NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg on the Future of Russia’s War in Ukraine

There’s little doubt that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine transformed NATO. Sweden and Finland reversed decades of policy to join the military alliance, and member states ramped up their defense spending to support Kyiv and prepare for future conflicts with Moscow. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, presided over these dramatic changes in the final years of his decadelong tenure. As he prepares to hand over the reins to Mark Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, Stoltenberg sat down with me on FP Live to discuss Ukraine’s potential use of long-range missiles, and what NATO should do about the growing collusion between Russia and Iran, China, and North Korea. 

Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page. What follows is a condensed and lightly edited transcript. 

Ravi Agrawal: There’s a debate underway about whether or not to allow Ukraine to use Western-made long-range missiles to attack Russian territory. NATO member states are not in agreement on this matter yet. What is your sense of the right answer?

Jens Stoltenberg: There is no doubt that Ukraine has the right to strike legitimate targets inside Russia. We need to remember this is a war of aggression that Russia has launched against its neighbor, Ukraine. It is a war of choice by Russia. That is a brutal violation of international law. According to international law, Ukraine has the right to self-defense, and self-defense includes striking targets on the territory of the aggressor, which, in this case, is Russia.

At the end of the day, it’s up to individual allies to decide to what extent there are restrictions on the use of the weapons they deliver. Some allies have no restrictions. Others have some restrictions. Many of them have actually loosened their restrictions over the last few months.

I have argued in favor of loosening restrictions because I believe that’s the only way Ukraine can defend itself, by striking the bases, the artillery, the rocket launchers, the airfields used on an almost daily basis to attack Ukraine, Ukrainian cities, civilian infrastructure, and, of course, military capabilities.

RA: There is a spectrum of how states think about the question of loosening restrictions. The United States is clearly on one end of that spectrum, being more cautious about how much to give Ukraine and what that might do in terms of potential escalation on the Russian side. When you speak to American officials, what are you telling them about this?

JS: I have told them almost exactly what I said now: This is part of Ukraine’s right to self-defense and that I welcome the loosening of restrictions. The United States also reduced some of the restrictions after Russia launched their offensive in the Kharkiv region some months ago, when the front line and the borderline became more or less the same. Until then, most of the fighting in the war took place deep inside Ukrainian territory. But with the Russian attack into the Kharkiv region, the front line became almost the same as the borderline. And, of course, if Ukrainians were not allowed to fire behind those lines, then it would really undermine their ability to defend themselves. And therefore, the United States allowed for some use of their weapons against some targets inside Russia.

RA: One of the big calculations every member state makes is to think about how Russia will respond. Russia’s president, [Vladimir] Putin, has said that if NATO countries allow Kyiv to use their long-range missiles offensively, it would mean NATO’s at war with Russia. And some analysts interpret this as a red line of sorts, which, if crossed, could lead to Putin maybe using nuclear weapons. But there’s another line of thinking: that the West has consistently overestimated Putin’s red lines, and if he hasn’t used nuclear weapons yet, he won’t use them now. By this calculation, his threats are empty. How are you gaming the question of escalation on Russia’s part?

JS: First, it’s important to understand that what Putin says about NATO allies and NATO becoming party to the conflict is wrong. According to international law, Ukraine has the right of self-defense. We have the right to support Ukraine without becoming a party to the conflict.

Iran is delivering ballistic missiles and drones to Russia. North Korea is delivering a lot of weapons to Russia. We don’t regard Iran or North Korea as party to the conflict. So this is not correct when President Putin says that we will become party to the conflict.

Second, he has threatened in the same way several times. This is a war that he decided to start. And he can de-escalate very easily by stopping his attacks on a neighbor. He can stop the war tomorrow. That’s the best way to end this war.

President Putin’s nuclear rhetoric is reckless and dangerous. He must know, and we have made it clear again and again, that the nuclear war cannot be won and should not be fought. We are monitoring what Russia is doing very closely. So far, we haven’t seen any changes in their nuclear posture that require any changes from our side.

RA: It sounds like to me you’re dismissing the idea that there is a red line for Putin when it comes to use of nuclear weapons. Let me go a step further, then, on the ways in which the West and NATO can help Ukraine. Why not dramatically accelerate Ukraine’s accession to NATO?

JS: We have actually moved Ukraine significantly forward on the path toward NATO membership. We decided to turn the whole process from a two-step process to a one-step process by taking away the Membership Action Plan requirement. So now the next step will be an invitation. We are doing a lot to integrate the Ukrainian Armed Forces more with NATO standards and doctrines to create what we call interoperability. And also by setting up both a training innovation center in Poland and a support command for Ukraine in Wiesbaden, Germany, we are also enabling more of this. And thirdly, we have established something called the NATO-Ukraine Council, where we have deepened our political cooperation with Ukraine.

At the Washington summit just a few weeks ago, we stated that Ukraine’s path to membership is irreversible. There can be no stability and peace and security in Europe without peace and stability in Ukraine. And in the long run, there can be no peace and security in Ukraine without Ukraine becoming a NATO ally. So we are moving forward. But of course, there cannot be an invitation for Ukraine until all allies agree. It requires consensus, and we don’t have that yet.

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RA: Let’s talk about Ukraine’s offensive in Kursk. There is debate over whether it was a mistake given how it impacted other arenas of the conflict. There are some who say that, in fact, the offensive in Kursk really damaged Russian morale and was worth it for that alone. Ukraine did not coordinate this attack with NATO, but how are you thinking about that and whether Ukraine should try other such offenses in the future?

JS: NATO allies and NATO provide unprecedented support to Ukraine. Ninety-nine percent of the military support comes from the NATO allies and NATO. And we give them advice. We train. But we are not conducting the war. We are not commanding the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That is up to the Ukrainians to make those difficult decisions.

The Kursk offensive demonstrated the agility and offensive capabilities of the Ukrainian forces. It has inflicted heavy losses on the Russian forces. They have taken prisoners and created uncertainty in Moscow. It boosted Ukrainian morale and demonstrated the strength of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Of course, in war there are always risks and uncertainties. And therefore, I will be very careful speculating how this will evolve in the coming weeks and months.

But we have to remember that the Ukrainians are very capable. Remember, almost all experts believed at the beginning of this war that Russia would take control of Kyiv within days and of Ukraine within weeks. The opposite happened. I think we should therefore continue to have confidence in the Ukrainians and their decisions in a difficult battlefield and theater under, of course, a lot of uncertainty.

RA: There is increasing collusion between China, Iran, and North Korea as they send weaponry and other assistance to Russia. How are you thinking about combating the broadening of this conflict with new actors?

JS: It’s very important that we expose this significant, decisive support that Russia is receiving from other authoritarian powers, in particular China, North Korea, and Iran. China is a decisive enabler of Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine because China is delivering microelectronics, the components and the raw materials used to build the missiles, the planes, the battle tanks, the weapons that Russia is using to kill Ukrainians. And China has not been able to condemn the war. And China continues to uphold the Russian war economy. In return, Moscow has mortgaged its future to Beijing. We, of course, are extremely concerned that in return for the missiles and the drones that Iran is delivering, and the weapons and ammunition that North Korea is delivering, Russia is helping these countries to develop their programs, including missile programs and nuclear programs that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions. We have serious concerns that what Russia is doing in return may help them with their missile and nuclear programs.

RA: I was in Kyiv this past week at the YES Summit. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of defense intelligence of Ukraine, told the gathering that the biggest supplier to Russia is not China, as many of us imagine, but North Korea. He said that there was nothing that he could do to stop it. Do you agree with that assessment? Can NATO do anything about this? 

JS: North Korea is providing an enormous amount of ammunition to Russia. That’s a reason why it is important to keep severe sanctions on North Korea. And also a reason why NATO has further stepped up the cooperation with our Asia-Pacific partners, including South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. It’s why we have stepped up what we do on intelligence and information sharing.

RA: Respectfully, Secretary-General, I wonder if there is a danger that NATO could be overstretched with all of these global threats beyond Europe. I also wonder if there’s an element of a self-fulfilling prophecy here, that the more you treat China and Iran and North Korea as adversaries, the more they are driven into each other’s arms and the greater a threat they become.

Lastly, you mentioned sanctions. But these are all countries that the West has been sanctioning for many years. And yet we still reached this point. Are you running out of tools to be able to stop these things?

JS: Russia and China are more aligned. They’ve been for many, many years. That’s not because NATO has pushed them together. It’s because they align in what they believe in: a different world order. They align because China supports Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. I think it would be very strange if NATO didn’t call out clearly what we think about China providing so much support to Russia. It’s necessary to be transparent because that’s the only way we can have informed political decisions and so the broader public can understand what’s going on.

Second, NATO is going to remain a regional alliance of North America and Europe. It will not become an Article 5 alliance covering Asia, for instance. But the threats we face, they are becoming more and more global. Cyber is a global threat. Terrorism has been a global threat for many years. It brought us all the way to Afghanistan. Space, which is becoming more weaponized, is also global.

So while NATO is a regional alliance, we need a global approach. And that includes our approach to China, because, again, the war in Ukraine demonstrates that our security is not the regional but the global. What happens in Asia matters for Europe, and what happens in Europe matters for Asia. Or as the Japanese prime minister said recently, what happens in Ukraine today can happen in Asia tomorrow. So for all these reasons, we need to have a global perspective on what we do.

RA: The question remains: How do you combat North Korea or Iran, when the West has been sanctioning them for years and they’re still able to play a decisive role, as you put it, in Russia’s assault on Ukraine?

The other point is about overreach. You’ve said in the past that Afghanistan, to some extent, represented an overreach on the part of NATO. And since you brought it up now as well, I’m curious if there are any concerns that you have about NATO expanding too far beyond its remit and its geographic focus?

JS: NATO’s core task is to protect the 32 NATO allies and 1 billion people. And the main way of doing that is to have credible deterrence and defense. But to have credible deterrence and defense, we need to be able to deter not only threats emanating from Europe and our close neighborhood, but against other threats and potential adversaries, including any emanating from Asia. When we invest more, when we ramp up our cyberdefenses, when we do more intelligence sharing with our partners, all of that is part of that broader picture.

My message on Afghanistan is that it was right to go in. It was a necessary response to 9/11. We achieved important goals. We were able to degrade al Qaeda and prevent Afghanistan from being a safe haven for international terrorists. And I honor all those who served there, and in particular those, of course, who made the ultimate sacrifice. Having said that, what we saw in Afghanistan was that what started as a targeted, focused counterterrorism operation evolved into something which was much bigger and much more ambitious: a nation-building effort not only by NATO, but by the international community, by the United Nations, by the European Union, by individual allies. That was mission creep. And that was too much. We have to admit that we realized that perhaps too late and stayed in Afghanistan too long. Again, it was not wrong and it was absolutely right. We had the clear U.N. mandate to react after 9/11, to degrade al Qaeda. To try to build a democratic, stable Afghanistan was a beautiful goal. But I think it was too much, not only for NATO, but for the international community that took part in this in different ways.

RA: There are reports that you will be the next head of the Munich Security Conference. Can you confirm?

JS: I am still the secretary-general of NATO until the first of October. I am totally focused on that, not least in mobilizing more support for Ukraine. So I will not talk about what I will do after NATO as long as I’m still in NATO.