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Russian President Vladimir Putin may get the opposite of what he expected, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently proposed plans for a permanent presence of allied troops on the eastern flank in response to the invasion of Ukraine, which has been dragging on for 46 days Sunday.
“What we are seeing now is a new reality, a new normal for European security. That’s why we’ve now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a longer-term adjustment of NATO,” Stoltenberg was quoted as saying in a recent interview with The Telegraph. “I assume that the NATO leaders will make decisions on this when they meet in June at the NATO summit in Madrid.”
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Stoltenberg said NATO received a “wake-up call” in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea in what was then the largest reinforcement of the alliance since the end of the Cold War. In the face of Putin’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, the alliance born of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty between the US, Canada and European nations is transitioning from reinforcement to a complete “reboot.” Since then, NATO has stationed another 40,000 troops on the eastern flank from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Before the end of February, the NATO presence on the eastern border was more of a “tripwire deterrent,” meant to symbolize the alliance’s commitment to defending itself against a Russian attack. Part of the “reset” will be about “denial-of-defense deterrence” against a possible invasion of the alliance. NATO is “in the midst of a very fundamental transformation” to reflect “the long-term consequences” of Putin’s actions, said Stoltenberg, who extended his tenure as head of the alliance by a year.
“Regardless of when and how the war in Ukraine ends, the war has already had long-term consequences for our security. NATO must adapt to this new reality. And that’s what we’re doing,” he told The Telegraph. “NATO is the most successful alliance in history for two reasons. One is that we were able to unite Europe and North America. The other is that we could change as the world changes. Now the world is changing and NATO is changing.”
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Amid concerns that Russia and China are working closely together, Stoltenberg said NATO was finalizing a new strategic concept to take into account that Beijing has the second largest defense budget in the world.
The rise of China and the “shift in the global balance of power” have “direct implications for NATO,” Stoltenberg added, explaining how China has invested heavily in new advanced nuclear capabilities and long-range missiles capable of reaching NATO territory.