On Friday, NATO’s chairman of the military committee, Czech Gen. Petr Pavel, slammed Trump’s stance, saying Russian “President (Vladimir) Putin and some others may be pleased by this approach.” But Pavel called it “a great mistake” in an interview with Reuters.
Mercier maintained that NATO is already adapting — deploying forces to fight al Qaeda and ISIS, working to contain ever-evolving types of insurgent warfare and helping combat human trafficking and the migrant crises on the high seas.
“We’ve all seen the changes in the security environment evolving over the last number of years,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Lofgren, deputy chief of staff for capability development at the Norfolk headquarters. “We’re adapting — again — to this new security environment which gives us challenges in really all directions.”
In fact, the transformation command was established in 2002 shortly after 9/11 — the only time NATO members have invoked Article 5. The command is one of only two NATO strategic-level headquarters and the only one in the United States. It is located in America because the U.S. is viewed as having the most innovative military and the alliance wants members to learn from that innovation.
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