President-elect Donald Trump spoke on the phone with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Friday. Stoltenberg “congratulated the President-elect on his election victory and said that he was looking forward to working with him and his national security team,” according to a NATO press release. Both men also “underlined NATO’s enduring importance” and discussed security matters, including plans to combat terrorism. Earlier this year, Trump surprised many in the US and Europe by making statements dismissive of the NATO Alliance during the presidential campaign. Trump criticized European allies at the time for spending too little on defense while the US carried the cost burden for NATO. In their first conversation since Trump’s election on Nov. 8, he and Stoltenberg “agreed that progress has been made on fairer burden-sharing, but that there is more to do.” (See also Stoltenberg: NATO Alliance Needed More Than Ever.)
A Defense Department team is on the ground in Ukraine assessing what the country needs to protect itself from air, naval, electronic, and cyber warfare threats as Russian troops gather on multiple fronts, a senior Ukrainian defense official told Air Force Magazine, describing an emphasis on what assistance can be…