Oana Lungescu

You're listening to The Foreign Desk with me, Andrew Mueller.

Our first guest is Oana Lungescu, who was NATO's principal spokesperson from 2010 to 2023.

Uh, Oana, first of all, is it your perception that non-US NATO allies and other allies, South Korea, for example, are starting to work around the United States more than with the United States?

The United States, of course, uh, remains absolutely key to NATO, the Transatlantic Alliance.

On the other hand, there is the reality of national interests and the need to be able to defend Europe for the long term.

And even though I'm sure that if push came to shove, countries like the Baltics, Finland, Poland, many others would actually defend themselves and get together to defend themselves, for the medium and long term, it w- it would be very hard to defend Europe without US involvement.

That was Oana Lungescu, former NATO principal spokesperson.

This is The Foreign Desk.