NATO Secretary General Demands To Stop Defence Cuts

Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO requested the member countries to stop the cuts and to increase investment in defence as peaceful times has changed.

Speaking to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Hague at the 60th plenary session, he said defence cannot take an excessive share of the austerity burden and all allies should shoulder their fair share in terms of spending, capabilities and contributing to its operations.

He noted that when NATO cuts defence spending, other countries have increased it rapidly. He pointed out the example of Russia which escalated its defence spending by 50 percent in last five years. Meanwhile, NATO has reduced its spending by 20 percent.

Stoltenberg stressed that we are not living in peaceful times and the military needs long term investment and political support. The Secretary General said, at the Wales Summit, it was agreed to strengthen collective defence to deal threats. The summit envisaged 'Spearhead Force,' a high readiness force able to react quickly with its command and control presence in the Eastern part of the alliance. He said, to deliver the capabilities, the alliance needs to spend better.

He pointed out that though the gross domestic product of the US and the Europe is almost the same, US spends more than twice on defence than all the other allies combined.

He asked for step by step increase in defence spending and to show progress by the Warsaw Summit in 2016. Further he said,there should be improvement in ballistic missile defence, training and exercise, and fully equipping land forces.

The Secretary General said with no imminent territorial threat after the Cold War, NATO has reduced its command structure to less than 9000 from 22,000. Tanks were reduced to 7,000 from 33,000. The alliance have postponed new investments, reduced exercises and cut back on the maintenance of equipment. But now as "the stakes are high and the threats are real," he demanded to redouble efforts to resource the alliance.

by RTT Staff Writer

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NATO Secretary General Demands To Stop Defence Cuts