Nato

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Thank you very much to my colleagues and to the Chair.

The world has grown too dangerous for the remaining NATO members not to meet the 2-percent mark. We all must make it a priority to increase defense spending. It is shocking and unacceptable that some allies, especially some capable ones, have yet to reach the 2-percent requirement that they agreed to.

Friends can speak candidly to one another, and so I will. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, is among this group, which has not and, for several years in the future, will not reach its need.

I was able to meet with Prime Minister Trudeau just a few moments ago and was glad to hear him say that an announcement will be made from our friends in Canada, perhaps later this week, about a new plan to more quickly reach that 2-percent goal. And I call on him to fulfill that statement that he made to us in private. We look forward to that, and we congratulate him on that effort.

NATO allies shouldn't outsource security to others. But this challenge presents an opportunity, one that adds to the mandate we give the incoming Secretary General. The transatlantic industrial base has withered, and we also need to attend to that. And that should be part of Secretary General Rutte's new platform.

In the past, our friends of freedom have had to follow our lead as we pursue a ``peace through strength'' agenda. Today, Europe has not kept pace as it should.

The United States has begun investing heavily to rebuild its arsenal of democracy, and we need to continue doing so. But we are still waiting for the dramatic increase in European 155-mm artillery production. We have yet to see the expanded lines of long-range cruise missiles such as the Storm Shadow and the Scout.

We have heard promises of a reinvigorated defense industrial base in Europe, but those assurances have yet to be fulfilled.

So as he assumes office, Secretary General Rutte should join us in recognizing the 2-percent commitment is, in truth, insufficient in light of Russia's newly mobilized war economy. There are additional issues standing in NATO's way. Its members remain mired in their own domestic issues. They must, of course, attend to these domestic concerns, but they also remain tangled up in an alliance bureaucracy that struggles with basic expansions in munitions production capacity.

These challenges are significant, but Mr. Rutte and the elected governments of our alliance must not abide the status quo. We should consider this situation unsustainable, and we should say so.

NATO asks its members for 2 percent; in my 21st Century Peace Through Strength report, I recommended that we in the United States spend 5 percent of GDP on national defense--as did President Reagan. My plan is primarily designed to deter the Chinese Communist Party, but it also calls for the United States to deepen commitments to Europe.

For a few examples, I recommend permanently stationing an armored brigade combat team in Poland. My plan proposes increasing our rotational deployments in Eastern Europe. We should also improve intelligence sharing and communication among allied forces.

Time and again, the United States has learned, sometimes the hard way, we cannot walk away from Europe. Together, the transatlantic alliance represents half of the world's economy. There is simply no way to contain Beijing's economic aggression without working together closely.

Likewise, a stagnant U.S. military budget and halfhearted European defense spending cannot contain Russia's antagonism.

So thank you for your indulgence.

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