Secretary of State Rex Tillerson touted the imminent deployment of a “U.S.-enhanced” battalion of NATO forces to Poland during his first visit to an alliance ministerial on Friday.
“The NATO alliance is also fundamental to countering both non-violent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian aggression,” Tillerson said Friday. “These are not just words. Tomorrow, a U.S. enhanced, forward presence battalion will be deployed in Poland.”
The group consists of about 1,300 soldiers, mostly from the U.S. Army’s 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. The battle group also includes troops another 300 troops from the U.K. and Romania.
Russian officials have blamed NATO activities for the recent breakdown in relations, but former Soviet states are alarmed by Russia’s military action in Ukraine. President Trump exacerbated those worries when he suggested that the United States might not honor mutual defense treaty obligations with allies who fail to pay their fair share of NATO costs.
“The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense,” Tillerson told the assembled diplomats in Brussels. “We understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, and we will respond accordingly. We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.”
That pledge anchored Tillerson’s ensuing insistence that other allies step up. “[I]t is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO’s defense expenditures,” he said. “Allies that do not have a concrete plan to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense by 2024 need to establish one now. Allies that have a plan to reach the 2 percent guideline need to accelerate efforts and show results.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s team, meanwhile, has turned from warning during the 2016 campaign a Hillary Clinton presidency could lead to war to accusing Trump of straining ties. “New Cold War? Well, maybe even worse,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Putin, told ABC. “Maybe even worse taking into account actions of the present presidential administration in Washington.”
Trump has not lifted the sanctions imposed on Russia in response to the annexation of Crimea and the violence in eastern Ukraine, despite recommendations from some of his allies that he should do so. Russia, meanwhile, deployed two battalions of a new intermediate-range cruise missile developed in violation of a 1987 arms control treaty.
Peskov’s statement is at odds with recent comments from Russia’s top diplomat. “I don’t believe that we are having another Cold War. Ideologically, we’re not different, we’re not apart,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told The National Interest, an American publication, in an interview published on March 29. “It’s a polycentric world. Call it multipolar, call it polycentric, call it more democratic — but this is happening.”
That was a soft reiteration of his recent call for “a post-West world order,” but Lavrov also emphasized the adversarial aspect of Russian and American relations in a recent address to a domestic audience.
“I can say that the greatest misfortunes in the past centuries came to Russia almost always from the West,” Lavrov told a military academy in Moscow last week. “Our country has its traditions and wholesome values, and we do not try to impose them on anyone. We warn our partners at the same time that when they are in Rome they should do as the Romans do.”
Tillerson wants the NATO allies to unveil detailed plans for increasing their military spending in time for a May summit. “While meeting the challenge of the fight against terrorism, we must remain vigilant in strengthening NATO’s eastern defenses,” he said. “The United States will not abandon its allies or forget its friends. Many of the nations in NATO have been working together for decades to protect shared freedoms, shared values and shared security. But we cannot keep protecting them without meeting our shared responsibility of financial and other resources.”
