US ambassador to NATO: ‘We need strong allies, not dependents’

 The U.S. ambassador to NATO on Saturday expressed the need for “strong allies, not dependents” in response to a question about NATO defense spending contributions at the Munich Security Conference. 

The Czech Republic has refused to increase the country’s defense spending above 2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), in violation of NATO’s new requirements for its member states to contribute 5 percent of their GDP to core defense spending by 2035. 

“The Czech government, certainly from a political campaign standpoint, said things about NATO and their willingness to be bound by the commitment that we made at the Hague,” Ambassador Matt Whitaker said in an interview with Politico. 

“But I think ultimately they’re going to realize, like all allies realized a year ago, that you’re going to have to be stronger, you’re going to have to invest in capabilities and you’re going to have to train more with NATO allies to make sure were interoperable and we can fight as one,” he continued.

The Czech Republic has also fallen short in its contributions to NATO’s Ukraine mission, which aims to supply the war-torn country with 5 billion euros for artillery rounds. The country has only been able to obtain 1.4 billion euros, a senior NATO official told Reuters on Wednesday. 

The Trump administration and GOP lawmakers have long criticized some NATO allies for not contributing their fair share to the group’s defense efforts and leaving countries like the U.S. to shoulder the majority of the cost. 

Whitaker said that the U.S. is “leading from the front” in terms of defense spending. 

“This is going to be a long haul, and we’ve got to make sure that everybody maintains their discipline and their political will,” Whitaker said. 

The ambassador stressed the U.S.’s continued investment in the allied group amid concerns that America was pulling back from Europe. 

“The United States is not abandoning Europe, we’re not leaving,” Whittaker said. “We’re just saying that together we are stronger, you know, we are investing in capabilities in the United States and we expect our European allies to match, and we expect you to be ready, we expect you to be more lethal than you have been and we expect you to be a lot more capable.”

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5739099-us-ambassador-nato-allies/