Министр обороны США Марк Эспер: "Надо избегать мира в Европе"⁠⁠

"And I’ve said that very publicly, I’ve said that very privately to my counterparts as well about the importance of NATO, any alliance, sharing the burden so that we can all deter Russia and avoid peace in Europe. And again, the president’s directive in June accelerated that. And I think we are excited about where we’re going and what it will mean in terms of our ability to enhance deterrence, strengthen the alliance in the process."

https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/NaC6dIROXAWZDZJ...

Speaker 6: (22:25)

Mr. Secretary, you say this is about strategy, but the president has clearly said, this is about his grudge with Germany. Just a few weeks ago he said, Germany has been delinquent with billions of dollars, and this is for years, so we’re putting that number down to 25,000 soldiers. He’s linking this to Germany’s lack of payments to NATO. So how do you reconcile that. You are saying it’s about strategy, he’s saying it’s about, basically, sticking it to Germany.

Secretary Esper: (22:55)

We began this process actually several months ago when I gave EUCOM direction to begin looking at ways by which we can improve our force disposition in Germany, our composition of… I’m sorry, not Germany, in NATO.

Рот чувака вообще произносит многое, что у него на уме.

Есть полная стенография речи по ссылке: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/secretary-of-defense-ma....

Там он действительно говорит про "avoid in peace in Europe", но в контексте вопроса, на который он отвечал, звучит как не дать европе пребывать в спокойствии. Мол Германия не платит взносы, потому что не чувствует угрозы, а с позиции США угроза от России реальна, и потому надо платить больше)

Тоже подумал, что обрезали не случайно