NATO will mobilize up to 300,000 of its high readiness force to deal with the threat from Russia and dissuade any adversary from the temptation to attack an allied country, because an attack against one of them will be considered an attack on all, announced its general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, at the press conference prior to the summit of heads of state and government that will begin tomorrow in Madrid.
"We are going to transform our rapid reaction force and increase our high readiness forces to more than 300,000 troops. We are going to have more equipment prepositioned, more military supplies stored and more forces capable of being deployed ... and forces pre-assigned to defend specific allies" on the eastern flank of the Alliance "ready to act in the face of any threat, detailed Stoltenberg, who has confirmed the commitment to transform part of the eight battalions that NATO deployed on the eastern flank into brigades as a result of the invasion of Ukraine "It will be the biggest transformation of our collective defense since the cold war."
The Madrid summit, affirms the general secretary of the military organization, will materialize "a fundamental turn in the deterrence and defense policy" of NATO. "The objective of our deterrence policy is to prevent conflicts, to prevent Russia and any other adversary from attacking an allied country. We hope that Vladimir Putin understands what our commitment to collective defense means," Stoltenberg said, referring to article 5 of the Washington treaty. which stipulates that an attack against an ally will be considered an attack on the entire military organization. It is about "sending the message that we are prepared to defend every last inch of allied territory."
In addition to reiterating their political and military support for Kyiv against Moscow, the allied leaders will agree this week on the Alliance's new Strategic Concept, the document that will guide their actions over the next decade. "A new Strategic Concept for a new security situation" dominated by "the direct and significant threat" posed by Russia, which in 1999 was a "strategic partner" and which for the first time will refer to China in terms of "challenge for the values and interests" of the Alliance. NATO also intends to closely monitor the movements of both countries in its southern neighbourhood, that is, North Africa, a geographical area that the military organization includes among its strategic priorities for the first time.
A few hours before the start of the Madrid summit, the negotiations continue at the headquarters of the Atlantic Alliance in Brussels to try to placate Turkey's reluctance to join Sweden and Finland, two historically neutral countries that as a result of the war in Ukraine have applied for NATO membership. Stoltenberg has summoned the Turkish president, Recep Tayipp Erdogan, with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö, and the Swedish prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, to try to unlock the dossier. "Going to this summit does not mean that we are going to take a step back from our position," warned Erdogan's spokesman, who considers the guarantees offered by the Swedish government about its commitment to the fight against terrorism by Kurdish organizations in the region to be insufficient. orbit of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
