NATO Secretary General in panel discussion at Munich Security Conference, 17 Feb 2024

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks at the “In It to Win It: The Future of Ukraine and Transatlantic Security” panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference, Saturday 17 February 2024.

🎤 Christiane Amanpour, CNN
🗣️ NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
🗣️ Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of Estonia
🗣️ Pete Ricketts, US Senator

🎤 Christiane Amanpour:
For you Secretary General, NATO has said, and actually key Defence Ministers from the frontline countries, have said that you are concerned for the first time. This wasn’t the case last year, that within three to five years even, Putin could test the resolve of a NATO country.

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:
We can never take peace for granted, but I think it is important to convey that we don't see any imminent threat against any NATO Ally. The world has become more dangerous, but NATO has become stronger. And the purpose of NATO is to prevent war, is to ensure that there is no room in Moscow for any miscalculation about NATO's readiness and resolve to protect all Allies. And to make it clear that an attack on one Ally will trigger the response from the whole Alliance. And as long as we convey that message, clearly to Moscow, no Ally will be attacked. So our deterrence remains credible and therefore we don't see any military threat against any NATO Ally.

🎤 Christiane Amanpour:
Can I ask you to pick up on the progress that NATO nations are making in what you’re all demanding for more defence spending?

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:
In 2014, NATO made the very important decision, triggered by Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and also NATO Allies after years of reducing defence spending, we had to start to increase defence spending. And that was at the NATO Summit in Wales. I remember I was there. And I thought this was just another pledge by politicians and I made that international meeting and [thought] not so much was going to happen.

The reality is that a lot has happened because since then, all NATO Allies have increased defence spending. This year, we expect 18 Allies to meet the 2% guideline, spend 2% of GDP on defence. That's up from three [Allies] in 2014. That's a significant increase, meaning that in total European Allies and Canada have added 600 billion [dollars] extra for defence. And those Allies which are not yet at 2% have plans in place to be there very soon. So there is an enormous difference and the European Allies have really stepped up because they realise that there is need to invest in high-end capabilities, have more readiness of our forces. And NATO has implemented the biggest reinforcements on collective defence in generations with battlegroups, combat troops in the eastern part of the Alliance for the first time in our history, with high readiness, more forces, and now total new defence plans. So I’m not saying everything is fine. I agree that Europeans have to do even more, but they're really on track to something which is demonstrating a commitment of all Allies that need to stand together.

🎤 Christiane Amanpour:
Can you today be certain that NATO can defeat Russia, if it comes to that? All we're hearing is that you're not ramped up enough. You don't have enough to do what you need to do in Ukraine, much less if you were to confront Russia, and you've said that if he steps on your territory, every single inch will be defended.

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:
NATO is the strongest military power in the world today. We represent 50% roughly of the world's total military might. And militarily, we are stronger than Russia.

But at the same time, I think the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that there are some serious gaps. For instance, when it comes to sustainment, it’s one thing to have all the advanced weapons systems, but they need spare parts, they need maintenance, and obviously they need ammunition. And in the beginning of the war in Ukraine, we depleted our stocks, but now they are running quite low. So now we are focusing extremely, on how to ramp up production. We have some good news. There are new factories being set up. Production has increased but there’s an urgent need to do more.

Transcript continues: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/op...

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