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Event transcript
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Speaker
Jens Stoltenberg
Secretary General, NATO
Moderated by
Frederick Kempe
President and CEO, Atlantic Council
FREDERICK KEMPE: Good morning, if it still is the morning. It’s great to see you all here in person. It’s wonderful to have so many people here online from all over the world and, of course, across all of our allies in Europe as well.
So, it’s my honor to introduce someone I’ve known a long time now, the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. And I’m going to moderate conversation with you at a moment—something you’ve called a pivotal moment for our Alliance. I was going to start by saluting you on something I didn’t know about, which is your great arm because you threw out the first pitch of the Nationals game. And it was an amazing. I was there in the heat, sweating while I was watching you. But it was—it was an amazing salute to NATO.
But having been at Mellon Auditorium yesterday evening, one of the most moving events I’ve been at, I’ll instead quote President Biden, what he said to you as he gave you the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a standing ovation—a really remarkable moment. He called you a man of integrity and intellectual rigor, a calm temperament in a moment—in moments of crisis, a consummate diplomat. And I think the consummate diplomat, a person who can engage with leaders across all spectrums and across all nationalities, and I just want to salute you on behalf of everyone in the audience for more than a decade of the most extraordinary leadership. So let’s start with that.
JENS STOLTENBERG: Thank you.
FREDERICK KEMPE: So we at the Atlantic Council gave you our highest honor, the Atlantic Council Distinguished Leadership Award, in 2017. And I consider that visionary. We knew you’d already accomplished a lot in your life, and I won’t go through it all—you know, prime minister of Norway, all the things you’ve done for NATO and at NATO in terms of strengthening its defense, strengthening the defense spending. And I think it would take too time—too long to go on that. And you’re a humble man, and I don’t think you would even want that. So I’m going to go right into the questions.
You laid out three goals for this summit—increasing support for Ukraine for the long haul, reinforcing collective defense, and deepening global partnerships. I’m sure they’re all important, but for this week what do you consider most crucial?
JENS STOLTENBERG: I will answer that in a moment, but let me first say that it’s great to be here, to be at the Public Forum. And many thanks to you, Fred. And also many thanks to all those who have organized and are making this event possible, because this is an important part of the summit, the public outreach which this Public Forum is a very important part of. Then thank you for your kind words. It has actually been a great privilege serving as secretary general of NATO for ten years. And I see around in the in the audience that there are many people who have helped me, supported me. And so many thanks to all of you for your advice, your help, and support throughout these years.
Then on throwing the first pitch, that is the most difficult task I ever committed as secretary general of NATO. Not least because I’ve never been at the baseball match ever before. The first time I touched a baseball, actually when I started to exercise for this, I thought it was a tennis ball. But it’s not the case. So it was a very steep learning curve. And I think my future is not in baseball. I think my future is in something else.
FREDERICK KEMPE: I was going to say in the introduction that it showed that NATO always sets lofty targets.
JENS STOLTENBERG: Yeah, yeah. And we have to adapt to the challenges. Then, of course, this summit. It’s, of course, a summit where we’re going to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the strongest, most successful alliance in history. But the only way to truly celebrate that achievement, the seventy-fifth anniversary, is, of course, to demonstrate that NATO is adapting, that we are changing when the world is changing. Because we are the most successful alliance in history because we have changed when the world is changing. And now we live in a more dangerous, more challenging security environment. And therefore, NATO is changing again.
And therefore, we will make important decisions at this summit for the future, not only celebrate the past. And there are three main issues. It’s deterrence and defense. It’s our partnership with our Asia-Pacific partners. But of course, the most urgent, the most critical task at this summit, will be everything we will do and decide on Ukraine. Because this is really the time where we are tested. If we want to stand up for democracy and freedom, it’s now. And the place is Ukraine.
And I expect that NATO leaders will agree a substantial package for Ukraine. There are, affirmatively, five elements in that package.
One is that we will establish a NATO command for Ukraine to facilitate and ensure training and delivery of security assistance to Ukraine. It will be seven-hundred personnel. It will take over much of what the US have done so far in leading the coordination of security assistance and training. It will be a command in Wiesbaden in Germany, but also with logistical nodes or hubs in the eastern part of the Alliance, to ensure that we have a more institutionalized framework for our support to Ukraine.
Then it will be a long-term pledge to support Ukraine, not least to send the message to President Putin that he cannot wait those out, because the paradox is that the stronger and the more we are committed for a long-term to support Ukraine, the sooner this war can end. So that’s the thing we have to do.
Then we will have—and we have already seen some of the announcements of military immediate support with the air defense systems, with F-16s, other things that allies have and will announce. We have the bilateral—that’s a third—the announcement on more military aid, and then we have the bilateral security agreements—twenty agreed between NATO allies and Ukraine.
And then the fifth element of the package for Ukraine will be more interoperability. We will have a new joint training and relations center in Bydgoszcz in Poland. We will have the comprehensive assistance package to help Ukraine implement reforms on their defense and security institutions to ensure that the armed forces are more and more interoperable with NATO.
And together, the NATO command, the pledge, the bilateral security agreements, the announcement of new military support, and interoperability—these five elements combined constitute the bridge to NATO membership for Ukraine. And later on today, you will see the language which we will agree, and the NATO declaration on how to ensure that Ukraine is moving closer to NATO membership. So these are the five important deliverables on Ukraine that I expect allies will agree later on today.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Not to press you on what’s actually going to be in the document because, of course, you can’t reveal that, but we saw at the Vilnius Summit—hearing it again in Washington—that allies closer to Russia were more eager to provide NATO membership sooner for Ukraine, and no doubt the bridge and all the elements of the bridge are pretty impressive, including the new command.
But are Ukraine’s NATO membership prospects sufficient? We did our own wargaming with our Estonian partners and the Estonian government, and we found almost under any scenario, Ukraine was safer in NATO, that Russia would respond in a way that would be less provocative within and outside. What’s your thinking on that, and have we gone far enough with Ukraine?
JENS STOLTENBERG: So first of all, the language you will see later on today in the NATO declaration or the declaration from the heads of state and government, of course that language is important because language matters. It sets an agenda. It points a direction. But, of course, action speaks louder than words. So, in addition to that language in the declaration on membership, which again is important, I think that what we actually do together with Ukraine is as important. And therefore the fact that we now have a NATO framework—will have a NATO framework around the support, the fact that we have a long-term NATO commitment when we agreed the pledge, and also the fact that we actually are delivering more weapon systems to Ukraine—all of that has helped Ukraine to become closer to NATO—come closer to NATO membership because we will now deliver F-16s. We don’t want to deliver F-16s; we deliver the training, the doctrines, the operational concepts that will actually move Ukraine closer to being fully interoperable with NATO on more and more areas.
So, again, language is important. But the elements in the package I mentioned, they are actually changing the reality, enabling Ukraine to be—to come closer to membership so we can then—when the time is right, when you have consensus and the political conditions are in place—so when an invitation then is issued, they can become members straightaway. I can’t give you a date because, as you know, there has to be consensus in this Alliance on membership.
But what I can say is that when the fighting stops in Ukraine, we need to ensure that that’s really the end. Because what you have seen is a pattern of aggression. First, Russia annexed Crimea. We said that was unacceptable. After some few months, they went to the eastern Donbas. We said that that was unacceptable. Then we had the Minsk I agreement, with the delimitation of the ceasefire line. That was violated. And Russia pushed the front lines further east—no, sorry—further west in Donbas in 2014. We had Minsk II, and the Russians waited then for seven years. And they had the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, because Minsk II was in 2015.
So, we have seen a pattern where they’ve taken slices of Ukraine. If there is now a new ceasefire, a new agreement, then we need to be 100 percent certain it stops there, regardless of where that line is. And therefore, I strongly believe that when the fighting stops we need to ensure that Ukraine has the capabilities to deter future aggression from Russia and they need security guarantees. And, of course, the best and strongest security guarantee will be Article Five. So therefore, I believe that a way to ensure that it stops is actually a NATO membership.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you for that very clear answer. One more brief question on Ukraine, then we’ll move on to Indo-Pacific. In a press conference you had with President Macron a couple of weeks ago you noted recent gaps in delays in how they’ve led—in funding and weapons—and led to battlefield consequences. You said, quote, “We must give Ukraine the predictability and accountability it needs to defend itself.” So, two questions: Is everything you’ve talked about today that’s going to be agreed enough? And, secondarily, not just with uncertainties in US politics, which exist, but also uncertainties in European politics, do you worry at all about the sustainability of that support over time?
JENS STOLTENBERG: So, first of all, you are right that I have referred to—I also did that in Kyiv in a meeting with President Zelensky earlier this spring—to the fact that during this winter and the early spring allies didn’t deliver on their promises to Ukraine. We saw the delays in the US, months agreeing on a supplemental. But we also saw European allies not being able to deliver the ammunition and the support they have announced. So, of course, these gaps and these delays in military support to Ukraine, they created a very difficult situation for Ukrainians on the battlefield.
The good news in that difficult situation is that, despite all the delays in our support to Ukraine, Ukrainians have actually been able to hold the line, more or less. So the Russians have not been able to utilize these delays in really making any big advantage on the battlefield. Now we are providing more support, and I’m confident that allies will now actually deliver. And we see that, for instance, ammunition moving into Ukraine, been significant increase over the last weeks.
The purpose of a stronger NATO role in providing training and security assistance, the purpose of the command, and the purpose of the pledge is, of course, to minimize the risks for future delays and gaps. But of course, you don’t have guarantees, because at the end of the day it has to be support in all the individual allied capitals and parliaments to providing this support. At the end of the day, you have to go to the Congress, to the parliaments across Europe and Canada, to get support. But I believe that when we turn this into something which is more a NATO obligation, a NATO framework, it is—the threshold for not delivering will be higher than when it’s based on a more voluntary, ad hoc, national announcements.
So the purpose of creating a stronger NATO framework is to make the support more robust and more predictable. It’s also another part of this NATO framework for the support on the pledge and the command. And that is that it will visualize and ensure burden sharing, because my impression is that, especially in the United States, there is this perception that the United States is almost alone in delivering support to Ukraine. That’s not the case. When you look at military support, roughly 50 percent of the military support is provided by European allies and Canada. Ninety-nine percent of the support—the military support to Ukraine—comes from NATO allies, but 50 percent of that comes from European allies and Canada. If you add economic, macroeconomic support, humanitarian support, the European allies are providing much more than the United States.
So the point with the pledge to ensure that we have some kind of agreed formulas for burden sharing, that we have more transparency, and also that we have more accountability, because then we can use NATO to count, to measure, and to ensure that allies deliver. It’s not the same, but it’s a bit like the 2 percent pledge because the importance with the pledge made in Wales in 2014 was actually to give NATO a role to enforce and to ensure that allies delivered, and also that we agreed how to count and what to count. And that’s also what we now will do with the pledge, to agree how to count and what to count, and to give NATO a role to having also accountability.
So, again, there are no guarantees. But by giving NATO that role, I think the likelihood for allies delivering what they have promised will increase and the likelihood of new gaps will decrease. And that’s the purpose of giving NATO a stronger role.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary General. Let’s go to China. The 2022 Strategic Concept, NATO Strategic Concept, recognized China as a challenge for the first time in the broader rules-based system. You’ve noted that Russia imports 90 percent of its microelectronics from China, which goes into military. Secretary Blinken today talked about 70 percent of machine tools that helped the military coming from China. You’ve also said that this—if this doesn’t change, as they’re fueling the greatest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, allies need to impose a cost. Is it time for that? And what cost can NATO and NATO countries actually impose?
JENS STOLTENBERG: So first of all, I think it’s important that we recognize the reality, and that’s the first step towards any action. And that is that not only are Iran and North Korea important when it comes to enabling Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but China is the main enabler because, as you referred to, they are delivering the tools—the dual-use equipment, the microelectronics, everything Russia needs to build the missiles, the bombs, the aircraft, and all the other systems they use against Ukraine.
Well, I have said that it remains to be seen how far allies are willing to go, but I strongly believe that it—if China continues, they cannot have it both ways. They cannot believe that they can have a kind of normal relationship with NATO allies in North America and Europe, and then continue to fuel the war in Europe that constitutes the biggest security challenge to—for our security since the Second World War. So this is a challenge for the Alliance. Let’s see how far we’re willing to go as allies.
FREDERICK KEMPE: So we’re getting close to the end of time, so just two other brief questions. First, the Indo-Pacific four—Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand—are here. Third time taking part in a NATO summit, but it’s going to be the first NATO joint document with this group. Can you give us some insight into what might be in it? Any concrete outcomes?
JENS STOLTENBERG: Yeah. So, first I would just say that the fact that we now are engaging so closely with our Indo-Pacific partners—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea—that reflects a change in NATO, because that was not the case a few years ago. And as many of you may know, the first time we mentioned China in an agreed negotiated document in NATO is at the NATO summit in London in 2019. And in the previous NATO Strategic Concept, China was not mentioned with a single word; now China has a prominent place in the Strategic Concept we agreed in Madrid. And the fact that we now are engaging so closely with our Indo-Pacific partners reflects, of course, the fact that we have to take China seriously when it comes to the challenges it poses for our security, and the war in Ukraine is perhaps the most obvious example. Or, as the Japanese prime minister said several times: What happens in Ukraine today can happen in Asia tomorrow.
We are now working with our Asia-Pacific partners how we can do more together with them. We will agree some flagship projects. That’s about technology. It’s about support to Ukraine. But we are also working, for instance, as part of our defense industrial pledge, how we can ramp up defense industrial production and cooperation with these countries. They are big, some of them, on defense industry. We can work closely with them to ramp up our combined defense industrial capacity. We can exchange more information.
And I also welcome the fact that more and more allies are now also conducting joint exercises. Recently, there was a big air exercise. Allies are also more and more actively also looking into how they can also have more naval exercises with our Asia-Pacific partners. Because NATO will remain an alliance of North America and Europe. There will not be a global NATO. NATO will be North America and Europe. But this region, the North Atlantic region, we face global threats. And the reality is, that’s nothing new. Global terrorism—international terrorism brought us to Afghanistan. Cyber is global. Space, which is becoming more and more important for our armed forces, is truly global. And, of course, the threats that—and challenges that China poses to our security is a global challenge.
So this region, the North Atlantic region, faces global challenges. We will remain a regional alliance, but we need to work with our global partners, the Asia-Pacific partners, to address these global challenges. That, I guess, will be a very important issue at the next NATO summit. I will not be there, but I’m certain it will be –
FREDERICK KEMPE: Well, and that brings—and that brings me to my final question. This is your swan song summit. And as you prepare to step down, I think everybody in the audience, everybody virtually, would love to hear what gives you the most hope stepping down from this, but also what gives you the most concern.
JENS STOLTENBERG: So, first of all, I’m an optimist. Because the reality is that we are very different in this Alliance. We are different countries with different histories, different cultures, from both sides of the Atlantic, and we have different parties. And we are always very concerned that when a new party comes into government they will make bad things for the Alliance. And if you read the history of NATO, we have been concerned about since—about that for from the beginning.
There were big concerns in NATO when you had a new—when actually you got the democratically elected government in Portugal in 1975. There were concerns whether or not they were going to be committed to NATO. There were concerns when you had some left-wing parties coming into government in some European countries in the ’70s. When I formed my government in—my second government—in 2005 there were big concerns that we had the Left Socialist Party there. It went quite well, to be honest. And now there are big concerns again.
But the reality is that despite all these differences, which are part of NATO, we have proven extremely resilient and strong. Because when we face the reality, all these different governments and politicians and parliamentarians, they realize that we are safer and stronger together. And that’s a very strong message. And that’s the reason why this Alliance prevails again and again.
As I said in my speech yesterday, we cannot take it for granted. It’s not a given. It was not a given in ’49. It’s not a given now. And it’s not a given in the future. But the reality is that we have a strong common interest in standing together. So therefore, I’m an optimist for the future of this Alliance. That was the first question. The second I’ve forgotten. I think I answered both of them.
But I will only say one thing about this. That I remember very well when I became prime minister in 2000. First of all, I attended my first NATO Summit in 2001. That was a very different guest list. It was—President Bush, newly elected. It was Gerhard Schröder, Tony Blair. And, yeah, very different people than now. As I think it’s time for me to leave. But second, also, I remember then my predecessor when I became prime minister in 2000, she told me—Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian prime minister—she told me, Jens, you have to remember that most of your life you’ll be former prime minister.
And now I have to acknowledge that most of my life, I’ll be former secretary general NATO. But that’s not so bad. And I will hang around and see you, and I look forward to then perhaps being a part of this audience next time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Fred.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Mr. secretary general, nothing more need be said.
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Image: The outgoing NATO secretary general spoke with Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe at the NATO Public Forum on July 10.