The NATO in its Momentum
WHiA Report
At the Madrid summit, NATO announced a new strategic concept for the alliance over the next ten years. Which includes increasing the size of NATO’s rapid intervention forces to 300,000 soldiers. Increasing support for Ukraine in the short and long term and deploying additional strong and ready-to-fight forces on the eastern flank. NATO also pledged to increase political support for Ukraine by strengthening the aid package. This, in turn, will improve Ukraine’s cyber defenses and rebuilding.
John Kirby, the National Security Council’s Coordinator for Strategic Communications, spoke about the decisions taken several months after US President, Joe Biden’s, efforts to support the eastern wing of NATO.
In response to the crisis in Ukraine, the US President has ordered the deployment and extension of more than 20,000 additional troops to Europe: in all areas – air, land, sea, cyber, space. The full range of US military capabilities which has now grown to 100,000 service personnel across Europe.
“In addition to carrier strike groups, additional fighter squadrons, an infantry brigade combat team, an armored brigade combat team, a set of simultaneous enabling capabilities, and an amphibious readiness group. Biden also ordered the NATO Response Force to be put on high alert and ready.”
“The importance of the Madrid summit comes with the increase in the number of countries in the alliance to 32, after Finland and Sweden were invited to join, the increase in resources from each of the member states in terms of their defense spending, and the participation of the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.”
By asking Kirby about the NATO agreement with Russia and the need to notify Moscow of changes on the ground, he said, “There is no need to inform Russia of the exact number of new soldiers,” and he cited the increase in the number of American soldiers in Europe over the past months, from about 80,000 to 100,000. Most of them are on the basis of temporary rotation. There was no requirement of notification, moreover, there was no contact with Moscow about these changes.
Kirby further noted, “US allies, are concerned about the growing and thriving relationship between Russia and China,” and spoke of China’s “unfair trade practices, use of forced labor, intellectual property theft, and their coercive activities not only in the Indo-Pacific, but in the whole world”.
Also participating in the dialogue, Celeste Wellander, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, said, “Today’s summit decisions reflect the recognition of the United States government that the security environment has changed in the NATO region, and that the eight eastern flank countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria) are facing an increasing threat from the Russian leadership, which has demonstrated its willingness and ability to launch military attacks on neighboring countries.”
“Decisions made by Joe will help create a stronger deterrence capability and provide defensive capability to make it more sustainable and credible in combat in many important respects, especially the eight east wing nations.”
Following the decision to maintain the brigade combat team (BCT) in Poland and Romania, the United States will be able to maintain a rigorous training schedule for these allies. The U.S. forces’ rotation in Europe will be able to maintain a very high level of readiness. This increases the ability of the United States to maintain the alliance’s presence in the eastern flank, especially the three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
“Poland is a strong ally in NATO. Special decisions have been made on increasing its defense spending, increasing its combat capacity, modernizing its defense forces, and a decision was made on increasing the number of destroyers from four to six in Spain.”
Wellander declined to give total figures for the number of new US forces that will be in Europe, for reasons of security and operational planning.
With regard to Turkey, it must be noted that “the US Department of Defense fully supports Turkey’s plans to modernize its F-16 fleet, as Turkey is a strategic ally in NATO with high capabilities, and the Turkish defense capability contributes to strengthening the strong defense capabilities of NATO.” .
Translated/ Edited by Malek Joseph
Intern with WHiA