NATO Foreign Ministers agree measures to counter Russian ‘sabotage’, but little new on Ukraine and the Middle East

A review of the meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Brussels, 3-4 December 2024

Meetings of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs generally take place twice a year to discuss current security issues. This third meeting of foreign ministers in 2024 (an ‘informal meeting’ was added to the agenda in May) sought to lay the groundwork ahead of the next NATO Summit in the Hague in mid-2025. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was attending his last high-level NATO meeting before Donald Trump takes over from Joe Biden as president. The agenda included three main items:

long-term support for Ukraine, which included a working dinner of the NATO-Ukraine Council, for the first time with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, and also the new EU High Representative, Kaja Kallas;
the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and its impact on Euro-Atlantic security, which included for the first time the participation of King Abdullah II of Jordan (following the decision at the July Summit in Washington DC that NATO would open a liaison office in Amman and enhance its cooperation with partner countries in the region); and
Russia’s alleged hostile actions in NATO countries.

Key takeaways were as follows:

King Abdullah II of Jordan participated in a discussion on NATO’s southern neighbourhood and how best to work together to address common challenges to security in the Middle East. However, there were no concrete outcomes.
The NATO Secretary General said that member states were stepping-up with more military aid to Ukraine so that it can enter future talks “from a position of strength”. However, there were no new announcements of supplies of critical ammunition and air defences to Ukraine, and President Zelensky’s ‘NATO membership for land’ proposal for ending the war seemingly received little support—the NATO Secretary General called for “more military aid and less discussions on what a peace process could look like”.
The Foreign Ministers agreed a set of measures to counter Russia’s “hostile” activities, including enhanced intelligence exchange, more exercises, better protection of critical infrastructure, improved cyber defence, and tougher action against Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ of oil exporting ships.