Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, the Alliance’s highest military position, said yesterday to a meeting of military chiefs in Brussels that NATO members’ failure to spend more money on defense could threaten its ability to defend and deter aggression. He added that NATO countries need to be on red alert for war and “expect the unexpected.”
He argued: “In order to be fully effective, also in the future, we need a war-fighting transformation of NATO. … We need public and private actors to change their mindset from an era in which everything was plannable, foreseeable, controllable, focused on efficiency ... to an era in which anything can happen at any time. An era in which we need to expect the unexpected.” He blathered that Ukraine’s war was a critical conflict that “will determine the fate of the world…. The tectonic plates of power are shifting. And as a result: We face the most dangerous world in decades.”
