By Jim Garamone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2015 – Military strength encourages
diplomatic dialogue, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in Berlin
yesterday.
NATO’s first priority is to remain strong and effective,
Stoltenberg said following his meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“There is no contradiction at all between … military
strength and dialogue,” he said. “Actually, I believe that the only way that we
can achieve the dialogue in a cooperative relationship with Russia we are
seeking is that we have a … two-track approach: strong defense and dialogue.”
NATO Addresses New Challenges, Threats
NATO is an alliance of democratic countries defending the
same core values that were attacked in Paris last week, the secretary general
said. “I think what happened in Paris also underlines that the security
environment is changing,” he said. “NATO has to meet and to address new
challenges, new threats. We see that they emerge from many different
directions.”
On the alliance’s southern flank there is instability stretching
from North Africa to the Middle East. “Iraq and Syria are neighbor countries to
a NATO ally, Turkey,” Stoltenberg said.
These areas of instability threaten NATO allies Turkey,
Greece and Italy, he said. Growing terrorist sentiment in the region, he added,
also poses the threat of attacks in the various homelands like those
experienced in Paris.
“To the east, we see new challenges emerging,” Stoltenberg
said. “We have seen that the independence, the integrity, the sovereignty of
Ukraine has been intimidated, not respected. If you add this to a dangerous mix
of missile proliferation, cyberattacks and also energy distortion or
destructions, then you see that we are living in a world with threats and
challenges which we have to face.”
Three Priorities
The alliance is facing these threats by focusing on three
priorities, Stoltenberg said. “Priority number-one is to keep NATO strong, to
make sure that NATO also in the future is able to protect and defend all allies
against any threat,” he said.
NATO has agreed to field more flexible and agile deployment
forces, Stoltenberg said. “Today, we have the establishment of an Interim High
Readiness Force where Germany is the lead key nation,” he said. The force will
bridge to a more permanent solution that will cover both the southern and
eastern flanks.
Aiding allies and partner nations is another priority,
Stoltenberg said. “We are working with countries like Moldavia, Georgia and
Ukraine to enable them to be better able to take care of their own security in
their own region, in their own country, and also helping us with fighting
terrorism,” he said.
The alliance is also working with other countries in other
regions to increase their capabilities, Stoltenberg said.
Relationship With Russia
NATO still wants a cooperative, constructive relationship
with Russia, he said. “If we are going to have a constructive and cooperative
relationship with Russia, Russia must want it too,” Stoltenberg said. “Russia
has to respect the fundamental rules of coexistence between nations. And that
is that we have to respect the borders of nations.”
The third priority, he said, is investment in capabilities
for the future. “For a long period, NATO countries have reduced their defense
spending, partly as a result of the end of the Cold War,” Stoltenberg said. “It
was a peace dividend that almost all countries benefitted from. But they
continued to cut defense spending because of the financial crisis.”
In the same period, Russia has increased its defense
spending, and showed a willingness to use force, Stoltenberg said.
At the NATO Summit in Wales last year, the allies agreed to
increase spending and move to the goal of 2 percent of gross domestic product
dedicated to defense.
“The fundamental thing is that by working together, by
protecting each other, by adhering to the fundamental principles of ‘one for
all; all for one’ we are able to protect our open, free societies which we so
highly value,” he said.
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