Russia represents a real and potentially existential threat to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s members and partners. This is why NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept rightly stated that “the Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” The outcome of the war in Ukraine will determine the geopolitical conditions across the transatlantic community for the foreseeable future. Therefore, what is the alliance doing to deal with the Russian threat as outlined in the recent Strategic Concept? What lessons from Ukraine are being learned about warfare in the twenty-first century? What steps will the alliance need to take in the future to maintain a warfighting edge over the Russian Federation?
A 91 panel at the 2024 NATO Public Forum discussed these topics and more with four distinguished defense ministers.
Event Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Peter Pellegrini:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is really my pleasure to be here with you today shortly after my inauguration. On the occasion of the Washington Summit that takes place in the changing, rather unpredictable and thus increasingly dangerous world, as we commemorate the 75 years of this most successful defense alliance in our history, I am proud that Slovakia has been a reliable ally for the past 20 years, and we will be so in the years to come for the sake of security of our nations, of our neighbors, our continent and the world.
Our historical experience taught us that there is no better option to guarantee our safe place, security, economic and social development than this alliance. The engine of our success has been and remains a commitment to democracy, freedom, and human rights with a clear understanding where we belong. Our present and future is in and with NATO and European Union.
Strong transatlantic bonds built on a fair share by the European allies is the best collective approach to preserve peace and deter any aggression. My country’s strategic interest has always been based on full respect for international law and rules, shared values and norms, commitments and obligations. In February 2022, following the aggression by Russia, which we have condemned as a clear violation of the UN charter and international law, we stood by Ukraine. Our citizens opened their homes to people escaping Ukraine and many of them remained on our soil. Ukraine must survive and preserve its own national identity, sovereignty and territorial integrity. And as any other country, Ukraine must have the right to choose its own security arrangements. We will never agree with change of borders by force. For us, in the NATO Eastern flank, an eventual collapse of Ukraine would have very negative consequences.
Without any Hollywood announcements, Slovakia provides significant and stable support to Ukraine in many ways. We do it through NATO and European Union, but also bilaterally. We still belong to the biggest contributors of assistance to Ukraine calculated per capita. As the only country, we have organized joint meetings of the Slovak and Ukrainian governments and developed joint action plans of cooperative projects. And we just agreed, few days ago, to have soon yet another meeting of the two governments on the Ukrainian soil.
We are one of the most important providers of electricity to Ukraine, so crucial after the continuous attacks on its vital infrastructure. And as our electricity production doesn’t depend on wind or sun, our supplies can and will continue also during the next winter. On top of supplies of non-lethal equipment like demanding machines, we have increased production of our own defense industry, including ammunition or howitzers also, for the need of Ukraine. To endure our collective support, we need the Slovak and the European public on our side.
What are the lessons learned out of the recent European elections? How can we better prepare for the forthcoming elections including here in the United States? In this regard, we need to invest more into wide international understanding that we are not trying to disintegrate Russia, but to change its behavior to the one that fully respects its obligation under the UN charter and international law and its OEC commitments. And this will be also a powerful message also to G20 and BRICS members. Let me make clear, supporting peace, ladies and gentlemen, does not mean supporting the aggressor. It is up to Ukraine to decide on this, but a just and sustainable peace acceptable to Ukraine is badly needed and a just and sustainable peace can only be a peace based on international law.
I wish to stress, to safeguard peace shattered by the Russian aggression, we, the alliance must work on all options to be ready for all possible scenarios. Till peace can return to Europe, the alliance must be up to the task and responsibilities. It has to be the guarantor of peace, yet remaining true to its purpose of the defensive alliance. I am convinced the answer to today’s topic, NATO’s Russia challenge, lies with us. The future of security on our continent and our own deterrence and defense will be built on our own strength, on the ability to project power to deter any potential opponent to test our resolve.
But we must be honest to ourselves. There would probably be only few allies meeting the 2 percent GDP goal if there was no war in Ukraine. The Article five, combined with the strength of the United States, made us more relaxed on our commitments in the past. We have largely ignored the fact it is not only Article five, but also Article three we need to invest in to be able to defend our countries until we can execute a collective action. This is where we need to deliver more.
Imagine Russia would not attack Ukraine, but one of our allies. The question is were we really ready for the collective defense at that moment? We have done a lot in the meantime, and unprecedented threatening of our collective defense, but it is enough. There are still gaps such as air and missile defense that we must fill in to make our defense up to the task, especially in the Eastern flank. We have here several defense ministers, and I wish to ask them is our defense industry ready to ramp up the production? If we speak about air defense, we may have plans, but how realistic are they? Can we build it in five years or 10 or more? How much time does it take to produce, for example, to produce and sell five Patriot systems? Russia has managed to restart its defense industry. How much time do we need?
It is evident two and a half years have not been enough. We need to turn plans into reality as our opponents do, and let us also not forget about the new. What are the lessons learned from this war? Drones, electronic warfare, keeping the technological edge and the hybrid warfare that accompany this aggression. Are we already implementing this aggression? Are we already implementing these lessons into our plans and our forces? We have been meeting the 2 percent commitment already, but will this be enough? Is there a true political will to do the necessary? All those question may be sensitive, uncomfortable and absolutely necessary, and we need to the answers and deliver on them, including in Europe, to send a strong signal to the United States that we are paying our bills and we are a solid ally.
Ladies and gentlemen, we should not shy away from the sensitive and maybe unpopular ones, including how to restore peace in Europe, how to make everything possible to have, again, peace in Europe. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Moderator:
Great. Well again, good afternoon. We are now here with our very distinguished panelists to take this conversation another step forward to assess what the Russian threat is, what NATO needs to do about it, and how we can best be prepared to do this in the 21st century. To do this, we have immediately to my left, your right, Andris Spruds, the Minister of National Defense for Latvia. To his side, we have the right Honorable John Healey, MP, Secretary of State for Defense for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And last but certainly not least, we have Lieutenant General retired Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army Europe and distinguished fellow with GLOBSEC.
I’m going to turn to Secretary Healey first. You’ve been the Secretary of State for Defense since July 5th, five days. I’m told you haven’t slept yet. No, I’m kidding.
John Healey:
That’s true.
Moderator:
In this time, you have already been to Ukraine, which I want to touch on that a bit later. But you’ve also, you’re here now at the 75th Anniversary NATO Summit, is truly hitting the ground running. I want to ask you first though, about Russia and the new Labour government in the UK. How will the new government deal with the challenges and threats posed by Russia? And I know you don’t want to get ahead of any defense review, but the Prime Minister Starmer said that a review will be carried out. Can you give us a flavor on what you think or how you think Russia might be factored into the thinking with the strategic review?
John Healey:
Thank you. I’m slightly awestruck actually to be in this chamber with such an audience because the collective experience and knowledge in front of me is so much greater than my own. And so bear with me, but thank you for inviting me. I’m really grateful.
The Russian threat. Well, for those of you from the US, your president said at the NAC about an hour ago that Russia is our greatest threat that we face as an alliance. It has its sharpest, most immediate challenge in Ukraine. My first priority, the first priority of this summit and center stage is Ukraine. It’s my first priority. It was why I went in my second full day on the job to Odessa and spent the afternoon with President Zelensky and his team.
But the Russian threat isn’t just directed at Ukraine. You know this very well. In fact, we all in our own countries have had warnings of this. We’ve all had knowledge of this and experience of this for a number of years. So we face a wider Russian aggression directed at our own democracies from hybrid attacks to threats in the High North. And I think this is why this NATO summit in many ways is so important at this time.
So this is the first time that we’ve had a NATO summit meeting with 32 members, which I think shows that NATO is bigger, stronger, more united than ever before. We meet, also, with the involvement at Ukraine and the IP Four, which I think shows that as NATO nations, we stand together in support of Ukraine. And it shows also, I think for me, the growing indivisibility between security and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic and security and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
And then finally, I suppose for the UK, the new UK government at this summit, you’ll hear Kier Starmer, you’ll hear David Lammy, our foreign secretary, I’m afraid you’ll hear from me as well as the defense secretary, that we will be a government that sets out determined to fulfill our NATO obligations, to secure our role as the leading European nation in NATO and to make Britain democracy’s most reliable ally across the world.
So to link that to your, I think third question in your set of questions, which was-
Moderator:
My third question and my one question.
John Healey:
So we will follow up this NATO summit by launching a strategic defense review; that’s the way that we get to grips with the threats that we face, the capabilities in the UK, that we’ve got, the real state of our forces, the state of our alliances, and for all of us as governments, also the state of the public finances we’ve got to work with.
That will be launched by the Prime Minister shortly after the summit. We’ll do that at pace, we’ll do that properly, but that will be the way that we then set out the approach that we’ll take to defense and security of the UK and our alliances for the years beyond that, and it will have a NATO first commitment right at the heart of it.
Moderator:
Thank you.
Mr. Spruds, a conversation about Russia at a NATO summit would not be appropriate if we did not include the important voice from the Baltic region, so that’s why I’m very grateful that you’ve taken time out of your schedule to come here to speak to us today.
Now for years, of course, the Baltic states, including various Latvian governments, have been warning the rest of the alliance about the threats that Russia poses to the Trans-Atlantic region, but it wasn’t until 2014 that the alliance started to get serious about this. And frankly, it wasn’t until February of 2022 that we started to see real action. So once again, the Baltics were right. We should be listening to the Baltics more.
Looking at it from your point of view, in your region of Europe, how do you assess the threat that Russia poses, not only to the region, but also to the alliance as a whole? And what should NATO do about this?
Andris Sprūds:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, and I think very symbolic anniversary summit and also here in the public forum. I’ve been participating in public forums for years in a think tank representative community representative. Now I switch sides. But of course I’m always very glad and grateful to come back and of course discuss those very important issues for all of us.
Yes, indeed. The Baltic voice is important, and thank you for including the Baltic voice as well in this discussion. We’ve been advocating the taking a strict position on Russia for years. We ourselves have been experiencing hybrid attacks from Russia for decades. So that’s why the threat has been quite clear, what we’re facing.
We are facing Russia, the country, which can change in every five years, in every 10 years dramatically, but nothing changes in 100 years. So we pretty much see the same Russia. It’s expansionist, it’s imperialist, regardless what kind of regime we are dealing with. On the one hand, we might say that it is Putin’s Russia, but we might also say that it’s Russia’s Putin. Basically, it represents those long-term resentments, ambitions, the expansionist moods, what we have seen and experienced four years. So that’s why certainly we have to have a mindset that we have to deal with Russia, which is imperialistic and expansionist in a long-term perspective. So the long-term perspective approach, the mindset is important. And I think we are there because we start always with a basis of how we think about, how we analyze, how we assess. I think the threat assessment absolutely is the basis how we built our policies up.
Additionally to this, apart from mindset, I would say another layer of mindset is that we should approach Russia, and I would say not only Russia, we should approach the challenging transformative world also from positions of strengths. Let’s not underestimate ourselves. Let’s not underestimate the strengths of our unity. Let’s not underestimate the strengths of our democracies. Let’s not underestimate the strengths what we can also put on a battlefield if we need to. We are the most successful collective defense alliance in the history, and I can fully agree with those assessments. That’s why of course, a understanding and believing and also acting from positions of strengths with Russia absolutely is important.
What we should do practically, of course, that’s also what the NATO summit is about, invest. And it’s about political investment. It’s about financial investment, it’s about investment, of course, in our armed forces, in our military industrial capacity, it’s about societal resilience. So of course we open also other domains as well, hybrid security, cybersecurity, being resilient against illegal immigration, being resilient against any incidents against critical infrastructure. What we experience also in Baltic Sea region, also in the Baltic countries. So that’s why of course, this 360-degree approach is pretty much also should be there. How we deal with strengthening ourselves, our own capacities, but of course also how we deal with Russia.
When we deal with Russia, I would say the words like containment, constraining, countering, contesting . . . That we should of course, constrain what Russia can do militarily. That it is not able to attack its neighbors, it’s not able to undermine international rules-based order that we are able also to contest globally. So, when contest, not militarily, but also politically, also in terms of information, also in terms of strategic communication because at the very end it’s also about the global fight for hearts and minds of the people. So, the strategic communication absolutely here is a must as well. And it’s not only with Russia, it’s also with other authoritarian states which actually support Russia in its aggressive and assertive resentment, geopolitics, and aggressive geopolitics.
And of course also, the countering. So, we should be active how we deal with those things, it’s not just about being passive and reacting, but also basically moving out and clearly defining those strategies. And last but not least, of course, now supporting Ukraine. Then now the international rules-based order is being defended in Ukraine. The values of democracy, the values of freedom are being defended in Ukraine. So, that’s why, of course, support for Ukraine, imposing strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine is a must, what we should achieve, and what we should aspire. And we should once more not underestimate that we can not do it, we can do it. Thank you.
Moderator:
Thank you. Absolutely. And for all . . . Yeah, well done. For all the think tankers out there, there is hope, someday you’re sitting out there, you might be right here.
Andris Sprūds:
But don’t worry, I will move back at some point.
Moderator:
General Hodges, you bring a unique perspective to this debate, you took command of US Army Europe soon after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine, in 2014 you were instrumental in leading some of the very early efforts to shore up deterrence along the Eastern flank, and for starting the early days of the training and the assisting of the Ukrainian armed forces soon after that illegal annexation of Crimea. But now you’re a civilian, you view this perhaps differently from the outside, so to speak, you’re not constrained as you would be, being an official. So, can you tell us your candid view about what the Russia threat is, and what NATO should be doing about it?
Peter Pellegrini:
Russia is at war with us and we need to wake up, we need to acknowledge that they are at war with us. It may not be T-72s or Sukhois that are striking NATO countries, but they are absolutely at war. The GPS jamming, the sabotage, the interference in our elections, complete disregard for international law, selling oil on unseaworthy, unsafe unregistered ships, that they sell to India and China, which gives them money to keep buying ammunition and drones from North Korea and Iran, that then they used to kill innocent Ukrainians. They’re absolutely at war with us, but yet somehow we have a lot of people including in this city that are like, oh, Russia, it’s a great power, it would be terrible if the regime collapsed and they might use a nuclear weapon. And so, our policy towards Russia seems to be avoid escalation. And when the policy should be defeat Russia. Help Ukraine defeat Russia, knock them back.
And that does not require one single American soldier, British soldier, Latvian soldier, not one. Not one. But it does require the political will of my president, all the other heads of state and government of the alliance, to say, this is not about helping Ukraine, our policy should be protecting our strategic interests, which is to defeat Russia, make them live within their own borders. Otherwise, it’s absolutely, we’re going to have a continuation, exactly what the minister said, three years from now, we’ll think we’ll have a piece, they know that we’ll lose interest, and we’ll be back at it.
Moderator:
Absolutely. Secretary of States Healey, I mentioned you just returned from Ukraine, I think on day two you were in Ukraine, you met with President Zelenskyy and Odessa. Anyone who’s been to Odessa recently knows that it’s a very difficult time in the city, with the airstrikes, and the impact on the electrical grid, and just day-to-day life for the Ukrainians that live there. Prime Minister Starmer has made it clear that Britain’s leading support for Ukraine will continue, and in fact, I believe you said that you’re going to look at ways to expedite existing support and commitments to Ukraine to try to get that material to the front lines faster. Can you tell us a little bit about this, and why coming into government you believe that a Ukrainian victory is important to the United Kingdom?
John Healey:
So, General Hodges just said, look, we need to view Ukraine in our own strategic interest. He’s a general, he’s got that strategic insight, I’m a politician, I put it plainly, because I don’t think our public and our people fully and properly understand what’s at stake here. And so, some of the arguments I try to make in the UK are, especially on the campaign trail, which we’ve just finished, defense of the UK starts with the Ukraine. And that’s true for us, it’s true for most of the European nations, it’s relevant also it’s America’s interest as well.
And that’s the case because we know that if Putin prevails in Ukraine, he’s not going to stop there. That’s even before we get it, the truth that General Hodges just said, that Putin, without deploying the military against us is already at war with all of our countries. There’s a wider importance as well because if Russia does prevail, then it says to other big countries around the world, you’ve got the scope too to try and redraw international boundaries by force, which reinforces the instability, and the danger to us all. So, fundamentally, that’s a public argument we need to make more forcefully, certainly in my country, that may be true in other parts of the alliance as well. So, for a UK perspective, we’ve been bipartisan from the start, it was just five weeks before Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, that David Lammy, now foreign secretary of the UK, and I, together went to Kyiv.
And we were discussing the risk then or the threat of the invasion, and we told them then, if Putin invades, the UK will stand united with Ukraine. And I’m proud that that’s the case in my country, I’m proud of our government, the previous government, not ours now, and the leadership that you’ve mentioned on Ukraine, and Keir Starmer and I are dedicated to developing that. So, that’s one of the reasons that I wanted to be out in Ukraine at the first opportunity having been appointed. And I was able to say to President Zelenskyy two days in, and his team there, first of all, we will speed up the delivery of the equipment and military aid that’s already been pledged by the UK, we will do that, we will complete that delivery within 100 days. So, the big Rishi Sunak pledge in April, the largest UK package to date at that time, will be fully delivered within 100 days with a Starmer guarantee.
The second is that I was able to require a immediate stock check of what we could offer, and we’ve been able also to provide an extra package of equipment, the sort of kit that they’re using day to day and need in battle. I can give you some of the details. It’s not big, but it’s a sign of, an important sign, I think, for the Ukrainians that the UK commitment continues, and there may be a change of government, but there’ll be no change in the UK’s determination to stand with Ukraine, or confront Russian aggression, or indeed, pursue Putin for his war crimes. The third is we will, I said to him, we will now work with Ukraine, and we’ll work with allies, to work out how we can step up what we do to support. My view is that we need to see this in a much bigger picture, the sort of picture you were drawing of the Russian aggression.
Because too often we’re focusing on the immediate military battle, the immediate military equipment needs, when if Ukraine’s hand is going to be strengthened by us as allies, it isn’t just the military help that we can provide, it’s the political, diplomatic, economic support and pressure that we can put in Putin. And if Ukraine’s going to be in a position to judge that the time may be right to pause the fighting and try and find some settlement, it needs to have the strongest possible hand in the strongest possible position, and that’s our responsibility. And that finally, I think is why, again, this NATO summit is so important.
John Healey:
. . . I think is why, again, this NATO summit is so important. The unanimity behind very significant long-term, multi-year commitments to support Ukraine, not just militarily, but also industrially is so important. And if we do what we say, if we deliver what we promise, then we will be playing a big part in making sure that Putin in the end does not win.
Moderator:
I think that is music to our ears, hearing that in 100 days, this equipment will be expedited. It’s very much needed, of course.
Keeping on the theme of Ukraine, Minister, I’ve heard you say a number of times and just five minutes ago say that Russia needs to receive a strategic defeat in Ukraine. Can you explain what that is? What does that strategic defeat, what does it look like?
Andris Sprūds:
Yes, of course. Again, one step back. We must remember what are the consequences of the Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and what are the consequences of how the war goes and what will be the outcome of it? The consequences that if Ukraine loses, it’s undermining the international rules-based order, it’s undermining our credibility, it’s undermining our security. So I think the stakes are high, and this should be always remembered. Which also means that we have a very clear, we must have a very clear, strategic goal, what we want to achieve together with Ukraine. We, as a transatlantic community of democracies of like-minded, what is the strategic goal?
And strategic goal is not Ukraine not losing the war. The strategic goal is Ukraine winning the war and imposing strategic defeat on Russia. What does it mean? I think it’s, again, clear. It’s restoring territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is taking those war criminals accountable for their crimes. What just we’ve seen a few days ago as well with brutal attacks against children and innocent civilians.
It’s also about financial repercussions using the frozen assets. And at the very end, strategically, it’s also about Ukraine becoming the 33rd member of NATO and it will become 33rd member as well.
How to achieve it? Of course, keeping the strategic ambition in mind, yes, we have to make also practical steps. Practical steps supplying the providing military support. And I think the financial commitments here also shows how seriously we take it.
Now Lavia, both countries we allocated, we committed 0.25 percent of our GDP for military support to Ukraine. It is quite a considerable amount. It is for Latvian military or defense budget almost 10 percent of our military defense budget goes in supporting Ukraine, and I think we should still consider even providing more.
It is also, of course about coordinating all those different activities, what we have. We have a lot of activities. We’re co-leading together with UK, a drone coalition, and I think it’s excellent coalitions. There are other capability coalitions. What we realize that we should also take steps faster, a more voluminous approach. Well, but we are also democracy with a lot of procedure, so unfortunately sometimes things take longer than we expect.
Last but not least, we should be ready to support Ukraine as long as it takes being ready that the conflict must be or can be protracted as well. So be ready for it and support Ukraine. And I think the strategic goal of imposing strategic defeat on Russia will be quite realistic.
Moderator:
Absolutely.
General Hodges, you’ve been one of the most outspoken supporters of assisting Ukraine, arming Ukraine. You were leading-
Peter Pellegrini:
Obviously not very compelling.
Moderator:
Well, we have seen some progress on your focus regarding the long range strikes, ATACMS missiles, trying to isolate the Crimean Peninsula. We’ve seen steps in the right direction. We haven’t gone as far as I think many of us would like. We haven’t gone as we quickly as we would like. But practically speaking, what does NATO, and you can talk about the US or individual countries inside the alliance, what do we need to be doing more of and faster to help Ukraine win on the battlefield?
Peter Pellegrini:
If President Biden would come out tonight when he’s hosting all his heads of state and government guests at dinner, if he would say, "Ladies and gentlemen, it is the policy of the United States, it is our strategic objective that Ukraine defeats Russia and we’re going to do every damn thing that they need so that they can do it." Not this empty, "We’re with you for as long as it takes." But, "We’re going to do everything they need." That right there would be the seismic change that would lead to Ukraine actually winning, and that would be a crushing strategic defeat for the Kremlin.
So far they’ve been confident that the American President would not do that. The German Bundes chancellor would never do that, and unfortunately a few other heads of state and government. So the way the first step is to say, that’s our objective. If you don’t even say that’s the objective, then you end up with, I must say, really bad policy decisions such as, okay, well finally after two years you can have ATACMS, but you cannot use them against airfields from which murderous attacks are emanating against Ukrainian cities. That’s terrible policy or this drip, drip, drip, drip.
Everything that we are providing Ukraine right now, you can see why I’m retired. Everything that Ukraine has right now from the United States, with the exception of Javelin, was a no for the first months of the war. I mean, you can remember, Luke, there was a time where, "Huh, we shouldn’t provide Stinger because what will happen if a Ukrainian soldier shoots down a Russian helicopter with an American Stinger, they might use a nuclear weapon." I mean, that was the thinking.
And so we’ve had this taken two and a half years and tens of thousands of lives to get to where we finally are and we’re still underestimating Ukraine’s ability to integrate new equipment. So at the risk of sounding like a broken record, make it our policy. This is our objective, strategic objective. I mean, look, eight months when nothing came from the United States, eight months, Russia achieved nothing. All they could do is continue attacking Ukrainian cities. So they could not even exploit for over half a year, despite having all their advantages, they’d lack the ability to knock Ukraine out of the war. They can’t do it. Imagine if we had been providing everything that was needed with an aim to helping Ukraine actually win and if we used all of our economic tools.
I cannot understand why they are still able to get ammunition from North Korea, drones from Iran, parts from China, and your ships loaded with oil going through the Baltic Sea, which we control. Black Sea, we should still be able to stop it. But unfortunately we’re not able to do that. And that oil goes to India and China.
You saw the graph that came out the other day. The top 20 countries that are buying Russian oil, India, China, but also 10 European countries, including Germany, still buying Russian oil. Unbelievable. And that money is what pays for that Kinzhal missile that slammed into that children’s hospital. So we’re not serious. We have to declare that we want Ukraine to win because it’s in our interest.
Moderator:
Yeah. It comes down to we have to start wanting Ukraine to win more than we just hope that Russia might lose this war and we need to start acting that way.
Now these gentlemen have very busy schedules. They rushed over here from the NAC and they’re going to be rushing directly back to the NAC as this ends. And I’m very mindful of the time and I don’t want to make their schedules delayed. So with that, please join me in thanking our three panelists.
Speaker 1:
Ministers, thank you very much. I must say that this perhaps was one of . . .