Janet Jalil

In Vietnam in particular, yes, yes. It was Vietnam that the assumption that millions of tons of bombs just make people surrender. Well, I've seen it with my own eyes. It doesn't happen that way. And Gulf nations are furious with Iran for the attacks that it's carried out on them, but they're also reassessing their relationship with the U.S.,

Yes, they must do, because like with Europe, like with Britain, we know now that we can't absolutely 100% trust the US or whatever presidents empower what he says. And that's as important to the Gulf states as it is to Europe.

BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson. The UN says there are no longer any safe spaces for civilians to find refuge in Lebanon, even in the capital Beirut. More than a thousand people have been killed in the past four weeks of fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah. From the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, here's our Middle East correspondent Hugo Beshega.

Lebanon is at breaking point. A country that has already suffered so much in recent years, on the verge, the UN says, of a major humanitarian crisis. More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes because of the war. That's nearly one in five of the population. Shelters are overcrowded and many, with nowhere to go, are now living in improvised tents in squares and public spaces. Dr. Sarah Nader is from Doctors Without Borders.

The city of Tyre has been a key target of airstrikes. There's the constant sound of Israeli warplanes and drones in the sky. Streets are empty, as most residents have left, but some are here to stay, like this man, Khaled Ottman.

Israel kertoo, että se yrittää vahvistaa itsenäisiä puolueita Hezbollah-attaksella. Monet lebanaiset huomioivat, että tämä voisi tarkoittaa toisen israelilaisen puolustuksen. Ja että moni puolustuseläinten ihmiset eivät koskaan voi mennä takaisin.

The Middle East conflict is being watched closely by Ukraine, which fears it will be forgotten by the world in its long-running battle against Russia's invasion. But, as our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams explains, the two wars are connected in other ways as well.

Nämä kaksi konflikta ovat erittäin liittyneitä siksi, että sillä on säännöllinen yhteistyö Iranin ja Ranskan välillä. Ja siksi Ukrainalainen presidentti Zelenskijä on edelleen Venäjällä. Hän on tehty sopimuksen Saudin kanssa ja puhuttu paljon Ukrainalaisista käsitteistä, joita he ovat oppineet käsittelemään Venäjän aerealaisia vaikeuksia viisi vuotta sitten.

One of the interesting things going on in the Gulf at the moment is that those Gulf states are using extremely expensive methods to shoot down rather inexpensive Iranian drones. Ukrainians have learned everything there is to know about that dilemma in the last four years, and they have made do with a whole series of ingenious solutions. And it is those solutions and the experts involved in developing them that President Zelensky has said he is willing to share with the Gulf countries.

He obviously would like to get something in return. He would like to make sure, for example, that he doesn't run out of those most expensive interceptor missiles that you just heard Marco Rubio being asked about. And of course, I think he's also keen to show that Ukraine is a reliable partner and can be looked at by other countries in other conflicts as having something to offer. This is all part of Ukraine wanting to be an ally to the West and to the West's

Kiitos.

Paul Adams. It's not just the Ukrainians joining the dots between the war in Iran and Russia's invasion of their country. The head of the German armed forces, General Carsten Breuer, has told the BBC that the threat from Russia has never been more urgent. He's overseeing a rapid expansion of Germany's military might to turn its armed forces into the most powerful conventional ones in Europe, as our special correspondent Alan Little reports.

Ensimmäistä kertaa nansin ajan jälkeen Ruotsissa on aina sotilaallinen puolustus.

This is a NATO live fire exercise, and these German troops are wargaming a Russian invasion from the east on the great European plain. From the Baltic Sea in the west to the walls of the Kremlin in the east, there are few natural defensive barriers, no mountain ranges or deep river valleys. This terrain is extremely vulnerable to invasion.

I'm standing a few kilometers from Lithuania's border with Belarus, the very eastern edge of democratic Europe, in front of a column of German armored personnel carriers known as Boxers. Nothing illustrates the transformation of Germany's reputation and place in Europe more graphically than this German military build-up on territory outside Germany. For generations, Germany's neighbors had good reason to fear German militarism. Now they want democracy.

...Germany's strength in defense of European democracy.

I've never experienced a situation which is that dangerous, that urgent like it is today. And this is the man who is leading the rapid expansion of German military might. Karsten Breuer is the most senior soldier in the Bundeswehr, the chief of defense. What we are seeing, what we are facing is a threat from Russia. We can clearly see that Russia is building up their military to a strength which is nearly doubling in size from what they had before the war against Ukraine.

Mutta vuonna 2029 on mahdollisuus Ranskalle tehtävä iso sotilasvaara NATO-maassa. Ja minä sotilasvaltiolla täytyy sanoa, että meidän täytyy olla valmiita tähän. Konferenssi löytää, että sotilaalliset ihmiset, heidän koko maansa johtaneet, ovat aloittaneet käsittelemään terveistä... Joulukuussa 1945 BBC kertoi kuulijoille, miten yhdistelmät yhdistelmät poistivat Ranskaa.

Clement Attlee, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin decided that Germany must be demilitarized, and for decades Germany was content to rely on America to guarantee its security. But no longer. Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said Europe needs to acquire what he called operational independence from the United States. It is a measure of the breakdown of trust between Donald Trump's United States and many of the European allies. But what would European defense look like without the USA?

I think that is a question that many ask, and I think it is the wrong way to think about it. Sophia Besch is a senior researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. I doubt that we will have one country in Europe that can fill the footsteps of the US. The way that European defence has been organised in recent decades really is around the US. Yes, they were all equal, but the US was very much setting the tone. It was the capability foundation of European defence.