Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The distractions not going away,
Speaker 1: But one individual that is hyper focus on the actual
Speaker 1: policies that were discussed this week is of course the
Speaker 1: NATO Secretary General Yain Stoltenberg, and this was his final
Speaker 1: NATO summit. You're going to be retiring in the fall.
Speaker 1: You've been at the Helm for a decade, so you've
Speaker 1: seen a lot. We're going to get into some of
Speaker 1: those distractions that were happening at the summit, but I
Speaker 1: want to get into some of the policies. We just
Speaker 1: heard President Biden there talking about the limits they've placed
Speaker 1: on Ukraine about striking deeper into Russia. He basically said,
Speaker 1: they don't want to give HM capacity to hit the Kremlin,
Speaker 1: but Celenzi is asking to attack Russian jets on Russian
Speaker 1: air bases that strike Ukrainian cities. Do you get the
Speaker 1: sense that the US doesn't trust Zelenski? Well, First of.
Speaker 2: All, the US and Old Alas have loosened the restrictions
Speaker 2: that have imposed on the US solo their weapons that
Speaker 2: have delighted to Ukraine. So Ukraine it's not able to
Speaker 2: also strike against the military targets inside the Russia and
Speaker 2: we need to remember what this is. This is a
Speaker 2: where Russian Russia has attacked the Ukraine. That's violation national law.
Speaker 2: Ukraine has the right, according to national law, to defend
Speaker 2: themselves and that includes also striking legitimate military targets inside
Speaker 2: the territory of Russia and allies. Some allies have given
Speaker 2: them that permission or the allies have some restrictions, but
Speaker 2: they have been loosened up a bit.
Speaker 1: But of course the most important ally sending the most
Speaker 1: weaponry is the United States, and they've only said you
Speaker 1: can go about forty kilometers. But to really Zelensky's point
Speaker 1: is to really start to push back the Russians and
Speaker 1: be defensive, they need to get on top of it,
Speaker 1: meaning going maybe three hundred kilometers. Do you think I
Speaker 1: mean you were part of these discussions. Do you think
Speaker 1: there's something the new United States? We've seen them before
Speaker 1: drag their feet and then make decisions that Lenskap is
Speaker 1: pushing for. Could you see them coming around to this?
Speaker 2: This was an issue that was discussed at the Natal summit,
Speaker 2: and again some allies have no resictions on the use
Speaker 2: of the weapons they have delivered. Others have resictions but
Speaker 2: have loosened them. The US is of course important, but
Speaker 2: half of the military support to Ukraine comes from a
Speaker 2: non US allies comes from Europe and Canada. So when
Speaker 2: it comes to Ukraine and the Europeans have really stepped up,
Speaker 2: and with the decision we made at the net To
Speaker 2: summit to have a long term pledge and to have
Speaker 2: a formula for burnishing, we will ensure that those in
Speaker 2: the future European allies and kinda will provide half of
Speaker 2: the military support because they have half of the economic
Speaker 2: strength of the alliance.
Speaker 1: Ukraine didn't get the formal invitation they were helping for,
Speaker 1: so they are still at the gates, knocking on the
Speaker 1: door and they're not letting too NATO just yet. While
Speaker 1: they do this, though, it unnerves putin do you think
Speaker 1: they're in a sense almost the worst position this security
Speaker 1: purgatory because they're still stuck in the middle because they're
Speaker 1: not yet alliance. But even asking to be an alliance
Speaker 1: really underscores the issue that they're having with their neighbor
Speaker 1: next door.
Speaker 2: At the summit allows we're very clear that Ukraine will
Speaker 2: become a member. We also stated that this is a
Speaker 2: reversible path towards membership. But actually as important, or perhaps
Speaker 2: even more important than the language in the statement we agreed,
Speaker 2: is that actually we took actions to move Ukraine closer
Speaker 2: to membership. We established a Native Command with seven hundred
Speaker 2: personnel to organize the provisional training and military support to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: We do this long term pledge, and we stepped up
Speaker 2: the work to do what we call interoperability, to ensure
Speaker 2: that Ukrainian forces are fully interoperable with NATO forces. These
Speaker 2: are concrete actions that actually helps them to prevail, to
Speaker 2: help Ukraine to prevail as a certain independent nation in Europe,
Speaker 2: and all of that moves them closer to membership, and
Speaker 2: then when the when the time is right and als agreed,
Speaker 2: they will become members straight away.
Speaker 1: As you know, politics overshadowed this summit. Everyone was talking about,
Speaker 1: if not officially, unofficially President Biden's age as the native
Speaker 1: Secretary General who's worked with both of these US presidents
Speaker 1: who are the candidates for November. Do you see potential
Speaker 1: change in the future US commitment to the Alliance?
Speaker 2: I expect that the United States will remain a strong
Speaker 2: NATO ally also in the future for at least three reasons.
Speaker 2: One is that this is in the US security and
Speaker 2: interest to have a strong NATO. In NATO, the United
Speaker 2: States has something Russia and China doesn't have more than
Speaker 2: thirty different an allies. Second, it's very strong bipartisan support
Speaker 2: in the United States for NATO in the public wess
Speaker 2: in your opinion polls also confirming that, but also in
Speaker 2: the US Congress. I met congress men from both parties
Speaker 2: and they will express some strong support to NATO. The
Speaker 2: main criticism from former President Trump and others have actually
Speaker 2: not been against NATO. It has been against NATO allies
Speaker 2: not spending enough on NATO, and that has changed or
Speaker 2: just during the last years, we have seen significant increase
Speaker 2: in number of allies spending at least two percent of
Speaker 2: GDP on defense, which is a native allies.
Speaker 1: So is your expectation to ignore, potentially your expectations that
Speaker 1: Trump's rhetoric will not match his policies on the ground.
Speaker 2: Well, I worked with him when he was from president
Speaker 2: last time, and again I expect that the United States
Speaker 2: will remain a strong NATO ally because this also makes
Speaker 2: the United States safer and stronger. The United States is
Speaker 2: big twenty five percent of the world's GDP, but toget
Speaker 2: with NATO allies, we are fifty percent of the world's GDP,
Speaker 2: twice as big, fifty percent of the world's military right,
Speaker 2: and this makes the United States stronger. And the main
Speaker 2: criticism the fact that your pen allies didn't spend that
Speaker 2: has really changed the twenty three allows penny two percent,
Speaker 2: and those allots are not yet a two percent, have
Speaker 2: a promise to be there soon. So this has really improved,
Speaker 2: not least because the criticism from the United States was
Speaker 2: valid and Europeans have heard the call and have stepped up.
Speaker 1: Jen Centerburg, thank you so much for your time. That
Speaker 1: was of course John Jen Stoltenberg, the outgoing NATO chief