The Chair of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, warned, on Wednesday 15 January, that the Alliance’s “tasks at hand are Herculean, but not insurmountable”.
“Our tasks are to strengthen the deterrence and defence of the Alliance and at the same time support Ukraine in its resistance against Russia’s unprovoked aggression”, he explained at the opening of the 192nd session of the Chiefs of Defence Staff's Military Committee, which is focusing on NATO’s state of preparedness and defence, current missions and operations, and Ukraine.
Recalling that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had called on the Allies to adopt a wartime mindset and to boost defence production and spending, to invest more and to be better prepared for what lay ahead for the Allies in four to five years’ time, Mr Bauer stressed that this political impetus was absolutely necessary to ensure that the conditions were in place to have the necessary readiness to implement NATO’s new defence plans. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)