A Successful Summit for NATO and Ukraine
WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch
The Wall Street Journal
4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 13 July 2023
⏱️ 23 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | WSJ Special Access gives you a front row seat to some of the Wall Street Journal's most exciting content, |
| 0:06.3 | including exclusive live events and interviews with top executives and newsmakers, |
| 0:11.1 | only for subscribers and only on Spotify. |
| 0:18.7 | From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. |
| 0:24.4 | President Biden finished up a weekend. |
| 0:26.7 | Europe highlighted by the NATO Summit that agreed to admit Sweden as the Alliance's 30-second member, |
| 0:33.3 | but not give Ukraine a firm timeline to join the defense pact. |
| 0:38.3 | What did the summit accomplish and what's the impact on U.S. interests? |
| 0:42.3 | Plus FBI Director Christopher Ray is grilled by House Republicans this week, |
| 0:46.8 | but did we learn anything new or was Mr. Ray the artful Dodger? |
| 0:51.7 | All right, welcome. |
| 0:52.5 | I'm Paul Gigo, editor of the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal and here with my colleagues, |
| 0:58.8 | Bill McGurne and Kim Strassel, who for their considerable sins watch the Chris Ray hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. |
| 1:07.4 | But before we get to their suffering for that, let's talk about the NATO summit and what is a revitalized defense alliance |
| 1:16.2 | in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. |
| 1:19.6 | Now, my view, Kim and Bill, is that this was a pretty successful summit overall for NATO and President Biden. |
| 1:26.0 | The Alliance wanted Sweden to join, Sweden wanted to join, and Turkey's strong man President Erdogan finally withdrew his objection. |
| 1:33.8 | So that is now moving ahead, be the 30-second member. |
| 1:37.6 | Sweden doesn't bring a huge military capability, but because of its strategic location in the north of the Alliance, |
| 1:44.7 | it does help alliance defenses against Russia, of course, which has the Arctic presence and a naval bases up to the north. |
| 1:52.7 | And especially with Finland having joined this last year, it really does buttress the geographic presence. |
| 1:58.7 | And Finland has actually, for a very small country, has a pretty potent military. |
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