest for strategic autonomy in the face of rising geopolitical tensions. As Europe confronts the growing threat from Russia and the shifting priorities of the United States under Trump, the continent finds itself at a critical crossroads, navigating how to build military capabilities and reduce dependency on the U.S. security umbrella.

Dr. Nicolai von Ondarza shares his insights on how European nations can take decisive action to enhance defense, the strategic importance of rearmament, and how Europe must rethink its approach to security cooperation, particularly with the UK. The discussion also covers the future of EU defense initiatives, the challenges of nuclear deterrence, and the prospects for a ceasefire in Ukraine amid Putin’s unrealistic demands.

Dr. Nicolai von Ondarza is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and the Head of the EU/Europe Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His work focuses on Germany’s role in Europe, EU politics, institutional reforms, and EU–UK relations. He has advised the German government, Bundestag, UK government, European Parliament, and the European Commission. 

Read some of Dr. Nicolai von Ondarza's articles relevant to the episode here:

- Geostrategy from the far-right.

- Resetting EU-UK defense cooperation.

- After German election win, can Merz deliver leadership at home and in Europe.

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Transcript

Dominic:  Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we break down some of the biggest geopolitical challenges and international risks shaping our world.

Today, we're tackling one of the most urgent questions in global security. Can Europe defend itself from an increasingly aggressive and expansionist Russia without the support from the United States? With shifting alliances, growing scepticism over NATO's future, increasing hybrid attacks from Russia across Europe, and a US president that's questioning America's commitments, the European Union is at a crossroads. As Washington re-evaluates its global role, European leaders are scrambling to bolster their own security, investing military capabilities, redefining cooperation with the United Kingdom, and debating the future of nuclear deterrence.

Joining us today is Dr. Nikolai von Ondazza. He's an associate fellow at Chatham House and head of the EU-Europe Research Division at SWP in Berlin. He's a leading expert on European security and governance.

He's advised the German government, the European Commission, on these critical issues. Today, we're going to explore Europe's evolving defence posture, the Rearm Europe initiative, and what risks Europe needs to be defending against. Nikolai, thanks for joining us on the International Risk Podcast.

Nikolai: Glad to be here. 

Dominic: Nikolai, currently, the US funds about 16% of NATO's budget, which is actually the same amount that Germany contributes. Nevertheless, President Trump has made his position clear.

He wants Europe to take full responsibility for its own defence, and he's openly questioned NATO's collective defence obligation. Now, given Trump's recent cosiness with Russian President Putin, and Trump's criticisms of European reliance on the US, how do you think European nations should be responding? 

Nikolai: I think the starting point should be very clear that at the moment, the European nations are strongly dependent upon the United States in their defence. They don't have any equivalent to the nuclear deterrent, even though France and the UK have a small national one.

And even in conventional forces, the Ukraine war has shown that when push comes to shove, there really is this huge dependency upon the United States. So what the European nations need to do now is to invest heavily in rearmament, to actually be able to say, we can stand our own feet, and you cannot just negotiate over us. Because the effect of this high dependence is sort of during the Biden years, it was okay for Europeans to be dependent upon the US to some extent.

But now we have a US president who basically says, I don't care what you think, I'm going to negotiate with Moscow directly, and divide Europe as I see fit. And you will have to accept what I tell you. And this is, of course, not something that Europeans can accept.

And therefore, they need to grow up and invest in defence for themselves. 

Dominic: But one thing that we see, and as an Australian looking at Europe, and now living in Europe, I've always found it almost comical, how fragmented the European Union and even Europe at large is, and even within member states, you know, we look at the coalition governments that have to be formed in Sweden and Germany, it's almost comical sometimes.

So I wonder, is Europe going to be too fragmented to actually act decisively, especially when you've got countries like Slovakia, like Austria, like Hungary, and maybe even France after the next elections? Are they going to be able to act decisively to ensure that they have the defence required? 

Nikolai: I would maybe even turn it a little bit around, have Europeans needed the push by Trump to actually get real about defence? Because this is not a new debate. We have had this discussion about European strategic autonomy or sovereignty for years. I remember Angela Merkel, the previous German, longtime German Chancellor, saying, I think in 2017, when Trump was elected for the first time, now it's the time for Europeans to take their defence in their own hands.

But not much has happened over the years. And I would even diagnose a learned helplessness for Europeans. They have learned to depend so much on the US security umbrella that they rather invested their money elsewhere, their energy elsewhere.

And this has led to this situation. So I hear you about this fragmentation. We always have that in Europe, we need to get 27 member states in the EU and even more in NATO at the table.

But I think the seriousness of the situation and the threat posed by Russia, and at the same time, the question marks over the US security umbrella, I think these are strong enough to really push Europeans to act. And we've seen that in the last couple of weeks, we now have a plan on the table for the European Union to, on the one hand, borrow 150 billion to give us loans to the member states, but also free national defence budgets from fiscal rules to really invest heavily in defence. And I think this is sort of a push for European defence like we haven't seen at least since the Cold War.

Dominic: Yeah, it's very interesting. And there's been a sharp rise in hybrid attacks across Europe, including cyber intrusions, targeting critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns, attempting to destabilise democracies and sabotage operations in many countries in Europe that have been linked to Russian intelligence. And I think this is also another push that's, I guess, complementing Trump's push for independence.

But at the same time, this political uncertainty that we're seeing in Washington, it's left Europe questioning whether it can still rely on US for security. And I think the answer is it certainly can't, it can't be confident of that. And you combine that with the increasing hybrid attacks from Russia, uncertainty around US commitments, and the learned helplessness that you referred to just a few moments ago, how long will it take Europe to be strategically independent, capable to handle major security threats on its own? I wonder, Nikolai, how vulnerable is Europe right now? 

Nikolai: I mean, it's certainly clear that there's a vulnerability there.

And the major threat, of course, comes from Russia. And I think it was Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, who said that in the long run, it cannot be that 450 million Europeans need the help of 300 million Americans to defend themselves from around 100 million Russians. And if you compare the size of the EU economy with that of Russia, it's clear that if Europe becomes real about defence, they can and have to outcompete Russia.

And therefore, maybe the most dangerous time are the next three to five years. Because of course, we know that it takes time to rebuild defence industry, it takes time to rebuild conventional armed forces. And the biggest question mark is about nuclear deterrence, where Russia, of course, has an overwhelming advantage against the Europeans without the United States.

So, I think it's clear that there is a threat. And that threat is real, especially for European countries bordering Russia. But the European Union and the wider Europe that is serious about rearmament can also be self-confident if it does these investments.

A final point from a national perspective, where I think there's a shift also in the perception taking place. When there was a discussion in Germany this week about this huge investment package for infrastructure and defence, the upcoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke about not just the war against Ukraine, he spoke about Putin's war against Europe. And I think this is a framing that is fundamentally different to just sort of the EU and wider European countries supporting Ukraine in their defence against Russia, or really all of Europe defending to some extent in Ukraine, but also, as you said, in the hybrid domain against Russia that threatens all of us.

Dominic: Yeah, about the Russia that threatens all of us. I mean, that statistic or that data that you're quoting, Donald Tusk, is particularly poignant. You know, does Europe's 450 million citizens need the 350 million citizens from America to defend against the 100 million Russians? I think that's a fantastic one.

And your comment, though, seemingly at odds with that is the most dangerous time is now, over the next three to five years. Why is that? And we know Danish and Latvian intelligence services in the last month have released analysis about the increasing likelihood of a wider Russian invasion of Europe. So I wonder, how significant do you actually think, noting that there's 450 million people in Europe, only 100 million in Russia, how significant do you think the threat is to Europe? 

Nikolai: I think the accusation that Europe has to accept is that it didn't take the Russian threat serious enough.

I mean, for a long time, I'm coming from a country, Germany, where there was the idea that eventually security in Europe can only be achieved by integrating Russia, by increasing trade with Russia, by building Nord Stream 2 and the gas dependency upon Russia, always with the idea if we make enough trade with Russia, we can integrate them into our system. And I think we had to accept in 2022 that that had failed. But even then, it was not yet seriously being seen enough that Russia is also a threat for NATO countries, because there was always the expectation that the US would come to our aid and that the NATO and US nuclear umbrella is strong enough to deter any Russian thinking about attacking European countries outside of Ukraine.

And I think this has shifted in these last six weeks, where Donald Trump has made clear that he doesn't take the NATO commitment seriously, and that at the end of the day, there's a big question mark whether that support will still come. And this is why I think sort of Europeans have neglected to building up that deterrence themselves, too much dependent upon the US. And now they will have to do so quickly.

And this sort of brings me to the point, why are the next three to five years the most dangerous? Precisely because military buildup takes time. But eventually, I assume European industry will be able to outcompete Russia if there is this serious investment on defence. If Vladimir Putin really thinks about extending the military attacks beyond Ukraine to other European countries, then he probably will someday make the calculation that he cannot let a European rearmament go on forever, but need to act sooner.

Dominic:  You cited the intelligence services from European countries are already warning about that. But we of course, don't know whether there are any actual plans about that from Russia. Yeah, so in response to these growing security concerns, the European Union has launched the Rearm Europe initiative.

And this aims to mobilize about 800 billion euro to increase defence capabilities across the continent. How significant, Nikolai, do you think this initiative is to address Europe security needs? Will it be enough to fill the gap if the US support continues to wane? Do you think this really is a genuine step towards strategic autonomy? And will this translate into real military capability? 

Nikolai:I think the proof will still be in the putting. The 800 billion figure, I don't really like it, I have to admit, because it's a bit of a smokescreen.

Because what the EU essentially is doing is freeing up member states to spend more money on defence. And it's clear that we are not talking about something like, at least for the moment, we're not talking about EU bonds for defence where the EU pays itself for defence. But rather where these 800 billion figure comes from is that the EU wants to take 150 billion on the capital market, but give it as loans to the member states.

So still not as grants, but rather as loans, and then change fiscal rules for the member states so that they can spend more on defence themselves. And then they calculated if every EU member state spends about 1.5% of GDP more on defence, then you get 650 billion. And you add that to the 150 billion, you get 800, and you have a really nice figure for your press release, which to me is kind of a smokescreen.

And so the real question is, are member states willing to invest much more heavily on defence? Are they willing to do that in a European way to build up European defence industry? And are they willing to cooperate? And on the first one, we are having good signs now. I mean, we haven't talked much about Germany's decision to lift the debt break. Germany has announced not a clear target number, but it could be something like even 400 billion additional money euros for defence.

So that would already go a long, long way. You have countries like Denmark saying spend, spend, spend on defence. So basically, every country from Germany up to eastward to the border of Russia is increasing their defence spending.

And the bigger question marks are above countries like France, Italy, Spain, who are further away from Russia, whether they're also willing to contribute. So whereas I think this 800 billion number is kind of a smokescreen and not very helpful for the debate, I think the signs we're actually getting from the member states are that there is a seriousness to invest more and do more together on European defence, which is why I'm a bit more optimistic today than I was maybe six weeks ago. 

Dominic: Well, let's unpack what you just said. I mean, as you mentioned, Germany's leading political parties have reached a landmark agreement to invest up to 1 trillion euros in defence and infrastructure over the next decade. And I think this is a significant departure from decades of fiscal restraint in Germany. From what I understand of the current plan, it includes exempting defence spending above 1% of GDP, and it removes this stringent debt break that we've all heard so much about over the last couple of months.

And it also establishes a half a trillion euro fund for infrastructure projects. So I wonder, I think a lot of us are quite excited about the potential for this and the potential positives coming out of this. How will Germany's shifting spending priorities and defence posture affect European security dynamics? I mean, do you think that Germany will again emerge as a leading power, a leading military power within Europe? And one thing I guess to also balance with that, are they political and barriers that we need to be watching out for in the coming weeks that could scuttle all of this? 

Nikolai: So we're actually speaking in the weeks where these decisions are being formalised. We had a vote in the German parliament in the Bundestag, where there was a broad two thirds majority for these plans. And this is really a sea change for German fiscal policy, for German foreign policy, like we haven't seen for maybe the last 30 or 40 years. And it's interesting that this came about by a victory of the Conservative Party, the CDU-CSU in the elections and a kind of Nixon goes to China moment where the conservatives who have spearheaded this debt break for so long are the ones who are actually saying, OK, if this is fundamentally changed, we need to revisit that.

And as you said, the decisions are both on infrastructure, so huge investments on trains and bridges, but also schools and kindergartens. Not all of that will be defence related, but it will help to increase the economic competitiveness and potentials of Germany. And then as a second element, as you said, exempting parts of defence expenditure from the debt break.

Interestingly, not just sort of pure military defence expenditure, but also help for Ukraine would also be exempted from that, but also investment in civilian resilience in order to strengthen Germany's defence in, let's say, civilian terms. For Europe, I think the question is still how that money will be spent. And the coalition has also said that they will have to revisit procurement laws in Germany to spend that money wisely and quickly.

And there is a question whether they will spend it together with other European partners. So the European Commission has just proposed a mechanism for joint procurement. And a big country like Germany could, of course, be a kind of lead nation to others where it could procure armaments together with smaller and medium-sized European countries to both decrease the complexity of European armed forces, increase their interoperability, but also, of course, to some extent, invest in defence industry.

And it's really interesting that in recent weeks, there's almost been a shift of sort of economic attention in Germany. Sort of a nice figure of that is that Rheinmetall, a German defence company, became bigger on the stock market than Volkswagen. And this is kind of a sort of symbolic shift from the focus on sort of the car industry, which has its problems currently in Germany, to this new dynamism in German and European defence industry.

Dominic: It's very interesting. And Germany is just not short of giving case studies. I mean, whether we're discussing Volkswagen's response to their mission scandal or the attempted assassination of the CEO of Rheinmetall, there's certainly a lot of case studies coming out of Germany.

It makes my work quite interesting when looking for case studies, working with clients. But post-Brexit, security concerns between the EU and the UK were largely sidelined as there was this big focus on trade relations. But the war in Ukraine really has demonstrated that necessity of closer collaboration between Europe and the UK and working together.

Now, with this military collaboration already happening, and of course, it's been happening for decades, do you think that we'll see a more formalized Europe-UK defence agreement in the near future? And if so, what are the likely impacts of a UK-EU defence cooperation, especially at a time where both the UK and many European states are actually increasing their defence spending? 

Nikolai: It would be very important. I mean, to think through European defence without the Americans is hard enough. But if you would then exclude the British as well, I think that gets next to impossible.

And so I think we've already seen over the last sort of three years an intensification of an EU-UK cooperation in security defence. They cooperate and coordinate quite closely on supporting Ukraine. The UK is one of the leading powers, especially in Northern Eastern Europe, one of the flagship nations within NATO and the Baltic defence.

So there's clearly an interest to cooperate together. But there's also a challenge of how do you integrate a non-EU country into EU defence initiatives? And part of the blame goes on the UK itself. We had the decision by the Johnson government after Brexit to basically say, we don't want anything to do with the European Union also on security defence.

They shelved some of the initial plans from Theresa May for a security partnership. And when negotiating the sort of future relationship between the EU and the UK, Johnson said, we don't want any talks about foreign and security policy. We don't need that.

And so the starting point is quite challenging. There's no institutionalised cooperation between the EU and the UK on security defence. And so we actually did a study in our institute looking at all the different instruments in EU security defence policies.

And basically all of them allow participation of third countries, but they have pretty strict rules on which countries can apply. So for instance, for anything defence industry related, they say you have to be in some shape or form connected to the single market over the economic area, which is mostly Norway. And so right now, up until let's say today, there was almost no of the security and defence instruments where the UK actually participated at the EU level.

There's a single one where they try to participate. It's a so-called military mobility. It's a project that should enhance the sort of mobility of sending troops and tanks and so on across EU member states.

And the UK actually applied to join, I believe in 2023, but haven't yet formally become a member. Why? Because they still have a difference over the airport of Gibraltar. So it's sometimes even these little things that keep the cooperation from happening.

And so the starting point is quite difficult. But as part of the rearm proposals that the European Commission put forward, they proposed for the first time to change the third country rule and to allow countries to participate, for instance, in joint procurement and joint defence initiatives who are either candidate countries like Ukraine or who have a security defence agreement, a security and defence partnership with the European Union. And now who has that so far? That's interestingly Japan.

It's South Korea, big defence producer for countries like Poland. But there are also talks with Canada, the UK and India about a security and defence partnership. And this is where things could really get interesting, where I imagine there will be lots of sort of negotiations going on between Brussels and London.

There's a big summit between the EU and the UK planned for May. And my assumption is that they plan to finalise this security and defence partnership so that in effect, the UK could also be integrated in procurement and defence industrial initiatives. 

Dominic: Well, that will be a big and important development. And as you mentioned earlier, the use of nuclear weapons and a nuclear shield is also a big topic. But this is understandable. And with the heightened security concerns along NATO's eastern flank, particularly after Moscow stationed nuclear weapons in Belarus, Poland has called for the US to station nuclear weapons on its soil as a deterrent against Russia. But Germany, a country that's historically opposed nuclear proliferation in Europe, has perhaps signalled shifts in German public opinion and leadership priorities, which suggests perhaps evolving dynamics when it comes to nuclear shields. Nikolai, how do you see Berlin and the rest of the EU responding to this request from Poland, and even combined with the overtures from France about extending its nuclear shield to member states? 

Nikolai:I mean, the conversation has certainly shifted. And there is this old report of Charles de Gaulle, the old French president, saying to his then American counterpart, saying he just don't trust the Americans to use their nuclear weapons to defend Paris.

And he used that as an argument for developing an unilateral French nuclear umbrella. And the question we have to ask ourselves, would Donald Trump risk the United States' security for Tallinn, for Riga, for Warsaw, for Berlin? The answer is we don't really know. And so this is why this conversation about a nuclear umbrella is heating up.

But it's, of course, a very difficult discussion for, I would say, at least two reasons. The first difficulty is the gap in capabilities. So the French and the UK nuclear stockpiles have each around, we don't have sort of the exact public figures, between 200 and 300 nuclear warheads.

And Russia and the United States have several thousands. So the difference between France, the UK on the one side and the US umbrella on the other side, it's vastly different. And secondly, a nuclear deterrent only works if you have one person who can make the call and who you can rely upon.

And for the last 60 to 70 years for the Europeans, this was the US president. Now, a situation where this would be the French president is a big question mark for many Europeans. I mean, we could imagine there's a French President Le Pen or Bade La in two years' time.

Would then the other Europeans trust in that person? I've talked to colleagues from Turkey, for whom the US nuclear umbrella is also highly relevant. Would Turkey trust in a French nuclear umbrella with all the different difficulties between Turkey and France over other issues? I don't think so. And so it's a very delicate, very difficult decision.

And whereas I'm quite confident that Europeans are getting serious about rearmament on the conventional field, I don't think anybody has a convincing answer for the nuclear deterrent. And yes, you're right. There are different signals from different European countries.

We had the Polish president from the Peace Party calling for stationing of US nuclear weapons in Poland, but at the same time, Donald Tusk. So the Prime Minister from the different party, the sort of conservative party, has at least signaled a willingness to talk with Macron about French nuclear weapons. And the same is happening in Germany.

The upcoming Chancellor has at least signaled a willingness to enter a conversation with France about that. But this conversation is really at the very, very start and doesn't have, to my knowledge, any convincing answers about that difficult decision on who will actually control these nuclear weapons. Because one thing is clear, Macron, despite offering this conversation about extending the French nuclear deterrence, has at the same time made clear the final decision to launch a nuclear weapon will always rest with the French president.

And I think by the very nature of a nuclear deterrent, this cannot be something decided by anonymity of 27 member states or even 10 or maybe even two member states. You need one person to be credible and saying, I can take the decision. And that's very, very difficult to imagine under the current European circumstances who that person could be.

Dominic: Very difficult to imagine indeed. And also finding a ceasefire in the Ukraine also right now seems difficult to imagine. And President Trump's recent proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine has been met with resistance from President Putin, whose actions are being described by most analysts as manipulative, as deceptive, and ultimately unchanged in core objectives.

We see Putin giving limited concessions. He's only agreeing to a partial 30-day halt on attacks against energy infrastructure rather than a full ceasefire. And these minimal concessions ultimately allow Russia to continue its military operations.

This is what is seen by many as a strategic delay, making Donald Trump wait for the phone call. And then when they had the phone call, only allowing limited concessions. We're seeing these unrealistic demands where Putin's conditions for a ceasefire include ending all military and intelligence support for Ukraine, which is clearly unacceptable to not just Ukraine, but it's also its allies.

Undermining Ukraine's sovereignty, demanding that territorial integrity be compromised, and also even a decision that America and Russia would decide whose allies and who could ally with Ukraine and who Ukraine would ally with. We're seeing this exploiting of divisions where by engaging directly between Trump and Putin, really it's excluding Ukraine's allies, including Europe, but also Ukraine itself. There's a propaganda victory coming out of this and really there's just a lack of good faith demonstrated by Putin over the last couple of weeks negotiating this potential ceasefire.

And I suggest that Putin's stance shows no real intention of actually ending the conflict and definitely no intention of ending the conflict on terms that are acceptable to Ukraine and to Europe. And instead represents what is ultimately a tactical maneuver to undermine support for Ukraine while still pursuing Russia's initial territorial expansion. So in light of this and in light of this analysis, how do you assess the prospects for a possible ceasefire in Ukraine? And what sort of diplomacy do you think European nations should be pursuing to try and end this war or at least achieve some sort of a ceasefire? 

Nikolai: Well, I guess the problem is not just that is Putin negotiating in good faith? No, but this is no surprise to Europeans.

I think the bigger problem is, is Trump negotiating in good faith? And the answer probably at the moment, no. What we've seen over the last couple of weeks as Europeans is a US president who is negotiating over our heads, who is pressuring not Russia but Ukraine, withholding key intelligence, withholding weapons, voting against Ukraine and the Europeans in the UN General Assembly and Security Council and basically giving Putin one concession after the other without getting anything back. So accepting Russia as an equal, making noises about accepting Russian territorial annexation of Ukraine and so and the list goes on and on.

And I think what Europeans need to show and the question that has been raised in the last couple of weeks is, are we as Europeans and I include the UK and all EU countries in that, are we able to support and keep up the Ukrainian defense if the US stops doing and supporting Ukraine itself? I think this is sort of the decision point we're moving towards. European strategic autonomy means the ability to say no, the ability to say no to Trump, you cannot just sell out Ukraine. And as long as we are willing to support Ukraine, Ukraine can stand and withstand Russian aggression.

Are we as Europeans able to do that? , I think the last couple of days have shown that in the short term, I would argue yes, but for a long time, there's of course still a question mark. But in all of that, we have to say that the Ukrainians themselves have been not only very brave, but also very intelligently using the means that they have, developing a whole sort of industry around drone warfare themselves. And so if we can cooperate with them as EU Europeans, NATO Europeans with Ukraine, I think there's a chance to actually achieve that ability to say no to good faith negotiations between the US and Russia, which goes over Europe's head.

And Europe is clearly striving to bolster its military cooperation in response to these growing security threats from Russia. But simultaneously, most European states also have significant domestic challenges such as stagnation, economic challenges, sticky inflation, immigration, political polarization, a decline of democracy in many European states. So how can European countries effectively balance these significant international risks with these internal domestic policy priorities? It's a huge challenge.

I mean, it's a huge challenge to actually stay united. We saw that at the European Council one and a half weeks ago, where they actually for the first time, at least on this level, made the decision to say, we're having a decision on supporting Ukraine as 26. And Hungary is just sitting at the outside table.

And of course, now it's, quote unquote, just Hungary. They managed to convince Slovakia to sign up on the declaration in support of Ukraine. But obviously, it will be challenging to keep up that unity.

But I would argue so far, the EU has been much more resilient and much more united than Vladimir Putin certainly expected in 2022, has been able to keep up the pressure and sanctions and military aid to Ukraine. And I'm surprisingly confident that this unity will keep up in support of Ukraine, even if we see sort of parting of the ways with the United States to some extent. What I think is more critical is the question of where does the money come from? And we are seeing different approaches at the moment.

Germany, just as we discussed earlier, has made this huge decision to increase its debt significantly. But this was only possible to some extent because Germany had several years of austerity and now has this fiscal room to actually take on more debt without big question mark about its debt sustainability. Other countries like France or the United Kingdom are not so lucky.

Their debt is already close to 100 or even above 100% of GDP. And so the UK actually made the decision to cut their overseas development aid by 40% to shift money to defense. A thing where you also might question is that really wise in terms of cutting your soft power if you cut your development aid so significantly.

So there are going to be hard questions for every European country in terms of where they can generate that money. But my final point on that is, and this relates a little bit to our discussions earlier, if Europeans spend this money wisely, it could also be used to generate economic growth and competitiveness. And there's now in Brussels, you hear this sort of war or military kaneism again being raised as a possibility where investment in defense industry can spill over in jobs, in technological defense, in technological innovations, in AI companies, in space industries.

And so if, and this is a big if, that money is being spent wisely, then it can actually be to the benefit, not just only on military defense and deterrence, but also on economic growth. 

Dominic: Yeah, I agree with you unquestionably, Nikolai. The risks unquestionably also bring opportunities in terms of innovation, investment and development across Europe.

And I hope Europe really grabs this opportunity as it presents itself today. One question we ask all the guests on the International Risk Podcast, Nikolai, is when you look around the world, what are the international risks that concern you the most? 

Nikolai: I guess for me, it's really the health of US democracy and where the United States turns. And if we see a United States that really seems to me at the moment be on a speed run of Hungarian or Turkish slide towards a competitive authoritarianism, if that happens in the United States as well, that questions all of the alliances of the United States that question the European security architecture.

And that would really fundamentally shift all the way we organize security on our continent. But as I said earlier, if Europeans then rise up to the moment, this could also be something that pushes Europe to become more self-reliant. But still that for me is the biggest risk for security and peace at the moment.

Dominic: Well, thanks very much for sharing your thoughts on that, Nikolai. And thank you very much for coming on the International Risk Podcast today. 

Nikolai:  It was a pleasure.

Dominic: Well, that was a great conversation with Dr. Nikolai von Ondaatse. I really appreciated hearing Nikolai's thoughts on the future of European security, especially in light of escalating international risks. Today's podcast was produced and coordinated by Camilla Mateos Betancourt.

I'm Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening and we'll speak again next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of the International Risk Podcast.

For more episodes and articles, visit theinternationalriskpodcast.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, BlueSky and Instagram for the latest updates and to ask your questions to our host Dominic Bowen. See you next time.