MADRID (AP) – NATO leaders on Wednesday tried to put into action the urgent sense of purpose caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and to patch up any cracks in their unity to overcome what the alliance’s chief called the most the great crisis after World War II.
Russia’s invasion of its neighbor has destroyed peace in Europe and forced NATO to dump troops and weapons in Eastern Europe on a scale never seen since the Cold War. Alliance members have also sent billions of military and civilian aid to Ukraine.
At the meeting of the 30 NATO leaders in Madrid, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be heard directly, who will probably ask them to do even more when addressing the gathering via video link. And NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the alliance was “in the midst of the most serious security crisis we are facing since World War II.”
US President Joe Biden, whose country secures most of NATO’s military power, said the summit would send “an unmistakable message … that NATO is strong and united”.
“We are getting stronger. We are proving that NATO is more needed now than ever before, “Biden said. He announced a significant increase in America’s military presence in Europe, including a permanent US base in Poland, two more Navy destroyers based in Rota, Spain, and two more F35 squadrons in the United Kingdom.
But tensions among NATO allies have also risen as the price of energy and other basic necessities has skyrocketed, in part because of the war and tough Western sanctions against Russia. There are also tensions over how the war will end and what concessions, if any, Ukraine must make to stop the fighting.
Money can also be a sensitive issue – only nine of NATO’s 30 members currently meet the organisation’s goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose country has indeed achieved its goal, called on NATO allies to “dig deep to restore deterrence and provide defense for the next decade.”
The war has already caused a major increase in NATO forces in Eastern Europe, and the Allies are expected to agree at the summit to increase the Alliance’s rapid reaction force almost eightfold, from 40,000 to 300,000 troops, by next year. The troops will be based in their home nations, but dedicated to specific countries on NATO’s eastern flank, where the alliance plans to stockpile equipment and ammunition.
Stoltenberg said NATO was undertaking “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.”
Leaders are also ready to publish NATO’s new strategic concept, its set of priorities and goals once a decade.
The latest such document from 2010 called Russia a “strategic partner.” The alliance is now ready to declare Moscow the number one threat. The document will also set out NATO’s approach to issues ranging from cybersecurity to climate change and China’s growing economic and military reach.
For the first time, the leaders of Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand attended the meeting as guests, reflecting the growing importance of Asia and the Pacific.
Stoltenberg said China was not an opponent of NATO, but a “challenge to our values, our interests and our security.”
Biden was scheduled to hold a rare meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yun Suk Yel on the sidelines of a summit focused on North Korea’s nuclear program.
The summit began with a resolved issue after Turkey agreed on Tuesday to lift opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO. In response to the invasion, the two Scandinavian nations abandoned their long-standing unattached status and applied to join NATO in defense against the increasingly aggressive and unpredictable Russia, which shares a long border with Finland.
NATO is acting by consensus, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to block the Scandinavian couple, urging them to change their position on Kurdish rebel groups, which Turkey considers terrorists.
After urgent top-level talks with the three countries’ leaders, Alliance Secretary Stoltenberg said the deadlock had been cleared.
Turkey hailed Tuesday’s agreement as a triumph, saying Scandinavian nations have agreed to break up groups Ankara sees as a threat to national security, including the Kurdish Workers’ Party, also considered a US-EU terrorist group, and its Syrian enlargement. . It also said they had agreed “not to impose restrictions on an embargo on Turkey’s defense industry” and to take “concrete steps to extradite terrorist criminals”.
Stoltenberg said the leaders of the 30-member alliance would issue a formal invitation to the two countries to join on Wednesday. The decision must be ratified by all individual countries, but he said he was “absolutely convinced” that Finland and Sweden would become members.
Stoltenberg said he expected the process to end “fairly quickly”, but did not set a time for it.
___
Associated Press writer Zeke Miller of Madrid contributed.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war
Add Comment