Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of Nato
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2019
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is 70 years old this year, but despite its achievements and longevity, celebrations are muted. That’s because NATO's cohesion and long-term viability are being questioned as never before. Is the Secretary General simply papering over the organisation’s widening cracks?
Image: Jens Stoltenberg (Credit: European Photopress Agency)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:04.0 | This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:06.8 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. |
| 0:09.5 | I do hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:11.4 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:15.8 | My guest today, the former Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, is serving his fifth year as Secretary |
| 0:23.7 | General of NATO. The Collective Defence Club created 70 years ago to secure Western Europe in the early |
| 0:31.9 | days of the Cold War. Much has changed since 1949, and NATO's membership has more than doubled. For the last 30 years, |
| 0:41.3 | there has been no Soviet threat on Europe's eastern flank, and NATO has expanded its remit and |
| 0:47.1 | its operations, most notably in Afghanistan. But this 70th anniversary is being marked with only muted celebration because NATO's cohesion and long-term viability are currently being questioned as never before. |
| 1:03.0 | The club's most important member, the United States, is now led by a president who is an overt NATO skeptic. |
| 1:10.8 | Other key member states appear to be at odds with core NATO values. |
| 1:15.3 | And while the Soviet Union is no more, tensions with Moscow have spiked, |
| 1:20.0 | not least because of Vladimir Putin's embrace of non-conventional warfare. |
| 1:25.7 | So is Jens Stoltenberg leading a multilateral institution, which at 70 |
| 1:31.9 | is no longer fit for purpose? Well, he joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you so much for |
| 1:38.7 | having me. I should begin by wishing NATO a happy 70th birthday, but it is not a time for celebration, is it? NATO, it seems to me, |
| 1:49.5 | is facing a real crisis. Would you agree? It is a time for celebration because we have achieved a lot, |
| 1:55.6 | but it's not time for complacency because we still have a lot to do. I think we see a paradox, and that is that |
| 2:03.5 | many people, both in Europe and North America, question the strength of the transatlantic |
| 2:08.2 | bond, the strength of NATO. But at the same time, the reality is that we are doing more |
| 2:14.8 | together now than we are done for many, many years. Increasing the readiness of forces, presence of NATO troops in the eastern part of the |
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