major announcements coming out of this summit, of course, is bolstering
defense on the Eastern flank, and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
yesterday announced that the number of troops on high alert will
grow from 40,000 to 300,000. That's a big jump. What does it actually
mean? Right now? The alliance has something called the NATO Response
Force. It's about 40,000 troops that are prepared to move within
15 days.
By the end of this year, we're going to have a much larger pool of
forces preassigned and ready to go. And that will be up to 300,000
and with the possibility of deploying those troops on just a few
days notice how does it really make a big difference to
Have a number that is so much larger, But those troops are still
in their home countries at base. Well, you're right. NATO allies
do have forces at their disposal. Those forces trained together,
NATO allies regularly exercise together, but what's new and different
here is that we are, in fact, pre assigning or picking out sets of
forces that will be at the ready.
So then, when a crisis does bubble to the surface, NATO allies won't
have to go around and have what we would call some sort of force
generation exercise where you're asking countries. What's available
in this case will know exactly what allies have on hand and those
forces will be ready to deploy within days. The other step is the
number of troops actually deployed to Eastern Europe. Up until now,
there's been about 1000 troops battalion level in the three
The Baltic states as well as Poland.
Effectively as a trip wire, not enough troops to defend those countries
themselves. Those will go up to a brigade level 3000 to 5000 is that
high enough number, though, to actually defend that territory? Well,
what the alliance did a couple of months ago after Russia went into
Ukraine is it actually tasked the commander at NATO?
The secure as we call him, General Walters,
an American to conduct a review and try and determine what the alliance
would need in its eastern flank to deter
And defend against some sort of Russian attack or any attack in the
future. He came back with the advice that those allies that currently
have multinational battalions that we should be able to scale those
battalions to a brigade. Then there's the question of the NATO strategic
concept, basically a kind of national security strategy for NATO.
The last time NATO had it was 2010 and included this sentence.
NATO Russia cooperation is of strategic importance as it contributes
to creating a common space of peace, stability and security. At the
time you were at the Pentagon, you were the head of the director
of NATO policy. Looking back was the Obama administration was all
of NATO, frankly.
Nice. Well, look, we rewrite this strategic concept, this kind of
national security strategy once a decade, And so when we sit down
and do that we do the best job that we can. At the time When we wrote
the strategic concept in 2010. We were hopeful for a very different
trajectory of NATO's relationship with Russia.
Now, if you look back at what Russia did in 2014 in Crimea, if you
look at what it's recently done in Ukraine again since late February,
we're obviously in a completely different era and a different set
of circumstances. So this strategic concept is going to say.
And look a lot different than the one from 2010. The language on
Russia is going to reflect the current environment. It's going to
reflect Russia's war in Ukraine, the war crimes that we've talked
about their the indiscriminate attacks against civilians. The new
strategic document identifies Russia as Neos most immediate threat,
but there's been differences as you know.
Among NATO allies about how far to go. President. Macron, for example,
has said the West must resist the temptation to humiliate Russia.
Do you agree with that? I think we all come to the table at different
perspectives. Every single member of the alliance has a different
history with Russia different proximity to Russia.
Different geography. We appreciate that the countries that actually
border Ukraine or Belarus, where Russia has stationed tens of thousands
of troops, and just recently, president Putin warned that Belarus
could have more nuclear more Russian nuclear weapons. Exactly that.
We understand that those countries obviously look at the situation
differently than the rest of us that have some distance from the
war.
But again, the fact that we have all come together and agreed on
tax that describes the threat and charts a path for NATO going forward
is a remarkable moment in NATO's history, Ambassador Julie Smith
Thank you very much. Thank you.
And Nick will be covering those NATO meetings in Madrid in days to