U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III made a phone call to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg yesterday during which Austin reassured him of U.S. support for Stoltenberg’s NATO 2030 initiative, “which aims to keep the Alliance strong militarily, make it stronger politically, and give it a more global view,” reports the Pentagon readout.
But not everybody thinks that Stoltenberg’s expansive plan for the NATO Empire is a good idea. Reuters reported yesterday that Stoltenberg’s $20 billion plan “to give NATO more flexibility in facing military threats, climate change and China’s rise has hit firm resistance from France....” The French reportedly fear that the plan undercuts their own defense priorities. “If the idea is to brutally increase the contribution of countries to common budgets and change the philosophy of NATO, moving from national responsibility to the dilution of responsibility, France’s response will be clearly no,” a French Defense Ministry source told Reuters. “For us, it is not an issue of NATO versus Europe, but NATO versus the national defense of each member state,” the source declared.
