DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT MELANIE FONDER KAYE: Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Pentagon, after a very busy and very hot NATO Summit week. My name is Melanie Fonder Kaye. I am the deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for strategic engagement. We are thrilled to have you join this two-part event, which is one of the ways we are always pleased to collaborate with our State Department colleagues.
First, we'll have a briefing here with Mr. Mark Jones, which will be followed by a tour of the NATO corridor and some other spots in the building with our wonderful historians who have joined us. Some housekeeping reminders, in here we are on-the-record and off-camera. However, at the end, you will be able to take some photos.
So now it is my pleasure to introduce Mark Jones, who serves as the director for NATO policy in the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. So very few people have been busier than he has in the months leading up to this week and this week itself. Mark is a retired Army field artillery and foreign area officer.
He has also served in the Pentagon as Kosovo Country director in the office of the under secretary of defense for Balkans -- for policy and Balkans branch chief in the Joint Staff’s directorate for strategic plans and policy, the J-5. So Mark will provide some brief opening comments from this week and then happy to take your questions, which will be moderated by Sue Gough.
Mark, over to you. And you are -- wherever you like.
MARK JONES: OK. Well, welcome to the Pentagon. I would assume that by this point, most of you were summited out, that you've had all the press briefings that you could possibly want. And so rather than reiterate all the things that you've already heard, I think what I'll just do, because we're in the Pentagon, is talk a little bit about the aftermath and what we think we did and maybe talk about deterrence and defense depending on your questions.
So the first part is, we were trying to do [inaudible]--many months ago when we were trying to figure out what we wanted out of the Washington summit, we kind of talked about three things and those three things were celebration, implementation and initiation. I'm going to go through those a little bit and I'll let you know that as far as we're concerned here, with those as the initial things that we were trying to achieve, I think that we had a remarkably successful summit.
So first of all, celebration. Number one, it wouldn't be lost on anyone that that was just across the river, April 4th, 1949, 12 heads of state and governments got together to sign the NATO treaty, the North Atlantic Treaty, which gave rise to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that has endured for 75 years, despite internal fights, despite internal conflict, despite the changing strategic situation going from the Cold War through to now kind of back to a resurgent Russia.
But through all of the problems, through all of the internal family fights that we've had, the alliance endured. It's the most successful defensive alliance that we've ever had.
Number two, on implementation. It should be no shock that over the last several years, NATO has been transforming really since 2014 when we did the Wales defense investment pledges after the unprovoked aggression into Crimea.
The alliance had transformed before that to out-of-area operations, and before that it was the Cold War. So the alliance has continued to change and adapt. And so as we've moved past 2014, now we're going kind of back to our DNA of a defensive alliance, deterrence and defense. We've been making decisions at heads of state and government ever since 2014 that have put us back on a path to make us a more combat credible, stronger defense and therefore a stronger deterrence, to make sure that no aggressor decides they want to tangle with a NATO ally.
So we did some of that, you'll see from our communique, our 38-paragraph communique, which we're happy is a lot shorter than some of the longer--the ones in the past. We wanted to keep it focused on the celebration and the implementation. But in terms of deterrence and defense, in terms of bringing the defense industrial base back online, because the defense industrial base is absolutely critical to ensure that we have a credible deterrence and defense; a defense industrial base, a reinvigorated defense industrial base is critical to ensure that all allies get to continue supporting Ukraine, number one.
Number two, to restock all of that ammunition and equipment that we've given to--that allies have given to Ukraine since 2022. And the third thing is you've heard about this new family of plans, and I can talk about that at length if you wish. But the family of plans now has specific requirements for readiness and capabilities that are much higher than what we've had before now.
And so that comes with requirements for equipment, which means we have to have defense industrial base that can support that equipment, that can supply that equipment. And that's across the alliance. That's not just the United States, it's across the alliance. That of course then also requires defense spending, and you'll note that we've been implementing the--it started as the Wales Defense Investment Pledge, came forward a little bit at Vilnius to say at least 2% of GDP, or gross domestic product on defense, understanding that more is urgently needed in several areas and now we have 23 allies that are at the at least 2% and everybody else now has a plan to get further.
Last thing, initiation. You'll notice that we took--because it's our summit, you know, we get to claim a few things as ours. Two main parts of that:
Number one, Ukraine. You'll see the discussion that we had, the release of the NATO Ukraine Council statement that talks about the things that the alliance is now going to do for Ukraine. That includes the NATO Security Assistance and Training Mission, military mission, headed by a three-star, which will be headquartered in Germany.
But the things that it will be doing are support for training and equipment, but very clearly, that does not bring NATO into the conflict. There's no intention for NATO to be attacking Russia or anything like that. This is not bringing NATO into the conflict.
The second piece of that is the Indo-Pacific partners. And so at this summit, moving forward with an agreement to have better cooperation between Indo-Pacific partners, the Republic of Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia in several areas, including cyber, including support to Ukraine, including counter disinformation, counter malign information, because it's very clear that the security of the Indo-Pacific is directly related to the security of the Euro-Atlantic.
And so those are the kind of the things that we really wanted to get into. And again, when you add all those up, I think it's pretty clear that we had a very successful summit. All the things that we were trying to do, we kind of got out. I'll just do a few minutes on deterrence and defense and the plans, as I hope that last night you saw, we put out a--the White House put out a fact sheet detailing what the United States is doing for NATO's deterrence and defense.
And some of those things and making U.S. forces available for NATO planning. Because we've now gone through, since 20--really since 2018, we came up with a new NATO military strategy. It's the first time we've had a military strategy revision since the 1960s. We then went--1989, at the end of the Cold War, we had this thing called the General Defense Plan.
And as you heard, I was a retired field artillery officer. I was actually in West Germany in 1989. And what that meant was a general defense plan, everybody knew where they were going to line up, where they were going to have their first set of targets, where they were going to defend from. After 1989, that all went away because at that time Russia was a partner.
So we didn't make new defensive plans as we added allies. That changed and that's some of the things that we talked about at Vilnius and Madrid before. So now we have a family of plans that is rooted in the NATO military strategy that comes down to a concept for deterrence and defense of the Euro-Atlantic area, which is very much part of what we did in 2022 with the new NATO strategic concept that lays out a lot of these things.
That then is undergirded by SACEUR’s AOR-wide strategic plan and then coming down even further, defense plans for three different regions, all commanded by a joint force command by NATO, as well as domain plans for things like cyber, SOF, air and that kind of thing. So now we're not all the way back to the General Defense Plan of 1989, but we're getting there.
New force model, new offers for how nations would provide forces to the plans that exist and then getting that all together as we go from the strategic down to the tactical of how allies will defend, where they will defend from, how they will fight together in all domains. So that's kind of where we've come.
You have seen--again, I will refer you to the white House press sheet on exactly what the DOD is doing in support of those plans. But I think at this point, since it's 11:17 and the real reason you're here is to go see the hallways, and from the historians hear about what's going on out in those hallways. I'll take a couple of questions and then I'll hand you off promptly at 11:30.
Q: Thank you so much for your opening remarks. I really appreciate how you kind of framed that. Here's a question I have for you. I totally understand why defense industry and the issues that you laid out are important, and particularly in Ukraine. But let's take a step back. When the war in Ukraine started, African countries did not come out all in support of Ukraine.
And I know that NATO has concerns about what it's describing itself as the southern neighborhood or southern flank. So is Africa discussed at all during the summit? If not, why not? And what role does NATO, DOD and the U.S. play in terms of this security threats and terrorism and so on from the [inaudible]?
I know that that is a concern, but in a sort of a sub piece to that, maritime security. I know NATO has been sending NATO contingents along with your U.S. Africa Command to do military drills on the African continent. Could you speak to that in terms of maybe cyber issues? I think you have concerns with Russia proliferating there and what Russia -- China might do as a launchpad to NATO countries. If you could put some color to that, please.
MR. JONES: OK. And several things I think that you'll notice within the declaration itself, we touched on that within the declaration. And when I say we, I'm talking about NATO now because we're talking about the declaration. The fact that for several years now, NATO has been focused on the South. We've created a framework for the South several years ago in one of our--at Naples. There is a NATO hub for the South that looks at the things that we're--all through the last couple of, really, the last decade when we had the discussion of Libya.
NATO took part and an operation in Libya. NATO has been in the Mediterranean. That was one of the article five missions that NATO had. We've looked at the weaponization of migration. We've looked at many of the things that have come out, and you really hit it.
Whereas Russia, there are two threats to NATO identified in the strategic concept, Russia and terrorism, in all of its forms.
And so one of the things -- I'll tell you that in addition to the -- the two documents that really came out the declaration of the NATO-Ukraine Council statement, we spent the last year working on 42 documents that aren't releasable to every other kind of internal NATO. But one of those was absolutely on -- on relooking the Southern framework and what we're doing for the South.
So we -- we did agree to a new document on the South. You'll notice even in the -- the declaration we talk about designating somebody at the international staff as the person who will focus on the South. Now that's a high level assistant secretary level person who focuses on the South and how we move forward.
So to the -- to the -- to the question of was Africa discussed? Absolutely, in terms of terrorism, weaponization of migration, also the role of the PRC and Russia and what's going on. And that kind of touches several things about the PRC and Russia and how NATO does have to worry about its second defined threat of terrorism and its Southern neighbor.
Q: Thank. Thank you so much for answering that about why sub-Saharan Africa should matter to NATO. Thanks.
MR. JONES: Absolutely.
STAFF: Hi. You -- I'm sorry if you guys could please identify yourselves and keep it down to one question, please.
Q: Oh, I've had a double barrel, but that's –
STAFF: That's OK.
Q: Both were related. You -- obviously thank you again for doing this. You've talked about this summit being –
STAFF: Please introduce yourself.
Q: Oh sorry, Farrah Tomazin, Sydney Morning Herald. You talked about the summit obviously being quite successful, but the unavoidable issue has obviously being Joe Biden's personally, Joe Biden's leadership. I'd be interested to get your take on how much of a shadow the politics around all of that has cast on this particular summit?
Second to that, but related, one of the things that we're quite concerned about in Australia is the ongoing viability of the orca submarine deal. Should there be a change of administration? I'd be interested in particularly around, you know, the deterrence factor in the Indo-Pacific and the importance and the focus, you know, has been placed on that. What your thoughts are around -- around the future of AUKUS going forward?
MR. JONES: So let me -- let me simply say I'm the NATO policy director. I'm not the Indo-Pacific policy director. And so I -- it's -- I'm not an appointed official, I'm a civil servant, so discussions of domestic politics and campaign and those kind of things, I'm -- it's not really my -- my ball of wax. And in terms of AUKUS, again, I have to defer that to other people more senior to me that are experts on that.
But at least I do want to say that the fact that this is the third time that we brought the Indo-Pacific for -- to a summit. The fact that we fought very hard to make sure that there were new deliverables, these flagship deliverables for the Indo-Pacific that link transatlantic security and Indo-Pacific security together is actually a very big step forward.
And so at least in terms of NATO bringing the Indo-Pacific part -- was part of our initiation piece, the new things that we wanted to make sure that as the United States for our summit that we brought forward, is that linkage with the Indo-Pacific so. OK. Sir.
Q: I'm Jukka Lehtinen from Finnish Newspaper, Kauppalehti, and I just asked, it's the -- the Ukraine is now the big focus of the NATO and there's a -- but what is the long term, vision or plan what the NATO has in Europe after the -- the war is over and like the -- the Ukraine is, is the member of member state also like they have this [inaudible] -- [inaudible] have big deal. What is the -- what Europe is looking after the war? What is that?
MR. JONES: OK. So I think a couple of things. I know that you're aware that Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty talks about the open door.
Q: Yes.
MR. JONES: And I'd also say that I think it's interesting that as I said with all of the fights that we've had, you know, again we've had allies remove themselves from the NATO integrated military command that -- that has happened in the past.
Q: Yes. Yes.
MR. JONES: But NATO endures. And even today, nations want to join NATO. And so it just goes to the enduring point that it provides security for those members. So what I'd say is, look, we've already said that Ukraine is on an irreversible path. Ok, we've said several times now that one day Ukraine will be a member of NATO.
What I'd then refer you to is basically what has happened with the accession of other allies throughout, most recently, Finland and Sweden. When an ally assesses, then we relook, how do you -- how do you bring them into the defensive plans? How do you bring them into the political structures? How do you bring them into the defense spending structures?
So as -- look, no matter whether it's Ukraine or any other European nation that eventually joins the alliance, we'll go through those series of procedures to integrate them into the political decision making and the military decision making. And at that point, it will be just like any other time in NATO's history that Article 5 will be sacrosanct -- saying an attack on one will be an attack on all. And we'll just continue on with a larger NATO.
Q: Thanks so much. Alex Aliyev from Turan News Agency.
MR. JONES: Yes.
Q: We've heard a lot about long-term commitments for Ukraine this week. My question’s about the near-term commitments. How much of this week's decisions will allow Ukraine to perhaps, you know, conduct counteroffensive gains on territory back, when do you expect this to happen?
And secondly, but not really, they say -- about $4 -- 4 billion, so. We know we're [inaudible] annual commitment, you know, NATO -- NATO members will provide Ukraine with $4 billion per year. But we're in the middle of July this year, how is it going to be happening this year? Is it going to -- how -- you know, what proportion of it has already been allocated or can be counting -- counted as of this month?
MR. JONES: Yes. OK, so a couple of different points there. Number one, I'd say that coming a little bit away from the NATO piece, again you've seen it in the NATO Ukraine Council statement that talks about the 40 billion [Euros]. It talks about the NATO security assistance training. There's a piece about nominating -- NATO will have a high representative or a representative in Kiev.
So those are already out and there's more discussion about air defense and some other things. I think that you saw yesterday that outside of the NATO construct really seven different nations talked about the -- or came forward with a plan to get more air defense into Ukraine. So that happened on the side.
But it's fortunate when you have -- somebody has to stay here, they get to sign things and move forward. And then you saw the Ukraine compact yesterday. So in terms of the funding, it's kind of -- it's very clear that it's 40 -- 40 this year and then reassessed throughout by heads of state as we -- as we move forward. So in terms of initial, what -- I don't see a -- I don't see a major change in talk about battlefield and -- and -- and offensive operations.
Not going to really get into that. That's not the purpose of this briefing. But I think as you go forward, you'll see how NATO as a -- as an organization, then institutionalizes some of the things that've been going on, on a multilateral basis that will certainly help in the long-term sustainment of Ukraine.
Q: Hi, David Smith of The Guardian. I just wondered, how much unity and agreement was among NATO members about the potential for China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to be working together more closely almost as a collective? And a second question, I wonder how much discussion or not was there about artificial intelligence and its role in national security?
MR. JONES: So a couple of different things. One, some of the 42 documents I talked about before talks about a new NATO policy on artificial intelligence, but as well as merging disruptive technology. I know that NATO has put out several things on explaining what NATO is doing, bio identifiers, that kind of thing. I think the piece about -- if you look at the declaration, it talks specifically about Belarus, DPRK, Iran and the PRC's support to what Russia is doing.
So NATO is addressing that. In the communique -- or the declaration negotiations itself, we spent quite a bit of time among allies discussing exactly what we wanted to say. And so you see reflected that in some of these paragraphs, the PRC continues to pose systemic challenges to the alliance, although the PRC is not an adversary of the alliance.
We even said in 2022 strategic concept that it presents challenges. And so we move forward and we talked about the PRC being the decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine. So the alliance has certainly come forward and had a fundamental shift of how we talk about the PRC since 2000 or 2020 and moving forward.
Q: Hi. Was there –
MR. JONES: And –
(CROSSTALK)
STAFF: --He'll be the last question.
MR. JONES: Ok.
Q: Hi, Khushboo Razdan, from the South China Morning Post. I wanted to ask if there were any discussions with the Indo-Pacific partners about the Chinese aggression in the South China Sea? And we saw Chinese vessels being spotted off Alaska coast in they were -- they basically claimed that they were there because of freedom of navigation.
How do you see -- were there any discussions about that with the Indo-Pacific partners? And how do you expect China to -- to really react when Indo-Pacific partners are coming regularly to -- to -- to the NATO Summit now and there was such a strong wording on China in this summit?
MR. JONES: So -- unfortunately, I was not in the heads of state and government meetings where some of those things were going on, so I really can't talk to whether there was specific discussions of -- of the elements that you've discussed. But we have certainly seen the PRC coming forward and saying they're not really happy about the Indo-Pacific partners coming.
That's -- that's for them to say, right, but that's not going to stop the Indo-Pacific partners, the NATO outreach to the Indo-Pacific partners or from what I can see the Indo-Pacific partners desire to be working with NATO. But we're just going to keep going forward with that.
Q: How do you see Chinese saying that we're coming to Alaska coast? And because we have the freedom of navigation, how do you see that?
MR. JONES: Again, I'm not the Alaska guy, I'm not the Pacific guy, so.
Q: OK, OK.
STAFF: Last question.
Q: Yes. Thank you so much for taking my question. Definitely the declaration is hope for peace in that region. What is the unified approach of NATO leadership for the future?
MR. JONES: OK, interesting question. I think it goes all the way back to 75 years ago. I mean, the preambular language of our -- of our -- of our treaty talks about a group of -- of nations that have similar beliefs in human rights and international law. That has been consistent throughout. That has been steadfast throughout.
That's one of the things that we ask NATO allies who want to -- nations that want to assess to NATO. You got to start with those kind of things first. So that's kind of the bedrock of the reason this [inaudible] alliance exists. And -- and I just think that that will continue to be the guidepost and the guiding light of how we move forward, so.
Q: My name is Dr. Zulfiqar Kazmi, and I'm from Discover Pakistan.