[applause] good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As our guests are being seated im steven knapp, president of George Washington university and delighted to welcome you to our city rom. This balcony affords a broad view of the nations capital. This is an excellent symbol of what it means to be the Largest University the nations capitol and has an excellent view of the washington monument. Our monument, and this location is rather extraordinary here. If you drew a line from the state department to the white house and another line from the Federal Reserve to the world bang they would actually intersection right where we are seat sitting right now. That tells you about the importance hover this location and affords us an opportunity to convene important discussions of events of global significance. So im delighted to welcome you to todays discussion nightle. Nato in the age of uncertainty. A conversation with the secretary general of nato. Were horde he could make time during his brief steroid washington to come to our camp plus. Im pleased to acknowledge members of the diplomatics community, the ambassador after estonia to the United States, the ambassador of bulgaria to the United States, and the ambassador of georgia to the United States. We also have with us the former governor of the commonwealth of virginia, james gilmore, and id like to extend a special welcome to the distinguished alumnus of the school, curt voelker, ambassador to nato, and now the executive director of the Mccain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State universitys washington center. I have to say that as the president and now in my tenth year here, aliving lived on campus, i live in a cows called the f street, formerly the F Street Club and that where is some of the founding discussions and negotiations of fifth creation of the nate toy took place. So we have an intimate historical connection right here. Other connections of George Washington university to nato include, in addition to ambassador voelker, a former Elliott School alumni, the nato supreme allied commander from 1993 to 1997 and who was department sect general in october and the first woman to hold the post, and now my great pleasure to introduce the secretary general of the nato. He became 13th secretary general of nato on october 21, 2014. A distinguished Public Servant hey was state secretary of know we january ministry of the environment in 1990 after ashe his post graduate degree in check from oslo. He was in a variety of leadership roles including that that of minister of energy and finance and was Prime Minister prom 2000 to 2001 and then again from 2005 to 2013. He led a transformation of norways armed forces, increase norways defense spences spendig and committed norwegian troops to nato peacekeeping missions. Among his international assignments, he has chaired the United NationsHigh Level Panel on coherence and the Advisory Group on Climate Change financing he also served as u. N. Special envoy on Climate Change, as secretary general of nato he has enhanced translat thick cooperation and strengthened ties with the European Union for secure peace and Economic Development in you were and beyond. So please public the secretary general. [applause] thank you for those kind words and thank you for all of you for having me here today, and it is a great pleasure to meet you all because to be here today is to be one of the most recognized institutions when it comes to educating leaders, especially within diplomacy Foreign Service and as you mentioned, in nato we have several people who have the education, who are graduated from the Elliott School. I worked very close with rose, the deputy secretary general. She is a graduate from the the Elliott School and later i we share the debate together with me and hes also a graduate from this school. So, the students at this university and the Elliott School, they are the leaders of tomorrow and therefore it is a great honor to see you and meet you all. Then i also have to say that its not only because this is very recognized institution but i appreciate to be here, but im also delighted to be here because actually originally my plan was to not become a politician put to become apodaca and my plan was to do research in economics and i have the i started to teach the university of oslo in economics and i tide that for two years. Then i was off to become the deputy minister of the space secretary of the minister of environment in norway and i prom is myself and my wife i would only stay there for wound or two years and then can go back to the academic life. And that the promise i have not been able to keep, so i stayed in politics since 1990. And i feel that my chances for doing a academic career has diminished. So, therefore i like to come to institutions look this because is the closest i come to any kind of academic life. So if you fail at academics you can become a Prime Minister or secretary general of nato. I will be very brief because the idea is to have an interaction and just really share with you some very brief remarks or reflections and then we will i will be well before we have some discussion. What i will say is that nato is the most successful alliance in history for two reasons. Reason anyone, we have been loyal to our core value, our core task ever since we were founded in 1949. And that is that we are an alliance, where we have prom mitt today protect each other. One for all, all for one. If one ally is attacked, it will trigger response from the whole alliance and this strength of the unity of the alliance has been the main reason why the alliance has been so successful. The strength of nato is not aimed at provoking conflict but the strength of nato is to prevent the conflict. By delivering credible deterrence we have been able for close to seven decades, to prevent armed conflicts, armed aggression against any nato ally country. Thats a great success, especially in europe, because the normal thing in europe was we were fighting each and since the end of the Second World War and foundation of nato there have been no serious conflict, at least involving nato allies in europe, no nato ally has been attacked. So, the unity, one for all, all for one, is the main reason why nato is has been such a successful alliance. The other reason is that nato has been a able to adapt, to change, so when the world is changing, nato is changing. For almost 40 years actually 44 years nato was focused on one and actually only one task and that was to deter the soviet union from attacking west europe. Nato ally countries. And were quite successful. The cold war ended without firing a single shot and ended in a peatsful way. The berlin wall came down and people started to ask whether nato was needed anymore. The saying was that nato either has to go out of business or out of area. And actually we went out of area after the fall of the berlin wall, the end of the cold war. We helped ending to two ethnic wars in the balkins and helped fight terrorism in afghanistan, fighting piracy in africa and we did Crisis Management beyond our borders. We did that from the begin of the 1990s until today. Now nato has to change again because we have to continue to project the ability to manage crisis beyond our borders in afghanistan, in the north africa, the middle east region, but the same time we have to come back to europe and focus once again on collective defense dense terrorism in europe and thats especially the case after the illegal annexation of crimea and russiall assertive behavior, especially against ukraine. So now nato has a collective defense in terms of the cold war. We are tripling the side of the Nato Response force. Increasing the military prepares in the eastern part of the eye lines and of alliance and southeast of the alliance so were adapting to respond to a more challenging and difficult security environment. Again, the message is that we are invest are in our defense not to provoke conflict but to prevent conflict and what we do is defensive, it is proportionate, and it is measured in a way that we dont want to provoke a new cold war, a new arms race and we continue too seek dialogue with russia based on the idea theres no contradiction between strength and local defense, deterrence. We strongly believe as long as nato is united and firm and predictable, then we can and should engage in political dialogue because russia is our neighbor, there to stay and we have to manage the relationship with russia the best possible way, because it is in both our interests to try to diffuse the tensions to reduce tensions, and to find better ways to live together. This was the main issue i excused with President Trump yesterday in the white house. And his security team. This will be the main issue. We are going to discuss when nato leaderred meet in may in brusse, and this is the main issue i hope to discuss with you in the coming hour or so. Thank you so much and then im ready to take your questions. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much, secretary general. Thank you for those remarks. Again, my name is curt volcker, the exec director of the Mccain Institute for national leadership, part of Arizona State university and a very proud alumnus of the Elliott School, even before it was called the Elliott School, longer than i care to state publicly, but it has been a great privilege to have gone here and then had a career built upon that. Secretary general, im going tone up the question and answer with you and then well turn to the audience here to ask questions. Well bunch them a few at a time. I do want to give priority to students here the Elliott School. So students think about what you want to ask secretary general, we have heard from President Trump and this administration, beth during the course of the president ial campaign and since then many, many things from nato is obsolete north objects lease, nato am lites need to pay theyre share, well decide whether we defend them based on whether they have paid their dues or not. When chancellor mark el was here, talk about how much germany owes the United States. Nato needed to reform, deal with counterterrorism. Way want to Work Together with russia, russia is a threat, intervened in our lee leks. Just about everything you can imagine. You could chart this and say theres been a progression overtime and theres been movement and you have had at love of interacts with the president you have been on the phone we him. You had a meeting yesterday with ad in washington. You met with secretary mattis in the defense ministers meeting. You met with secretary tillerson and you met vicepresident pence the munich security conference. Where do you see the u. S. Administration on nato today . How would you characterize the u. S. Policy, u. S. Support, u. S. Interests, u. S. Concern . The mess nato has been very consistent, and all directions, in all my different conversations with the president and also with his security team, the Vice President , the secretary tillerson, mcmaster and his whole team, and the message has been all the time that they are firmly committed to nato, that they see the value of they want to make sure that nato continues to adapt. Welcome that. Both fro strong commitment to nato, which was resetter reasserted yesterday and also discussed the president expressed to me just a few days after he was elected i welcome the message about committed to nato. We have to remember that somehow they spend 2 of gdp. But united kingdom, they have 92 target. And this year they declared they will meet the 2 target 17. Latvia has to quit they will meet the 2 target next year. So nato is adapting. Nato is changing but i welcome the strong focus from the u. S. Administration on the need to continue adaptation. Very good. And do you believe that allies are responding to this call to spend more on defense . In case you didnt hear the answer was absolutely there going to 2 and beyond. [laughing] what was it . Again, secretarygeneral, you have articulate a clear sense of your support for nato but part of the question from the u. S. Is, our allies willing to support nato . Do you seem doing the . Yes, we have turned the corner because what weve seen is that after many years of decline and cuts in defense spending across europe and canada, we actually saw that in 2016. We saw for the first time a significant increase in defense spending across europe and canada. And we saw increase of 3. 8 in real terms, or 10 billion u. S. Dollars. That is a significant increase, amount of money for defense. We still have a long way to go and much remains, but at least the europeans have started to move in the right direction. And as i said, some allies already meet the 2 guideline, other allies have declared that he will meet it this year or next year. So what we discussed, what i discussed with the president yesterday was how can we make sure that we keep up the momentum that were able to continue to cds positive developments. Because what we promised in wales in 2014 when we made what a nato recall the defense investment plates was to stop the cuts, gradual increase in the move towards 10 2 within a decade. We. We started to get and my top priority as secretary jewell has been to focus on defense spending because it is important for the strength of all aligned. To add one more thing, and that is what we call the defense investment pledge is not only about spending. Its about spending more spending better, to be more efficient, to work closer together and its about the capabilities we need in data and its about contributions to nato operations and mission fits every often we speak about the pledge is about cash capabilities and contributions and all of that is important at the same time. In your remarks you said that nato wants to deal with russia from a position of strength and rep deterrence and defense but also got dialogue and outreach toward russia to try to Work Together with russia. Does russia want to Work Together with nato . Yes and no. In a way that we see some areas where they are willing to Work Together with us, in other areas we see that is much more difficult to establish any kind of understanding or real dialogue. But we have to continue to work for dialogue because the world is safer when russia and nato are able to speak, to talk and to strengthen, or to improve our relationship. Its hard to predict how the relationship between nato and russia will be in the future, but i am absolutely certain that we have to do everything that we can to defuse the tensions and to avoid a new cold war. And thats why we pursue this dual track approach with russia, deterrence, defense and dialogue. And this is also something which is very much based on my own experience as a norwegian politician because norway as you all know is bordering russia up in the north. Have a land border and we have a border in the sea, the continental shelf, where there is a lot of oil and gas and fisheries and so on. And norway was able to develop a pragmatic working relationship with the soviet union during the cold war and later on with russia on issues like energy, like border, as we agreed on the border in the sea, the delimitation line, environment, fishery, but also military issues where we have some search and rescue exercise together and someone with regular contact within the Norwegian Armed forces and six fleet or the Russian Armed forces up in the north. His cooperation in the north between notary and nato ally and russia takes place not despite norways membership in nato but because of norways membership with nato because our membership in nato provides the strength, the platform to engage with russia. So i strongly believe that we should not be afraid of talking to russians. They are there to stay. They are our biggest neighbor, and it will be a all of us it will help all of us if we are able to improve the relationship with russia. And a final question for me and then were going to pull from the audience and students in particular. Did you and the president discussed ukraine and how does ukraine fit in that scenario of west russia relations and giving ukraine a feeling of security so they can get with russia . We discussed ukraine. And, of course, we are concerned about the situation and especially Eastern Ukraine and the fact that russia illegally annexed a part of ukraine, crimea, and that is a First Time Since the end of the Second World War that one country annexed a part of another country in europe by force. So this is of course serious for ukraine but it is also undermining the whole idea of a rulesbased order in europe which has been so important for the peace and stability in europe. So nato, the United States, nato allies provide support to ukraine. We help them to modernize their defensive structures, their armed forces, their defense institutions, trained them. We have different trust fund for cyber, for command and control. So nato, provide political and practical support to ukraine and the same time i think its important to understand that this is not only about ukraine, because nato has, the main reason why we have implemented this strong reinforcement to our collective defense, tripling the size of the Nato Response force, deploying forces in the eastern part of the alliance is because of ukraine. So actually illegal annexation of crimea and the support of russia to the separatist in Eastern Ukraine who continued destabilization Eastern Ukraine is the main reason why nato has strengthened its collective defense in europe making sure that no nato ally expenses anything like what ukraine has experience with russia since 2014. Its very important for the nato allies, but for ukraine itself . Of course it is important for ukraine itself that we provide support and that we help them with modernizing their armed forces, fighting corruption and helping them in command control, cyber and many other areas where we work with ukraine and some allies also provide training of ukrainian forces. But the way to solve the problem and the crisis in ukraine is through negotiations. Through political solution. And the only basis for that is the minsk agreements, and we are calling on russia to use all its influence on the separatists in Eastern Ukraine to make sure that they fully respect the minsk agreements, meaning respect the ceasefire which is not respected now, withdraw all heavy weapons from the contact line and allow the International Observers to do their work, to absorb the implementation of the ceasefire because this is a precondition of any effective implementation of the minsk agreements. Thank you. All right, students. I see and the third row here in the center. We can take this one here. Given the current eurosceptic and at the globalist governments in poland and hungary, the election in france as well as german president steinmeyer comments on nato as warmongering, do you think that there are any internal threats to native within its members . So enteral threats from within members. Will take a couple. Theres another one in the center aisle. To your left. Since the end of the cold war do you believe has been natos biggest mistake in its interactions with russia, and what do you believe has been natos biggest success in its interactions with russia . We will stay on the center aisle for now at the very back in the blue sweatshirt. First of all thank you for coming to speak you. I had a question regards to not nato is going to respond in syria. You spoke about successful interventions in the balkans as well as preventing conflicts in afghanistan. Keeping in mind the 2011 nato army of libya, how do you propose to respond to syrian use of chemical weapons and the United States missile strike two days later . Terrific questions. You can see why the students of the school go places. Over to you. There are actually more difficult than the questions i get from the journalists. First on International Threats internal threats or challenges. I think its extremely important remember that nato is an alliance of 28 democracies, and in democracies there are different political parties, different political views, open discussions, some are in favor of nato, others are against nato. In my own country some parties and some politicians have been against nato the whole time. Actually to be honest with you when i was a member of, when i was young i was also against nato. [laughing] but the reason why i say that is that we should not be afraid of open debate. We should not be afraid of people having different opinions even criticizing us. They are always wrong bu but i think thats part of living in democratic societies. So yes, there are political parties, organizations in nato countries which are critical either towards nato as an institution or at least critical towards part of what we do and to be honest, i am not afraid of that because i think that nato has proven again and again that it is a strength that we have open debate, different views and that we are developing our thinking by confronting different views and then improving our outstanding of many different and difficult issues and policies. And nato has proven again and again that despite differences, despite the fact that we invite some conservatives or some liberals or some social democrats for christian democrats, people come from many different political, republicans or democrats, whatever it is, coming from different parties with different views. They have always been able to agree on natos core task and that is that we are safer together than an alone and that as long as we stand together and protect each other we prevent conflict. The best way to prevent conflict is to send a very clear message to any potential adversary that we are so strong, so theres no chance that if you try to attack one ally, because the whole alliance will be there. And again coming from a small country like norway at the strength we feel being a neighbor to russia, by having the whole Alliance Supporting come is the reason why europeans feel as safe as they do. So my aunt is that we should not be afraid of the fact that there are different Political Tendencies in European Countries because thats part of a Natural Development and debate process in democratic societies. The next question was russia. Greatest mistakes and greatest successes. First of all, im not that kind of person that has a list where i remember my greatest mistakes. I forget them. [laughing] but i think, i am not able to point at one thing which was natos greatest mistake, and again its partly linked to the first question because we are an alliance of 28 democracies pics of sometimes it takes a long time to make decisions come sometimes i would like a clearer way to go, for implementation. But thats very often affects the fact that in a Democratic Institution which is 28 democracies, its not always the perfect solutions. But they are sustainable, start because there are 28 nations. I think the biggest success is just the fact that weve been able to prevent war. That weve been able to not only prevent war with 12 and 16 members, which what we had in the beginning, but now actually 20 members, and enlargement of nato where former countries in the warsaw pact now have joined nato. And again europe was traditionally the middle east of the world. We were fighting and fighting each other for centuries, and then since the Second World War there has been no conflict at least directly involving nato country, or attacking a native country then in response to syria, syria is a very difficult, very dangerous and very complex situation which affects nato. Because syria is bordering nato. Syria is bordering turkey which is a nato ally. We participate and support of the fight against isil. Nato is not on the grant in syria but we provide awacs surveillance planes. We help them with their error pictures, there air pictures. But when it comes to chemical weapons that is totally unacceptable. It. Its horrendous and it is violating International Law. Those who are responsible must be held accountable for any use of chemical weapons. Therefore, the airstrikes against the Syrian Air Base some days ago was a u. S. Operation, a military operation based on u. S. Intelligence, but it has received great understanding among nato allies. Because they understand that it has developed a consequence when someone is using chemical weapons. And what is next for nato in syria . There has been no call for any nato presence on the ground in syria. Some nato allies are present there, the United States are present there with special operation forces, the uk and some other allies help train forces to fight isil, and turkey is also present in the northern part of syria. But i think that just underlines the complexity of the situation in syria and there has been no call for nato as an alliance to get involved directly in the conflict in syria. Very good. More questions. We are going to take the side of the room and the next time we will do that site of the room. So over here in the third row in the battle with the classes and the tie. Good afternoon, mr. Secretarygeneral. My question is reflecting on your opening speech. So in the recent years we have seen changes in the global security, the cyber attack, the lone wolf terrorism attack are some new challenges to the global security. So my question is, how will nato adjust itself to facing the new challenges in global security, and how will nato working with its members to fight against the Unconventional Warfare that a lot of countries have been facing recently . Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. We are going to to the front row. Right here on the corner. I am a student here at the Elliott School and i want to ask what is the nato role now in libya after they destabilize the country and now it is basically stateless . Like, do you have any part, like are there many malicious fighting, do you support a a certain militia to take control of the country, or you just like forgotten now . Do we have one for the back . Lets go on the lefthand side. The woman with her hand that. Stand up. Wait for the microphone. I making it easy for the mic runners. Thank you for coming. My question is how do you ensure that countries in nato fund within ratio basically . Selffunded how do you ensure that Countries Fund nato in ratios to one country is in paying more than others. Ic pixel countries paying according to their proportionate size or wealth. Yes. Great. Portion out of the, libya, cleaning up our mess and cyber, modern threats in general, just broader. First on the cyber, hybrid, all these new threats. I think that one thing that we have to understand is that before it was easy to distinguish whether it was peace or war and actually nations declared war and it was possible to say that now its more and now its piece, and the war was taking place in a welldefined geographical area and it was very clear when the war ended. But now there is a much more blurred line between peace and war, and its much harder to say exactly when did the war against isil start and when will it end and where does it take place. Of course it takes place in syria and iraq, but it takes place also in the streets of nato allied capitals isil is responsible for terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, and it takes place in cyberspace. And i guess its much harder to say we dont have exact date for when it started and im afraid we dont have an exact date for when it will and. So the new threats, they are partly characterized by the fact that its a mixture of civilian and military means of aggression and a much more blurred line between peace and war. Nato is adapting to that, too. The High Readiness of our forces, more intelligence, more surveillance, more ability to early warning, all of that is aimed at being able to respond to more hybrid threats which is a phrase that we use for that kind of threat. And also the fact that we are really stepping up when it comes to cyber defenses. We have declared that Cyber Attacks can trigger article v, meaning that we regard Cyber Attacks as serious or potential serious as kinetic attack and, therefore, if we have a series cyber attack we can trigger article five of the collective defense clause for the alliance. And we are in the process of establishing cyber as a military domain. We have air, sea, land but now we also cyber as a military domain. We have done a lot of other things, for instance, helping allies, estonia has played a key role in again sharing best practices improving their cyber defenses. So again nato can do more of course that we are constantly looking for what more we can do, but nato is adapting to these kinds of new threats. Libya i think its important. Libya was not a stable country when nato went into libya. There was a civil war going on and we implement it the u. N. Mandate and we help to stop the killing of civilians which the gadhafi regime was responsible for. I think if there is anything that we can learn from the libby operation is that one thing is to implement a military operation as we did, but its extremely important to stabilize the country afterwards. Natodidnt have a mandate but, of course, the whole International Community including nato, the u. N. , the eu, all of us have a responsibility for not being more present afterwards. For me that underscores the message about that dimension and also the importance of training local forces, enabling them to stabilize their own country. So we are now in dialogue, we are and dialogue with the Libyan Government or the government of National Accord and Prime Minister al sarraj on how nato can provide support to build the fence institutions to help them stabilize their own country. Its that easiest situation but i think thats the best thing to do is try to work with the human recognize government and help them to stabilize their own country. Then burden sharing our defense spending. In one way it is a very simple rule or guideline, and that is that every nato ally should spend or invest in defense 2 of gdp, and gdp reflects in the way the income or the wealth of the nation. So rich countries spend more than not so rich countries, and as long as they spend 2 , there is a kind of fair burden sharing. The problem is that many allies stand much less than 2 of gdp and, therefore, a way to obtain more fair or balanced burden sharing is to make sure that all spend 2 or perhaps even more. And thats exactly what ive been focusing on. Thats exactly what has been the main message from president donald trump. But thats a very bipartisan message from the United States that canada and those european allies that spend less than 2 have to increase defense spending, and we have started. We have a long way to go, but we have started to move in the right direction. And we will take from the site of the room now. Students here in the second row, right here, the young woman with the gray sweater. We are seeing the Largest Military buildup since the 1950s. How is the alliance interpreting russias actions in the high north . Where is the military buildup again, is a russia . Yeah, its russia. Russias military buildup. Okay, back further, the gentleman with the beard. Thank you, your excellency. Following the coup in turkey various staff on nato were part of the Turkish Military were targeted by president erdogan political purges. So how is this affected natos daytoday operations and how does nato plan to respond to future political peoples or even human rights abuses in its Member States . Great, thank you. And we will go in front of you, the women there with her hand up. Thank you so much, mr. Secretarygeneral. Earlier in your remarks you mentioned that natos greatest strength is that it is able to deter with credibility and given the actions of russia in crimea in 2014, which he referred to earlier, how will nato reassert their credibility in europe, and in what ways should the United States also take action to reassert their credibility within the nato organization . Thank you so much. Great. Thank you very much over to you, secretarygeneral. Russias military buildup, restoring credibility and the situation of military officers assigned to nato billets being called home after the coup. First on the Russian Military buildup. We have seen a significant military buildup in russia over many years as you said. Since 2000 they have approximately tripled defense spending in real terms, but not only spending more but you know they have developed a new and more modern equipment. They are exercising more and have a more aggressive pattern of exercises. They are also exercise both their Nuclear Forces and their conventional forces. They have a more rhetoric which is aiming at intimidating neighbors, and most importantly, they had been willing to use force, use force against george in 2008, against ukraine in 2014, and they continue to use military personnel to support and help, to support and destabilized Eastern Ukraine and add to that, they are also active in cyber hybrid threats and actions against nato allied countries. So again, this is the reason why nato has adapted. This is the reason why after many years of reducing defense spending we have started to increase defense spending, and its the reason why we have started to deploy forces to the eastern part of the alliance. Having said that, it is extremely important that we dont overdo it or overreact. Because if we end up with a new arms race, a new cold war, we are risking just increased tensions even further, and that increase our security but decrease our security. So thats the reason why nato has been focused on what to do. Its proportionate and offensive andefensiveand continue to workr political dialogue with russia. In a limited degree its affected the nato activity. With new officers they are now from turkey. I have underlined very much for us to protect itself. They have suffered highimpact and the attempts, in either a and there were strong impressions to see the damage to building. And the parliamentarians were inside the building. So the missiles succeeded and hundreds of people were killed and of course those behind this safety attempts they should be held responsible. The important thing is that this is done in accordance with the rule of law. This is something i have communicated to opera several times. Its important when we have these kind of processes after an attempt. And deterrence. Russia used military force against the ukraine. But it is important not to mix that with nato deterrence because nato deterrence is about deterring any adversary from attacking a nato allied country and we are doing that because attacking any nato country since nato was established. The ukraine is not a nato member so its not a nato deterrence that russia used military power or force against ukraine but we of course condemn that use of military force against the ukraine regardless of whether ukraine as a nato member or not because its violating International Law , the integrity of the ukraine and we support ukraine our deterrent is credible and we have made sure that it continues to be credible, forces to the east of apartheid. Were going to start to wrap up a little bit. Id like to engage in a dialogue about a couple of things. Im not as forgetful perhaps at the secretarygeneral because i think nato has made some mistakes but one i think that is current in modern times, it is slow to recognize that russia had changed. It wasnt the russia of the 90s we were dealing with anymore. We were seeing a military buildup, aggressive behavior, pressure on georgia before that and nato was still playing by the old book and i think nato has adapted. I think the decisions of the summit, the european reassurance initiative, positioning voices in the baltic, that has compensated for that tremendously but i think we were slow. Maybe thats the way democracy behaves. Maybe democracies naturally dont want to go there unless they absolutely have to but on the other side of that, i think the greatest thing nato has done at least in the last 25 years, keeping the pieces obviously the obvious one but the other thing nato has done was to inspire countries to reform, become democracies, market economies, establish the rule of law, protect human rights and then allow them to join with other countries to share that Common Security and a wider area. This is often referred to as a nato enlargement but i think even that terminology gets it wrong. Because what it really is is about widening prosperity and democracy and we have here today the ambassador to montenegro which will be natos next ally, the document signed two days ago by President Trump. And we also have the ambassador of georgia is here. Ambassador of estonia is here, withdrawing to nato in the private enlargement round and that is first off, i wonder if you agree that is one of the great achievements of nato and if it is one of the great achievements of nato, where do we go from here on this process of inspiring that kind of reform and seeing more countries become part of that democratic secure committee . I agree with you, i mentioned preserve the peace but of course the fact that so many more countries are now part of a family of nations, seeing a number of nato and the European Union as really helped to promote stability, peace, prosperity in europe. And nato enlargement is part of that. So the second, nato is continuing to expand, meaning that we will soon have montenegro as our allied member. The United States has now finished the unification forces so it only remains to have the protocol as a piece of investigation in spain i think it is and then we hope to see montenegro as a full member in june so then within not so many weeks. Then we are working with georgia, georgia is as you said incrementally impressive reforms, strengthening them Democratic Institutions, organizing their defense institutions, their structures and fighting corruption and this is in part at least because of that administration to join nato. I always underlined of course that kind of reform is good because it can move closer to nato but even if their aim is not to move closer to nato you should be able to fight corruption and to transfer Democratic Institutions but there is double reason to do it in montenegro. Like georgia. And we support them, nato supports them with these reforms also. So nato door is open and we will continue to address the message that the enlargement of whether nato will have more members, the africans to decide and between the state denying members. No one else had the right to intervene for the state of accept the new country becomes an nato member. Ladies and gentlemen, unafraid thats all we have time for today. Join me in thanking me general of nato. [applause] [inaudible conversation]. [inaudible conversation]. [inaudible conversation]. [inaudible conversation]