00:08I'd like to welcome onto the stage U.S. Ambassador Nathan Matthew Whittaker. Thank
00:12you very much, Ambassador. All the way from Iowa. That's right. You were just back home
00:16recently. Last week, yeah. Good to be home. I took SecGen. I had invited him to the State Fair
00:22in Iowa. The famous Iowa State Fair, yeah. Yeah, the famous Iowa State Fair. Often copied,
00:27never replicated. I think it was really well-received, delivered an important message to really part
00:35of the country that doesn't often get, you know, sort of the message from NATO and from
00:41the Secretary General. It was good to get him there, and I think he really enjoyed it.
00:43There was a survey which showed that the United States populations, citizens in the U.S.,
00:49their support for NATO was declining at the moment. That was something that was quite
00:53interesting coming out of that. It's still quite high, though. Yeah.
00:57If I remember the report, it was in the 60s, which right now in the United States, if you
01:02get anybody to agree to 60% of anything, that's pretty good. You are winning. But I mean, like,
01:08listen, we need to not forget that the explanation of the value of NATO to the American people,
01:19and quite frankly to all citizens of all 32 allies, is a story that we need to continue to tell.
01:26And we
01:27need to make sure that everyone understands why we have the alliance after 77 years, and why it
01:33continues to provide value for the taxpayers. Because obviously, we contribute, the United States
01:39contributes a lot, all of our allies contribute a lot, to common funding and to the force sourcing and
01:46everything that we're doing at NATO. They contribute, obviously, me, as the ambassador, and my entire
01:52staff at the embassy. So...
01:54Well, indeed. And that is the key question. Why do we have NATO? Because from what we're experiencing
01:59in NATO territory in the past couple of years, but in particular over the past few months, the increase in
02:05hybrid war attacks, whether it's drones, whether it's arson, sabotage, we saw the Estonian
02:11government formally accused the Kremlin of the arson and sabotage attack on a defense company,
02:17and we saw the Leipzig drone incident as well. There is a disjointedness about how the NATO should
02:25respond to that. What is your own position?
02:27I think, first of all, typically, these hybrid actions, as they're happening or after they happen,
02:34can't be determined who is behind it. That only comes through investigation by oftentimes law enforcement
02:41and judicial processes together with intelligence agencies working together. And so I think we
02:49have seen kind of the model, I would say, is what happened in Leipzig, where the Germans investigated,
02:57responded, issued sort of consequences after they attributed it to Russia. And at the same time,
03:04we're coordinating with allies and coordinating with NATO. And we were talking about it at the table
03:10at the NAC. So I think that is right now a pretty good model for how to address these. And,
03:18you know,
03:19everyone wants sort of some line in the sand that says, if this happens, then sort of that means
03:26we invoke Article 5. But, you know, Article 5 is really ultimately intentionally vague. It's up to
03:32the 32 allies through consultation and conversation and obviously involvement of capitals to work through
03:40that issue. And it is, I think we're in a really good spot. But the bottom line is, let's ask
03:48why.
03:48Why is this happening? It's happening mainly to deter NATO and allies from supporting Ukraine,
03:57from, you know, supporting other efforts that the allies and members of the alliance want to
04:04support. And so, you know, that just means we should lean in more as to what we're doing. We
04:08should not be deterred. Indeed. But you hear from a lot of security services all across NATO that what
04:15Russia or what the Kremlin is doing right now is becoming less risk averse because there's very little
04:20consequence. Because, as you said yourself, the hybrid threats are sort of below threshold.
04:24So they don't lead to Article 5, which has only ever been triggered once, as we know. And they don't
04:29lead to an Article 4, a formal situation, a lot of the time. Because if you have an Article 4,
04:35formal conversation, and nothing comes out of it, it sort of makes NATO a little bit weak.
04:40There are many consequences that are both sometimes obvious and sometimes, you know, not for general
04:50sharing that can happen. And it is, the bottom line, though, is that this is, if it is action by
05:01Russia, which, again, Estonia has ascribed that, the Germans have ascribed that to two recent incidents,
05:08you know, why are they doing? The reason is to, you know, kind of make allies not want to
05:15support Ukraine as much. And the answer for that is more support for Ukraine.
05:19A lot of others are also saying there's a dual perspective here, that it's about testing NATO
05:24unity, that the attack could be a small ground invasion, drones and so on, that could test
05:32NATO to the point where they have to have Article 4 and Article 5. And maybe there isn't that unity,
05:38and maybe the United States isn't there like it might have been.
05:40Well, we're here. And I continue to show up every day and every week, along with, you know,
05:46all the members of my mission. And, you know, we're not stepping back, we're just asking our
05:50allies to step forward and join us. And many of them are responding. But, you know, we're not here
05:55to brainstorm ideas for our adversaries to challenge us. But I can tell you, we do have unity at the
06:03table. And I think one of the reasons we have unity at the table is we are anticipating what the
06:09future could look like. And we understand where things are going. And we need to be prepared,
06:15and we need to be ready. And that's, that's the thing that, as I talked to our allies at NATO,
06:22readiness is really the number one, you know, more capabilities, but really a readiness that we have
06:27not known. And, and, and to be on a war footing. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's that simple.
06:31So Article 5 is safe in the hands of this administration anyway?
06:34Right. Yeah, I mean, I think so. But like Article 5 is also about consensus, and it's all coming
06:40together at 32, and, and, and responding to whatever the situation in the moment. It's only
06:46been, it's only been used once. That was in response to September 11, which we just, you know,
06:52celebrated the 25th year since that awful day happened in September, 2001. And so, you know,
07:00it's, it's very fresh for a lot of us, but we also, I mean, I, I understand how, how NATO
07:05responded. I
07:06understand how our allies responded and how, how many of them, you know, fought shoulder to shoulder
07:10with us and sacrificed right there with us in Afghanistan and Iraq.
07:13And in the next few months, we'll hear the, the results of the US troop force posture review
07:21due by December, we believe, but we've heard some leaks that it could be as many as 25,000 to
07:2640,000 troops withdrawn from NATO territory. Can you give us a bit of clarity about that? And I
07:31suppose the implications that that will have for the nuclear deterrence and deterrence in general,
07:36because of course we do need capabilities, but human beings and soldiers are important too.
07:41Yeah, those reports are wrong. I mean, that, that is not been delivered yet. Even hasn't even,
07:48the plan hasn't even been finalized by the folks at the Secretary of War's policy shop. And so
07:54I think any, any kind of leaks about that are folks that are, you know, just trying to, you know,
08:01cause confusion. The bottom line is, is we have reaffirmed over and over the, the nuclear umbrella
08:07that we provide to NATO and our allies. We have continued to say that we're going to stay engaged
08:13in Europe. This is a, not only is it a, a forced posture review, it is also a forced posture
08:19in
08:20basing review. And so we're looking at the issues about access basing and overflight. Some of which
08:26were a little clunky during Epic Fury. And so we're, you know, having some conversations with
08:31allies. We're also having conversations about host nation support. We have a lot of allies that
08:36obviously want American troops from a U S ambassador standpoint. America first means that
08:41we look at it from what's in the interest of the United States of America and its people and its
08:46taxpayers. And so we are doing that right now. We're saying, you know, what is the, what is the
08:50value of our basing? Uh, is it, is it what we thought it was? And, and we're just doing a
08:56very
08:56kind of mathematical mechanical, uh, analysis of, of how we're laid down globally because we have to
09:04address global challenges. Uh, our allies expect that out of us to be able to do that on the basing
09:09issue because that was a major bone of contention, uh, the early, at the first stages of the war in
09:15Iran. Um, and it really didn't seem to have, um, sort of dissipated too much when you hear
09:22secretary of war, Pete Hegg said, sort of being very critical of member states for not initially
09:26allowing basing rights. Will there be some retribution for some of those countries within
09:30NATO that didn't allow those basing rights? We heard even Emmanuel Macron, the French president,
09:34just the other day, making the point that, you know, they weren't involved in the war in Iran
09:38because there were no consultation, but it, it didn't sit right with Donald Trump. You know,
09:42he was extremely vocally disappointed. Yeah. I, what I can tell you is, is we had a couple allies
09:49that I, I used the word clunky. I'm going to use that again. I'm, you know, again, I'm a plain
09:53spoken
09:53Midwesterner and that seems to be exactly kind of what it was. We had way too many conversations
09:59about how and where and, and what the purpose of, of, of airplanes might be. Um, and, and obviously
10:06at the speed of relevance, you, you can't, you know, lawyers with clipboards at the end of runways
10:10approving or, or, or rejecting, uh, flights is, is, is, is not the way you can fight a war
10:15effectively. And so again, we're having those conversations with just a few countries that we
10:19had issues with, uh, to make sure we understand the next time, you know, that doesn't happen again.
10:24Well, it doesn't happen again. Or if it does, maybe there, you know, we need to reevaluate,
10:28but we had many allies in Europe, uh, that allowed us to do everything we wanted to do
10:33with our bases, uh, that we have. And so, I mean, there, it's actually a good news story.
10:38Uh, and I see it very much as allies, uh, and, and, and, uh, our agreements bilaterally
10:45with those allies working very well. Uh, and they were very supportive. So, um,
10:49Do you believe relations have improved since then? Yeah. I mean, again, it, it is not perfect
10:54that, you know, it's, it's like any family, uh, that, you know, there are a few siblings you don't
10:58like, and you don't want to talk to, but, you know, mostly, uh, in all seriousness, it is very
11:04much, uh, right now, I think NATO is working as an alliance. You know, the, I think the election
11:08of president Trump, um, caused a lot of, um, you know, sort of uncertainty among our allies that,
11:15that, that, that myself and, and Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth, and especially the president,
11:20I think have worked through, uh, both at the Hague, uh, at, at Ankara and the summits,
11:25and then also in the, in the ministerials. And we've had very straightforward conversations
11:30about these issues. And, uh, I think we're in a good place, but, you know, the next step obviously
11:35is, um, what we're going to do, uh, with, with the, with the, um, forced posture and basing review.
11:42And, uh, you know, that's yet to be determined in the, in, in, in, in certainly, you know,
11:46months away right now. Okay. U.S. Ambassador Matthew Bittiger, thank you very much for joining
11:50us at the Euronews Defense Summit. All right. Thank you.
