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The foreign secretary has told NATO members to spend more on defence.
Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, the UK’s leading defence and security thinktank, as the NATO foreign affairs ministers meeting gets under way, Lord Cameron told the audience: “I never needed reminding or understanding of the vital importance of NATO in our national life.
“And it’s been extraordinary having supported it all through its quiet years, years in which some people wondered whether it had a functioning brain, I never lost faith in NATO.”
The ex-PM said NATO is “so much stronger today than it has been for years”, noting Sweden will be welcomed for the first time as a full participant.
He turned to what is next for the alliance, saying its expansion in recent years is part of its success.
“We have a tyrant in Europe who’s trying to redraw borders by force,” Lord Cameron said.
“And there are two choices: you can appease that approach, or you can confront that approach.
“It is undoubtedly the right thing to confront it. And that is what we’re doing by giving Ukraine such strong support.”
He said that if Ukraine wins the war against Russia, it will mean that “NATO will be strong”, but if it loses, “the celebrations will be held mostly in Moscow and of course, in Beijing, and in Tehran, and in North Korea”.
That would be a “bleak future” given the risk to NATO countries, and would leave others questioning whether they can trust us as allies.
He appealed to NATO members to spend more money on defence, saying: “I think the success will depend on more and more countries reaching 2% [of GDP spending on defence], or more countries seeing 2% as a floor and not a ceiling.”
He also said members need to “win the argument for NATO” with younger generations, making the case that it “allows countries to choose their own future”.
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