i keep using the same expression, you remove all doubt that this is not what the church is about. it's heartbreaking but we have to be prayerful. thank you. >> thank you. >> remarks by nato secretary general jens stoltenberg including decrease defense spending and burden sharing, live coverage from the heritage foundation. >> germany agrees and are to invest more in defense. >> any questions? >> thank you very much, my name is david, i represent georgian

television station in washington, d.c. i wonder if there's any update about nato enlargement on georgia's possible membership, thank you, sir? >> we had a very good meeting with the georgian president in brussels during the summit. i met with the president and we addressed the importance of strengthening the partnership between nato and georgia and nato strongly supports the sovereignty, the territorial integrity of georgia and, of course, we don't in any way recognize the presence of russian forces in parts of georgia. we also retraced after summit in july that georgia will become member of nato. we helped georgia with

implementing reforms, we provide political support, practical support. we have established a training center, training abolition center in georgia and we help with implementing reforms so defense and security institutions, so georgia is making progress, we welcome that. we will continue to support georgia and help georgia as it moves towards closer integration including towards membership in nato. we would also that that we are grateful what georgia does for nato. georgia participates in nato exercises, contributes to to response force but georgia, are main partners sending troops, contributing with troops to our mission in afghanistan, so georgia is important to nato and nato is important to georgia and

we continue to strengthen our partnership. >> mr. secretary, let me shift the topic a little bit. you're talking about what nato is doing and how important it is to our mutual security but let me shift a question to public diplomacy and public support for nato both here and in europe, it's been over 30 years since the cold war ended, the challenges today from russia are somewhat on the one hand they are similar and on the other hand they are entirely different, many younger people who were not alive during the cold war are being asked to support and even participate in some cases in military operations on behalf of nato, can you say a few words about how we need to go beyond sort of making the case, if you will, to states and politicians and experts to the public at large about how important nato is to the security particularly for

younger people? >> of course, the support for nato forgiven, new generations who don't remember and have never experienced the war, of course, it's a different thing for them. but having said that, i think the good news is that when you look at the opinion polls it's actually strong support for nato especially in the united states. and the support for nato has increased. 60 something percent, so it's a strong support for nato in the united states and in european allied countries and according to latest figures from the pew research institute support is at historic high level. the challenge to maintain the high and bipartisan support for nato. i think that's partly about

showing that nato is important both when it comes to collected defense in europe deterring russia and any other potential adversaries -- adversary for attacking nato-allied country and nato can respond to threats and challenges, cyber and hybrid and nato is modernizing capabilities, cyber capabilities and responding to cyber threats and, of course, and the fight against terrorism. the fight against terrorism is not completely new challenge, it has been there for many years but nato is playing a key role both in our presence in afghanistan. the reason we are in afghanistan is to prevent afghanistan ever again becoming safe haven for national terrorists and many problems in afghanistan but at least you have prevented afghanistan from once again becoming platform for launching

terrorist attacks against our own countries. now we are also starting training mission in iraq, so nato is able to respond to many different challenges, one more the migrant and refugee crisis in europe and nato is also helping to respond to that with our presence in gmc we implement agreement within turky and eu on helping the flow of migration. >> over this way. >> i cover the pentagon for reuters. the russian information to your idea is nothing new but gained attention after 2016 elections, can you talk about russia campaign and how it's developed over the past few years and specifically how you see russia

using this information ahead of referendum later this month? >> we have seen many examples and we have seen many reports about how russia tried to meddle in our democratic political processes in different nato countries and in partner countries partners of nato also by through information using social media and so on and we also seen that in the former republic which is close to -- which will have a referendum the 30th of september on the name deal and if they agree to that deal they can be called a member of nato. we also seen russia, for instance, trying to not only prevent the former yugoslavia to become member of nato but also

presenting montenegro from becoming a nato. we are seeing attempt there. and we have seen that they are using media and social media disinformation to try to influence political processes in different european and nato allied countries. nato is responding to this in many different ways. this is part of our cyberdefense, it's part about responding to disinformation and propaganda and i think that the best way to respond to propaganda is not with propaganda but the best way to respond to this disinformation, propaganda is the truth, the truth will prevail and therefore what we try to do is provide the facts. nato and alliance can do so, the headquarters, we have center of

intelligence on issues but, of course, all the member states have a particular responsibility to respond, to be aware and -- and to see the dangers of russia trying to meddle in domestic political processes. i also strongly believe that free and independent media is extremely important in responding to any attempt to spread disinformation and propaganda. so free-independent media that is able to -- it's a difficult question but to be critical, check their sources, it's also extremely important to establish resilience against any outside attempt to meddle in our political process.

>> hi, amanda macias, i cover the pentagon for cnbc, turkey with desire to buy russia missile system and also f35, can you talk about those two-big-ticket items and how they conflict with each other? >> it is a challenge, it's well known that there's disagreement with turkey and especially the united states on this issue. decisions on acquisition of the military capabilities is a national decision but what is important for nato is, of course , different systems working together and i have discontinued this many times and in washington and i hope that it's possible to find a solution because what is now is the

challenge for all of us that -- that there's this disagreement on the issue of s400, the russian air defense system which turkey has decided to buy and also the decision and actually turkey being part of the f35 program. and also that there's bilateral dialogue between turkey and the united states on this issue and the fact that nato has been a kind of platform for dialogue and know that this was an issue that was addressed during the summit in july in nato. let me add one more thing and that is that turkey is a very important ally for nato for many reasons but geographic location,

if you look at the map you see how big turkey is but also how turkey is bordering iraq, syria and you will understand why turkey has been so important in the fight against isis daesh. infrastructure basis area bases have been extremely important in the success we have had in degrading and fighting isis. turkey is also important when it comes to dealing with the migrants and refugee crisis, they hold millions of refugees and they are important to implement agreement between eu and turkey on managing the flow of migrants over gnz. turkey allied which suffered without comparison most terrorist attacks and it's important that we understand

that this is something which really is appalling to see the number of terrorist attacks in turkey and also suffered a coup attempt. so, yes, there is a problem, there's a challenge with the decision to buy s400 combined with f35, i welcome the dialogue. this is addressed but at the same time it's important to recognize the importance that turkey is playing to the whole alliance. >> courtney with wall street journal, thank you for doing this. you discussed contributions and capabilities a little bit, are you concerned that public discussion with nato respect to burden sharing in financial terms and how do you counter

that narrative and if you give us your thoughts on whether that member states reorganize priorities and perhaps to detriment of nato? >> burdenship within nato is not only about spending, it is also about as i said contributions, european allies ending troops, afghanistan, european allies being responsible for some of our battle groups and part of alliance and capabilities, different weapon systems and so on. but burden sharing is all about money, it's also about spending so if you by financial terms you mean spending we are not concerned that we are all discussing spending in nato. also i'm raising the issue in all of our meetings because nato allies have to invest more in

defense. all allies use defense spending in end of the cold war because tensions went down. i have told many audiences like this before that in 1990's i was minister of finance in norway and then i was responsible for cutting defense spending in norway i know exactly how to do that. and that was the way, the natural thing to do because when tensions went down, then it's right to reduce spending as long as we are able to increase defense spending when tensions are going up and therefore later on prime minister responsible to increase defense spending and therefore i also call on all allies to invest more and, you know, during the cold war most allies spent 3% of gdp on defense, now we calling them to spend 2.

the good news is that they are really started to move, when we made the decision back in 2014 it was only 3 allies that spent 3% on gdp on defense, this year we expect 8 allies to spend 3% of gdp on defense. and -- and also those who spend less have really started to increase and as i said last year we had 5.2% real increase in defense spending, canada biggest increase since end of cold war and since trump became president, nato allies, european allies and canada have increased defense spending by 41 billion u.s. dollars. we are going in the right direction, we are pushing for more but we have seen the significant shift, i don't know whether i answered the questions but i addressed the issue of spending.

pestco, structured corporation in european union of defense, i welcome stronger eu efforts on defense because i believe that contribute to fair burden sharing, it can develop military capabilities in europe and it can address the capabilities in europe. i support this as long as this is not developed into an alternative to nato as long as this is complemented to nato we should welcome eu efforts on defense. it has been clearly stated from european leaders, from the eu that this is not about duplicating nato, this is not about creating alternative to nato but this is about strengthening the european with

nato and if that's the case we should welcome it because we need more european capabilities, we need more european capabilities on defense. for instance, the u.s. has one main -- one battle tank and in europe they have 7. it's much less scale, much more costly so if the european corporation can address the european defense industry, that would be good for all of us. but european eu efforts on defense can never replace nato partly because if you look at the figures when uk leaves eu 80% of nato's expenditures would come from noneu allies.

so in no way can replace nato. this is not only about money but geography, if you look at geography, in the north you have norway, iceland, north atlantic, in the south turkey and other allies and in the west you have canada, united states and uk and, of course, any credible defense of europe needs those capabilities and also the geography of this allies to be effective in defending europe, so, yes, i believe in stronger european defense, i believe in stronger eu efforts on defense but not as alternative but something which is complementing nato. >> last time the nato strategic concept was published was in 2010. there's a lot that has happened since then, there's been the invasion of ukraine, arab spring, the migrant crisis and russian intervention in syria. is it time to update the

strategic concept? >> some argue in favor of that and i -- some people like to do that. i think that it's not a must to do so as long as we have -- as long as we are able to adapt our strategy and adapt nato to changing world and that's exactly what is done. and, yes, we have no new strategic concept but we have new strategy meaning that we have proven that we have changed nato fundamentally because we have implemented the biggest since the end of the cold war. for the first time in nato history we have groups combat in eastern part of alliance, four battle groups in poland.

we have response force. we have just agreed to new initiative with battleships, 30 escort drones ready to move within 30 days or less. we have stepped up fight against terrorism and we are doing much more when it comes to cyber and so on. as long as nato is able to change to what we do on actions on the ground, i'm not saying that the concept is not important but i'm saying that actions are actually the most important thing and we have been able to adapt to nato. >> we have time for one more question, let me see if i can go over here, well, there's hands in the corner back there. >> hello, sir, i am student of

morgan graduate school of national security. i've got for you a question connected, last year estonia arrested two men for espionage for russia, one of them was major in estonia army headquarters, could you, sir, tell us anything about damages caused by that espionage activity? thank you. >> what we have seen is more assertive russia, russia which has invested in many different types of capabilities also in intelligence but i will not comment on intelligence. that will be -- that will be just undermine what nato is doing and nato allies are doing in the area of intelligence but what i can say is that because

we see a more assertive russia investing in more capabilities, modernizing armed forces, exercising in much bigger formations as we now see in the ongoing russian exercises in the far east and russia has been willing to use military force against neighbors in georgia and ukraine and that's the reason why nato has implemented the biggest reinforcement attempts and that's the reason why nato allies have started to invest more for the first time since the end of cold war. nato is not mirroring time by time plane by plane what russia is doing but we are responding when we see security challenges are changing with a more assertive russia. then i would like to underline that russia is there to stay,

russia is our neighbor and nato is not seeking confrontation with russia. but for us there's no contradiction between being firm, strong in our approach to russia as we are but at the same time seeking dialogue and try to reduce tensions with russia because russia would not go away. russia will remain our biggest neighbor and i know very well politician coming from norway, a small country bordering russia that it is possible to have a firm, predictable approach to russia but at the same time work with dialogue with russia, even during the coldest periods of the cold war, norway was able to have a working relationship with russia on defense and security issues. our military speak regularly with russian military up in the

north. on energy and environment, we agree the borderline but that was not despite nato, despite norway's membership in nato but it was because of nato's membership in nato because the nato membership provided the strength and the platform to engage with russia. so i say this because we will all be losers if we move to cold war and arm's race, we have to find the balance between being firm, predictable and delivering defense but at the same time trying to develop a better relationship with russia including arm's control and -- and political dialogue with russia and that's exactly what nato is doing. .. ..