NATO holds summit with gaze on Russia and China

Madrid: Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shocked NATO back to first principles.

Seven decades after it was founded, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is meeting in Madrid this week with an urgent need to reassert its original mission: preventing Russian aggression against Western

allies.

Leaders of the world's most powerful military alliance are aiming to increase support for Ukraine's fight against Russian invasion, boost forces on NATO's eastern flank and set priorities for the coming decade - with a new emphasis on checking China's growing international ambitions.

But the gathering will also showcase the difficulties in keeping 30 nations - from tiny Iceland and Luxembourg to huge Turkey and the United States - aligned in an organisation that must make decisions

by consensus.