 Hi, I'm Ambassador Doug Lute, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2013 to 2017. Today I'm here at USIP to attend a meeting of the Senior Military Advisory Group, a group of former military officers who have come together in an advisory capacity here. Well, I think the most immediate impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that NATO now has combat troops postured along its eastern flank, from the Baltic Sea down through the Black Sea in locations it never had before. And this, of course, is first and foremost to reassure those eastern-most allies of NATO's commitment to their defense, but also a very important deterrent signal to Vladimir Putin that should his ambitions run beyond Ukraine that there's really a very bright red line on NATO territory. So that's the first immediate effect downstream. I think we'll see a continued and persistent increase in European allies' defense spending. Most prominently the announcements coming over the last year out of Germany with Chancellor Schultz leading the way and moving Germany as well to the NATO accepted standard of 2% of GDP committed to defense. And then probably also, very significantly, the emergence of Sweden and Finland as applicants now, as invitees to join the alliance and become the 31st and 32nd members of the alliance. So there's some very significant and important and immediate impacts of the Russian invasion. NATO considers China a competitor, a strategic competitor, because China has a different vision for world order than the vision held commonly among NATO allies. But China is not viewed by NATO as a threat. So there's a real distinction here between Russia as a threat, an obvious and imminent threat, and China as a strategic competitor. Most of that competition with China is actually in the political and economic realms, not in the military realms. So NATO is watching carefully alongside the EU, the European Union, NATO's closest partner. It's watching closely Chinese investment in critical infrastructure, often dual-purpose infrastructure inside Europe. Think the 5G communications network or transportation infrastructure, rail ports, rail lines, seaports, and so forth. Chinese investment here is important because it's not just a commercial investment. The Chinese model is a commercial investment today. It comes with downstream or expected political payoffs later. So these Chinese investments in the European continent are being watched very carefully. I think the most significant challenge that NATO has to confront is a pattern of democratic backsliding or erosion of democratic values among some of its now 30 members. Not all, but some. And frankly, as Americans, we should think seriously about this ourselves. You know, the second sentence of the NATO treaty signed in 1949 says that all signatories abide by three core values, a democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law. I think as Americans, we have to look hard at our democracy and how we're doing against those values, but also there are other NATO allies who are beginning to slide back away from those core values. And this is really fundamentally important because NATO operates on a consensus basis for all big decisions. In other words, today, to take a big decision in NATO, the vote has to be 30 to 0. It's not founded on common values. If you don't have that glue that holds the alliance together and makes it cohesive, then its ability to operate on this consensus basis actually is eroded. So I think there's some work to do and some housekeeping to do within the NATO alliance with regard to democratic values.