Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, introduced a bill on Tuesday in honor of the 74th anniversary of NATO that seeks to combat the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.
Green, who is also a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the Gen. Thaddeus Kosciuszko Memorial Exchange Program For Polish-American Defense Cooperation Act, which honors Kosciuszko, a Polish soldier who helped the United States during the American Revolution. The legislation focuses on strengthening ties between NATO allies, particularly between the U.S. and Poland.
FINLAND JOINS NATO AS ALLIES DELIGHT IN DEFYING PUTIN'S DEMANDS
“We need another ‘tear down this wall’ moment. Despite the fall of the Soviet Union, one thing is clear, tyranny still remains," Green said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "We see evidence of this in Xi Jinping’s treatment of China’s minority populations and Putin’s regime of terror and war of aggression against Ukraine. Though these two despotic powers are forming a partnership, we have something greater: the ‘community of freedom’ that was founded 74 years ago, and has only grown since."
The legislation proposes creating a training program between the U.S. and special operations forces in the Polish army, which would enhance the readiness and defensive capabilities of both countries.
The bill also encourages increased cooperation between NATO allies to emphasize the "ideals of peace and stability" against a growing threat in the east, namely the partnership between Russia and China amid Russia's war in Ukraine.
"The Chinese Communist Party and the Putin regime would like nothing more than to weaken NATO’s influence, [but] we cannot concede any ground," Green said in a press release. "Neither Russia, nor the People’s Republic of China, respect the individual freedoms of their people nor do they respect the sovereignty of other nations. This legislation will demonstrate to our adversaries that NATO is not a thing of the past, but that the strongest countries in the world stand united against tyranny, in all its forms.”
NATO was founded on April 4, 1949, in the aftermath of World War II to combat Soviet aggression in Europe. The organization is a military and security alliance that was established by the U.S., Canada, and its Western allies and is now comprised of 31 countries. Finland joined the alliance on Tuesday. Sweden has also applied for entry, but approval has been stalled due to tensions with Turkey.
Poland joined the alliance in 1999, alongside the Czech Republic and Hungary.
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The entrance of Finland is partly perceived as a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who released an eight-point draft “peace” treaty two months before he launched an invasion of Ukraine, which included demands that NATO commits to no further eastern expansion of the alliance and limits the deployment of troops and weapons to the alliance’s eastern flank.
“He wanted NATO to remove our forces, our structures from all allies that have joined after 1997, meaning all allies in Central Eastern Europe, and he wanted NATO to make it absolutely clear that NATO's door was closed for any new membership,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. "He's getting the exact opposite. He’s getting more NATO presence in eastern parts of the alliance, and he's getting two new members with Finland and Sweden.”