US President Joe Biden announced in Madrid on Wednesday that his country will “strengthen its military presence in Europe” so that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) can “respond to threats from all directions and in all fields: land, air and sea.”
He said during a NATO summit, which he described as “printing history”, that the US military presence and military capabilities will be strengthened in Spain, Poland, Romania, the Baltic states, Britain, Germany and Italy.
“We are on time” and “we are proving that NATO is more necessary than ever,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
In detail, Biden reminded that this year the United States had already deployed “20,000 additional military personnel to Europe to reinforce our ranks in response to Russia’s aggressive steps.”
He stressed that Washington will increase the number of its destroyers at the Rota naval base in Spain, to six instead of the previous four.
In Poland, Washington will establish “Permanent General Headquarters for the Fifth Corps of the United States Army”.
“We will maintain an additional brigade” of a total of 5,000 troops based in Romania, and we will carry out “additional deployments to the Baltic states,” Biden said.
“We will send two more squadrons” of F-35 fighter jets to the UK and “we will deploy additional air defense capabilities” to Germany and Italy, he explained in a brief statement to the press.
Biden believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to “make Europe like Finland”, that is, to make NATO member states adopt a neutral position, which is historically the position of northern European countries, but he is witnessing, contrary to his desire, the expansion of the alliance to include additional European countries.
Finland, historically known for its neutrality, and Sweden are preparing to join NATO, after the lifting of the Turkish veto on Tuesday evening, while the alliance has shown almost flawless unity since the start of the war on Ukraine.
For more international news, please visit the international news section by clicking here.
Global News by Morocco Times TV.