BRUSSELS – In response to what is generally seen as a Russia re-energized with Cold War-style expansionism, NATO is flexing its collective muscles including the deployment of Italian surface-to-air missiles to Turkey.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in opening remarks at an alliance ministerial meeting Tuesday, said he expects an alliance-wide increase of 1.5 percent in military spending in the next year. He also carefully said that the alliance harbors no animosity to its Cold War opponent and does not wish to stoke the embers currently smoldering between it and Russia.
“We don’t see confrontation with Russia. We don’t want a new Cold War and we will continue fight for a more constructive and cooperative relationship with Russia,” he said.
The latest move in a multi-national effort to contain Russian aggression is Italy’s deployment of surface-to-air missile batteries to Turkey. Stoltenberg welcomed the movement as a show of NATO support by Italy of an alliance member facing threats on multiple fronts. Turkey faces Russian aggression to its north and east borders the Syria Civil War which includes the struggle against Islamic State militants.
“I welcome that because this is yet another example of how we show solidarity inside NATO with all allies,” Stoltenberg said. “Because they are bordering all the instability, all the violence to our south – Iraq and Syria. Therefore, we have different kinds of assurance measures in Turkey.”
Aside from Italy’s air defenses, NATO is shuffling massive amounts of military capabilities toward and along its eastern border with Russia. They include airborne early warning and command-and-control aircraft (AWACS), Spanish Patriot missile-defense batteries made by Raytheon [RTN] and increased naval presence in eastern Mediterranean by various member nations, Stoltenberg said.
“We are looking into how we can increase our presence in the Black Sea region,” he said. “We have already increased our presence with our air policing, with our assurance measures, with more naval presence, with more exercises.”
Along with the United States, the U.K. and German armies have committed troops to a new effort to station four battalions numbering about 4,000 troops in the Baltic nations, which are concerned of the risk of a sudden Russian invasion. Romania is set to shoulder the burden of the fourth battalion, Stoltenberg said.
“We are discussing and addressing an offer from Romania that they can provide the framework, the headquarters for a brigade, which can then organize and facilitate NATO activities in the region,” he said. “This is something we are addressing, but the details have to be decided.”
An overarching theme of the ministerial this week – the last in preparation for a major NATO summit in July in Warsaw featuring heads of state – is national defense spending. NATO countries have pledged to increase spending on their respective militaries up to 2 percent of their gross domestic products. Some have not yet met that mark.
Stoltenberg said he recently spoke with his own prime minister of Norway about bumping up that nation’s military spending. Italy, he said, has contributed to Russian deterrence but should pony up more funding for the collective defense of NATO.
“I expect, of course, all allies to make good on the pledge we all made together two years ago to stop cuts in defense spending and gradually increase towards spending 2 percent of GDP on defense,” Stoltenberg said. “Italy is a staunch and committed NATO ally. They contribute to many operations and missions, but of course it is important that also Italy delivers on defense spending as all allies should deliver on defense spending.”