US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday called on NATO allies to adapt to confront a wide variety of emerging threats, including Russia's increased aggression, Chinese strategic competition and uncontrolled migration. Pompeo made the call at the opening of a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers in Washington marking the 70th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic military alliance. He said it was important to strengthen the 29-member alliance to counter new threats from Russia, China and Iran. "We must adapt our alliance to confront emerging threats ... whether that's Russian aggression, uncontrolled migration, cyber attacks, threats to energy security, Chinese strategic competition, including technology and 5G, and many other issues," Pompeo said. In a 2018 strategy document, the US military put countering China and Russia at the heart of a new national defense strategy. The NATO meeting will focus on ways to deter Russian aggression and will seek to agree a package of measures to bolster NATO's military presence in the Black Sea, alliance officials have said. Pompeo said NATO should also confront increased cyber warfare. Washington has said it will not partner with countries that adopt China's Huawei Technologies systems, but has been at odds on the issue with the European Union, which has shunned US calls to ban the company across the bloc. The bulk of NATO members are EU countries. Huawei is under scrutiny from Western intelligence agencies for its perceived ties to China's government and the possibility its equipment could be used for espionage. Huawei has repeatedly denied engaging in intelligence work for any government. The United States has also been at odds with European countries over the failure of many of them to meet NATO defense spending guidelines of 2 percent of GDP. Speaking to journalists at the start of the meeting, NATO's chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said NATO allies should commit to increased defense spending. "All NATO allies made a pledge to invest more in defense to improve burden sharing in our alliance, and I expect all allies, including Germany, of course, to make good on the pledge we made together," he told reporters. US President Donald Trump has called on NATO countries to pay even more than 2 percent of their gross domestic product for defense. He told NATO leaders last year to increase defense spending to 4 percent of GDP. He said the United States pays 4.3 percent of its GDP to NATO. Trump has singled out Germany for not doing enough. Stoltenberg said Germany was now making progress, but all allies needed to do more. "We didn't make this pledge to please the United States. We made it because we live in a more unpredictable and uncertain world," Stoltenberg added. The NATO chief said tensions between NATO members Turkey and the United States over Turkey's plan to buy S-400 missile defense systems from Russia was not part of the formal agenda of the Washington meeting, but would be discussed on the margins. Russia is sowing discord in the alliance by selling Turkey the S-400 air defense system. The United States has halted delivery of equipment related to its advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey over its S-400 plans. The United States says that Turkey's purchase of the Russian air defense system would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp and uses stealth technology.
