The Strategic Realities of the Atlantic Alliance — A United States View

Abstract

Ever since I worked for four years in the White House, I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable when I speak with people behind me, so I apologize to those who have to look at my back as I talk. My presentation has been entitled: The Strategic Realities of the Atlantic Alliance, A U.S. View. I do wish to emphasize that I speak neither as a proponent of the Administration’s current policies, nor necessarily as a partisan critic. In many respects I support the Administration. In some regards I differ from it. But I do believe that underlying occasional twist and turns of American policy and even more of American rhetoric, there is a fundamental continuity in American commitment to Europe, one which is endorsed by the overwhelming majority of Americans and thus the American-European relationship is not at stake in our internal strategic and foreign policy debates. Let me also add in the very beginning of my remarks that I was deeply impressed by the thoughtful and wideranging comments, made by the Foreign Minister, which touched on the essential aspects of the Alliance and which emphasized through their substantive content the vitality of that Alliance, its continued relevance, both to America and to Europe, and its reflection of the truly historic as well as organic relationship that binds together our societies.

Edited transcript of speech delivered without written text.