Press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Defence Ministers
QUESTION (Kommersant): Secretary General, let me go back to what you have said yesterday. You announced the largest military build-up of NATO force in Eastern Europe along the Russian border. And you have also mentioned that is because you need the Alliance to counter any threat. So could you please be more specific – what kind of threat are you talking about? And what kind of scenario does NATO expect? Do you really believe for example Russia can invade Baltic States?
SECRETARY GENERAL: We don’t see any imminent threat against any NATO Ally. But what we see is a more demanding security environment. Both caused by the instability, the violence we see to the south, but also caused by a more assertive Russia in the east. Which has invested heavily in defence over many years, which has conducted a wide range of snap military exercises, and thereby reducing predictability and transparency. And not least which has been willing to use military force to intimidate neighbours and to change borders in Europe. So it’s this pattern.
And both challenges to the south and to the east that has required a response from NATO. And we are responding by implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War. Partly by increased forward presence, partly by increasing our ability to reinforce. By, for instance, tripling the size of the NATO Response Force.
So we don’t see any imminent threat, but we see a need for adapting to a more challenging security environment, and that’s exactly what we are doing.
Σχολιασμός
01: 2016-02-13 23:34:08
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