Is Europe ready for a future without the US? – podcast

Landstuhl is a unique place: a small town in the south-west of Germany, it is also very American.

There are American fast food joints, nail salons flying the US flag … and it has, says the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent, been welcoming the US army since it marched into the nearby city of Kaiserslautern in spring 1945.

Now Donald Trump says he will pull troops from Germany, apparently to punish the German chancellor for suggesting his war in Iran was a mistake.

Anxiety is spreading in Landstuhl – but leaders across Europe are also starting to worry that this is just the start of the US withdrawal from the continent. They are increasing defence spending, reintroducing conscription and stockpiling weapons. But is it enough? Helen Pidd asks Deborah if Europe is really ready to defend itself alone.

Photograph: Bernd Hartung/The Guardian