NATO needs ‘political unity to succeed,’ European diplomats say

Top diplomats from Germany and Norway are pushing back at questions about NATO’s relevance, saying the alliance needs political cohesion to succeed, AP reports.

Speaking at a forum in Berlin, Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said on Tuesday that “everything we do as a military alliance, our strength as a military alliance, rests heavily on our ability to be politically united.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also says the “political unity of the alliance needs to be secured” because “a decoupling of American and European security would be in nobody’s interest.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has recently joined US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the Western military alliance.