U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter kicked off a nearly week-long European tour on Sunday with stops in Germany and Estonia, announcing new support to NATO amid concerns over Russian aggression in nearby Ukraine.
That new support will go toward a NATO rapid response team capable of responding more quickly to threats in the area, and will include a range of capabilities, including command-and-control, special operations capabilities, and logistical expertise.
“We need to explain to those who doubt the value of our NATO commitments that the security of Europe is vital to everything else we hold dear,” Carter said at a press event with his German counterpart Monday.
And while Carter won’t be visiting Russia on this trip, the specter of Russian President Vladimir Putin is ever-present.
“One of [Putin’s] stated views is a longing for the past and that’s where we have a different perspective on the world and even on Russia’s future,” he told reporters en route to Germany, in response to a question about whether Putin is a rational actor. “We’d like to see us all moving forward, Europe moving forward, and that does not seem to be his stated perspective.”
Carter also addressed comments Putin made last week, announcing the addition of 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to Russia’s nuclear arsenal, a move Carter said reflected “posturing” on the Russian leader’s part.
“Nuclear weapons are not something that should be the subject of loose rhetoric by world leadership,” Carter said. “We all understand the gravity of nuclear dangers. We all understand that Russia is a long established nuclear power. There is no need for Vladimir Putin to make that point.”
Carter’s comments are just the latest in an escalating war of words between U.S. and Russian officials.
Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Friday, Putin denied his government is behaving aggressively.
“We are not aggressive,” Putin said. “We are persistent in pursuing our interests.”
It’s a perspective the United States and its NATO allies, for the time being at least, do not share. But Carter suggested they may be looking beyond Putin’s tenure.
“The United States, at least, continues to hold out the prospect that Russia — maybe not under Vladimir Putin but maybe some time in the future — will return to a forward-moving course rather than a backward-looking course,” Carter told reporters on his plane.
Carter, the first U.S. Defense Secretary to visit Germany in more than a decade, also paid a visit to Berlin’s Holocaust memorial and German Resistance memorial, before continuing on to Estonia — a key Baltic ally that shares its eastern border with Russia.