Leaders of the world’s largest defense alliance will convene in Madrid next week for the annual NATO summit.
Published On 27 Jun 2022
Leaders of the world’s largest defence alliance will convene in Madrid this week for the NATO 2022 summit.
The high-stakes meeting from June 28 to 30 comes at a time of heightened global tension amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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Here are five things you should know about the summit that security analysts say could affect the defence and security priorities of countries not only in the West, but also around the world.
What’s happening and why is it important
At last year’s NATO summit in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg highlighted that the alliance’s relationship with Russia was at its “lowest point since the end of the Cold War”.
His words became reality when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, further worsening relations between NATO and the Kremlin.
Harry Nedelcu, head of policy at Rasmussen Global and in charge of its Free Ukraine task force, told Al Jazeera that the summit will likely see NATO agreeing to beef up its presence on its eastern flank.
“An enhanced forward presence with rotational battalions in Poland and the Baltic states was already agreed at the Warsaw summit [in 2016]. The Madrid summit will see allies agreeing to a more enhanced and perhaps even more permanent presence in the east,” he said.
Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday that NATO was planning to “increase the number of our high readiness forces to well over 300,000”.
Elisabeth Braw, senior foreign policy and defence fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said NATO has shown great unity since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and it must continue.
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