NATO Won't Be Trumped

During his press conference Oct. 26 previewing the NATO defense ministers' meeting Oct. 27-28 in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg parried two questions about the U.S. elections.

To the first question, on whether Donald Trump deserves credit for the increase in defense spending by NATO allies, he replied, "I am not going to be part of the U.S. election campaign," leaving it up to U.S. voters "to decide who's going to become the next president of the United States." But he pointed out that higher defense spending by alliance members has always been on the top of his agenda and that there was a shift to higher spending after they agreed to do so in 2014, repeating twice that this was not due to the U.S. election campaign.

He went on to say that NATO's security guarantee is not conditional but rather absolute and unconditional to defend all allies against any threat, describing this as being "essential for stability and to prevent conflict" and important for both Europe and the United States.

He recalled that the first time the Article 5 security clause of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty was invoked was after the 9/11 attacks on the United States and that over 1,000 non-U.S. NATO and partner soldiers died in Afghanistan "in a military operation defending the United States."

He gave a similar answer to a question about whether he agrees that Russia would like to see Trump become the next U.S. President.