Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has urged European leaders to step up their defense spending commitments to keep the transatlantic alliance strong in the face of threats, and to support President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Stoltenberg, who led NATO from 2014 to 2024, wrote in a Nov. 9 op-ed in The Financial Times that European nations have a crucial role to play in maintaining the integrity of the transatlantic defense pact, particularly in light of Trump’s renewed calls for burden-sharing within the alliance.
“Trump felt that the U.S. was getting a bad deal. He believed allies weren’t pulling their weight and initially viewed the alliance as a burden rather than an asset,” Stoltenberg wrote, adding that Trump had a point. “Europe had indeed allowed its forces to atrophy, and several nations had become dangerously reliant on Russian gas. These oversights would later cost Europeans dearly.”…