NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that Ukraine must win the war against Russia to engage in meaningful discussion about joining NATO.
“The most urgent task now is to make sure that Ukraine wins as a sovereign state. The main focus must be on ensuring that Ukraine wins. And that is a prerequisite for any meaningful discussion about Ukraine’s membership,” Stoltenberg said during joint press conference with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kalas.
“NATO already has plans and capabilities to protect every ally and every inch of allied territory. Then we’re further strengthening deterrence and defense, in part through the decision we made in Madrid, and then the implementation, the follow-up that will happen now in Vilnius And here it is a question of allocating specific forces to specific territories, and also of increasing the readiness of our forces.
The main purpose of this is not really to wage war, but to prevent war. And deterrence has worked for almost 75 years for this Alliance, since we were founded in 1949. And so it’s partly a matter of forward presence – we’ve increased our presence in the Baltic region as well – but also of high readiness, ability to rapidly reinforce and pre-positioning of equipment.
And then we have to remember that the capabilities that we can move faster are the air force and the navy, which are also part of the deterrence in the Baltic region. So, yes, we’re constantly evaluating the need for a ground presence across the Alliance – including the Baltic region – but I think it’s extremely important to understand that our ability to defend every inch also relates to our ability to reinforce and there is credible deterrence, and that is exactly what NATO is all about, and that will be demonstrated in Vilnius as well.
Next, regarding Wagner’s powers: I think it’s too early to make any definitive conclusions as to what consequences this will have. The rebellion, the events that we saw, are internal Russian issues. We monitor and observe what is happening very carefully. We have seen that some of these forces may be stationed in Belarus, but again I think it is too early to draw any definitive conclusions. Most importantly, we are sending a very clear message to any potential adversary – including Moscow and Minsk – that we are there to defend and defend every inch of allied territory against any threat. So we’ve increased our presence, we’ll further strengthen deterrence and defense during the Vilnius summit, and then we’ll continue to monitor exactly what happens with Wagner’s forces.
In recent years, since 2014, NATO has implemented the largest collective defense reinforcements in a generation. And an important part of that has been – and continues to be – military mobility, because the ability to rapidly reinforce is a critical part of how we provide deterrence and how we can reinforce and deter any aggression against any NATO ally.
So what has happened in recent years is really a significant improvement in military mobility. There is massive investment in infrastructure and military transport and logistics capacity, more pre-positioned supplies and equipment. And also, of course, we work very closely with the European Union. I will be at the European Council tomorrow, along with Kaia and all the other EU leaders. And military mobility is part of this cooperation. But this does not depend only on the European Union budget, this is also financed by national budgets for investment in military capabilities to ensure mobility, but also in civil infrastructure, which is important to ensure military mobility.
This is something we do not only in words but also in deeds. We have the battlegroups, in fact we are now exercising the ability to rapidly scale them up to the brigade level. I got back from Lithuania this week, we had a big exercise demonstrating just that. We had an earlier exercise in Estonia to augment the British battle group. And an important part of that is to exercise and demonstrate military mobility to get these forces quickly into the territories, into the countries, where we want them to be.
Furthermore, I fully agree with Prime Minister Kallas: The fact that Finland is now a full member of the Alliance also changes the whole security, geography, in the Baltic Sea region. Because if you look at the map, it has profound implications for our ability to reinforce, to move forces rapidly into the Baltic region. And soon Sweden will also be a member and that will further strengthen our capability and make it easier to move and reinforce forces if needed.
We will continue to work with the European Union. But again: NATO’s primary task is not to agree to vacate land; NATO’s primary task is to prevent any attack against any NATO ally. And it’s deterrence, and it’s worked for almost 75 years. We managed to deter aggression against West Berlin: we didn’t have any forces in West Berlin in the middle of East Germany, but deterrence was reliable. I come from a country – Norway – the northern part of Norway did not have any NATO troops on the border with Russia at all, but the deterrence worked. So this is partly about being up front, but also about exercising, demonstrating the ability to reinforce in a credible way to prevent any attack at all.”
Place a rating:
☆
☆
☆
☆
☆
2.5
Rating 2.5 from 52 votes.
2023-06-28 18:59:00
#Stoltenberg #warned #Moscow #Minsk #protect #ally
