Fatih Ceylan, Turkeys former ambassador to NATO, asked a question about NATO’s strategy. Whether there will be a new strategic concept or an updated strategic concept? What is US president Joe Biden’s intention?
Stoltenberg said, “New time has come to renew NATO Strategic concept. The current strategic concept serves us well for more than a decade. That was agreed in Portugal, Lisboa in 2010.” He suggested that subjects like climate change should be added to the concept.
“The most important reason for developing a new strategic concept is the fact that the world has changed,” he said. He elaborated his ideas, “For instance, in the current concept, We say that we are inspiring for a strategic partnership with Russia. That was before Ukraine, before Crimea, and before much more aggressive actions by Russia over the last years and especially since 2014.”
Stoltenberg reminded me that China is not mentioned at NATO at all. He said, “I think that the rise of China is defining for the transatlantic relationship and NATO. We don’t regard China as an adversary, but of course, they are now the second-largest defence spender in the world. They assumed the biggest economy. The challenge China sends to the roots-based order to our core values of democracy that China not sharing our values. I hope that when the NATO leaders meet at the Brussels NATO summit later this year, they will agree to task me to start to develop a new strategic concept. Then they can agree with a new strategy the concept on the following summit in 2022.”
