Ben Hall
speaker
96 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 10 Jul
Ben Hall’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.
Appearances
Taking Stock · Are weight loss drugs starting to have an economic impact on society? · 10 Jul 2026
podcast
There's a feeling that NATO needs to become European, and that isn't just about having more air-to-air refueling aircraft.
It's about actually being able to fight a war without the Americans if necessary.
Yes, and we're beginning to see that happening already.
In fact, there were some announcements in Ankara about NATO allies collectively buying a bunch of surveillance aircraft, new surveillance aircraft from Saab of Sweden, which would give them, you know, new powerful capabilities and their ability to collect intelligence for the battlefield, reconnaissance, surveillance.
But you're right, America has provided the bulk of this stuff, the bulk of the
of the kind of military integration of the alliance.
Intelligence, but also secure communications, the ability to process data quickly, the ability to go from intelligence to processing data, to targeting, to firing in a sort of seamless, quick chain.
Those are the things that the Americans have really...
lent to NATO and that the Europeans are going to have to try and replace at least partially.
And that's what's going to take a very long time and a lot of money.
But they are beginning to realise that they have to do it and they're beginning to take steps to do it.
I think the language is commitment, and I think there's a growing realization, certainly on the European side, and I think you even saw a little bit from Trump this week, which is that Ukraine has now maybe the upper hand, at least temporarily, through its use of long-range strikes, which are having a real effect in Crimea, occupied Crimea, and in Ukraine.
in terms of bringing the war home to ordinary Russians by all these strikes on refineries.
I think also for Europeans, it's a sort of brutal kind of realization that actually the Ukrainians are tying up
hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers in a murderous, interminable war.
And ultimately that is kind of good for European security in the sense that it buys the Europeans some time to rearm and to regroup.
And so I think more and more the Europeans are realizing that the Ukrainians really are kind of central to their own security.
And this is why being able to fund Ukraine's defense over the long term is actually a really good investment, money well spent from a European point of view.
Yeah, so this is what Pete Hegseth, the self-styled Secretary of War, says.
They're going to conduct a six-monthly review of the American force posture in Europe.
Showing 41–60 of 96 · page 3 of 5
← Previous
Next →