NATO chief Stoltenberg hails allies’ record defense spending

BRUSSELS — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that European allies and Canada have ramped up defense spending to record levels, as he warned that former U.S. President Donald Trump was undermining their security by calling into question the U.S. commitment to its allies.

Stoltenberg said that U.S. partners in NATO have spent $600 billion more on their military budgets since 2014, when Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine prompted the allies to reverse the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War ended.

“Last year we saw an unprecedented rise of 11% across European allies and Canada,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a meeting of the organization’s defense ministers in Brussels.

In 2014, NATO leaders committed to move toward spending 2% of their gross domestic product on defense within a decade. It has mostly been slow going, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago focused minds. The 2% figure is now considered a minimum requirement.

“This year I expect 18 allies to spend 2% of the GDP on defense. That is another record number and a six-fold increase from 2014 when only three allies met the target,” Stoltenberg said.

On Saturday, Trump, the front-runner in the U.S. for the Republican Party’s nomination this year, said he once warned that he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to NATO members that are “delinquent” in devoting 2% of GDP to defense.

President Joe Biden branded Trump’s remarks “dangerous” and “un-American,” seizing on the former president’s comments as they fuel doubt among U.S. partners about its future dependability on the global stage.

Stoltenberg said those comments call into question the credibility of NATO’s collective security commitment -– Article 5 of the organization’s founding treaty, which says that an attack on any member country will be met with a response from all of them.

“The whole idea of NATO is that an attack on one ally will trigger a response from the whole alliance and as long as we stand behind that message together, we prevent any military attack on any ally,” Stoltenberg said.

“Any suggestion that we are not standing up for each other, that we are not going to protect each other, that does undermine the security of all of us,” he said.

布鲁塞尔——北约秘书长延斯·斯托尔滕贝格周三表示，欧洲盟国和加拿大已将国防开支提高到创纪录的水平。他警告说，美国前总统唐纳德·特朗普质疑美国对其盟友的承诺，正在破坏他们的安全。

斯托尔滕贝格表示，自 2014 年俄罗斯吞并乌克兰克里米亚半岛以来，美国在北约的伙伴国在军事预算上增加了 6000 亿美元的支出。当时，盟国推翻了冷战结束后削减军费的政策。

“去年，我们看到欧洲盟国和加拿大的感染人数出现了前所未有的 11% 的增长，”斯托尔滕贝格在布鲁塞尔举行的该组织国防部长会议前夕告诉记者。

2014年，北约领导人承诺在十年内将国防开支提高到国内生产总值的2%。这一目标的实现进展缓慢，但两年前俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的事件促使各方加快了步伐。如今，2%已被视为最低要求。

斯托尔滕贝格说：“我预计今年将有18个盟国把国内生产总值的2%用于国防开支。这又是一个创纪录的数字，比2014年增长了六倍，当时只有三个盟国达到了目标。”

周六，今年美国共和党总统候选人领跑者特朗普表示，他曾警告说，如果北约成员国未能将国内生产总值的 2% 用于国防，他将允许俄罗斯对它们为所欲为。

乔·拜登总统称特朗普的言论“危险”且“不符合美国精神”，并抓住这位前总统的言论大做文章，因为这些言论加剧了美国伙伴对美国未来在全球舞台上可靠性的怀疑。

斯托尔滕贝格表示，这些言论令人质疑北约集体安全承诺的可信度——该承诺是北约创始条约第五条的规定，即任何成员国遭受攻击都将遭到所有成员国的回应。

斯托尔滕贝格说：“北约的理念是，对一个盟国的攻击将引发整个联盟的回应，只要我们团结一致支持这一信息，我们就能阻止对任何盟国的军事攻击。”

他说：“任何暗示我们没有互相支持、没有互相保护的说法，都会损害我们所有人的安全。”