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| James Mattis (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By COLIN CLARK
Presumptive Defense Secretary James Mattis sent a clear signal to America’s allies — and to his presumptive boss, President-Elect Trump — that the NATO alliance is “enormously” important and that America “must also take no ally for granted.”
If approved by the Senate, Mattis said, in written answers to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee, that he “will work to promote these alliances.” During his testimony to the committee this morning, Mattis went so far as to call NATO perhaps the most important alliance in world history.
All this would seem to stand in stark contrast to the dismissive statements from Trump when he was running for president. At the same time, while Tump’s tone was dismissive and he seemed to reject the standard American commitment to NATO, Trump’s comments about burden sharing echoed sentiments by President Obama, who called allies who didn’t meet the NATO requirement of spending 2 percent of their GNP “freeloaders.” It is a sentiment that has long been held by American policymakers and the military, who have watched America’s share of the NATO budget rise from 50 percent to 75 percent since 2001. But Trump’s tone and blunt delivery, as so often happened, has made it appear as if the US would not meet its treaty obligations under Article 5 of the NATO charter.
Mattis called on NATO to “harness renewed political will to confront and walk back aggressive Russian actions and other threats to the security of its members,” in his written answers. He also told the SASC that “buttressing NATO will be fundamental” to managing the increasingly feisty Russians, adding that the Pentagon “we will need an integrated strategy that strengthens the North Atlantic Alliance and ensures that the Department of Defense is prepared to counter both traditional and emerging threats.”
That should go some way to alleviate the fears of many NATO allies, felt especially keenly by the Baltic States and Poland as they face the restive Russian bear.
Read the full story at Breaking Defense