A trio of Senior Administration Officials detail the first day of NATO Summit in Madrid. Here’s what they told The Pavlovic Today.

• The new NATO strategic concept will be released shortly and focuses heavily on Russia. But it also, for the first time, mentions China. The document will note that China’s stated ambitions and challenge the alliance’s interests, security and values, and that NATO will respond by raising its own defenses and resilience. The officials stressed a growing area of concern: the increasing ties between China and Russia.

• The administration officials confirmed that Zelenskyy spoke to the allies earlier this morning. Administration officials said NATO’s commitment to Ukraine was firm and did not show signs of wavering even with growing belief that the war could stretch for months and potentially well into 2023. They said brief discussions were held about the food and energy insecurity stemming from the war.

• Senior administration officials said that the US did not offer Turkey anything to get Erdogan to drop his objections to allowing Sweden and Finland into the alliance (but note the warm US remarks about F-16s earlier today). They did not have specific details on the timeline of the process that would officially allow the two nations to join NATO but believed it would happen fairly quickly.

• The officials underscored some of what we heard from President Biden this morning when he announced the new force posture but did not have specific details on troop numbers. They also repeated the themes we have heard all week about the Biden administration’s commitment to these alliances and how it will steadfastly support Ukraine during this invasion.

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