NATO Allies Must Pay More for Europe’s Security
Other major issues are pulling out of Afghanistan and getting on the same page with China policy.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has a virtual defense.
Photographer: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images
I attended my first meeting of the defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Istanbul in 2004, as the senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld. The gatherings are held three times a year, and provide an opportunity for all of the equivalents of the U.S. secretary of defense to discuss key issues. At that time, I was a 3-star vice admiral, but essentially served as the bag carrier for Rumsfeld. After watching the long, ponderous speeches for a couple of days, I thought, “Boy I hope I never have to actually serve in NATO.”
Later, when I became the supreme allied commander of the alliance from 2009-2013, I attended every ministerial meeting. By then, the secretary of defense was Robert Gates, who shared my sense of frustration with the slow pace and deadly bureaucracy in Brussels. Yet despite my resorting to crossword puzzles to get through the speech-making at times, we both ultimately valued NATO’s immense capability — because we needed it in Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans and Syria and in pirate-infested waters off the Horn of Africa.