The world is a more dangerous place, says head of Nato

This summit is a defining moment for Natio and for ex-Warsaw Pact member Poland.

Police officers near the National Stadium on the eve of the Nato summit in Warsaw on July 7, 2016. Pawel Supernak / EPA

WARSAW // On the eve of the Nato summit in Poland, the secretary general declared the alliance was at “a defining moment for our security” but would meet it head on.

“The world is a more dangerous place than just few years ago,” said Jens Stoltenberg. “Nato is responding with speed and with determination. We will take new, major steps to ensure Nato member nations’ security and help foster stability in the Middle East and North Africa.”

The two-day summit starts on Friday and the significance of the venue, — Warsaw, the city which lent its name to the Cold War defence bloc led by the Soviet Union — is not lost on anyone, for another topic dominating the agenda is how Nato deals with an emboldened Russia and its aggression in eastern Ukraine, which has already cost more than 9,000 lives and soured relations between the West and Moscow.

Mr Stoltenberg’s pre-summit press conference was a joint affair with Polish president Andrzej Duda.

“It is fitting that we meet in Warsaw, a city that knows the pain of conflict and the value of security,” said Mr Stoltenberg in a reference to Poland’s tumultuous history.

In her eve of summit address, German chancellor Angela Merkel positioned herself as intermediary by offering Moscow “an outstretched hand for dialogue.” However Russia says it is Nato that risks broadening the conflict in Europe if it takes over control a US missile defence shield which Moscow says could be aimed at Russia.

Poland joined Nato 17 years ago — much to Russia’s consternation — but the fact that Nato has never positioned bases or significant troop numbers on Polish soil has been a cause for concern. The anxiety increased when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from eastern Ukraine in 2014 and began supporting Russian-speaking east Ukrainian separatists. Poland and other newer Nato members, the ex-Soviet republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were worried that they might be next.

So this summit marks a turning point for Poland, not only because it is prestigious but, more importantly, because the 28-member alliance will finalise plans to deploy four reinforced multinational battalions, to Poland and the Baltic states. The development builds on the previous summit, in Wales in 2014, where Nato decided to create a spearhead force that could move quickly into the region in case of an attack.

“We are becoming a full member of Nato. Not only a political one, but one that we Poles have waited 70 years to be. We will be fully protected by a joint force, ” said Polish defence minister Antoni Macierewicz, whose own father was almost certainly murdered on the orders of Moscow in 1949, when the minister was only a year old. “ [Russian president] Vladimir Putin has been threatening us for a long time. It is a fact that the Russian Federation has an aggressive character. It’s not only propaganda, but a fact, and that’s why we have decided to take steps.”

For their part, the Russians say that they feel provoked by a build-up of Nato activity and forces so close to Russian territory.

Officials from Georgia are also attending the summit seeking assurances that the alliance will honour the promise made in 2008 to invite the former Soviet republic to join. Georgians felt particularly snubbed when Nato invited the tiny Balkan country of Montenegro to join and are threatening to turn back to their historical overlords, Russia. However, some Nato members are wary of angering the Kremlin and Russia would certainly not welcome such a near neighbour joining an alliance that was once an enemy. But in a pre-summit visit to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, US secretary of state John Kerry urged Georgia to be patient.

* Associated Press