BRUSSELS, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- In a sign that NATO is continuing to reinforce its modernization as a defense alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that allied defense ministers agreed Wednesday on reforms to the NATO command structure.
The move is aimed at helping NATO adapt to a changing security environment in Europe.
REVAMPED COMMAND STRUCTURE
Citing a decrease in personnel and infrastructure at the Alliance since the end of the cold war, with 22,000 staff and 33 command centers dropping to today's 7,000 staff and seven command centers, Stoltenberg said the decisions by ministers to "design for an adapted" NATO command structure "will place greater focus on maritime security, logistics and military mobility, and cyber defense."
During their meeting here, defense ministers decided to establish a new joint force command to help protect trans-Atlantic sea lines, and a new support command for logistics and military mobility within Europe.
The locations of new commands will be discussed at next meeting in June.
Ministers agreed that NATO will build land component commands in Europe to improve rapid response for forces and a new cyber operations center.
In addition, a year after sharp criticisms from U.S. President Donald Trump about a lack of adequate defense spending by allies, Stoltenberg announced promising improvements in burden sharing throughout the defense alliance.
He pointed out that while only three allies reached an agreed target of 2 percent GDP defense spending in 2014, it was expected that eight NATO allies would reach that target this year, and over 15 by 2024.
EU-NATO FOCUS
Wednesday night's working session included a dialogue with EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, as well as defense ministers from Sweden and Finland. The focus of the dialogue will be NATO-EU cooperation, and is certain to include concerns about increased European defense cooperation coming into conflict with the older alliance.
In a Tuesday press conference before the NATO defense ministers meeting, Stoltenberg had warned against competition in defense matters with new EU initiatives to cooperate further in military matters.
"More European defense spending and capabilities can strengthen NATO and contribute to fairer burden-sharing, but only if the EU's efforts are developed as a complement and not an alternative to NATO," Stoltenberg said.
For the European Union, common European defense has been a critical theme of the shift away from dependence on the United States, with the November 2017 signing and December 2017 launch of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) agreement.
The PESCO pact will allow 25 participating EU member states to pursue greater cooperation on matters of defense and security.
"It will be absolutely without any meaning if EU and NATO started to compete because we share the same members," the NATO chief said, adding: "90 percent of the people living in EU live in a NATO country -- more than 90 percent."
"The protection of Europe is dependent on NATO, especially after Brexit. 80 percent of NATO's defense expenditures will come from non-EU allies," said the NATO chief and former prime minister of Norway, which is non-EU member of the alliance.
PESCO and other European Defense Union initiatives have been presented as complements to NATO -- foremost a defense alliance -- but observers have noted that they represent a general change in political orientation, with European allies less confident of support and cooperation from the United States.
