Maybe we have to be grateful to Donald Trump for once.

Because he threatens NATO members that he will no longer protect them from Russia.

With his radical statements about the security alliance, Trump has highlighted a problem that is now being intensively discussed: a NATO without the USA.

In the latest episode of the SPIEGEL foreign podcast Eight Billion, security expert Claudia Major unfolds this scenario and raises questions about Europe's defense capacity.

"NATO has a problem without the USA because we are so dependent on them," she warns. Their analysis includes the lack of political leadership, conventional conflict capability and nuclear deterrence capacity. "And in all three areas, the USA would create an enormous gap that the Europeans would not be able to quickly close."

Major draws parallels between the current geopolitical situation and historical events that shaped Europe's security architecture. She emphasizes that today's challenges require a unified European response and warns against taking US political and military support for granted.

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Claudia Major

heads the security policy research group at the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP). She is a member of the Advisory Board for Civilian Crisis Prevention at the Federal Foreign Office and the Advisory Board for Internal Leadership at the Ministry of Defense.

Photo: Melina Mörsdorf / DER SPIEGEL

Europe must urgently rethink its defense strategy in order to be able to effectively counter current and future threats. She hopes for a “society that understands the need for defense.” In her opinion, populist statements like those made by Donald Trump already represent a blatant weakening of the alliance.

"I think we have to be very clear that the USA doesn't have to leave NATO in order to fundamentally weaken it," says Claudia Major in the podcast. "But this political questioning alone weakens NATO fundamentally, because the most important basis of the alliance is the psychological political: Do 31 allies still believe that they all stand up for each other?"

Why should NATO’s Western allies be concerned about global stability? Why are Germany's special assets not sufficient for the Bundeswehr? And to what extent does the NATO issue also affect the prosperity of our society? Claudia Major talks about this in this episode of the SPIEGEL foreign podcast Eight Billion.

Listen to this episode right here: