General Sir Richard Barrons

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110 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 10 Jul

General Sir Richard Barrons’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Independent Thinking · NATO in Ankara: Is Europe ready for a Russian attack? · 10 Jul 2026 podcast

But the challenge for Europe now is to recognise Russia has its eyes on Article five and realizes the US cavalry isn't coming, sees the Article five is the mutual defence promise that lies at the heart of NATO.

So at the heart of NATO, Article V assures that an attack on one nation is an attack on all.

And it assumes, though there is never a guarantee attached to it, that should, for example, Russia pick on a Baltic state, that the rest of Europe binds in behind that Baltic state and also America.

And I think Russia now understands that the prospect of the US

Doing that is rapidly diminishing.

And secondly, Russia understands that it has a hardened, transformed

modernized military, particularly in terms of land power, because it's been at war in Ukraine for more than four years, and it has a war economy.

And it has a choice to continue to batter away in Ukraine at a thousand broken lives a day.

Or it could decide to refocus that power on Europe before Europe is ready, acknowledging, rather like the Japanese felt in the lead up to the Second World War, that there was a window of declining opportunity for Russia to exercise this power.

And this is really important.

In my view, Turkey is an absolutely vital part of of European NATO.

It's not just its geography and the size of its armed forces, it's the size and strength of its defence industrial base.

It's capable of making up much of the gap that could be left in European inventories if they were to turn away from ready sources of supply in the US.

And more than that, it does straddle

Europe and Asia in a way that few other European countries can do.

So I I think NATO would be significantly weakened and more vulnerable if somehow Turkey were not to be part of the alliance.

So uh That is a question.

So the United Kingdom since nineteen forty nine has claimed to be the leading military European partner.

And on the back of that, for example, has the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe post filled initially by Field Marshal Montgomery, for example.

So for seventy years you've held that position.

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