US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday promised to rebuild and revitalize the Transatlantic military alliance (NATO) after a four-year bruised when Washington described NATO as outdated, divided, and in the crisis. In his first official visit to NATO since President Joe Biden served in January, Blinken said the alliance was critical but could arise stronger after internal disputes over Turkey and Russian gas.
“I came here to reveal the commitment of the United States (to NATO),” said Antony Blinken while talking to the reporters when he met with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. “The United States wants to rebuild our partnership, first and especially with our NATO allies, we want to revitalize the alliance.”
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After four years of friction with Washington under the presidency of Donald Trump, who said the alliance was obsolete and haringanging above the target of defense expenditure, European members and NATO welcomed the tone change, said they were once again consulted on the strategy. “The last thing we can do is take this alliance just like that,” Blinken said, an old Biden confidant who tried to repair the damage made by the “American First” policy of Trump.
“The process of facing our shortcomings can be excruciating. It can be bad. But in the end, at least today, we have appeared the better and getting stronger for it,” he said. Blinken said the increase in the Chinese military and Russian efforts to disrupt the West was a threat that required NATO to gather, urging Turkey to embrace the alliance.
After buying Russian weapons, Turkey briefly blocked the NATO defense plan in 2019 and launched an attack supported by America, prompting France’s Emmanuel Macron to confirm that NATO “experienced brain death.”
Foreign Minister France Jean-Yves Le Drian welcomed Blinken’s tone, saying that NATO was founded in 1949 to contain the military threat from the Soviet Union, “rediscover.” “There will be no European defense without NATO, and there will be no efficient and relevant NATO without Europeans,” he said at NATO headquarters, where foreign ministers met for the first time personally because of Coronavirus.
