(Dreamstime)
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker is urging allies to accelerate defense spending and weapons production amid reported U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia could test NATO with a limited attack sooner than previously expected.
“You can’t predict what [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s going to do — or any adversary,” he said.
“All you can do is be prepared for it and deter and make it not worth their time to make that move,” Whitaker told USA Today in an exclusive interview at NATO headquarters in Brussels published on Thursday.
“And I think we are preparing every single day to prevent that from happening, and if it does happen, to be ready for it,” he added.
“We should know that our adversary invaded Ukraine, and so, we should all be pretty clear-eyed,” Whitaker said.
Whitaker declined to address the classified intelligence directly.
The Wall Street Journal first reported last month that U.S. intelligence suggests Putin could potentially test NATO’s resolve with a limited incursion or cyberattack against an alliance member within the next several years.
This is significantly sooner than the 10- to 15-year time frame some allies had been using for defense planning.
“We need to exercise like it matters. We need to prepare, we need to invest in capabilities,” Whitaker emphasized.
The concerns come as NATO seeks to strengthen its military and industrial capacity after years in which Russia dramatically expanded defense production during its war in Ukraine.
NATO members last year agreed to spend 5% of annual GDP on defense and defense-related investments by 2035, including at least 3.5% on core military requirements.
“Where there’s an asymmetry between Russia and NATO is that they are on a war footing, and we’re not,” Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told USA Today.
“They can produce a thousand cruise missiles,” he said. “Our ability to provide air defense interceptors or produce them is just inept.”
The warnings gained additional attention following CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s unannounced visit to Moscow, where he reportedly cautioned Russia against attacking NATO territory.
Moscow has denied it intends to attack the alliance.
“These reports have no basis in reality and do not reflect Russia’s intentions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state media.
President Donald Trump also dismissed the prospect of a Russian attack. “He’s not going to be attacking a NATO territory,” Trump told reporters Aug. 27.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, however, pointed to Moscow’s denials before its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Apparently, Putin’s spooks told @CIA Director he would not provoke @NATO. Putin had told [P]resident [Joe] Biden’s CIA Director that he would not invade Ukraine. We should accelerate defen[s]e preparations,” Sikorski wrote on social media.
The latest assessments do not necessarily mean a Russian attack is imminent. But they add urgency to a long-standing NATO concern, whether European allies and the United States can rebuild weapons stockpiles and production capacity quickly enough to deter Moscow as Russia remains geared toward a wartime economy.
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