Russia is still the greatest threat to NATO states, despite elaborate shows of force from China and the unveiling of new weapons in Beijing, Sweden’s defense minister has said.
Moscow is “without a shadow of a doubt the main threat to Europe, and to NATO,” Pål Jonson told Newsweek on Wednesday.
Jonson’s remarks on the sidelines of a defense summit in Prague come after China debuted previously unseen or little-known weapons during a massive military parade attended by a host of heads of state, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Serbia’s president and Slovakia’s prime minister were the only Western leaders present.
The parade, which marked 80 years since China’s victory over Japan in World War II, showcased missiles capable of reaching across the world, “robot wolves,” and laser weapons.
Chinese state media touted the 70-minute spectacle, featuring over 10,000 soldiers, as a display of Beijing’s transformation into a “modern military.” The country for “the first time” showed land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as air- and sea-launched variants making up a “nuclear triad,” state news agency Xinhua reported.
United States-based nuclear experts said in March that Beijing had “significantly expanded its ongoing nuclear modernization program” over the past five years, and now had an estimated 600 nuclear warheads. Pentagon estimates from last year said China was on track to have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, although Western analysts say Beijing’s stockpile will depend on how much plutonium, highly enriched uranium and tritium China can access.
Putin said this week that Russia’s ties with China had reached “unprecedented” levels. The two leaders inked a “no limits” strategic partnership agreement just before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The U.S. has indicated it wants to refocus its military might on China and the Indo-Pacific, pulling away from Europe and, by extension, Russia. Washington has for years provided much of the most expensive military capabilities to Europe, including reconnaissance and what are known as “enablers,” such as logistics.
European countries have broadly pledged to increase military spending, although nations forming NATO’s eastern flank, close to Russia, have more keenly felt Moscow’s presence and traditionally spent a higher percentage of their GDP on defense.
NATO nations agreed in June, during the alliance’s largest summit of the year, to raise defense spending targets to 5 percent of GDP over the next decade. This includes both direct military spending and related investment.
Sweden, NATO’s newest member, moved to join the alliance along with neighboring Finland after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that Russia will attack further west in Europe if the Kremlin feels it has won in Ukraine.
“We see the propensity of Russia to take great political and military risks, and we see how they put their economy, and their defense industrial [base], on a wartime footing,” Jonson said. “Russia is going to be the defining challenge for Europe for the long haul.”
“Russia is there as a long-term threat to the whole of the Alliance,” NATO chief Mark Rutte said during a press conference in Luxembourg on Tuesday. “It is crucial that our deterrence is such that they will never, ever try to attack one square kilometer of NATO territory.”
NATO members are all obligated to consider an attack on one state as an attack on all and respond accordingly, due to Article 5 of the alliance’s founding treaty.
Intelligence assessments from NATO members have suggested Russia could carry out large-scale attacks on an alliance country in the next five years. Officials have increasingly sounded the alarm over what are known as “hybrid attacks,” or tactics that fall short of military action but are designed to destabilize, such as cyber operations, disinformation campaigns and damage to critical infrastructure.
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