The US Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, responded on Monday to the preliminary conclusions of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) report, the proceedings of which will open on Friday. He said he “completely rejects everything he just heard“, after the report’s authors warned that the main challenge for the liberal international order “comes from within“, namely through the fundamental change in the Trump administration’s thinking about US alliances, reports The Guardian.
The United States does not want to dismantle NATO or undermine existing alliances, but to “balance the way the defense burden is shared among NATO countries“, Whitaker emphasized regarding the conclusions of the MSC report, according to which “Europe has come to the painful conclusion that it needs to be more proactive and more militarily independent from a US administration that no longer shares a commitment to liberal democratic norms and values.
“This is the first thing I reject: we are trying to strengthen NATO, not to withdraw or reject NATO, but to make it work as it was designed, as an alliance of 32 strong and capable allies.”
European partners need to increase their defense spending and show that they can “keep the promises made, including the new NATO spending targets, of 5% of GDP“, he specified.
On the other hand, Washington believes that there are “many discussions and few actions”, while the US expects Europe to “become stronger and share the burden and, ultimately, take over the conventional defense of the continent, along with the United States’ global nuclear umbrella.”
Regarding the US representation at the NATO ministerial meeting on Thursday, he says that Undersecretary Elbridge Colby is the “perfect person” to talk about the US defense strategy and the US vision of Europe “at this time and in the future”, including about the capabilities that could eventually be withdrawn from Europe and replaced with European capabilities.
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