I'm joined by the US Ambassador to NATO, Julian Smith, joins me Hair on the program ahead of next week's and NATO summit in Washington, d C. Ambassador, a pleasure to have you on the program. Thank you so much. I want to dive right into a question a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic are asking, which is sustainability of aid to Ukraine. From your perspective and from your visibility, how long can we count on that?
Well, what I see here inside the NATO Alliance is strong unity by all thirty two allies to keep supporting our friends in Ukraine. This isn't just a case of the US providing important economic, humanitarian and security assistance. This is a case where all of our friends in NATO
are doing their fair share. And let me just note that when Europeans in particular invest in capabilities to donate to the Ukrainians, they often come to the United States and purchase weapons and capabilities and assets from the US. Because they're best in class. We can get them quickly onto you into Ukraine, and the timelines for delivery are rather short. So this is an investment first and foremost
in Ukraine. But I would note that the investments that we're making their come back and pay dividends in the United States as well.
You emphasize the investments in Europe. Right now, there's a lot of questions around how sustainable even that ramp up in defenses from some of the NATO allies and of course from each country's defense. I have his number here, say, twenty three NATO allies are already at that two percent goal, despite Russia outspending Europe. Are you satisfied with the progress that Europe is making despite some of those political and arguably financial hurdles that they're facing.
Ten years ago, allies came together and decided that every member of the Alliance would spend two percent of their own GDP on defense. When we made that pledge a decade ago, actually there were only three allies that met the target. So the big news that we have at the NATO summit coming up next week is that we're now at a point. Ten years later, we're twenty three allies now spend two percent. Now, your question was is
that enough? Two points on that one, We've got to make sure that we get to thirty two, and every member of the Alliance has a plan in place to get there. So in the next couple of years we're going to face a situation where all members of the Alliance spend two percent. But here's the other point I would make. We have now multiple allies across the Alliance spending more than two percent. We have countries in Eastern Europe, the Nordic countries, the UK and others obviously the United
States that spend more than two percent. So not only our allies meeting the commitment, they're stretching beyond it.
Well, they're also talking a lot about there at least have been reports in the last forty eight hours or so that NATO particularly is talking about a special station in Kiev in particular, and is also talking about centralizing some of those operations when it comes to training, when it comes to troops, when it comes to weaponization. Can you walk us through the significance of that.
Sure, So when we get to the summit next week, we're going to have a couple of different deliverables for Ukraine. One is that we are now here at NATO going to take over the coordination of some of the assistants that's flowing into Ukraine. We've had many years well two years where many countries have come together to offer assistance to Ukraine, and NATO is now going to be coordinating all of those efforts to bring order to all of the generous support being provided to them. NATO is also
going to take on the coordination of training. We have a situation where many countries in Europe and the United States are providing training, and now NATO is saying they can coordinate those efforts again to bring greater coherence. In addition to those two initiatives, we will also have most
likely a new senior civilian rep located in Kiev. This doesn't mean that the coordination of assistance will happen in Ukraine, but we will likely appoint someone to manage all of the good work that we're doing with the Ukrainians on modernizing their forces and building their future force from there in Kiev.
Your predecessors Douglas Lute, Evo Dalder, as well the previous ambassadors to NATO have said that this is a move that basically trump proofs NATO, But in addition to doing that, it also protects against the rise of the far right that you're seeing in Europe. From your perspective, how dire is that need right now?
Well, the new initiatives that I just mentioned for Ukraine and are actually being put in place so that we can bring greater coordination to all of the efforts that have sprung up over the last two plus years. It's not necessarily about guarding against political change. I mean, look, the Alliance is seventy five years old and it has dealt with many decades of political changes, different administrations coming in on both sides of the Atlantic, so we can
cope with that irrespective of what happens. This is about helping the efforts that are being provided to support Ukraine, coordinating them and bring them all together under one roof. And NATO feels like it has some institutional advantage in doing that since it helped so many members in Eastern Europe transition into the Alliance to become full fledged members
over the last twenty years. So modernizing, helping a country modernize its forces is something that we know how to do here in NATO HQ, and that's why NATO is moving out with these new initiatives.
But Ambassador, for how long we're talking about the sustainability of AID. I'm curious how long from your perspective Ukraine is expected to need that kind of aid. Are we talking about years here, a decade, months, what kind of timeframe.
Well, we can't predict with any certainty exactly how long the war in Ukraine will last. But let's make one thing clear. There's one person that started this war. That's President Putin. He started this war two plus years ago. He's the guy that could stop this war if he's so desired. So we will work with the Ukrainians to ensure that they have the assistance they need to defend
their territory. But we will also work with the people of Ukraine towards peace and support the efforts that they've undertaken in recent months to move towards some sort of negotiated settlement.
And Ambassador, a final question to you on the cooperation between Russia and China, in particular, not only when it comes to Ukraine, but an access as being formed, perhaps in response to NATO as well. How preventable is that? From your perspective? Is can anything be done to counteract it?
We spend a lot of time here at NATO headquarters talking about the deepening relationship between the PRC and Russia. China takes every effort every chance it can get to argue that somehow it's a neutral player in this war in Ukraine. But in reality, the PRC is providing a long list of dual use components, things like machine tools and microelectronics that are enabling Russia to pursue this war
of aggression in Ukraine. So here inside NATO, we're making sure that we can expose the fact that the PRC is no longer a neutral player and warr in China about the risks of getting behind Russia in this unprovoked war of aggression.