gotchanewsdaily.com 
“The bad news is that 2 percent is not enough,” Stoltenberg said in the interview. “I am not willing to put a specific number on that, because it was very much on how they [member countries] organized their own defense … It’s obvious that it has to be significantly more than 2 percent.”
He also hit back at suggestions from Baltic countries and Germany that the Baltic region could come under Russian attack in as short as five years.
“We should not talk as if it is inevitable that Russia will attack. The thing is that NATO’s there to prevent that from happening,” he said, stressing NATO’s credible deterrence. “I’m afraid of some of the rhetoric that indicates in a way that within a certain [number] of years Russia will attack. No, they will not attack as long as we are strong and united. And that’s the purpose of NATO.”
That ceases to be Stoltenberg’s problem when he leaves NATO on Tuesday — and he had kind words for his successor.
“I’m absolutely certain that Mark Rutte has all the qualifications to be a perfect and great secretary-general. I think it’s a strength of democratic nations and democratic institutions … that we change at the top. It’s part of what makes NATO strong,” he said.
Stoltenberg described it as a “strange” feeling to leave after 10 years. “It’s time to leave … But at the same time, I will miss NATO. I have friends, I have people here that I will miss, but that’s part of life.
“And to be honest, I have stepped down before [as Norwegian finance minister in 1997], and I always had the same kind of feeling of stepping into emptiness … Every time, something new and exciting will happen,” he added.
