00:00It's no accident that NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters, or part of it anyway,
00:06finds itself on an abandoned platform, part of the Jubilee Line at Charing Cross Station.
00:14That is because, under the command of Lieutenant General Mike Ellis,
00:18this is the organisation that will be responsible for a response to a Russian invasion.
00:25Now, over the last few days, they've been testing out their capability to reach deep into the Russian lines,
00:33into Russia itself, with what they call deep fires, long-range rockets and now drone attacks,
00:40in the event that, for example, somewhere like Estonia or one of the Baltic states was attacked by Russia.
00:46And this is all part, not only of NATO's planning and preparation for what they fear could be,
00:53Russian plans to invade more of Europe after their attacks against Ukraine,
00:59but also part of the raising of consciousness across certainly the whole of the United Kingdom,
01:05but also Europe as well, with those images of British officers working deep underground in a London tube station,
01:13obviously echoing the images from Britain during the blitz and the sustained attacks on London by Nazi Germany
01:23when civilians were evacuated to safety underground.
01:27Now, across Europe, this has been the main preoccupation.
01:32There are still intense negotiations over the extent to which countries like the United Kingdom
01:38are genuinely meeting their NATO spending requirements when it comes to expanding the level of defence spending
01:47within very, very tight fiscal arrangements.
01:51But across Europe, there has been an effort to try to build up the capability to defend against a Russian
01:58invasion
01:58and increase European capacity.
02:00And this is all coming at a time when the American allies are at best equivocal
02:07in terms of their responses and their relationships with NATO.
02:13We've seen Donald Trump over the last year and a half definitely taking Russian side,
02:19at least philosophically, when it comes to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine,
02:25constant undermining of the NATO alliance and America's place in it.
02:31And I think that that is what's so important about this ARC operation at Charing Cross,
02:36because it does involve both the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and his deputy, the land commander,
02:45both of whom are American generals.
02:48And they sit above the British general as part of NATO's efforts to prepare
02:53for a Russian invasion.
02:56And whilst they are continuing their job, their president is making quite a lot of that activity
03:03in the background look increasingly difficult.
03:06For example, in the last month, he has both suspended American participation in exercises in Poland
03:15and then just in the last 48 hours or so returned 5,000 troops to that project.
03:21This on-off attitude of the Americans to NATO means that working together,
03:29these integrated exercises combined with the continuing Russian hybrid war
03:34already being prosecuted against Europe is upping the ante
03:38and increasing the level of energy from other NATO partners inside Europe.
03:44That's a big for trousers and the leaders in Poland.
03:44Welcome back.
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