Joint Press Conference

The statement of The Chair Of The NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giuseppe CAVO DRAGONE

Good afternoon, thank you for being here.

NATO's highest Military Authorities are meeting today to face an increasingly complex security landscape, and to adapt our Alliance.

This adaptation is already occurring and delivering results, starting with fairer burden-sharing: a Stronger Europe in a Stronger NATO, sometimes called "NATO 3.0".

But NATO adapts every day!

This morning, the 32 Allied Chiefs of Defence discussed the Alliance's priorities with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

We took stock of the commitments Allied Heads of State and Government agreed in The Hague, last year.

Now, as we look ahead to the NATO Summit in Ankara, the expectations by military authorities are extremely high: turn all those pledges into tangible results, with faster delivery, in order to achieve higher readiness and stronger deterrence.

We truly welcome Allies' progress on investments.

Earlier this year, for example, we agreed a new distribution of senior leadership roles across the NATO Command Structure, with greater responsibility for European Allies.

This renewed command aligns with Allies' growing strength, matching forces and capabilities where they are needed most.

At the same time, as we discussed with the Chiefs of Defence, we must note that the rate of delivery and fielding of all the capabilities necessary for our deterrence and defence requires dramatic increases and improvement.

We are not at war, but we are not at peace either.

That is why we must re-double our efforts to focus defence investments, in accordance with our pledges.

In parallel, I call firmly on defence industry, to accelerate production and adapt business models to this imperative.

Enough with fragmentation! Which could be the main risk when more funds are available.

We must sustain this commitment in the long term, with steadiness and consistency, not to be thrown off course by social media or other distractions.

The security of our citizens demands no less.

This morning, we also re-affirmed our continued support to Ukraine, and strengthening its Armed forces, for the fight today as well as tomorrow's security.

Let me take this opportunity once again to commend the Ukrainian soldiers, and people, for their courage, resilience, and adaptability.

To them, my message is: "SLAVA UKRAINE!"

Earlier today, we also welcomed the Chair of the European Union Military Committee, General Sean Clancy, to advance NATO-EU cooperation on practical, vital, military matters.

We are building on our already-strong partnership. For example, we recently undertook joint visits to Ukraine and another to the Western Balkans. By aligning complimentary efforts, reinforcing one another, Together, we can deliver so much more.

Thank you again. I now hand over to SACEUR and SACT, who will elaborate on their respective fields of responsibility.

The statement of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Commander General Alexus G. GRYNKEWICH

Good afternoon, everyone.

It is great to speak with you again-alongside Admiral Cavo-Dragone and Admiral Vandier.

And it is a privilege to meet again with the Chiefs of Defence, and to discuss how European Allies and Canada are taking more responsibility for conventional defence here in Europe, with continued, critical backing from American capabilities, which are being adjusted as I know you've all heard.

As you'd expect, we also discussed the recent decision by the United States to redeploy an armoured brigade from Europe. I'd like to emphasize this decision does not impact the executability of our regional plans.

As we discussed what Allied Command Operations is doing to support Ukraine, to build warfighting readiness and to strengthen our deterrence posture.

You know, the war in Ukraine is into a fifth year and the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to demonstrate extraordinary resilience and innovation. And they continue to share their combat-tested expertise with us, especially when it comes to countering Russian and Iranian drones and missiles.

But Ukraine needs persistent and predictable support from Allies. This is why support for Ukraine through the PURL and other means remains critical.

Regarding PURL, I assure you that everything Allies have paid for is flowing, including air defence interceptors that the Ukrainians so urgently need.

By investing in Ukraine, we are not only protecting their population, and defending their critical infrastructure, and sustaining their fight.

This is also an investment in European security.

Beyond Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East remains tense.

In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has attacked commercial shipping, disrupted energy flows, and impeded freedom of navigation.

Each Nation is considering their response, with many, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom sailing ships to the region now. We all agree it is in our interest to ensure freedom of navigation in international waters, and Allies are moving out.

As I look deeper and longer term, ongoing operations in Ukraine and the Middle East are informing how we manage our posture and maintain the warfighting readiness needed to deter and defend every inch of allied territory.

I applaud each Ally that is taking immediate steps to leverage increases in defence spending to procure the capabilities needed to maintain credible deterrence and a strong defence.

This requires a strong defence industrial base and we are working with Allies and the EU to ensure our Hague Summit commitments turn into real combat capabilities.

Turning to NATO activities, operations, and missions across ACO, we are executing with precision and efficiency.

Through our enhanced vigilance activities - Arctic, Baltic, and Eastern Sentry, we have greater awareness, increased response capability, and we are seeing results.

Meanwhile, in KFOR there is real progress within the military mission creates opportunity in the political space.

And at NATO Mission Iraq, we've temporarily transitioned to a remote advisory presence to help Iraq build more sustainable and effective security institutions and armed forces to stabilise their country, fight terrorism, and prevent the return of Daesh.

And I'd like to conclude by highlighting today's change of command at NMI.

It was an absolute pleasure working with Major General Christophe Hintzy. I'm very proud of what he accomplished during his command.

And we're excited to have Lieutenant General Armada Vasquez joining our team as we look for opportunities to return to a military-led, non-combat advisory presence in Iraq once conditions allow.

Thanks again, and I look forward to your questions.

The statement of Supreme Allied Command Transformation Admiral Pierre VANDIER

So, happy to see you again. At the 2025 Summit, the Allies made a historic commitment: moving to 3.5% of GDP to defence investment. That was the buck.

Now the question we have ahead of us is the bang (buck for the bang): how we turn this effort into real capability, real interoperability, and real deterrence, for todays and tomorrow's fight.

That is what ACT is striving for. Our role is to help the Alliance, and very concretely the Chiefs of Defence I have been speaking with all this morning, to get more military effect from the resource's nations are putting on the table.

We need not to forget that the enemy has a vote. Russia and its Allies have adapted. Others are watching and learning. Ukraine and the Middle East show us that war is now shaped by speed, mass, software, drones, electronic warfare, space, and data, areas where we have a lot to do.

So yes, we need more missiles, more shells, more air defence, more high-end capabilities, more stockpiles. These are essential. But they will not be sufficient on their own. More of the same is necessary, but more of the same will not be enough, from far.

If we want mass and speed, we need to know how we can build fast, produced at scale, adapt quickly, and still deliver real operational effect. And we need to identify which part of our industrial base can actually deliver it.

NATO 3.0 doesn't exist without defence industry 3.0.

This is where ACT brings value.

ACT is the de-risking and the acceleration machine for Chiefs of Defence, nations and NATO enterprise.

With LCI-X, you heard about, on counter-UAS and Task Force X in the maritime domain, we bring nations, operators and industry together around real operational problems. We test what works, what can scale, and how it become interoperable capability.

Force Lethality Enhancement programme we discuss sometime with you, we also show that legacy platforms are not obsolete. The decisive question is the force mix: how can we combine ships, aircraft, tanks and high-end systems with robotics, drones, sensors, software and new effectors to increase lethality and better protect our soldiers.

But capability is not enough. We also need forces able to adapt. That means harder, more realistic training. It means cloud, data and AI architectures that allow nations to share information, connect systems, decide faster and remain resilient when communications are degraded.

The point is not innovation theatre. The point is delivery.

From buck to the bang, more capability, more interoperability, more resilience, and therefore more deterrence.

That is what ACT is built to deliver.