look at non-eu member states for ways to backfill. now, i understand why the european union wants to focus on eu members and building up their defense industrial base in europe, but we have to work together, we have to find ways to aggregate demand, we have to look at multinational solutions that will help us produce faster and get more for ourselves and into the hands of our friends in ukraine. david: well, thank you. i've got a list of more questions, but we are running out of time, so we will have to save them for the run-up to the nato summit or something like that. but i thank you for spending all of this time, both in your prepared remarks and your candid answers here, and i hope that we've given a good start of for what looks like a really promising an interesting day. amb. smith: thank you very much, david, and thanks to all of you

for coming out this morning. thanks to georgetown university. i hope the rest of the day goes well. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [applause] >> welcome. >> thank you very much. when mark twain, who was the remount humerus and essayist -- renowned humorist and essayist, was asked about his rumored failing health, he famously answered "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," and i think nato can empathize with twain's reaction, because overall, over the past 75 years, nato has had to navigate many serious tensions among its members. some of these are rooted in differences inside nato, about a

nuclear strategy, the alliance structure, its operations, and others flowed from disagreements over policies of, or by one or more allies, outside, on issues outside of nato's purview. just to give you a flavor of some of these not so important disagreements, during the 1950's, the allies were struggling over the questions of german rearmament, and with succession into nato, the federal public, they debated the implication for the, what was called the massive retaliation doctrine, that approach to nuclear strategy, and there were sharp divisions among washington, paris, and london during the 1956 crisis. the 1965 intense debate over the conflict of flexible response,

very bitter and long-lasting recrimination over france's withdrawal. of nato's military strategy. turkey and greece nearly went to war over the cyprus issue, and the euro missiles affair of the 1980's brought to the focus long-lasting tensions and disagreements among allied governments, fed by massive public protests that times seemed to pose a threat to the aligns itself. it is important, given that background, it is important to keep in mind that ultimately the alliance remains strong, during and after the cold war, because its members did not allow its differences ever to override their enduring, shared interest and values, and i think interest

and values are both important, have both been important to nato. of course, a lot of it has changed over the past 75 years. so the question we have to ask is, will be passed be prologue? we will have a two-part discussion, first, sven and susie will discuss how tomato fared during the -- how nato fared during the cold war, and heidi will discuss the area of operations. we will then turn our attention to the current and potential future challenges facing the alliance, and i have the clock here, hopefully at least 30 minutes for questions from the audience. let me start with sven. congratulations on your recent book. as i mentioned, it has been

mentioned already, during the first two decades of the post-cold war period, nato did shift largely to crisis response, crisis management, and counterterrorism, with russia's full-scale invasion of 2022 certainly has put deterrence and collective defense back at the center of nato's priorities. so, kind of looking over the cold war period, how has nato's approach to deterrence and collective defense during the cold war period influence its structure, assessments, policies, and actions and policies today? basically, what has changed, fundamentally, and what happened? sven: thank you for that question. let me first of all say what a pleasure it is to be here in

georgetown today and to be honest panel with heidi and susie. change in continuity. it is obvious to come in a way, be tempted to bracket about 30 years of crisis management and cooperative security as say, now we are back. nato has come home. and it's true, there are many parallels, and one of the parallels, i like drawing on is back in the 1980's, we used to say that the europeans would always say you are so lucky, america, you have president reagan, bob ho, johnny cash. europeans would say, we have our heads of government, but we have no hope and no cash. [laughter] and here we go again. so there are many parallels, defense forward, reinforcement, nuclear deterrence, manage the

central front and the flames, managed below the threshold threats from the adversary, essentially manage escalation. all this is back. but i would put my emphasis on discontinuing, and this has to do with the fact that, for those 30 years of crisis management and security, the muscle memory and nato upgraded defense right away, and they became much smaller, much lighter, they were deployed out of area, vulcans within especially to afghanistan -- balkans but then especially to afghanistan. it was no longer a collected defense organization incapacity. of course, in name it was. now that it is reinventing that

collected defense capacity, there's a war going on, which is not the case back then. there's limited defense. europeans are waking up to the demands of not only mobilizing for defense in the middle of germany but further east. the logistical challenge is so much greater. and for 30 years of cooperative security with russia meant that, in large, nato did not move western forces or if your structure eastward. there was nothing there except, of course, military forces of the new allies, limited as it was. all of that has to be invented. and there is very poor between

convention today and nuclear deterrence. it is a weapon of last resort. it was much more integrated and thinking during the cold war, where you had, again, a theory of escalation that may have been imperfect and controversial, but at least it was a coherent theory. today, there is no theory, and they are having to reinvent that. all of that has to happen not only 32 allies but there is so much else going on in the alliance. there's the southern flank, which is about terrorism, and if anything has caused a headaches in nato in the 2010's, it is really not crimea in 2014, the annexation, it is the civil war in syria and how that has estranged turkey come of u.s., and france and led president

macron to say nato has become brain-dead. that was syria, not russia. it is a lot more different than during the cold war. on top of that, you have china, again, we heard ambassador smith say this, emphasize this, and the need, therefore, to develop partnerships with the key u.s. allies in the indo pacific, that was always nato partnership policy, it was about creating a multilateral framework around u.s. allies elsewhere. all this at a time when russia is conducting major war in europe. so the complexity compared to the cold war is much greater, the muscle memory is low to nonexistent, and the need for leadership is therefore much greater. and when i say leadership, i don't just mean the high pace of summit that nato has come to depend on, i think there is a

limited amount of leadership in those. when i say leadership, i've been clear priorities for how tomato is going to manage it's very complex agenda. a cannot address all these issues and say now there's leadership. it has to prioritize, and that is the work in progress. leo: i'm glad you mentioned the nuclear subjects. let me turn to susie. nato, of course, does not owe nuclear weapons. it is the weapons of the three nuclear allies, united states, france, and the u.k., that form the basis for the nato strategy. the goal of nato's earlier policy has not fundamentally changed during the cold war, but the strategic balance has changed during that time, and

nato had to make important, sometimes very painful, adjustments. you have chronicled some of these in your excellent book, which i would recommend to our audience here come on the euro missile saga of the 1970's and 1980's. it is a long and complicated subject, but i would like to ask you, if you could describe the key considerations that shape nato's nuclear posture and its policies during the cold war and how those have evolved during the first 20 years or so of the post-cold war. period. susie: yeah. so when you think about nato's nuclear posture, we start with these two principles of on the one hand deterring aggression in the north atlantic treaty area, and then, as a complement to that, providing reassurance to each and every signatory of the

treaty, regardless of their size or geographic location. and when you put it in those terms, it sounds simple, except the geography of the treaty area is incredibly hard to defend. if you had landed, you know, you are a martian, you land on earth in the late 1940's, and you could design an alliance, cato is the last thing you would want to design. you don't want your most powerful actor, on security, the furthest from the flank you are trying to defend. now, what those two components mean, deterring aggression and providing reassurance, change and evolve over time. in part because the landscape changes, right? you have changes in nuclear weapons technology and capabilities as well as threat protection particularly of the soviet union and of course it's

core successor after 1991. and so the alliance, as in so many places, needs to adapt. there are a few different areas or key themes we might pull out in nato's nuclear posture over the years, the first being changes in doctrine and strategy. so come at the time of the signing of the north atlantic treaty in april 1940 nine, the united states is the only nuclear power on the planet. that changes only a few months later when the soviet union as an aids its first atomic weapon, and of course that is a very different landscape to think of how you deter aggression with a u.s. nuclear map. by the early 1950's, nato had decided to rely heavily on nuclear weapons, including stationing u.s. battlefield weapons in europe and relied on the strategy, as leo referred to, of massive retaliation,

essentially he will go from zero to 60 very quickly. throughout the 1950's and 1960's, the viability of that massive retaliation strategy was heavily debated and contested, right? as many allies wondered whether the changing strategic balance between the soviet union and the united states, changing weaponry, meant that that massive retaliation would really protect them. by 1967, the alliance had adopted a new strategy of response based on the principles of escalation, right? so they used all of these hokey metaphors to describe it, a ladder, chained with various links connecting it, my favorite, a seamless robe of deterrence, right? it had no snags within it. at the end of the cold war, the alliance's nuclear posture changed dramatically and was

considerably reduced, given changes of significant cuts to the nuclear weapons that nato's disposal, down to battlefield weaponry. treating nuclear weapons as weapons of last resort, something that is still lingering in nato's nuclear posture today. so with all these changes in doctrine and strategy, that is one piece of the posture puzzle. another is about reassurance, and reassurance is not easily calculated. it is in the eye of the beholder and ever-changing, and in an alliance as large and unwieldy as nato, you have a lot of different actors with different perceptions of what will in fact reassure them. it is shaped by a series of proposals, successful and failed to come over the years, to share control and ensure greater input in the alliance about what weapon would be fielded, where

they would be deployed, and, of course, how and when they might be used. i could point to the atomic stockpile proposals of the late 1950's or the multilateral force, atlantic nuclear force proposals that failed in the early 1960's. instead, the alliance decided to create a committee, the nuclear planning group, or mpg, which is still with us. and instead, move toward other forms of reassurance. we could take, for example, the stationing of u.s. weapons in europe in the early 1980's. the other piece i would flag is that arms-control has played a central role in nato's nuclear posture, in large part to signal allies intentions, and often mayo has relied on a tiered approach where they will modernize order field weapons but also oppose arms-control talks alongside that to manage the costs of those deployments.

that is drawing on a broader principle in ally thinking that has long roots enshrined in the report in 1967, sharing dialogue and defense. and so it is this tiered approach that forms the basis of the 1979 dual track decision which calls for the deployment of those that i mentioned a second ago. i focused primarily on the cold war period, because nuclear posture is so much less important in the post-cold war period. i think this is something we are grappling with now, sort of nuclear weapons, the theory of the turns his back, and we are trying to figure out how much of the old cold war contacts can and should inform the conversations today. leo: we will come back i think

in a second round here about king ahead to some of the nuclear challenges -- looking ahead to some of the nuclear challenges. heidi, it has been mentioned this period, since the end of the cold war, up until, arguably, two years ago, with the russian full-scale invasion of ukraine, nato's focus very heavily on operations, including peacekeeping bombs, air conveys a kosovo, serbia, and libya, stabilization and training efforts in afghanistan. one could add training of iraqi security forces. and, just to remind you, we all suffer a little bit from amnesia here. at its high point, the nato-led operation in afghanistan included approximately a little

bit more than 130,000 military personnel. 90,000 of whom were americans and 40,000 of whom allies and partners, 30,000 strictly from allies, canada and the europeans. and there were, at one point, six of our nato allies that suffered, per capita, more killed and wounded in action than u.s. forces there. certainly not to minimize the contributions and the sacrifices of the american forces, but we should not forget that bravery and also the losses were not a monopoly of the united states. it was a very long war. i think it is fair to say, though, that those operations had mixed results. and you have written a book, trying to look at how nato went

about trying to learn from these operational experiences. let's start with the question, did the allies even agree on where they've made strategic errors or what they accomplished through these operations, one of which, of course, is still ongoing, and that is the nato presence in kosovo, although much reduced since the postwar period. prof. hardt: thank you, again, for the opportunity to be here, to speak. to this point about learning, one of the things that was quite surprising for me in doing the research on learning in a nato context is that nato actually, relative to other international organizations that are out there, does have quite significant institutionalization. you have a lot of different offices, you have multiple

places within the organization's bureaucracy for opportunities to learn. but what i was surprised about that was, despite, of course, the strong military culture in this political military alliance, is that so much of the learning happens in the corridors, in the informal spaces. i think i interviewed 120 officials across the alliance, in nato headquarters, etc., was that much of that learning was through these interpersonal networks and relying heavily on old-timers, many of whom, as we heard earlier, have retired, as sten had mentioned, and are rotating out. old-timers who are becoming very important for, you know, the knowledge that they have as these so-called cold war warriors. what does that mean?

that means that learning still matters. the advantage of having less informed processes means it encourages people to think and talk about learning. i think one of the big takeaways is that we should maintain these bureaucratic structures, but, unfortunately, we see a large reticence to sit down and read these things. so, to answer your question, yes, there is consensus. yes, there have been strategic lessons that have been put out. much of the value, i would say, is in some of the internal documents, and i would say i'm speaking at a personal capacity, since i worked for the state department, nato desk, at the time of ukraine were invasion, but that in itself is very important, having in creating aces for learning to happen. even though you have extreme time pressure and they don't have a quite significant reactive culture, to maybe

reference what you mentioned. what are some of the lessons that came away from my research? first of all, when we think about afghanistan in particular, one of the questions that i asked was, what do you thing -- in interviewing all of these government officials -- is the biggest strategic lesson, particularly strategic failure that you think we should reflect on? to be clear, this was done before the taliban took over. this was several years back. but the key take away was civilian casualties, that we really underestimated the importance of civilian casualties. what is interesting about that is, subsequently, we have seen research come out to show that, you know, on a very subnational level, scholars have been able to trade how specific incidences of violence against civilians that has translated to higher

rates of radicalization within those areas of afghanistan. so certainly we need to start from the front that civilian casualties matter, for clear, moral reasons. i was say, additionally, civilian casualties matter for operational defense. that is something that came up very clearly. i would very much implore anyone who is continuing to work on nato today to not forget afghanistan. there has been, like i said, these lessons learned processes. some of them have been referenced by former assistant secretary general john. i would encourage you to read my book as well, because there are countless quotes of folks talking about lessons from afghanistan, and also lessons from the libya operation. but another issue is the report,

very few people i interviewed had looked at the sigr reports, special investigator general, maybe you can help me with the r. i should probably know it. this is a special office that is set up for the purpose of oversight of this afghanistan in particular, so it was set up for dod but it was meant to have some independence, so it could exercise oversight. so sigar would send individuals into the field, i interviewed folks from sigar myself, and frustrations they talked about being blocked along the way, trying to get access to information. part of the reason this is relevant today is not just because nato spent two decades in afghanistan but also because when we think about security

assistance that we are providing for ukraine, when we think about nato's continued presence in kosovo, you know, a lot of those mistakes that were made on the ground are things that we could absolutely translate into these out of area contexts. i would just say, maybe to conclude, is that another key take away that came out from nato's responding to crises more broadly, since my research looked at crises in a broader context, is that we should not underestimate president putin's extensive, at this point, this information campaign and his broader desire, as we stated, for re-unifying the soviet union. in the interviews i conducted at the time, this was shortly after crimea had happened, the annexation of crimea, many of

the nato officials were really lamenting the fact that russia's status as a nato partner had not shifted, right? that even nato's strategy and thinking toward russia had, there was some hesitance to shift that. maybe that speaks to some other broader issues about cohesion, but they are continuing to struggle with today. leo: well, you've given me the perfect opening. i would like to reverse the order and come back to you, heidi, to pick up on that. based on your research and some experience as well, what challenges posed the most serious problems going forward to nato's cohesion? i will just mention a couple we seen indications of democratic backsliding among some of the -- a small number, but still significant -- within nato's

ranks. although nato's leaders routinely if his eyes the importance of protecting democratic values and what is called the rules based order. according to strategic concept, 2022, and it is quite interesting language that nato adopted, that nato, "cannot discount the possibility of an attack against allies, sovereignty, and territorial," there's a bunch of disinformation efforts that have been mentioned already a couple of times, and these are aimed at undermining the credibility of article five, distrust among the allies come among governments, and among the public, this campaign has intensified

somewhat. and there could be other shocks, external shocks to the cohesion of nato. i'm thinking possibly some of the follow from different perspectives on gaza and even the security impact of climate change. how can a political military alliance of 32 sovereign and independent countries, what can nato do to better anticipate and tackle such a diverse range of threats and some opportunities as well? prof. hardt: i mean, one advantage of thinking about nato returning to collective defense is that we've really seem an emphasis on those core values, so i would argue that in the aftermath, immediate aftermath of full-scale invasion of ukraine in 20, we saw in

domestic publics across the alliance reliance, as ambassador smith noted, the blatant disregard of ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity. as a result on that piece, i think we continue to see cohesion on some of the democratic values, but i would argue that on the issue of democratic backsliding, this has always been an issue, i would say, since the origins of the alliance. it is not something new. it does not mean we should not take it seriously -- we absolutely should -- but there's always been struggles in maintaining support for democratic institutions within some of the allies at any given time. what we have seen on the, you

know, when we think about this cohesion around maintaining support for ukraine, at this moment, which is such a critical moment, is the concern about this domestic support, right? so making reference to the public opinion polls, as ambassador smith had mentioned, over the decades, there has been strong public support for nato, across the alliance. we have seen, since 2014, if you look at the public opinion polls, some part thing shifts slightly, but even among conservatives, you see a majority here in the united states who are supportive of nato. but the concern links back to the disinformation campaigns. so one study recently found, it was looking at 10 different allies, and it found that one-quarter of those respondents

of allies, including the u.s., cited nato as a cause of the ukraine war. and, of course, much of the russian, you know, disinformation campaign has been focused on linking nato to ukraine and basically trying to, you know, focus on nato, like i said, as a cause, as a justification for this full-scale invasion, despite the fact that russia itself had signed multiple international agreements, recognizing, legitimizing the sovereignty of ukraine. so in terms of some of those recommendations on how to confront some of these challenges i mean,, at this point, i think every high-level person in nato should be talking about this issue. i think, unfortunately, it has really been underestimated within the alliance. i think the nato public diplomacy division is doing a

fantastic job, but there needs to be more speaking up and clarified, because there seems to be so much confusion, different venues, as i imagine many of the speakers here on this panel have done, and there continues to be, you know, confusion and misinformation about what nato is, what it does, and, you know, how this invasion of ukraine fundamentally threatens, you know, the broader collective defense that we are thinking about and protecting the alliance, moving forward. also, really relying and going back on those old-timers, those cold war warriors, that have that deep expertise, not just in terms of the knowledge that they bring to the table but also just their familiarity, i would say, with russia, the russian playbook. so thinking about the eastern allies, thinking about finland,

these countries that really have that experience and not thinking, oh, just because they are small allies, that they don't have something to bring to the table. that is a real value. some of the other challenges, since you asked about the other big challenges that nato is facing, above and beyond the clear threats that we are all talking about today, of russian aggression against, you know, other eastern european countries, is the existential threat of climate change. that is something that i'm working on right now. a lot of my research is focused on nato adaptation, how nato is changing over time, so a co-author of my, jackie burns, and i have interviewed 63 officials from across the alliance to try to get a sense and i think it is just important to pin our -- point out as an existential threat, climate change is a threat to deterrents

and also a threat to nato's ability to be interoperable. the individual allies that were supposed to be meeting these significant climate targets, they are moving and sometimes different directions at adopting different types of technologies. so how does that affect them to go back to the initial question, how does that affect nato's ability to be effective in its operations? can a british ev plug in in estonia, for example? as we start to think about bolstering the eastern flank. our nato defense plans, are these incorporating climate threats? having climate security, is that part of the planning process? are climate threats part of exercises? are they built into wargames? these kind of things. i think there's still this challenge among many folks in the military in particular, this broader resistance to think about climate because of the

stereotype of climate is kind of a tree hugger type phenomenon when in reality we can see a -- it we can see, and people are living it every day the ways in , which climate threats are compromising the ability of the alliance to really do its job. leo: thank you. i think we were probably come back to this and i will anticipate a question or so on that issue. susie, i want come back to the nuclear topic. of course in response to this increase in russian nuclear saber rattling, as we call it, at least in part in response to that but also to russian modernization and changes in doctrine and deployments, nato summit declarations have become progressively stronger, i would

say, in their language, describing the importance of deterrents for all of nuclear weapons, the importance of things like what we call nuclear sharing arrangements within the alliance. things like that. and allies, the u.s. and allies are doing something about it. there are programs now to modernize the dual capable aircraft deployed by several allies. older u.s. gravity bombs in europe are being replaced by more modern reliable, effective weapons. nato has become more transparent as well in its nuclear related exercises, and the newest members, finland and sweden, are now members of the nuclear planning group. looking ahead, do you see a stronger consensus on nato nuclear issues then we have had

in the past? we have to be alert to possibilities that something could happen to change that consensus. do you see risks to that consensus as well that we haven't mentioned so far? dr. colbourn: yeah. i think it's clear that nuclear weapons remain central to the alliance posture. and you do not need me to tell you that. ambassador smith told you that already this morning. the strategic concept is explicit, that it is the nato defense the deterrents is based on a mix of nuclear, conventional, missile defense along with adjacent cyber in space capabilities. but it does not get to the question. is it stronger? i would say certainly in the wake of russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine in february 2022 we have seen more talk about nato's nuclear capabilities, more willingness to be explicit in terminology that as long as nuclear weapons exist in the world, nato will be a nuclear alliance.

that may sound obvious, but to even get such clear language is often hard in an alliance like nato. but just because the language is more explicit, the historian in me can't help but point out that doesn't mean it's stronger, per se. and so i would point to one particular risk area that i see, which is the current consensus around nuclear weapons in the alliance but around nuclear defense in general is predicated , on a fundamental target. it relies on u.s. leadership, u.s. capacity, and u.s. willingness to continue playing that role. it relies on the protection of the u.s. nuclear umbrella. the diplomatic thing we could say is that not every leader in

the alliance of the 31 member countries looks at politicians in washington and assumes that that will last forever. so that opens up the possibility or potential for proposals for other allies to consider how they might reduce or leave behind their reliance on the united states and on the american nuclear deterrence. i don't think it's a coincidence we've seen talk of proposals that sounds suspiciously like things i write about in the archives from 1963 or 1964 about europeans sharing conventional and even occasionally nuclear in nature. so nato is returning to the past and dusting off the old theory of deterrence. but i think any cursory review of nato's history during the cold war should be a pointed reminder that that nuclear posture was almost always contested. and it's because it is not based

on firm, easily quantifiable and agreed-upon things. it's based primarily on emotions, psychology, perception, confidence, right? what i would bucket together as the fuzzy stuff. and plenty of other issues beyond nuclear posture shape the sense of confidence for whether an ally is reassured. in the 1970's, nuclear debates about whether or not the united states could be trusted were impacted by everything from the conduct of the vietnam war to jimmy carter's human rights policy. right? all of those things bore on how washington's allies understood the u.s. commitment to nato and whether it was reliable. i think nato's history also reminds us that sustained attention on the alliance's nuclear dimensions and nuclear capabilities can provide some

degree of reassurance to public, but it can also elicit broad concern about what a world with nuclear weapons looks like, right? if you look at nato's history during the cold war, there are recurring episodes of ban the bomb campaigns, antinuclear uprisings and we shouldn't assume that those are inherently relics of the cold war. we still live with nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons can still do immense damage and we shouldn't be surprised if some people do not unquestioningly show the logic of deterrence as the best way to preserve the safety. so if that consensus remains fragile today, i don't think that should surprise us, but rather it should be something we can see very clearly from the alliance's past. managing that consensus will require, as it always has, careful and ongoing calibration to adapt to new circumstances and views. that's something that's been true for seven decades and a

-- and i think will be as we move forward. leo: sten, i want to come back to you as the european on our small panel here to talk about the figurative elephant in the room. and i'm going to be less diplomatic perhaps than our moderator david sanger, just remind the audience that in february, the allies heard a former president of the united states claim to told the allies leader, you did not pay, you are delinquent, no i would not protect you. in fact, i would encourage them, he is referring to russia, to do whatever the hell they want. end of quote. our allies have also witnessed his loyalists in congress dragged their feet on providing critical military assistance needed by ukraine.

i know you cannot speak for europe but i'm going to ask you to take a stab at this anyway. what is the effect, from your perspective, of such statements and actions on european thinking about the credibility of u.s. commitments to nato? and can europeans i will put this in air quotes, "trump-proof" the light as some have suggested in recent articles? [laughter] prof. rynning: so the worst thing with nuclear issues, the political kind. [laughter] there's no question that stoltenberg, general stoltenberg, is trying to trump [indiscernible] he is setting up a policy that

will be durable whatever comes in november. however, the impact on european thinking i would say is considerable, and it is, it is unprecedented in history of the alliance. we have seen concerns with russian soviet behavior before and obviously russia is on the warpath. we have not seen this level of concern with the american commitment to europe. and come what may in november, could be trump, it could be biden, there is a widespread sense that biden, if he wins , will be the last truly trans-atlantic president of the united states. and trump is not just trump. it's about a political movement that is reached into congress, that has captured a broad segment of the american population. and there's a sense that this is here to stay. however it expresses itself in american politics, it's a fact and europeans will have to live with it. at a time when russian is trying

to impose great political change on europe by way of war. this is obviously shaking european politics in a big way. the most obvious example of how this has changed europe is a fact that finland brought themselves and sweden into nato. i would never have thought that it would happen my lifetime. i'm not that old. this is absolutely stunning, that the president of finland saw what was happening in russia and said this is dangerous for me to get into nato. and the fact that the swedes made in as well. something is really up. back in back in the '80s, apparently i like the '80s, an american colleague wrote of european defense that it was sort of like room full of filing cabinets looking at each other. things are not that bad, but

there's a lot to be done in order to see how europeans would react to this. let me just mention a few good things, and then i will get some things i think are more worrisome. the good things is that the european union defense policy has collapsed. and when i say that, i mean it is being retooled. the old version, which was very much about autonomy and crisis management and reaching out our area, it's clearly not the answer to the collective defense challenge that europe is facing. so there's a lot of energy being put in europe into retooling you -- retooling eu instruments for collective defense at the defense industry level. and ambassador smith spoke to this. a lot of money is being put on

the table. 80% of what the europeans are buying today is being bought in the united states. they want 28% in europe. they want that to be 50% by 2030 . building up the defense industry because that is where capacities come from. more collaboration defense and collaboration, more defense openness, more competition. you can say this is europe's pentagon moment. if all this works out, the defense industrial strategy of the eu, the u.s., europe will gain a sort of pentagon motor engine in european defense industry. that will be huge. we also see with the european peace fund, facility, it is called, which is all about funding crisis management in north africa but it has now

become a security assistance fund for ukraine. so collective defense is making its way into the eu and the eu is working very well with nato on how this is going to play together. where i think the bad news sort of begins a little bit is this has to be translated into european capacity, operational capacity, for defending themselves, ourselves. things are moving slowly. i said that earlier. that earli. there's a lot of defensemen in europe that will go towards meeting the native defense planning process capability targets for individual nations. and that is fine. that's good. that getting those targets to become an operational capacity, we don't have an answer to that yet. i am a member of a network of

experts and we put out a statement on this, i can go into further depth on this, but moving from capability targets to operational capacity is europe's next challenge, conventionally. suzy mentioned europe and nuclear deterrence and how we're getting back to some sort of sharing scheme. i entirely agree. something is going on a new creatures because that is ultimately how we guarantee each other's collective defense. and if the u.s. pulls out a little bit, a lot, entirely, someone is going to have to fill in that gap nuclear wise. of that debate is happening. and you saw president macron talk about french boots on the ground in ukraine. he did have in mind trans warfare for the french army. he had in mind putting a european nuclear power into the

game. someone who russia cannot coerce by the threat of escalation because they have nuclear weapons. this is truly very important for europe, and the chairman's they know it. they know however much they build up conventionally, they will be coerced above all by russia because they can't go to the nuclear level. who is going to have germany's back nuclear wise? that's a key question. that's emerging, rapidly emerging german debate. france has more nuclear weapons than britain, but they have no street reputation for protecting others nuclear wise. they do not extend their concerns. nor does britain, and they have fewer. how is this going to happen? that debate could work out well, and it could open europe for a competitive space on nuclear

deterrence. and if i was poland, i would probably consider giving my own nuclear weapons if the u.s. pulled out. so it's a very dangerous situation. very important, very dangerous. let me finish off by saying trump. he is a phenomenon of north-south policies, and we have that in europe, too. it's about immigration. it's about identity. it's about border, secure borders, and how you speak to popular concerns conces happening to our society. and europe's political center is as beleaguered as your political center. it's not holding very well. the fringes are mobilizing. there are all kinds of issues taking a stab at the political center. and the political centers are keeping the east-west axis against russia together.

and so transformation,, conventional bilat, nuclear debates, with a political center that is not doing well here that's europe's condition. and so let me finish that by quoting donald trump. we would to see what happens. >> touché. we have, i have broken a promise. i said maybe 30 minutes. we have fewer the net for questions, but i would invite members of the audience of questions, please. i which is say let's try to keep in brief mistake to at a time. -- and let's take two at a time.

>> i am a european-american, belgian american i know brussels. that's where i grew up. i think the united states and its allies have not won a single war since world war ii. what makes you think you will win the next work against russia and china, considering that the other wars were ruled against small nations? >> is there a second one? why don't we take a turn? who would like -- >> i think the answer to that question is, no one wants to fight a war with russia. they want to deter it. and we want deter by conventional defense. europe will be impenetrable. they cannot get in but even if

they could and then there will be deterrence to punish that penetration. there's no desire to fight that war. the war with china is going to be economic and technological. hopefully. and more at the level between dasher war at the level between russia nato, u.s. china is going to be so catastrophic that the parable to what went on in afghanistan iraq, libya, kosovo, it's just a different ballgame. and you would hope that deterrence works. >> i will just out on to that to say that there is an war underway, and that's an informational war.

and that's one of these concerns, right, that we're talking about here is who is going to win that information war? and that's could help decide who the next president is here in this country. that's going to decide who is elected in terms of some of these governments in europe where as we heard the center is a little bit wobbly. and there's also a cybersecurity war going on, right? as we heard earlier with ambassador smiths reference come every single day that are cyber attacks on nato, and allied governments by many of these large actors with whom we are talking about. and we hope as we just heard that we don't end up with a conventional or a nuclear war, and that deterrence works. >> anything, susie? >> heidi mentioned a few times information and the

misinformation and disinformation landscape today and i think we are recalling an old problem. so yes, it is a key today, but the allied leaders of 1950 worried deeply about the popularity of damn the palm campaigns and popular sentiment in terms of nuclear some rather than support for building up what became nato after north korea invaded south korea, right? there is a long tried-and-true information gain serenity alliance because leaders by merrily in moscow have known that kalish is one of the most valuable things for the alliance, and in an alliance of democracies turning public opinion against allies and publics against their governments is an easy source of leverage. so i think when you talk about

having, talking to the old-timers, right, part of it is remembering our own histories. the alliance has a long history and it's not all good or instructive, but they can help us think through the challenges about previous generations of policymakers grappled with not always the same but similar problems over time. >> sir, please. >> i.t. security studies at m.i.t. this is a great panel and especially appreciated the engagement with nuclear issues. i want to try to pressure a little harder on the nuclear deterrence question. i am an old dog and it worked on nato warsaw pact back in the day, and it was very clear that nato white up to the end rely very heavily on the threat of relatively early first use of nuclear weapons as a key part of its deterrent posture. and we threw everything but the kitchen sink at in terms of

nuclear weapons. that's have got up to six 7000 warheads in europe. the allies were quite insistent that remain this way. we could not get them to buy more than 30 days worth of conventional stocks, to build a fight in the conventional or because they want the threat of nuclear escalation be front and center. so i'm trying to come up to today and ask you to speculate a little bit on how this issue may play out. because as you have correctly said, in our narrative we talk about a fairly extended nonnuclear campaign. we rely very heavily on the nuclear shield i mean the nuclear shield is meant to come out very late if at all. is not clear to me at all

whether countries heavily engaged with the implications for their conventional force planning, that this change has. right? nato forces are still stuck in the size and organization that they generated for the last 30 years. there are no reserves, and no reserves of people. not just weapons but reserves of people. so this is a high hill to climb, and a wonder, this is future telling. how do you think this will play out as people really begin to engage with these issues which is like planning real capabilities? >> thank you. could we have a second question? i would ask, sorry, try to keep them briefed so we can get in at least a couple more here.

i realize it's a complicated subject matter. >> thinking about strategic, perhaps a bit different. in 1970, i'm sorry, in 1989 i believe texaco purchased russian submarines and sold them to sweden. do we think there's any critical approaches leveraging private sector today, understanding capabilities of press not wanting to add to the shipyard graveyards that we've seen accumulating in india, for example? is it really a build more capabilities question, or are we also looking at aging infrastructure across the board with all nato and u.s. structures and whatnot and there are also different guardrails that the u.s. and nato are subject to that india and israel i don't believe -- [inaudible] for example.

>> since i've already broken one rule, let's break when were a let's just take the third question now and we will just cut it off at that point. please. >> first of all, thank you all for robbing you. dr. colbourn, i was in your international relations class, and about four years ago. i know you probably don't remember. >> it's wonderful to see you get. >> my question is, given that how conflicts are shifted in the past decades, with now even nato getting involved in operation apparent resolve which is american blood operations in iraq and afghanistan, and the recently right now there's a greater focus of the trend to the more active role in the pacific. how do you see, question for the entire panel. how do you see nato adjusting to his commitments, that potential shift in military posture in the pacific with all the different

conflict going on? does it make sense for an alliance that was built primarily for the defense of north america and europe to play a a greater collective securable in the pacific? and doesn't even make sense that we are kind of elevating all those non-nato allies that we have in asia, japan, south korea, australia, out of the state in the structure? thank you. >> can ask et to maybe take, take a pic of questions are part of the questions? if you can keep your responses to say two minutes or so. then we'll have time for a closing. >> sure. so on your point abbasid this is really big concern, the concerned about reserves and the concern about people there and i would just point out the differences that you see in conscription. here in the united states we have the draft, but we now are in a voluntary armed forces.

and even though the draft still exist in the form of young men signing up, this has not been opened up to young women even though it's been discussed numerous times in congress. so i would say that's a real concern. on the last question, i'm thinking that is a possible to be thinking about the asian pacific region, and as u.s. priorities, uk priorities are shifting in that direction, does it still, should we still be thinking that nato has the presence and really has some meaning and some significant contributions to make it are very operations? and i was a yes. the greatest example of that is what's going on in kosovo. if you haven't been following this, nato for many decades now has had a presence in the form of a modest, a military operation of in kosovo.

and so as tensions have been rising in recent years with several significant violent outbreaks, and there's been, nato has contributed more troops and boosted the troop presence of there. so i think in the same sense that we are now reflecting back on the consequences of the withdraw from afghanistan, thinking about what would it look like with the complete shift away from some of the other operations that exist right now, is it worth the cost to maybe maintain that presence in kosovo, given that some of the conflicts are not 100% result? we talk a lot in political science about the post-conflict and questioning is a post-conflict really post-conflict, given that conflicts have a tendency to cycle back up. >> an excellent reminder. susie? >> i will take first nato's role

in the indo-pacific and what their relationship looks like. there's always been tension in allied strategy about whether or not it's fundamental role was regional engagement or global engagement. in the 1950s one of the early pushes was for the duration of a global strategy. the british have made a similar push earlier in the 1950s. this question of is the treaty area really the only place that nato should be operating, has a long history? i think we are seeing the latest phase of that but but i wouy there are lots of ways that nato can be engaged in shaping the strategic landscape in the indo-pacific without suddenly turning its attention away from europe to the indo-pacific. sigh think we can see that reflected in a lot of this investment partnerships with australia, new zealand and japan and the like but also thinking about what a stable europe means for the broader international

study landscape. and so i don't think they are quite as much attention as often believe they are. on the question of deterrence and sort of future forecasting where we are going, the cold war history of the debate over deterrence give us so much contradiction to parse through. the prevailing european view was yes, rapid escalation and nuclear weapons because it makes deterrence more credible and more likely to protect their homeland. when american planners talked about what that would look like to use those nuclear weapons, most of the same european said wait, wait, wait wait, i really don't like the range of those missiles you're planning to launch, you know, those 400 kilometers, that that strikes my neighbors house. the 1000 clobbers strikes my next-door, the country won over house. and so always a fundamental tension about theory and

practice. i thought it was particularly telling this point that ambassador smith said that they were getting back their nuclear iq. so if i do hypothesize about where we're going, it's that when a lot of what has worked in the last 20 or 30 years is because people are not paying attention to it. and now that the relationship between conventional and nuclear deterrence is back on the table in a real way, fundamentally converted in major ways from what it was during the cold war with much greater emphasis on conventional capability, when people start earning over those rocks i think people are going to find that assumptions underneath and are are very uncomfortable ones. and so i would speculate that we are due for a considerable round of probably very unpleasant debate about what is required and what the implications of that will mean because the fundamental geography of the alliance is the same.

how things impact the vote in omaha, nebraska, is not how the impact summit in central poland. >> sten? >> well, thank you. on the indo-pacific, i think, and maybe that was impacted, maybe it was deliberate that you put in exactly the right terms. nato has collected coy role in the pacific, collective security. that is talking to the key u.s. allies, getting them multilateral lies in a dialogue on technology, disinformation. but on collective fans, nato is and must remain euro-atlantic centric. it cannot by its makeup and its complexity, take on collective defense role in the indo-pacifi indo-pacific. it simply would not work. and the way the address china is about china coming to europe as

stoltenberg said, and working the multilateral framework with these key u.s. allies in the region. i think this is a future for nato in the indo-pacific. an american colleague of mine said both russia and china are headline news, but russia is above the fold. i didn't quite catch the private market question come so maybe we can discuss this in the break. on nuclear issues, i think we've seen the future, and that is allies will want to play out conventional defense in a way that is bigger than during the cold war. and it's true that during the cold war the europeans wanted to accelerate escalation to get the u.s. involved. the u.s. sought to delay

escalation beyond the conventional, so to not be involving nuclear weapon level. that was then. now, nato is at the point where they're really building up defense so they're very careful to say defense and deterrence. and we see the planes come out of the past two years, defense planning, 300,000 reaction groups, from my defense, et cetera. it's all about not pushing nuclear issues to the forefront. why not? one issue is that in europe, as in the united states i guess but he knew the europeans seem a bit better here, we have been through a couple of decades of hopefulness that perhaps nuclear weapons would go away. the abolitionist movement, president obama's global zero, public opinion has not come back to embrace a nuclear deterrence

is something that is beautiful and nice. and the political center i talked about that is not solid in any case is not about to go more solid if they embrace nuclear deterrence against their own population. so there's a great big gap between with a population is on nuclear deterrence and with the political center is. ..

intermediary. it's off the table because i. everything for russia is dietrich so escalation is much for unpredictable about is a challenge for eight months while they w and that is why they would do a lot to maintain a considerable conventional defense component on 10 vents posture but the nuclear conversation will be -- will need to be had because it is at the end of defense there is nuclear deterrence. be a continuation of this topic.

we have to call this torment, i think it's been very rich but a couple things have been mentioned. a couple personal reflections, neither nato excessive nor strong comments were great ordained. come to the conclusion people make policy. hopefully with a combination of foresight in history, important values and ability and will continue to meet those men and

women nato affairs so this is mainly directed in the audience. i saw with him a few hours canadian and early zero five foot first time in history and came back to washington and was quickly approved, meant something. not only to protect our airspace put the responsibilities around the world and the efforts to

afghanistan. in those areas were nader was not prepared to act as an organization, make no mistake, everything was done for decades, exercising and training was vital for the performance of paramilitaries. without together. another example, i spent a lot of time working with both and it's remarkable. what's remarkable is how quickly those two countries partly

members and we applied at the same time in may of 2022 look at the shortest lapse of time but as of last month, and smell a member. ministry of defense month they make their countries more interoperable to make mark aware of what made our best and look at the old mets and work and receive the benefits i hope students me audience income for role-play have to play" an

american mark bring, it's fitting closed by remembering a little-known european expert, sir mick jagger athletic i think of him because interest organization, some think he's saying you can't always get what you want but if you try real hard, he might get what you need. please join me in thanking the panel.. please join me in welcoming the panelist to the stage. [applause]