ADRIAN MA, HOST:
President Trump has a new deal for Ukraine. He announced an arms agreement with NATO last week where European countries will buy weapons from the U.S. and can send supplies to Ukraine. The deal - for now, anyway - appears to mark a shift in U.S. policy towards the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Jim Townsend is a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, where he specializes in transatlantic security. He's also a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense under President Obama. Jim Townsend joins me now. And thanks for being here.
JIM TOWNSEND: Great to be here. Thank you.
MA: To start us off, what is your sense of how this deal might work and why it's coming together now?
TOWNSEND: Well, it's a - it was a surprise after seeing where Trump had been for so long when it came to assistance. And it's been interesting watching him react to photos of a lot of the bombing in Kyiv. He was upset by seeing children who were killed. He was asked a question during a press conference by a young Ukrainian journalist who said her husband was fighting and how much they needed Patriot missiles, and that seemed to touch him. And he said, well, we'll get some Patriot missiles there. So there was that, but I think what really lit the fuse was Putin himself. Trump began to understand, as many people have said and have seen for a while, that he was being played, and that's embarrassing to him.
MA: In practical terms, though, what's your sense of how it might work on the ground?
TOWNSEND: It's the Europeans, in a sense, being the middleman and the ones that pay the money. Trump particularly pointed to Patriot missiles as something that was his priority, and it should be a priority. The Ukrainians do need more air defense, and they need more Patriot. But how can we get Patriot to them quickly? Because right now, if you went to the manufacturers and said, we want to buy a couple of Patriot units, they're going to say, OK, stand in line and we'll deliver it to you in 10 years. Well, Ukraine needs it, like, tonight. So what you do is you look for Patriot units that are available, particularly in Europe, that you can quickly ship to Ukraine. So the Germans have already said that they will provide two of their Patriot units to Ukraine, and the Germans can effect a backfill for that from the United States that they will be paying for in a few years. But the idea that Europe is going to be paying the United States for this in a business deal - that's the price that Trump wants to see.
MA: What kind of impact would you see this having on the battlefield?
TOWNSEND: Right now the air defense systems that Ukraine has are close to being overwhelmed every night, and so you're seeing the casualty count go up. With these new Patriots going in, the first impact we will see is - I hope - fewer civilians being killed, more of those Russian missiles being taken out of the skies.
MA: Trump has been pretty consistent in terms of criticizing Europe for not doing enough for its own defense. Now Europe is committing to spend a lot more, including investing in its own military industries. Do you have a sense of what kind of progress Europe is making in terms of weapons production?
TOWNSEND: Well, Europe is making progress across a broad front - increasing their defense spending, including working together on projects like a next-generation fighter or something along those lines. The problem, though, is the defense industry, both in United States as well as in Europe. They are still shaped the way they were after the Cold War ended. They got smaller and they've remained small. And now suddenly money is coming in, saying, we need more tanks, planes, ammunition, and they're not at scale to do that. So these industries are going to have to put money into building more factories, hiring more workers. It's going to take time to do that. It's a problem not just in Europe, but in the United States, too.
MA: Let's say Europe were to eventually become less reliant on the U.S. for defense. What would that mean for global security?
TOWNSEND: Well, I think in the future, as European defense industry gets bigger and stronger and technologically close to the United States, they will compete with us to sell their equipment, whether it's to Israel or to Asia somewhere. And so that's going to be one of the impacts that'll be seen. I don't think you're going to see an impact that is going to be something like an arms race or a proliferation of equipment and weapons around the world. There aren't that many European industry. It's not every country that has a - an industry. The French are known for it, the Brits, the Germans, the Swedes, Italians.
MA: But potentially more sellers in the global defense marketplace.
TOWNSEND: That's right. There'll be more sellers, and competition is good. You don't want to have any one country, like the United States, to dominate because then you don't get the best price if there's not a competitor there. So I think having the Europeans in there giving us a run for our money is a good thing.
MA: That's Jim Townsend, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security. Jim, thanks again for joining us.
TOWNSEND: You're welcome.
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