Biden touts steps to bolster NATO’s collective defense

President Biden touted the establishment of the four new battle groups in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary as “a strong signal that we will collectively defend and protect every inch of NATO territory” after the NATO Summit in Brussels on Thursday.

The president said that the U.S. will develop new plans for additional forces and capabilities to strengthen NATO’s defenses between now and the next summit in June.

“We will adopt an updated Strategic Concept to ensure NATO is ready to meet any challenge in the new and more dangerous security environment,” Biden said in his statement, adding that NATO is strong and united.

He noted that the U.S. has announced $1 billion in new security assistance to Ukraine in the past few weeks, which includes anti-aircraft systems, anti-armor weapons, drones and millions of rounds of ammunition, and that he has “welcomed the new deployments made by our Allies.”

Additionally, the president commented that Ukrainian President Zelensky addressed the summit and said NATO will “continue to support him and his government with significant, and increasing, amounts of security assistance to fight Russian aggression and uphold their right to self-defense.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in a press conference after the summit, called Zelensky’s address an “impassioned message” and said the Ukrainian president thanked NATO allies for the support and stressed the importance of even more military assistance.

Stoltenberg announced that NATO agreed to strengthen cyber defenses and equipment to help Ukraine “protect against biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear defense.” Those defenses include detection equipment, protection and medical supplies, and training for decontamination and crisis management.

He said there’s concern that Russia could use chemical weapons because of the “rhetoric” out of the Kremlin, and because Russia is trying to create a pretext accusing Ukraine and NATO allies of preparing to use chemical weapons.

“Any use of chemical weapons will totally change the nature of the conflict, it will be in latent violation of international law and it will have widespread consequences and of course be extremely dangerous,” Stoltenberg said.

“We are taking measures not only to defend Ukraine but also to defend ourselves,” he added.

He said there are now eight multinational NATO battle groups between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea, and NATO agreed to deploy more forces on land, more jets in the air and more carrier strike groups, submarines and combat ships at sea. 

Stoltenberg also addressed that allied leaders called on China to refrain from supporting Russia’s war effort.

“Our message to China is they should join the rest of the world and clearly condemn the brutal war against Ukraine and not support Russia, neither with economic support or, of course, not with military support,” he said when asked how NATO would respond if China aides Russia.

He also spoke to allies avoiding escalating the war further.

“We have a responsibility to ensure the conflict does not escalate further because this would be even more dangerous and more devastating,” he said.