Leaders of NATO’s 29 member states are meeting at a golf resort northwest of London to celebrate the alliance’s 70th anniversary and reaffirm their commitment to collective defense. But barely disguised disputes lurk in the background.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, spoke before the meetings on Wednesday, acknowledging the external and internal pressures facing the alliance but insisting that it was agile and strong enough to deal with them.
Speaking outside the Grove Hotel in Watford, England, Mr. Stoltenberg laid out an ambitious agenda for the leaders from North American and Europe: the international fight against terrorism, arms control, combating Russia, and, for the first time, the rise of China.
Mr. Stoltenberg said that China’s growing global power offered “both opportunities but also challenges,” citing a buildup in military capabilities as a looming threat.
But one of the biggest issues for NATO is not emerging superpowers outside the alliance, but the deep divisions and disputes within it. Those tensions were on full display on Tuesday during an exchange between President Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France, who laid out dueling visions for the alliance.
Asked about what he made of earlier comments from Mr. Macron, who said last month that the alliance was suffering from “brain death,” Mr. Stoltenberg vigorously defended the 70-year-old institution.
“That’s not the case,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “NATO is agile. NATO is active. NATO is adapting. NATO is the most effective alliance in history.”
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