Image: U.S. President Barack Obama holds a news conference after participating in the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland July 9, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
WARSAW (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, at his last NATO summit before stepping down next January, pledged the United States’ long-term military commitment to ensuring security in Europe and defending all its allies.
Obama said the Western defence alliance had agreed on the most significant reinforcement of its collective defence since the Cold War by agreeing to deploy forces in the Baltic states and Poland in response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.
“What will never change (is) the unwavering commitment of the United States to the security and defence of Europe, of our transatlantic relationship and the commitment to our common defence,” he said.
His comments came against the backdrop of a U.S. presidential election campaign in which presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has called NATO “obsolete” and suggested Europeans should take care of their own defence.
Obama sought to turn more U.S. strategic attention to Asia during his presidency but has been dragged back to Europe and the Middle East by conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
The president said NATO had halted its long-term collective decline in defence spending after many years and was starting to increase military budgets in response to an array of threats from terrorism, a resurgent Russia, and instability on its southern rim.
Noting that next year will mark the 100th annniversary of the first deployment of U.S. troops on European soil during World War One, he said: “In good times and in bad, Europe can count on the United States, always.”
The United States still has some 60,000 troops deployed in a dozen European countries, although force levels are far below the 300,000 level during the Cold War, which ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
(Reporting by Paul Taylor and Robin Emmott; editing by Andrew Roche)
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