In Brussels on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed to increase support for Ukraine and expressed great concern about North Korea’s entry into the war. «This new element, introduced by North Korean troops almost in combat, asks and will have a firm response«he said after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Blinken’s statement comes after Donald Trump won the US election and just over two months before his inauguration, at which time the American politics will change completely. And, of course, also its international alliances, an area in which there are fears of a rapprochement with Russia and an attempt to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The commitment of the US Secretary of State is therefore still limited in scope. But even so, Blinken stressed that the Biden administration has a firm intention to continue supporting Ukraine so that it “can effectively defend itself against Russian regression.” And he issued a warning very in line with what Rutte himself has already assured on several occasions: that the conflict in Ukraine has become something»global«.
“We increasingly see the indivisibility of security between and within these different theaters: the Euro-Atlantic theater, the Indo-Pacific theater and the Middle East,” he noted, later adding that “it all comes together every time more, and what is happening in Ukraine has a global impact.
Rutte, for his part, underlined the connection that more and more countries have with the conflict in Ukraine. He did so last week in Budapest, before his participation in the meeting of the European Political Community, when he underlined that the entry of North Korea affects South Korea Already Japanbut also to USA AND Canada. Or what Iraq it is present in both the Ukrainian and Middle Eastern conflicts and, also, in the implications of China They are getting older. What Ukrainian President Volodmir Zelensky christened almost a month ago as something approaching a world war.
And obviously he was referring to Russia and Vladimir Putin, the main person responsible for this complex situation. «Obviously we need to do more to ensure that Ukraine can stay in the fight and is able to repel the Russian attack as much as possible and prevent Putin from succeeding in Ukraine«.
Rutte also wanted to point out that, in this context, greater investments in defense are necessary. The 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) promoted by Trump is no longer the objective but is the minimum threshold. The next US president will demand greater efforts, and Rutte has already started to gain his favor, or at least try.
There is already talk of a figure equal to 3% of investments, which in the case of Spain would require a very high investment since it is the NATO member country that allocates the least to this item: just 1.2% of GDP. And despite the promises, it seems difficult to increase them substantially given the government’s political weakness and Sumar’s reluctance to increase defense investment.
