{"id":47441,"date":"2017-09-20T16:28:26","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T16:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2017\/09\/20\/nato-chief-welcomes-trumps-new-approach\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T03:35:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:35:21","slug":"nato-chief-welcomes-trumps-new-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2017\/09\/20\/nato-chief-welcomes-trumps-new-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO chief welcomes Trump’s new approach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UNITED NATIONS \u2014 NATO\u2019s secretary-general welcomed President Donald Trump\u2019s new strategy for the 16-year Afghan war and said the U.S. leader\u2019s insistence that NATO members increase their defense spending is achieving positive results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jens Stoltenberg said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly\u2019s annual meeting of world leaders that Trump has been very clear \u201cthat the United States remains committed to NATO, but not only in words but also in deeds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He strongly welcomed the U.S. decision to increase its military presence in Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War \u2014 along with its European allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoltenberg said he agrees with Trump that all NATO members need to increase defense spending so there is \u201cfair burden sharing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter many years of decline, we have now seen for the first time since the end of the Cold War a real increase in defense spending across Europe and Canada,\u201d he said, adding that the number of countries meeting the target of spending at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense is increasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are currently five members \u2014 the U.S., Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland \u2014 that meet the requirement and Stoltenberg said he expects Romania to reach the target this year and Lithuania and Latvia to most likely reach it next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On other issues, Stoltenberg said Turkey is looking into the possibility of buying air defense systems from France and Italy in addition to the one it recently purchased from Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NATO chief also said he is going to Japan and South Korea next month to discuss North Korea\u2019s escalating nuclear and ballistic missile program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are condemning the development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are engaging with our partners in the region, Japan and South Korea … and, of course, we are clearly supporting all efforts to make sure that North Korea stop developing these weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump last month unveiled his new Afghan strategy saying American troops would \u201cfight to win\u201d by attacking enemies, \u201ccrushing\u201d al-Qaida, and preventing terrorist attacks against Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoltenberg welcomed Trump\u2019s announcement of increased troop levels and his decision that U.S. forces would remain in Afghanistan based on conditions on the ground \u2014 \u201cnot based on specific timetables.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon is preparing to deploy several thousand more Americans to Afghanistan, in order to expand the training and advising of Afghan forces and beef up counterterror operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida-linked groups in the country. Officials have said the U.S. will send as many as 3,900 more troops to the war \u2014 which would bring the number of publicly recognized U.S. troops there to about 15,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoltenberg said NATO has also decided to increase the number of troops for its training mission in Afghanistan by \u201ca few thousand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said several European allies and partner nations have announced that they will provide more troops and \u201cwe\u2019re now in the process of making the final decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is about making sure that Afghanistan doesn\u2019t once again become a safe haven for international terrorists, and the best way of doing that is to enable the Afghans to have defense security forces which are strong enough to do that,\u201d Stoltenberg said. \u201cI don\u2019t think this is an easy task, but I strongly believe that the best way forward is to train them instead of NATO sending big numbers of combat troops fighting in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On another NATO issue, some NATO allies have expressed concern that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has purchased a Russian-made S-400 missile defense system, which is not compatible with systems in the alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\t