NATO leaders gathered in Spain on Wednesday to begin a summit amid the "most serious security crisis" the world has faced since World War II, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Stoltenberg made the remarks in Madrid, where the heads of 30 NATO member states, including U.S. President Joe Biden, will decide on new membership in the alliance, Russia's war in Ukraine, and China's rising aggression.
At the start of the summit Wednesday, the members were expected to agree upon a blueprint for NATO's strategy for the next decade as it moves into what Stoltenberg called "a more competitive and dangerous world."
The EU has pledged $630m to assist vulnerable countries tackle a food security crisis worsened by Russia’s war on Ukraine https://t.co/8DD3t98xml pic.twitter.com/gNTguIIi6s
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"We will agree [on] a fundamental shift to our deterrence and defense. With more forward deployed combat formations. With more high-readiness forces. And also more pre-positioned equipment," he said.
"This is the biggest overhaul [of] our collective defense since the end of the Cold War."
The summit began one day after it was announced that the military alliance has reached a deal to admit Sweden and Finland after Turkey, which had objected to their membership, dropped its opposition.
NATO members are expected to formally invite the Nordic nations to join the alliance during the summit, which ends Thursday. All new members must be unanimously approved for admission.
Some of the changes that are expected to be raised at the meeting concern NATO's Strategic Concept, which defines various security challenges. When the concept was adopted in 2010, member states agreed that Russia was a strategic partner. Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that is no longer so.
"I expect that, when leaders agree [to] the Strategic Concept today, they will state clearly that Russia poses a direct threat to our security and, of course, that will be reflected throughout the Strategic Concept," Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.
Other changes are expected to concern China, which was not mentioned in the Strategic Concept that was agreed upon more than a decade ago.
Stoltenberg said he expects members will agree that Beijing "is a challenge to our values, to our interests and to our security."
"China is not an adversary but, of course, we need to take into account the consequences to our security when we see China investing heavily in new modern military capabilities, long-range missiles, nuclear weapons and also trying to control critical infrastructure," he said.
Speaking at the NATO summit in Madrid, US President Joe Biden announced that America will boost its military presence in Europe in response to the security crisis created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine https://t.co/IvHOLIlz8V
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"The Strategic Concept will reflect that NATO is changing; the world is changing."
Biden arrived in Spain on Tuesday after the G7 summit in Germany, where he and other leaders vowed continued support for Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was scheduled to address leaders at the NATO summit on Wednesday and member states are expected to work on an aid package for the war-torn country.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
