On with Kara Swisher - Too Old or Still Relevant? NATO at 75 with Ambassador Julianne Smith

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed 75 years ago to protect Europe and North America against Russian aggression – a mission that is once again top priority, as NATO supports Ukraine’s battle against President Vladimir Putin. Ahead of the NATO summit and anniversary celebration in D.C. this week, Kara sits down with US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith to talk about the war and Ukraine’s prospective membership in NATO, why the alliance is increasingly looking for partners in Asia and Africa, what members are saying about former president Donald Trump’s threats to quit the team, and how cybersecurity, climate security and AI will play a greater role in the years ahead. Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees, and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer.

Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. If you struggle just to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration, and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready,

set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, turned 75 this year, and world leaders will be commemorating that anniversary during the NATO summit this week in Washington, D.C. The alliance has had a lot on its hands in the past two years with the war in Ukraine, but it's also faced pushback and scrutiny, especially from politicians here in the U.S. As we all remember, Donald Trump threatened many times to cut ties with NATO

when he was president. He's still playing that very dangerous record, by the way. Meanwhile, Ukraine wants a seat at the table, which is tricky, and there are threats coming from other parts of the world, too, like China. So I'm going to be talking about all that with my guest today, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith. Smith has been in that role since November of 2021, starting just months before Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. Before NATO, Smith served as a senior advisor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. She's also held senior government positions advising on national security and NATO policy. So she's got a lot of expertise and insight into the negotiations taking place this week. Our expert question today comes from the man who reported President Trump's infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky,

where he pushed for a Ukrainian investigation into Hunter Biden. It eventually led to Trump's first impeachment. Hi, this is Colonel Alex Vindman, U.S. Army, retired. So looking forward to Vindman's question and hearing from the ambassador on how NATO is faring today. Welcome, Ambassador Smith. Thanks for being with us on ON. It's my pleasure. We're going to jump right into things. So NATO leaders are gathering in Washington this week for the summit, where they'll also commemorate the 75th anniversary of the alliance. NATO was founded in 1949 by 12 countries

as a response to concerns over Soviet aggression in Europe. I want to know from your perspective, what are the biggest worries for the alliance right now? Well, that's a pretty easy question to answer. It will not surprise your listeners to hear that we spend an enormous amount of our time here at NATO headquarters on Russia and the war of aggression that is still unfolding inside Ukraine.

But we also have something inside NATO called a strategic concept. It's basically NATO's mission statement. And we roll those out about once a decade. And we had one come out in 2022. And in that document, there's two things to note. The alliance basically says that the two main threats it's trying to tackle right now, Russia and terrorism. But for the first time in NATO's history, actually, that document mentioned China as well. And not because NATO's preparing to head off into the South China Sea, but because

of what China is doing in and around the Euro-Atlantic area, and because of this ever deepening and evolving relationship between Beijing and Moscow. So as you said, the war in Ukraine has obviously been a huge NATO issue for the past two years. When you were appointed U.S. ambassador to NATO in November of 2021, did you have Ukraine on your radar, or you mostly focused on rebuilding trust after the Trump administration? Well, obviously, first and foremost, when I was nominated in the spring of 21, I had in my head the promises that then-candidate Joe Biden had been making on the campaign trail, and that was he wanted to use his administration to revitalize America's vast network of alliances and partnerships. So that was kind of the guiding light. But as I was preparing

to be confirmed, I was serving as a senior advisor to Secretary Tony Blinken at the State Department. And obviously, at that point, I had a clearance and I was read in. I understood that the U.S. was quite convinced that Russia was about to do this. And I also had a sense that not many other allies believed us. And so as I was confirmed in November, I had a feeling that what I was walking into was a tremendous amount of skepticism and questioning of this claim that this war is coming and the NATO alliance better ready itself for that war. And when you were having that, when you're saying you had a feeling that they just didn't believe you, correct? It's not an intuition in that regard.

Correct. Yeah, well, a number of allies, particularly in Eastern Europe, some in Western Europe as well, said, Europe, some in Western Europe as well, said, look, the Russians are really well known for posturing themselves in a way that makes folks nervous. And they often bluff. And we've seen maneuvers like this before where they move troops up close to a border. And so you Americans, you might be exaggerating a bit. Perhaps you're reading too much into it. Perhaps you don't understand that this could just be posturing. We were coming back and saying, wait a minute, we have intelligence that indicates that this is much more than posturing. We're seeing the field hospitals move out, the blood banks, things that we look for to determine

whether or not this is real and that they're preparing for some sort of conflict or war. So you know the history here. The administration took the decision to share an unprecedented amount of intelligence with our closest allies to say, this time we know what's going to happen. You have to trust us, and here's the intelligence that will convince you. But I have to say, even once I arrived at NATO and I settled into the seat into December and January, I remember sitting around the table with all of the allies looking at me, and I had a good sense at that moment that not everyone around the table was convinced. And if I could, I'll share one story from the morning of February 22nd. We come in, we got the call at 3 a.m., come into NATO

for an emergency North Atlantic Council meeting. All of the allies get into their seats around the table. And one ally from Eastern Europe raised his hand, looked down the table, we're in alphabetical order, kind of leaned in and said, I just, before we start, we didn't believe you. We didn that were skeptical, and despite the fact that we were sharing all of this intelligence. Right. So speaking of the people around the table, there are now 32 member countries in NATO. Ukraine has been seeking membership for years, well before the current war. At last year's summit, leaders agreed to expedite the membership process. Where does that stand right now? Well, so you're right. We had a summit last year in Lithuania, and what we did is we announced that the alliance was lifting one of the requirements.

It's a bit wonky, but we have something called the Membership Action Plan, MAP. It goes by that abbreviation. That's a process that most of the recent members have gone through. And what the alliance said at the summit last summer was, you know what, you guys kind of get the fast track here and you will not require the membership action plan. You will not go through MAP to get to membership. We also said, though, one, you have a war on your territory right now. It's difficult for us to extend a proper invitation to join, given that reality. And two, Ukraine needs to undertake a long list of internal reforms to qualify for membership. I get that. Yeah. So,

since last summer, they've done a lot of good work, and we applaud those efforts. I will tell you at the summit in a day or two when it gets underway, the allies are not coming to Washington to announce that Ukraine is a member. We still believe that those two conditions need to be met. We want to see an end to this war. We want to see Ukraine continue to make progress on those reforms that are needed, things like anti-corruption, transparency, accountability, et cetera. But joining NATO seems a pretty urgent question in that regard for them. And one of Russia's goals in the war is to control Ukraine and sever its ties to the West. So even though

you're talking about bridges and paths and deliverables that they need to do, is it critical to kick the can down the road, essentially? And what is it prepared to offer Ukraine at the summit? Well, what you're going to see at the summit in the next day or two is that those 32 heads of state will sit at the table with President Zelensky. He's coming in for the summit, which is important. And we will be announcing a series of initiatives that we're launching to draw them closer to the alliance. So NATO is going to be taking on some of the coordination of assistance and the coordination of the training that either the United States or other allies have been doing bilaterally. So NATO is kind of assuming more responsibility for Ukraine's future and is going

to bring more coherence and more order to all of the assistance that's flowing into Ukraine. So that's one. Two is we are going to put on the table a pledge that is going to secure additional resources for our friends in Ukraine. Why are we doing that? We're doing that because President Putin has assumed from day one that NATO allies would eventually get impatient, distracted, and look away. And we want to make sure President Putin understands that that's not happening, that the allies continue to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, assistance keeps flowing, and that we're not going anywhere, that he can't wait us out. So this kind of longer-term, sustainable pledge will be part of the signaling at the summit to Moscow.

Speaking of leading, a long delay in the passage of the Ukrainian aid package here in the U.S. led to real consequences on the ground. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said it's one of the reasons Russia has occupied more land in Ukraine. When you talk about U.S.'s commitment to aiding Ukraine, as you just did at NATO HQ and with Ukrainian officials. Do they believe you now? I mean, are the conversations changed? And is the U.S. seen as a reliable partner still? Yeah, everything changed once the supplemental went through. You're right to note that we had a very long gap in terms of waiting for the supplemental to get through the $60 billion

in assistance. It's a gap that left the Ukrainians with pretty acute shortages of ammunition in particular, but I think it's safe to say air defense belongs on that list as well. And there's good news and bad news. The bad news during that period was there was this kind of open-ended question where folks were wondering, not just the Ukrainians, but NATO allies, like, is Congress capable of getting the supplemental through? But the good news is that Europeans took the opportunity to say, wait a minute, we don't have to wait for Washington to sort this out. We'll keep giving. And that's where you saw a number of countries in Europe

sign these bilateral security agreements with Ukraine and deliver more kit to the Ukrainians. Now that the supplemental is through, I think the Ukrainians are in a much better position on the battlefield. But you're right, it does raise questions about the United States. You talked about $60 billion just now. According to the State Department, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with more than $51 billion in military assistance since 2022, not including financial and humanitarian aid. But a third of Americans, 31%, think that the U.S. is providing too much support. That's according to a recent Pew poll. Not everybody, but it's a substantive amount of people. Do you take public opinion into consideration when negotiating? And

does it affect how the Ukrainians are looking at our support as well as the rest of NATO? Well, I think what I've tried to do here is to help people, whether it's folks back in the United States or our European allies or audiences somewhere in between, first and foremost, understand why supporting Ukraine matters, reminding people of two things. One, if you do not stop dictators or authoritarian leaders like President Putin, they usually keep going. And so for the amount of assistance that we are providing right now, this is enabling the Ukrainians to push Russia out of its territory and prevent Russia from hitting NATO territory, where we have an obligation to then come to the assistance and get directly involved with U.S. troops to defend NATO territory. So that's the first point. The second point, I've done some engagements in the United States with different audiences, particularly in the Midwest, where I'm from Michigan originally. I've traveled through Ohio and Michigan to hear Americans, how they're thinking about Ukraine, but also to help them understand that this isn't a situation where the United States is the only one helping Ukraine.

States is the only one helping Ukraine. I think it's easy to point to those big numbers that you just cited, the $60 billion in the supplemental or the over $50 billion over two years, and forget that collectively Europe is doing even more. Europe is coming in at about $120 billion worth of assistance. So this is a collective effort. The United States is not trying to do this alone. And frankly, it's a bargain if you think about it in terms of the Ukrainians are fighting. We don't have U.S. troops on the ground. We are assisting them, but they're preventing this war from spreading and moving into NATO territory. We'll be back in a minute. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle.

When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion.

It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start

getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust.

Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start? Claude from Anthropic may be the answer. Claude is a next-generation AI assistant, built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. Anthropic's latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems,

analyze data, and more, whether you're brainstorming alone or working on a team with thousands of people, all at a price that works for just about any use case. If you're trying to crack a problem involving advanced reasoning, need to distill the essence of complex images or graphs, or generate heaps of secure code, Clawed is a great way to save time and money.

Plus, you can rest assured knowing that Anthropic built Clawed with an emphasis on safety. The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees

and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. One of the things that's been problematic for Ukraine is Ukraine was not allowed to use weapons supplied by the U.S. and a couple of other members in strikes on Russian soil. Ukrainian President Zelensky has complained about this repeatedly and asked for more latitude. Some NATO leaders

are similarly frustrated by the Biden administration's reluctance to give the green light. I'd like you to sort of walk out the concerns here. Is it escalation? And last month, there were reports that Biden approved a strike on Russia using U.S. weapons to defend the city of Kharkiv. Does that represent a shift in strategy or a boundary? How do you look at that? And what's the red line? Well, I guess how I look at it is throughout this entire war, many things have shifted. The type of assistance that the U.S. and European allies are providing, that has shifted. And similarly, what they have asked of us, for example, on utilizing the weapons that we're providing on Russian territory has evolved as well. It was in early

May when the Ukrainians came to the United States and said, look, they've made some inroads up and around Kharkiv, a few kilometers, not in a major way. But the way in which they're doing that is they're operating from positions that are just across the border. And we want some assurance that we can use the weapons that you've provided to hit those targets just on the other side. The president and his team, I wasn't part of those conversations. other side. The president and his team, I wasn't part of those conversations. My understanding is they sat with it for a few days, discussed it, and eventually we heard a couple weeks later, they said, all right, makes sense to us. Why don't you go ahead and hit those targets just over the border? I think it's an evolving conversation. We're taking it month by month.

We do have a policy right now. You are correct, the president is not in a position where he's willing to say that those long-range ATAKMs, 300-kilometer range, can be used on Russian territory. He and his team, they believe they can be utilized in a very effective way, particularly in Crimea. And I think that's been the focus. So every week we get a question from an outside expert. This week we have one from retired U.S. Army Colonel Alex Bindman, who now runs a national security and defense think tank called the Institute for Informed American Leadership. Let's have a listen. 75 years ago, NATO was established to defend against the rising threat of communist Soviet authoritarian aggression. It proved to be the consolidation of authoritarian regimes coming together to once

again threaten a democracy, threaten the U.S., threaten our allies in Europe. And NATO has proven its relevance by spending significantly more resources to defend itself. Can NATO stave off a major war in Europe, a European context in which there is already a major conflict between Russia and Ukraine that threatens to spill over? Can NATO continue to fulfill its role? And does that require bringing in threatened nations like we did in the past in order for us, the collective we, NATO, to stave off conflict? Thank you. Go ahead. That's a great question. And it's perfect because it allows us to get into a big part of what's

happening this week in Washington, D.C. at the summit. And that takes us to defense spending. Ten years ago, the allies pledged to spend 2% of their GDP on defense. When they did that in 2014, there were only three members of the alliance that hit the target. And when we are in Washington this week, what we will be celebrating is the fact that now, in July of 2024, 10 years later, 23 allies spend 2% of their GDP on defense. Now, of course, it needs to be 32. I'm the first person to say that. But 23,

getting two-thirds of the alliance to 2% is a big deal. How does that relate to his question? It means that allies are making the right investments in new capabilities and in the readiness of their forces to ensure that we can defend NATO territory from any threat that comes at us from anywhere. But I also have to say one other thing, and that is that last year we rolled out the most robust set of military plans the alliance has had since the end of the Cold War to defend every inch of NATO territory. And what those plans have given us is a clear picture of

what we need, what each ally needs to do to defend territory. So the short answer to the question is, yes, the alliance is probably more prepared to defend NATO territory than it's been in many decades because of those investments and because of the new plans we have in place. And then if you'll forgive me, one final point. He mentioned this kind of almost, I know some people refer to it as the axis of upheaval, Russia, China, DPRK, Iran. NATO is also extending not membership, but partnerships. We're working more closely with Japan, with South Korea, with Jordan, with the African Union. We're working with Moldova and forming partnerships of like-minded countries that can share best practices in coping with a

variety of threats and learn from one another. I took the first trip that NATO had ever had of NATO ambassadors to Seoul and Tokyo because these are two countries that are deepening their relationship with the alliance. So for all of those reasons, for the money, for the plans, and for this global network of partnerships that the alliance has, I do feel that the alliance is at the ready and prepared to take on whatever comes at us. With these additional funds. Might you call that NATO plus or something? I don't know. Well, yeah. I'm sure we'll think of some interesting acronym, but no, in truth, we were- Don't interesting acronym, but no, in truth, we were... Don't sound like a streaming service, but go ahead.

No, we, I mean, we call them NATO partners. Stinger Missiles and Bridgerton. So let me say that one of the money and defense spending commitments from NATO members are a big issue for former President Trump. Obviously, he basically said NATO was a drain on American resources, getting back to people's feelings here in this country about spending, and threatened to leave the alliance, which was unprecedented. Let's play a quick clip from a 2018 rally in West Virginia. The United States is paying close to 90% of the cost of protecting Europe. And I think that's wonderful. I said to Europe, I said,

folks, NATO's better for you than it is for us. Believe me. And what happened is they asked a question. He said, would you leave us if we don't pay our bills? Now, they hated my answer. I said, yeah, I would have to consider it. You got to pay your bills. They hated the answer. So in March, Trump added to that, and he said he wouldn't push to leave NATO as long as European members paid up. But earlier this year at a rally in February,

he remarked that as president, he would not protect or defend NATO allies who did not contribute to defense spending, that he told the Russians to, quote, do whatever the hell they want. What's the response among our allies who had vowed to defend us? And how are officials inside NATO preparing for a possible Trump presidency? Well, a couple things on that. I just have to say at the top, encouraging Moscow to attack NATO territory is completely irrational. It's irresponsible. It's dangerous. And it's certainly something that would not at all be supported by our current president. President Biden, it's through his administration, actually, that allies and his approach that allies have increased their spending. So we now have 23 allies, as I said, spending 2% of GDP on defense. And that's an important step forward that will enable the alliance, again, to acquire the capabilities that it needs going forward.

going forward. But in general, I think we don't want to see any change to what we've seen over the last 75 years. Look, for over seven decades, all U.S. presidents of all political stripes have understood that NATO is not a country club. No one's delinquent. There aren't any dues. NATO is not a country club. No one's delinquent. There aren't any dues. We do ask allies to spend more on their own defense because it makes the alliance stronger. But fundamentally, all of those U.S. presidents have understood the value of this alliance. We are better off working with our partners and allies, the most capable allies we have in the world, on shared challenges rather than going it alone and trying to solve them on our own two feet.

But how much time are you spending hand-holding? How big of a concern is this among NATO members? Do allies wonder what will transpire in our election? Absolutely. Are they watching the politics in the United States closely? Yes. But frankly, they're watching their own elections. I mean, we have a number of elections coming up on this side of the pond as well. The good news there is that, again, 75 years of experience gives you some confidence that irrespective of what leaders look like on either side of the Atlantic, we will carry on and we will continue to support this alliance and allow it to flourish and prepare for future challenges, irrespective of what types of leaders exist on either side. part of his agenda at 47, Trump has said, quote, we have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's purpose and NATO's mission. Is there a

possibility of a much reduced U.S. presence? And this is not a hypothetical. If he did move to withdraw from NATO or minimize our presence there, what's the procedure for that, given the U.S.'s major role in NATO over the past 75 years? Yeah, I mean, I hesitate to get into the perspective or possibility of the United States leaving NATO. I don't see it. Look, people say a lot on the campaign trail. We heard all sorts of things in 2016 that didn't come to pass. And look at where we are right now in Congress. We still have deep bipartisan support for this alliance. The good news that I benefit from personally in my mission here in Brussels all the time is that when delegations come through and we have visits from Republicans and Democrats constantly. They come together in joint delegations, CODELs as we call them. And what do I see? I see that NATO's one of the

last issues that isn't overly partisan. I think that stems from the fact that Americans in their bones know why we created this thing, why it's still needed, and why it serves our interests. This isn't, we're not in NATO, you know, out of the goodness of our hearts, we're just floating around this alliance. Leading this alliance serves U.S. interests. And I think that's something I feel when Republicans and Democrats come to visit and when I talk to Americans. There is enormous support, Lindsay Graham. I can think of a lot of people in the Republican Party. That said, they have crashed on other things before, right? Saying one thing and then, you know, giving in to Trump in that regard. But what is your best argument to them,

the ones that may be wavering? If you want to play devil's advocate, and we've spent 75 years defending Europe, What is your best argument? What is the U.S. interest? How does NATO come back and protect us? And how does the U.S. actually gain from continued membership? What, from your perspective, is your best argument for those who might waver? And they have before on lots of issues. Sure, sure. So two things. One, I just want everyone to understand what's changed over the last couple of years, and that is that Europeans are stepping up and they're taking on their fair share of the burden. That's the fundamental thing I want everyone to understand this week when NATO leaders are in Washington. But just to take a step back, what NATO has provided over 75 years is, in essence, peace and protector of the Euro-Atlantic area for decades that's benefited all of us.

Why did we create this in the first place? Because it was one world war after the next that was creating global instability and forcing the United States eventually to get engaged and send thousands and thousands of troops overseas. And NATO put the cap on that. It was the tonic that brought peace and stability to the continent. And today, it's not just an alliance. I mean, you know the old slogan, it's not your father's Oldsmobile. I mean, this is an alliance that's just a military

alliance. NATO was designed to deal with tanks rolling across borders, right? But it's still an alliance, a military alliance that worries about tanks things like AI and cybersecurity and climate security and disinformation. And we're going deeper into a broader definition of security that, again, helps serve U.S. interests because in the face of a cyber attack or a conventional military attack, the alliance will come to your aid. And that is still worth the investment. So relevance is what you're trying to sell here on this 75th anniversary. Yes, it's still relevant. Absolutely. Absolutely. We'll be back in a minute. Your business is ready for launch.

But what's the most important thing to do before those doors open? Is it getting more social media followers? Or is it actually legitimizing and protecting the business you've been busy building? Make it official with LegalZoom. LegalZoom has everything you need to launch, run, and protect your business all in one place. Setting up your business properly and remaining compliant are the things you want to get right from the get-go. And LegalZoom saves you from wasting hours making sense of the legal stuff. And if you need some hands-on help, their network of experienced attorneys from around the country

has your back. Launch, run, and protect your business to make it official today at LegalZoom.com and use promo code VoxBiz to get 10% off any LegalZoom business formation product, to get 10% off any LegalZoom business formation product, excluding subscriptions and renewals. Expires December 31st, 2024. Get everything you need from setup to success at LegalZoom.com and use promo code VoxBiz. LegalZoom.com and use promo code VoxBiz. LegalZoom provides access to independent attorneys and self-service tools. LegalZoom is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice,

except we're authorized through its subsidiary law firm, LZ Legal Services, LLC. Support for this show comes from Indeed. If you need to hire, you may need Indeed. Indeed is a matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Support for this show comes from Grammarly. 88% of the work week is spent communicating,

typing, talking, and going back and forth on topics until everyone is on the same page. It's time for a change. It's time for Grammarly. Grammarly's AI ensures your team gets their points across the first time, eliminating misunderstandings and streamlining collaboration. It goes beyond basic grammar to help tailor writing to specific audiences, whether that means adding an executive summary, fine-tuning tone,

or cutting out jargon in just one click. Plus, it surfaces relevant information as employees type, so they don't waste time digging through documents. Four out of five professionals say Grammarly's AI boosts buy-in and moves work forward. It integrates seamlessly with over 500,000 apps and websites. It's implemented in just days and it's IT approved. Join the 70,000 teams and 30 million people who trust Grammarly to elevate their communication. Visit grammarly.com

slash enterprise to learn more. Grammarly. Enterprise ready AI. Enterprise to learn more. Grammarly. Enterprise Ready AI. You mentioned the elections coming up in Europe, the political landscape also in flux. We're taping with you on June 27, but France may have a new parliament by the time this episode airs, run by a far-right minority. In Germany, the far-right group called Alternative for Germany has been gaining in popularity. Hungary and Italy both already have far-right leaders. Prime Minister is Viktor Orban and Giorgio Maloney. How does this growing populism and nationalism impact the alliance? Some of these groups are closer to Vladimir Putin. Yeah, well, I mean, again, the alliance is used to political transitions. We've coped with that many, many times. And so

we won't be surprised if we see a different cast of characters arriving this week in Washington, depending on the outcomes of some of these elections. But this gets back to really the value of the alliance in terms of, you know, trying to debate folks on is it worth it anymore to have a NATO alliance. One of the reasons it is valuable above and beyond the reasons I cited earlier is it allows us to sit at the table and make sure that all of the allies understand the risks of relying on Moscow for anything right now, the risks of relying on the PRC, the risks associated with this deepening relationship between Beijing and Moscow. So we talk about a lot the values that we share. Obviously, we all have different political systems, different histories, for example, technology or chips. You know, we're enabled to have a wider set of conversations here about our values and how NATO can help protect those values.

how NATO can help protect those values. And occasionally you can use that round table to put countries on the spot and say either, hey, what more are you going to do for Ukraine? It's important we all contribute, so that's useful. But also, hey, we saw some interesting breaking news that your government is about to do X, Y, and Z. Let's have a conversation about that at the table. So it's a forum that allows us to come together in a secure, classified environment at 32 and have some very sensitive conversations. But one of the things is making it bigger. You spoke about the threat of China, obviously a big one, the cooperation with countries like Japan, South Korea. Vindman talked about adding endangered countries. Are there plans to add countries in the South China Sea? And we obviously have different military alliances there, but we've spoken to a number of people about the danger of war starting in Taiwan over the past two years. Everyone from Mike Gallagher, we have tons of people talking about the situation. Is that a possibility that this extends elsewhere? No, I really, I don't see that.

NATO at its core is a Euro-Atlantic alliance. I don't see it moving to become any sort of global alliance. That's not the intent. I will say before the war started, you'll remember that Putin submitted these kind of draft treaties, one to the United States and one to NATO. And in that, he tried to get the alliance to shut the door to membership and convince the alliance to basically kill one of its greatest success stories, and that's enlargement.

And in fact, the Russians actually came in, we sat down at the table with them, and what they heard in stereo surround sound was that enlargement isn't going anywhere. You guys don't have a voice or a veto. This is a NATO policy. The door is open. Two countries in the Euro-Atlantic area. And months later, what happened? Sweden and Finland walked through the front door, I'll never forget it, and said, how about membership? And I mean, my jaw was hanging open because I'm somebody who's looked at these two countries for two decades, and they've had hundreds of years of non-alignment out the window, and suddenly they're interested in membership. It was unbelievable. How does that affect the NATO leadership and politics? That obviously shifted the NATO

red line that Putin was trying to put in place. Yeah. I mean, a couple of things, just in practical matters. I mean, NATO now has over 800-mile-long border along the spine of Finland that borders Russia that it is responsible for protecting. So in terms of the nuts and bolts of what NATO has to be prepared to defend, yes, that's significantly changed the situation. But even better for NATO, we brought in two incredibly capable allies. Well, they were originally our closest partners. Now they're allies. And these countries, I mean, they were ready for membership on day one.

They sit at the table as if they've always been there. And they have also shifted the dynamic. I mean, they're interested in the Nordic-Baltic region. They've elevated the profile of some of those spaces. But they come in with very innovative, creative approaches. They take kind of a whole-of-society approach to defense, which is really different from the United States and other allies around the table. And so it's just been a joy to watch them take their seat at the

table and immediately raise their hand and get to work and join the conversation. It's fabulous. But from a defense standpoint, you are correct. We are defending now a much, much longer border with Russia than we ever had to. And presumably Ukraine would be the next member, correct? Well, yes. We have a couple of aspirant countries. And Ukraine is also now one of our closest partners and has some arrangements that no other aspirant country has. We created something last year called the NATO-Ukraine Council, which actually allows Ukraine to come in and sit at the table as an equal. No one's ever had this privilege. They come in and they can bring in any issue they want for discussion with the allies. And so you're right. They've come right up to the edge of membership. There's still work to do.

But there's Ukraine. But there's also, I would say, Bosnia has been waiting to join the alliance for some time. They have work to do internally on some of the reforms that we've talked to them about. Georgia is a country that we talked about inviting. We made a commitment to invite to join the alliance in 2008, actually. But there's much, much more work for them to do as well. But, yeah, you could name a couple of countries. Probably those three would be it. Yeah, Putin's going to love that one.

Yeah. Yeah, that'll make him thrilled. Let me ask you, NATO is also going to experience a change in leadership itself. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is stepping down this fall after a decade. His successor will be current Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. How do you think the transition will impact NATO and the U.S. position within the alliance? That is a really good question. Well, first I have to say, Jens Stoltenberg, kudos to him, hats off, 10 years of service inside the NATO alliance, that's very rare. Usually have a Secretary General come in somewhere between three and five years, but he was extended a couple of times, particularly because of Russia's war in

Ukraine. We felt like we needed continuity. He's just done an unbelievable job. He's a master communicator. We count our lucky stars that he's been here for 10 years. In terms of the incoming Seok-jin, I mean, Mark Ruta was someone that got the full support of the United States very early. We were thrilled when we heard he was interested in the job. He's someone who is kind of an Atlanticist at heart. You want to have someone at the helm that's committed to this full transatlantic relationship, both North America and Europe. But he's also deeply familiar with the European Union down the street, and that matters because increasingly the EU and NATO are working together on a whole host of challenges and threats. I think that President Biden really

finds him to be a terrific leader. What they've done on Ukraine has been also very admirable. The Netherlands has increased its defense spending quite significantly in recent years. So I don't know if there would be a major change. There's always some initial change when NATO gets a new secretary general. But I think some of the leadership qualities that we really admire in Stoltenberg are present in Ruta as well. And so I guess I don't think I could list any big changes. In terms of the U.S. role, we expect to continue leading this alliance. We believe we play an important and critical role here, and I think that will continue. So I guess my final question is, NATO's 75. Now, younger than both presidential candidates, I get it. You don't have to comment. Good point. Could have to comment. But if you had to, you go to the Midwest, you talk to people in a very pithy, short way. What's your best argument? You know, 75 is a long time.

What is your best argument that it's still young and relevant, I guess? Yeah, I mean, you have to make the case in concrete ways. Why is it still relevant? I mean, I get it. I have young people come up to me and say, 75 feels a little rusty, creaky. I don't know. Is it built for a different era? You can say, yes, obviously, 75 years ago, we were facing a very different environment, although I'll say we were still focused on the Soviet Union slash Russia, so some things never change. But I think defending the future, I mean, that's it. NATO is getting prepared to deal with everything from those tanks rolling across borders, but challenges in space,

cyber, emerging disruptive tech, you name it. We've got a plan here at NATO headquarters to take that on. Well, I really appreciate everything you said here. And I'm looking forward to hearing more about the cyber stuff that you guys are doing going forward. Anytime. That is probably a bigger threat than people realize. Indeed. Anyway, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Ambassador. Thank you.

It's been great. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Kateri Yoakum, Jolie Myers, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Kaylin Lynch, and Kate Furby. Our engineers are Rick Kwan, Fernando Arruda, and Aaliyah Jackson. Our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show,

you've got a seat at the NATO table. If not, wait for NATO Plus. It comes with your Netflix subscription. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. Support for this podcast comes from Stripe. Stripe is a payments and billing platform

supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like Uber, BMW, and DoorDash. Stripe has helped countless startups and established companies alike reach their growth targets, make progress on their missions, and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a suite of specialized features and tools to fast-track growth, like Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to handle subscription-based charges, invoicing, and all recurring revenue management needs. You can learn how Stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at Stripe.com. That's Stripe.com to learn more.

Stripe. Make progress. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you? Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Klaviyo turns your customer data into real-time connections across AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond. Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM.