 Good morning. Welcome to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I'm Tom Carruthers. I'm Senior Vice President here at the Endowment. It's my pleasure to welcome everyone. Europe has played a central role in the Carnegie Endowment's work for over a hundred years. Many of you may not know when the Carnegie Endowment was based in New York and in the early decades of the 20th century. We also had offices in Geneva and Paris and we had a conception at the time, which we maintain today that Europe and the United States are essential partners in international peace and cooperation. And in closer to the present, we've had an office in Brussels now for more than 10 years, which is a fundamental part of the Carnegie family. We continue to work actively on U.S.-European relations. So this project is part of a larger commitment of Carnegie to a close partnership between Europe and the United States. This event marks the concluding event in a project on European defense in a new transatlantic context. This is a project that's been run simultaneously by our Europe program here, led by Eric Ratford, who's with us here today, and Carnegie Europe in Brussels by our former director, who was the director last year, Tomasz Balaszek, who's not here, but with us in spirit. The project is aimed to understand the drivers of greater European defense integration, try to understand what's driving this, what are its future trajectories, and its impact on transatlantic relations. And the aim of the project is to help provide European defense and policy thinkers insights and ideas about this process of defense integration, and also helping people in the United States, particularly here in Washington, understand its implications for transatlantic relations. In a few minutes, you'll hear from a distinguished panel about the role of both the EU and NATO in managing Europe's security challenges. But first, we're going to have an introduction by Ms. Saree Rautio, who is the director for security policy and crisis management in the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We've been very grateful for the cooperation from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Finnish government, for this project, as well as the Swedish government, who've helped make this work possible. As you know, this work is consistent of not just this meeting, but workshops where we brought policy makers together, both in Brussels and here in Washington, and a number of publications which are out there on the table, and please take them on your way out. So without further ado, we'd like to hear from Ms. Rautio, who will introduce the event and the panelists, and then the panelists will come up after she's finished speaking. Ladies and gentlemen, Excellencies, it's an honor for me to be able to open this event of Carnegie, and of course I start by thanking Carnegie for a really good cooperation during the last year. This project was part of the Finnish-EU presidency, and it's combined to finish presidency priorities, first of all strengthening EU security and defence, and second strengthening cooperation with partners, especially with the US and NATO. These are of course our permanent priorities, not only EU presidency priorities, so we will continue pushing for these. Well, a lot has been achieved in EU security and defence cooperation during the last years, and the work continues on developing capabilities, both civilian and military, on developing financing mechanisms, on developing and achieving ambitious commitments, including through the permanent structured cooperation. The title that Carnegie has chosen for this event, European and transatlantic security in the 2020s, of course very well sets the agenda in broad terms for the coming years. Last year we focused actually within the EU quite a lot on different EU processes, including how third parties, how partners are connected to EU's cooperative and financial mechanisms. And this discussion still continues. Finland was trying to find solutions during our presidency, and Finland will continue to vocally advocate for very tight cooperation with key partners like the US and in the future, also for example with the UK. But in these transatlantic discussions we of course need to reflect the change in security policy agenda. The rising issues, or those that are already on the top, are for example China, how to relate to the new role China is also taking in world politics, the Arctic, how to keep tensions as low as possible while recognising that tensions are rising, technology and digitalisation, how this affects our security, how do we ensure security, how does the public and private sphere interact here. Then I take the hybrid and cyber threats, these continue to flourish, how do we build resilience and deterrence against those. And then finally I also take up climate and security, how do we better understand the inter-linguages, how do we mitigate the effects of climate change and how do we counter climate change because of security concerns and through the acts of security and defence community. All these need to be addressed among the transatlantic friends. And I really trust that this way the partnership deepens further. A very topical issue in this partnership is how to together counter terrorism in the Middle East and in Africa, for example in Sahel, the defeating ISIS coalition is an example on how to approach range of activities we can together succeed. And now we are of course in the middle of discussions on how we continue the work in Iraq and with Iraq. It's of course important for Europe and the US to continue committed to these international efforts, taking into account cross-regional global effects of terrorism. And EU on its half needs to avail its crisis management capabilities to the fullest extent possible including in Libya. While the cooperation between EU and NATO continues to be elementary for European and transatlantic security, so we need to deliver on those trends of work that are already ongoing like the military mobility which has become a flagship in the EU NATO cooperation. And at the same time we need to look ahead and bring new issues within the cooperation framework like issues of technology and digitalization. Well big thanks to Carnegie, Eric, Tomas and others on very fruitful cooperation during the last year. Special thanks for producing concrete recommendations, it's very useful and we try to follow them. I would just like to highlight two of the recommendations that Carnegie has produced within this project. First of all to the EU, the recommendation is to invest in strategic partnerships. There is an opportunity to strengthen bilateral EU-US security and defence cooperation, especially on issues such as export control, resilience, hybrid warfare, energy security, security and Africa and military mobility. Very good recommendation, we will follow this. There's a recommendation for the US that says work with the EU to step up defence against non-traditional threats. The US should encourage the EU to focus on elements of defence that NATO does not have the mandate or broad enough mandate to cover, such as cyber, hybrid and critical infrastructure protection. Very, very good recommendation and hope to see results based on this recommendation also. So finally I just wanted to say that Finland continues to be committed to strengthen the transatlantic cooperation in security and defence and we are of course happy to hear the assessment of the distinguished panellists that will step on the panel on how to take this cooperation forward in 2020. Thank you very much. Great, well good morning. Thank you so much, sorry for those terrific opening remarks and for your partnership on this project. I'm Eric Bafberg, I'm the director of the Europe Program here at Carnegie. I'm delighted to be moderating this conversation which will really focus on the role of the EU and NATO in managing security challenges in Europe's neighbourhood. Obviously challenges stemming from Russian revanchism on the east, but also instability and fragility in Europe's southern neighbourhood in the Middle East and North Africa. So what is the role of the EU and NATO and how can they work together? To discuss this we have a really stellar panel with us this morning. To my left is Lieutenant General Essa Pulkinen. He is the Director General of the EU military staff. He is responsible for managing the EU's military missions and operations. Prior to that he was Director General of the Finnish Ministry of Defence, delighted that you can be with us this morning. To his left Dr. Korishake is the new resident scholar and director of foreign and defence policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute next door. He has returned to Washington from a stint in London as the Deputy Director at the IWS. She has a distinguished background in both academia and government and has also co-edited a book on US military with Jim Mattis. So I'm delighted that you can be here and welcome back to Washington. And last but certainly not least Ambassador Douglas Lute is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Former US Ambassador to NATO has held a variety of senior positions in the Bush and Obama administrations and also served in the joint staff and incentive. So thank you for joining us as well. So I want to open this up. I want to turn first to General Pulkinen. Could you give us a sense of what the thinking is in Europe when it comes to this security environment today in 2020 and as we're looking ahead and where do you see the role of the EU in particular in addressing some of these challenges? Good morning. I'm very pleased to be and honored to be here this morning. Actually, I've been here since Monday evening quite interestingly with my NATO colleague, NATO colleague, Lieutenant General Ilman, Director General International Military Staff. It's now the second consecutive time we are here together to address our American friends and trying to convince that we complement each other on the NATO at least at the military field. Certainly interesting week and this is one of the highlights. I have still one highlight this afternoon. I'm a battlestie audience in Georgetown University, which I'm very pleased. But truly yesterday evening I have one of the highlights of this week. I went with my dear friend, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence, Mike Ryan, to Iso Kimmets, Washington Capital's Nashville. I'm sorry to say, but I had to support Nashville because Coli was been and one of the strikers was been as well. But having said that, I may have a few key messages I would provide you with based on of course already in discussions here this week in Washington. But if I may, I would like to start with the short description of the, let me say, how we in Europe and European Union see the European Union's role even globally. I quite often start my this type of interventions by describing on EU security and defence dimension in three-day layers. The outer layer is, let me say, protection of European values. That's a global outreach of Europe, which has to do more on trade and certain other actions that EU is globally really performing. But it goes without saying that values are also the basis for the European security and defence and its all approaches. And I would say that that is something if, in some cases, US and European interests are different, the values are the same. We have the same values and that is really a basis or the basis for our future cooperation. Second layer, which is more familiar to me because I'm also commander of EU training missions operations in Africa, in Somalia, Central Africa and Republic and in Mali. It's the kind of the CSDP dimension where actually we are a mandate to operate with our military forces outside of the European Union territory. And I've been quite often asked here this week what are the priorities in terms of the geographic distribution of EU militaries. And I said only three priorities, Africa, Africa and Africa. And because I'm training missions in Africa. But more seriously, Africa is something I consider its Europe's responsibility to be in lead and European Union's responsibility to be in lead in order to try to stabilise the Africa together with our friends, of course. And I think one of the messages I would like to provide you with is that we have been traditionally thinking that we tried to create a and that's also shared with our American friends is belt of stability reaching out from the Horn of Africa to the Mauritania, so 10,000 kilometres and it's kind of the containment. But as we have seen now during last months and weeks and it works even even longer and longer and it is not only working horizontally. There's also vertical dimension which has made in military terms the whole let me say Western Africa as one theatre. It starts from the Mediterranean, goes through Libya to Sahel to Western African countries and the Gulf of Guinea. And this is quite a serious issue which actually has also to do with the terrorism. We have seen the jihadism, the al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates to become more and more active, more and more capable to an extent that we have gone through difficulties and our host nation to try to survive even. That's a situation in Sahel region is really, really serious now. And not only in Mali but in particular in Burkina Faso. And that has eventually woken up us as European Union member states and we are going to take more serious look on what we can do, but now it means again that this. But my query message to our American friends has been that we need your support, not Burk-Dark European Union but through the provision of support to bilaterally to some European nations or other actors there. Also in that big game of course the question how we the conflict, the multilateral organization and their responsibilities have become more obvious. It provides a space for the operational cooperation with even NATO. The member states or nations decide on that. Capacity building NATO are very good on examples in many areas. Of course some perhaps and other forms. But that is something that we need to start also to discussing that that political level and Brussels level capital is how to do it because the reality burden is this big. And if I know for one point on Libya, this is all from the situation in Libya. But in my view it's also a clear evidence on how new world order, unfortunately, can work out. We started with Syria where the instead of having our western leaders, western institution in case some authoritarian leaders actually decide upon on the future of certain parts of the Middle East. And now the same case is replicated in Libya. Turkey and Russia are the other players as well. And that's also a point of concern I would say over the Atlantic region. And then if I move back to Europe and the European territory, European Union is not a military organization and might never become. However, we have a role also militarily and otherwise in terms of the protection of Europe. I often say that what we do in Sahel and in Africa, it's a forward defense of Europe. European Union but forward defense of Europe and to an extent the Russian-Atlantic community as well. What NATO is doing in the north and northeast is the forward defense providing deterrence for the Europe. Not only for the NATO nations but all European nations including my own. I'm sorry. So we have a good narrative to provide support to NATO on the EU side. And what really has been kind of the kind of revolutionary is that we have seen now that the European Union can mobilize also other than military assets to support for example military mobility. So enabling the NATO and the United States to move the troops across Europe. And military mobility really where we have the support of all EU elements including EU's supernational commission. It's really revolutionary using the European commission and its money to improve the infrastructure, the audio infrastructure, also using the military requirements we have developed with our NATO friends. That's really an excellent example of how we can work together. There's also ramification to other areas you may ask questions on that. But certainly something that I'm going to expect that we will have very good tangible results in years to come. On hybrid. Hybrid is something of course very close to my heart for many good reasons because of my nationality. But militarily we don't have too much to do with that. But it's neat to remind you that EU has powerful tools to counter hybrid. EU can have economic sanctions that we have imposed on the Russians and really in concrete terms to have an impact on these issues. Moreover today I think also NATO side it's recognized that deterrence cannot be given only provided only by military means. You need also to look actually the soft issues of resilience of the civilian infrastructure, civilian society as a whole. And there we as a European Union member states and also the institutions can provide substantial support and strengthen that deterrence. And also to have a contribution on the maintaining if tensions were raised that the escalation is not immediate at the material. That's really a promising area that we are working with. And with NATO and of course with the member states. And it has become more and more also a political issue in the European Union. Then finally the issue that is a little bit more contentious is the issue of the capabilities, military capabilities. And certainly the narrative I have provided with the audience that the fact that we have now the European Commission supporting more on the implementation of the military development military capabilities that is kind of the revolutionary and positive it seems to me just become a friction point between the United States and Europe which need to be resolved. Excellent. Thank you General for unpacking the EU's perspective. Corey I mean if the EU's priorities are Africa, Africa, Africa it seems like the priorities in Washington these days are China, China, China. We certainly heard from I think we heard from Secretary Esper earlier this week in this meeting with his French counterpart that the US is intending to withdraw its presence in Africa. We've also seen the US both under the Obama and the Trump administration withdraw from the Middle East, Obama from Iraq, Trump withdrawing the US presence in Syria. So what role do you see for NATO in the Middle East or is this an area that really should be left to the Europeans to handle it and do you see the Europeans being up for that task if that's the case? So I have a couple of reactions to that. The first is I don't think it's really true that the EU's top three priorities are Africa and nor should it be, right? The EU's top three priorities should be the vitality and the protection of the territory and the people of the European Union and I know it actually is and that's a good thing. But I appreciate that our European Union colleagues are trying not to aggravate the stupid long-standing conversation at NATO versus the EU. Moreover, I think it's incredibly admirable that European Union colleagues are reaching beyond the territory of Europe and understanding that defending our security doesn't just mean defending our borders. I think that's an incredibly enlightened and important way to approach the problem. I hate the burden-sharing discussion both because it's always true that Europeans should be doing more for their own security and more for transatlantic security but I also think it's the wrong question. The right way the question should be posed to the United States is has any great power ever had this much voluntary assistance by other independent countries? And I think the answer is no and that goes to the General's point about values. We do actually care about each other in a way we don't care about others because our societies are deeply enmeshed together because we think the same way that people have rights and they loan them limited ways to governments. That's the foundation of our cooperation and so as much as we always bicker there's a reason that these relationships are much deeper and more enduring than other relationships. Although just as a follow-up, Cory, I mean if you read President Macron's now famous interview in The Economist he seems to sort of challenge that notion that we still have enduring shared values. He seems to basically say that the U.S. is increasingly becoming sort of an unreliable ally and that Europe therefore needs to sort of almost separate itself from dependence on the United States and build up its own autonomy. Do you see that as sort of reflective of the general sentiment around European capitals? You talked a lot to European officials and strategists. Are they more on the side of maintaining the transatlantic relationship? You wouldn't be the first French president to sense the grandeur of France's mission in a separatist way. But I also don't think even most French people agree with that attitude which is that the depth of Franco-American cooperation both in NATO and bilaterally as operations in the Sahel show belies that notion. Moreover, it's a good thing for the French and for other American allies to move towards autonomy. The fact that we have the ability to fight independently doesn't mean we should or we will. But I think given the President, President Trump's views about burden sharing I think it's a good time for Europeans to remind the United States how much help they give us in places where we want but also that it's a choice that we work together not a requirement. The one other thing I would say about the burden sharing issue is that we've been having this conversation forever. Dwight Eisenhower thought the deployment of American troops to Europe was a temporary measure until European economies recovered. So he'd be shocked to see that American troops are still in Europe. I don't think he'd disapprove because the circumstances are so different. But he'd be shocked. And part of the invidious effect of the constant back and forth about burden sharing is that Europeans have convinced themselves that they, for example, can't deter or fight Russia without the United States. And that's flat untrue, right? If the European Union had to fight Russia outside of NATO, they'd still win that war. But Europeans don't think of themselves nearly as strong and vibrant and powerful as they actually are. And we as friends and allies of Europe ought to be reminding Europeans how strong they are, not constantly telling them how weak they are. Because it's not in their interest and it's actually not in our interest either. Interesting. Ambassador Luke, I mean, we've talked a lot about the EU so far. But what about NATO? How would you characterize the state of the alliance today? I mean, on the one hand, we saw that playing out in the recent London summit. There are a lot of political divisions, not only between Trump and Europeans, but also with Turkey, another major NATO ally. At the same time, it seems like on the military level, the alliance is quite active. I think just now we're having the defender exercise taking place, the biggest deployment of US ground troops in Europe in 25 years. So is it perhaps the case that NATO as a military alliance isn't better shaped than NATO as a political alliance? So first of all, I think the question itself is important because it emphasizes both dimensions of NATO, both the military dimension and the political dimension. And NATO's always been from the outset, both. And just to spin off of the general's comments, the second sentence of the Washington Treaty, which established NATO, lays out the three core values of the alliance, which are the same three core values as the European Union Treaty. So democracy, individual liberty and rule of law. So both of these pillars of transatlantic relations are founded on exactly the same values. And I think despite the drama over the 70 years of NATO history, those three values have served as the glue that have glued us together and have reminded us, as Corey said, that there are bigger issues here. There are bigger things that we should remember. So more specifically to your question, militarily, I think the alliance is doing quite well. I'm an old military guy. I think really responding to the inflection point of 2014 and now looking, what, we're almost now exactly six years after the Crimea, the Crimea seizure, the destabilizing of the Donbass. This summer will be the sixth anniversary of al-Baghdadi going to the mosque in Mosul, declaring the Islamic State, the downing of the airliner over Ukraine. All of that happened in the first six months of 2014. And since that period, I think NATO has been quite responsive militarily. And it has refreshed what NATO headquarters calls the spectrum of deterrence. And this is a spectrum, imagining your mind's eye, that runs from nuclear deterrence, which NATO is still a nuclear alliance, and we know how to do nuclear deterrence, through conventional deterrence. And here we've taken some pretty prominent steps since 2014. As General mentioned, we now, for the first time, in response to Crimea and the Donbass have NATO combat troops, where they never were before, in the Baltics and Poland. So forward-based, if you will. And those forward-based, rather modest troops. I mean, these are battalion-sized, reinforced battalion-sized formations in the three Baltic states, in each of the three Baltic states. Each of those is backed up, though, by a much refreshed, much boosted rapid response capability in the heart of the alliance, which reaches all the way across the Atlantic to include reinforcements from the United States. And as you mentioned, this defender exercise, which it should be called reforger. I don't know if anybody remembers what reforger was, right? But this was actually an annual exercise where American forces returned to Germany. So it was a return of forces to Germany, a terrible acronym. But it persisted for about 30 years, right? And we're essentially resurrecting that idea of reinforcement from North America and, in turn, reinforcement from Western Europe into Central and Eastern Europe, all in support of these modest forward-based troops. So on the conventional spectrum, I'd say we're doing pretty well. The real challenge here was brought up in opening remarks, and again by the general, and that's in the third part of the spectrum. That's in this hybrid warfare portion where I think both NATO member countries and EU member states are vulnerable. I mean, for the Americans in the room, we should consider ourselves vulnerable. Our elections were interfered with in 2016 by an outside power. That's a form of hybrid warfare. And, of course, for the Europeans in the room, this is nothing new. This has happened time and again. Misinformation campaigns, energy intimidation, interruption of critical infrastructure. All these things that are short of armed conflict are a part of deterrence. And here, I think, is maybe the real nugget out of this morning's session could be that this is the arena, hybrid warfare, where NATO and the EU should be most closely linked and can best contribute. Now, in closing, you also mentioned the political dimension of the alliance. And here I think the alliance is under stress. My estimate is that the first time in 70 years of the alliance, we suffer from a lack of reliable U.S. presidential leadership. I can't think of another case across both parties since 1949 when the alliance was established where there are question marks about the reliability of this president's leadership. That's unfortunate. It has a corrosive, it has an unsettling effect on the politics of the alliance. We will eventually get past that one way or another. The American system will sort itself out. And I can only hope that we'll return to a place where U.S. presidential leadership is reassured, is certain. However, even in the face of this challenge with U.S. presidential leadership, if you look beyond the 18-acre compound of the White House, you see quite sustained and broad bipartisan support for the alliance. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs did some polling last year. 75% of Americans feel that the current U.S. level of support to NATO, they support that or an increase in U.S. support to NATO. That's 75% of the American public. And then you can look in the Congress where, again, you have almost unanimous, bipartisan, strong bipartisan support for the alliance, prominently illustrated by the invitation for Jens Stoltenberg last April and the 70th anniversary to address a joint session. It was the first time ever that an international figure like the Secretary-General of NATO was invited to address the joint session of Congress. So there are problems, there are challenges. I don't think they will be enduring, but the political challenges right now are really a rough point for the alliance. Excellent. Let me ask you, General Hulkin, and a follow-up. I mean, can you tell us a bit more about on this issue of addressing hybrid worker? What is the EU actually doing and how is the EU working with NATO on hybrid issues on the East? And then secondly, picking up on your comment about EU increasing its role or wanting to increase its role in Africa, could you give us some specifics? I mean, there's been talk in Brussels about the EU doing more in Libya. Would this be in the form of a naval campaign or an aerial campaign to enforce some type of peace agreement on the ground? There's also been talked about the Sahel and Burkina Faso. What capabilities and capacities does the EU bring to the table in concrete terms when it comes to the southern neighbourhoods? So hybrid and southern. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the encouragement on the EU's capabilities. I'm very proud of what you said. But certainly, if I may just prior to going that, I think of course the protection of Europe is our role. But we need to be outside of the European borders and that is one of the reasons why it is also really important to contribute to the security of the European continent because the protection of European citizens. Certainly, if I may start on the Africa. In Libya, we don't have too much tools available in the current situation, but really resumption of the re-establishment of the operations so far with the naval capabilities is one of perhaps concrete steps we can do. We use flak in the future in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, we have a naval operation and admiral commanding fleet without any vessels contributing of course to the arms and bulk. What goes beyond that? I don't have a crystal ball. But in Sahel, certainly currently there's a revision of the review of the new training mission mandate. On-going, it's not a review, only a training mission per se, but it's also about the significantly increased the EU's, let me say, footprint militarily and politically across the five Sahel countries. Also, including bilateral support to Burkina Faso and Niger through the member states, I'll now agree, but that's really a very ambitious plan. That may imply significant increase. Well, significant, I don't define what the significant is, but the increase of our military footprint on EU side as well. But training advice with the non-executive mandate, that coincide also with the increase of the kinetic capabilities under the French Emperor. So we are working very much together. So that it will be the way actually we in the future try to contribute. And there, of course, I would say we need US support as well. Then the second to the hybrid. We have been working with the hybrid for four years already. It's about the training and exercises that were important. We have the parallel coordinated exercises with NATO and address that hybrid issue. It's part of that deterrence as well. It goes for the, of course, using the centre of excellence of hybrid in Helsinki. So I'm very happy that my own country eventually managed to establish that that's becoming more and more important and politically but also in practical terms to really to be a kind of hub of the expertise for the hybrid. Then we have actually with NATO, NATO exchange of the information. We have a hybrid fusion cell in my intelligence with an intelligence infrastructure that we're working very well with NATO exchange of information, et cetera, et cetera. We have a number of areas that is not yet fully explored. That may engage or make that explored, but not make that in action in terms of the commission actions to support the civilian side, the resilience of the member states. There are, of course, sensitivities related to the sovereignty of the individual nation member states. But these are just an example of the way how we can go further. There are a number of items. I think that there are, I don't know how many items, unless you may recall better in the Warsaw Declaration that I had 20 common actions according to Warsaw Declaration. We can look together. Excellent. Corey, I mean, we've talked so far, France was brought up, but there's two other countries that I think would be worth highlighting, Germany and the UK. The UK now leaving European Union. Do you see them playing now a bigger role in NATO perhaps to make up for that? And where's Germany? I mean, you know, is Germany still reluctant to take on the type of military operations that the general are describing? You know, is the preference still to pursue sort of more softer tools for addressing challenges in the neighborhood? Or do you see the Germans stepping up? I mean, how do you see the situation in London and Berlin? I'll start with Berlin, because I think that's the more positive one. I think it's amazing and wonderful that Germany took the leading role in trying to negotiate a political settlement in Libya. I think that's a huge contribution, and we should all be grateful that taking responsibility, taking a leadership role on solving problems that hard is an outstanding contribution that the Germans are making. I noticed that another, I think a parliamentary report came out on the status of German armed forces yesterday, and that's the bad news story, right? Because it's execrable, something like 23% readiness and some important elements of their forces. So they've got work to do, but the fact that they are having a big public debate about that and the executive leaderships being challenged by parliamentary demands, that's a healthy public debate about how do we engage these security problems that we're facing and how do we apportion our resources? So I think the German conversation is both vibrant and headed in a responsible direction. I think the British are more problematic for the last several years. They have been so solipsistic as they try and figure out whether they want to remain in the European Union or remain outside it. I think from an American perspective, our transatlantic work gets harder with Britain outside of the European Union because they were a valuable force for us in the European Union, and it seems to me a little bit sad that the British have lost confidence in their ability to work effectively through the European Union because it looks to me like a big part of the story of the EU over the last 20 years has been a much more British orientation in policies. So it makes me a little sad, but Britain has made its choice, and I hope that having left the European Union, they will double down in their willingness to make NATO and the EU work even more effectively together. I mean, Britain taking a leadership role and negotiating with Turkey about NATO-EU cooperation will be a fabulous role for a country outside the EU to counsel another country outside the EU about how both of them being NATO members can contribute to this. That would be a great global Britain kind of role for them to take, but I have a little bit of trepidation to be honest that the way the discussion that's going on within the British government about a big review on Britain and the world and the emphasis on development and soft power mean that Britain is actually headed towards having the same kinds of problems that all of us worry about Germany having, which is the gap between what they say about their commitment to internationalism and to hard security, not being what their government's actually doing. Could I come in on Germany? I mean, there's a lot of German bashing that goes on, right? It has to do with 1.25% and all that, right? But inside the alliance on a military front, Germany really has repeatedly stepped up in leadership roles. We forget Germany is one of five framework nations and the second largest troop contributor in Afghanistan. This is 19 years after 9-11, okay? Number two, they are one of the three lead nations for the battle groups deployed forward in the Baltics. They lead the international effort in Lithuania, right? Number three, they were the first to raise their hand and lead the very high readiness joint task force, which is the heart of the rapid response force. So time and again, they've stepped up. They now host the mobility command in Germany, which is taking on this tough challenge of moving military forces rapidly across national boundaries and so forth. The challenge, so time again, time and again, right? They've stepped up on a leadership role. The challenge is the hard capabilities needed in a pinch and here the 1.2% really does make a difference. If you look at the readiness of German forces, look at the ability of Germany to help contribute to the capability gaps that NATO publishes every four years. So there's a list, right? We know exactly what NATO needs in terms of capabilities. The ability of Germany, Europe's largest economy, perhaps most vibrant economy, to help fill those gaps is constrained when we have a 1.2 or 1.3% contribution under defense. So follow up. You brought a report with Nick Burns last year. I just happened to have a copy with you. About the future of NATO. If you haven't seen this, this is on the Belfer Center website up at Harvard. Nick Burns and I, as we're thinking about NATO's potential role in the future in the Middle East, but also in addressing, I think, a new potential challenge in Europe's neighborhood, which is the growing presence of China. What would you and Ambassador Burns in your report recommend for NATO on both of those issues? A greater role in the Middle East, something that President Trump and also President Macron have called for, but also addressing new challenges associated with China. So frankly, NATO talks a good game in the Middle East, but frankly, the resources and the capabilities need to actually make an impact. In the Middle East, they're really very, very modest. I mean, we have a set of national partnerships. So these are nations in the Middle East that are affiliated by way of partnerships, not memberships, partnerships with NATO. These Middle Eastern states, Jordan is, for example, a good example, have access to NATO school system and so forth. They're interested in NATO standards, interoperability and all that, but NATO doesn't actually apply many resources to that. Most prominently, most recently, is the rather modest NATO training mission in Iraq. This is several hundred NATO officers helping to try to build, sustain the capability of the Iraqi security forces, but again, a couple hundred officers is not going to make a big difference unless they're there for several decades. Right. So as important as the Middle East is to European security, NATO is frankly, I think, underperforming in terms of its potential in the Middle East. China, however, is interesting. NATO does not view China as an emerging military threat, so we don't imagine patrolling the South China Sea or something with NATO frigates. But China's influence does extend on the commercial front, so the Greek port of Perez, for example, today is owned by the Chinese. That's a deep water port significant to NATO on the Mediterranean, and Chinese commercial influences in field trading, alliance, commercial infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, most recently telecommunications infrastructure. This is the whole 5G mobile communications debate in an interesting way, because these are not just commercial investments. These are commercial investments today with the expectation of downstream tomorrow's political influence. So these are political investments being made by China. If you look at the path of the Belt and Road Initiative, and you literally plot the infrastructure that's being built, you might ask, well, what is the destination of these belts and these roads and these seas? It's the European market. What China is after is the 500 million people in the quarter of the world's GDP represented by the European Union. So the European Union and our European NATO allies need to wake up to the commercial and political challenges that are really the front and centerpiece of Chinese influence. And the good news here is that for the first time in NATO's history, here in Washington on the 70th anniversary Foreign Ministers' Meeting, so this was April 19, right? For the first time on the agenda of the NATO meeting was China. It was really interesting. And then again at the leaders' meeting in December in London, there was a session on China. So in a way, and you know, curiously, this is one of the challenges that Nick and I highlight. We don't take credit for these meetings. But we think this is one of the emerging challenges that NATO needs to wake up to and just quickly back to hybrid warfare. Look, if you want a tool that would be a very, very helpful in hybrid warfare, you would control the 5G mass communications networks in Europe, right? So what's the means of disinformation campaigns? Well, 5G would be very helpful. If you wanted to influence things like electoral politics and so forth, if you wanted to have a vote on critical infrastructure security, you would aim to control the 5G networks of the future in Europe. Now I'm not suggesting that that's the immediate goal of Chinese commercial infiltration, but it's a very important security aspect that we ought to take in mind. Because ultimately, I think that's a real vulnerability. Excellent. Just a quick comment on what Ambassador has said. I think Europe has woken up on that particular risk and threat coming from the China's investment on critical infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera. But the same is taking place in Africa. Right, that's true. Precisely the same. They built the roads, they built the harbors in order to increase the influence and the gradual takeover. There, I think, they're after more of the raw materials and so forth, right? The potential for resources that China needs. But I think it's the marketplace of Europe, which is the big attraction. And by the way, it's not only China that's increasing in Africa. Russia is active in places like the Central African Republic and recently with its military intervention in Libya. So in some ways, similar to what we saw maybe in Syria, it's really the coming together of Europe's eastern and southern neighborhood, with Russia playing a role increasingly also in the Mediterranean. That's absolutely true, what I'm expecting them to become more active in also in Sahel. They actually feel the vacuum, and they wave, let me say, I call it Kalashnikov diplomacy. It's very appealing for the local governments and they are spoiling it. But look, the difference here is that China is ascended and Russia is descended. So we have a power in increasing, that's on the rise, and you have Russia fundamentally that's playing well, a bad hand, a weak hand. So I'm not as worried about Russian interference because I don't think it has the staying power of Chinese. No, they don't have a seater's interest there. They have the Wagner group. Okay, they can send the Wagner group to Syria, great. Then they can send the Wagner group or elements of Wagner to Libya and they can create havoc and they can put their thumb on the scale in the form of this warlord or that warlord, but they're not really going to wave a difference in my view. China on their head is playing a war. They're making some difference in Syria. And if you're looking to destabilize Europe, triggering migration flows and other things that undermine political stability in Europe might be one way of going about it. This way, the migration flows out of Syria, and the migration flows across the central Mediterranean coming out of Libya, there's kind of some commonality there that we should be paying attention to. Excellent. Why don't we go ahead and open this up? I think we've covered a lot of ground already, but let's take some questions and answers. Please identify yourself, name and affiliation, and let's start down here with Cornelia. The microphone coming. Cornelia de Anavaggio. I'm with the post-doctoral fellow here at Johns Hopkins University at size. And my question is indeed on Brexit and the impact which the withdrawal of the UK will have, particularly on the London, Paris, Berlin triangle. How would you think the French and German partnership will adapt to this, given their variation in major EU dossiers, like enlargements, how would you expect them to adapt, particularly on the transatlantic dimension? And the second question is also in relation to adaptation. On NATO adaptation, because I'm doing research on this and I recently completed a field research across Europe. And one interesting thing which one of my interview partners, it was an ex-high-level NATO official, told me in relation to NATO adaptation, was that in his perception, one dimension, how we can perceive this process of NATO adaptation is NATO transforming from a leading organization if we think of its role in Afghanistan or other mission to a supporting organization if we think of its new role in hybrid threats and soft means to tackle new threats. So how would you comment on this and how do you think this will impact future EU-NATO relations and the transatlantic cooperation? Thank you so much. Let's take the question from the gentleman next to you as well. Thanks very much. Andrew Hyde. Last year I was a deputy civilian in Kabul for NATO and I want to echo what Ambassador Lew said about the German role there. I think that was really vital and it was very impressive to see. And actually, that sort of is a feed into my question and I think what I heard from really all the participants was and perhaps I'm a bit of an optimist in this sense is when you look at the doubts and the clouds around US leadership in the transatlantic relationship, what we're seeing with, as you mentioned with Germany, American public opinion in Congress and others is I think a lot of people sort of waking up to this is a problem, this is something we all have to contend with. So I guess I would argue while this is not the path I would prefer, do we see coming out of this sort of leadership question on the part of the US, do we see a sturdier or resilient NATO emerging and are there some positive signs as a result of that? Okay, so we have a couple of great questions why don't we turn back to the panel, maybe Corey you want to go first and feel free to pick and choose? Sure, so the British provide an enormously important military contribution in NATO and the EU will miss what Britain provides to the European Union's military capability. So there are big incentives for continued deeper cooperation between NATO and the EU in order to capture British military capabilities. That said, I think that's actually going to be pretty hard in part because the British are going to spend another year figuring out what they want their role in the world to be. Meanwhile, everybody else is moving on, people have other stuff to do and what I think I perceive among Europeans and also among my fellow Americans is we're bored with the question of Britain's relationship to Europe and we would like them to actually either figure it out or stop talking about it. I think from an American perspective Britain was always a very useful sensible counterbalance to either the grandiosity of French policy or the timidity of German policy. And so whether removing Britain from the equation makes it easier for France and Germany to cooperate and for the EU to have a different kind of role than it has had, I think is an open question. But I'm grateful to Doug for adding all of the practical concrete ways in which we need to remember Germany as contributing and not tar them with the brush of 1970s Germany because the conversation is actually a lot more interesting and a lot more dynamic. On American unreliability, I shared Doug's view that President Trump's a gigantic wrecking ball for America's relations with others, but he's actually not the first American president that raised questions about the reliability of the United States as an ally. And America's, even America's closest friends always to have a rich appreciation that America's a difficult ally and persuading my mom that now's the time to risk her children and grandchildren on Europe's problems is always a hard sell. It's not newly a hard sell, it's always a hard sell. Just ask Great Britain, right? The American narrative of World War II is the Normandy landing and the British narrative of World War II is all the years they had to wait before my mom was ready to contribute to solving the problem of German Nazi aggression. So it's always complicated and what President Trump's brilliant at is raising first order questions that my mom thinks are reasonably good, like why doesn't Germany spend more of its GDP on defense? So setting aside for a second, President Trump's brilliant. He's carrying the American public on that argument, my friend. Yeah, no, I know, but one narrative that might appeal to your mom is that in a period for the next several decades, maybe longer, where America's major strategic competitor, China, which today features about a quarter of the world's GDP. If we want to compete strategically with China, is it better to do it mano a mano, us versus China, or is it better to play an unfair fight with China where we link arms to those with common values? And by the way, if you combine Europe's GDP to the American GDP, you've got about 50%, some percent of world's GDP. And compete on that playing field with China. So in that way, setting aside tanks and airplanes and so forth, the notion of the transatlantic tie should be one that is increasingly seen through the challenge against the challenge of China. So let's compete with an all-star team against a competitor who essentially has nothing to compare. With our European allies. I absolutely agree with that, Doug. So that's the argument when I say mom. But French taxes on American tech companies, well, right? Like this is saying, but we should all agree on trade. It's so true. It's actually not what any of us are doing. And so I agree that the European conversation about China is changing really rapidly. I actually think Germany is more likely to make good choices on Huawei's participation in their 5G network than Britain has made. So it's evolving rapidly, but trade's never going to be easy between us and the Europeans for a whole host of good reasons. So General Polkin, and if you were trying to convince Cori's mom about why Europe is important, what would your response be? She is. She's very happy about that. I would say that... She's winnable. I would say it's a bit emotional, but I would like to... The very same happened that took place twice during the last century. And therefore the NATO is still important and will be like European Union as well. Both of them are... Both of the organisation institutions are great peace projects. I agree with that. We tend to forget that. But if I may to continue what Cori mentioned about the UK's role, in theory, yes. In UK, we will lose... In UK, we will lose in theory what the capability is, unless we continue to contribute to different catalogue we have on our courses. In structural terms, of course, their contribution has been quite limited, frankly speaking. Maybe we look at operations and missions and activities, but being of course significant, the expectations are that they might even be now more active in terms of contributing the operational aspects. But British contribution to European Union is, of course, much broader and deeper. And I really... Sorry that they're leaving, because we tend to forget how much good Britain has meant and done for the European Union. On the hybrid issue, I think it doesn't matter who is in need. If you, EU and NATO are playing a role, we are tools for the nation's member states to work on them. More important is that we work coherently. It doesn't matter where it's more EU or NATO. More important is that we work together. Why don't we... Just one quick point on that. I mean, I do applaud over the last three or four years this movement towards better cooperation between NATO and the EU, the X number of initiatives and so forth. But you know, things like cybersecurity quickly come on that list. And we say, well, the NATO and the EU are talking more about cybersecurity. Okay, that's great. But if you get down below the sort of sound bites and you look at what's actually happening, it's very, very modest. I mean, the EU publishes national standards for its member states on cybersecurity. So this is what sufficient cybersecurity looks like. NATO does the same. If you lay these side by side, they don't match. Okay, so I guess member states... 22 member states, well, 21 soon, right? Have a choice, I suppose. Which standard do they have by... So there's much, much more practical, detail, hard staff work to be done to actually move these leaders' pronouncements about NATO, EU cooperation down to the things that really matter. And that work is just emerging now. There's a lot of... So for all of you young folks in the audience who want to go work on these projects, there's a lot of good work to be done. Several decades of work to be done in order to begin to get at this question of hyper and how to defend ourselves and our democracies against hyper. Excellent. It's good to know that there's job security in the field of IR. Perfect. Why don't we do one more round of questions? Why don't we take a few in the back and then we'll move down here. So gentlemen in the back and try to keep your questions short and pointed, please. Sure. Alex Sanchez, James Evans. General, you talked about cooperation and capacity-building. I was wondering if you can talk more about that when it comes to EU relations with non-NATO countries like the EU, I'm thinking of Moldova. Moldova had just sent a contingent to Kosovo for demand operations. They participate in rapid trident, platinum ego. I don't know if they're going to go to defender. They're very active with NATO when it comes to the individual partnership action plan. What do you think of the future of EU-Moldova relations, defense relations? Thank you. I think there was one more in the back. Lowry? Lowry that in the Nordic West Office. My question is about energy and the role of energy in transatlantic relations and has two parts. One is about reconciling climate and energy security as a resource and those different views. In Europe, there's a lot of focus on talking about both at the same time. Over here, perhaps less so. And then really about the divisions within Europe on how energy binds Europe to Russia. Do you see that the U.S. can play a helpful role in building more European cohesion around the topic of energy security? Another figure with one last one down here on the mark. Hi, Aaron Derner, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Ambassador Lute has already brought up a lot of concerns that the leadership in the United States has posed to NATO. And I was wondering if, as political trends in Europe continue to erode political support away from the center and more towards increasingly insular political trends on both the left and the right, is there a worry that you're going to see those same sort of domestic leadership challenges particularly pertaining to operations in Africa, which many domestic Europeans might think, you know, maybe that's not our concern. Excellent. So why don't we turn it back to the panel and also feel free to make any final concluding remarks. Maybe we'll turn to Ambassador Lute first. So we've heard from the energy security, we've heard on this issue of sort of populism and insular politics as well as Europe's role in its wider neighborhood and maybe Ukraine, Georgia as well. So on energy, I think it's increasingly important in a period where we frequently talk about hybrid tactics or hybrid warfare to appreciate the energy dimension of security. So this is not only protection of national critical infrastructure but also diversification of energy sources and so forth. And I think one thing, one dimension of transatlantic ties that could be much broad and it could have a good effect on trade relations as well, right? Is this notion of energy diversification moving to liquefied natural gas from the United States? You see some of this. There are now LNG ports in the Baltics, I think Portugal has opened one recently and so forth, which gives Europe a choice and a more diverse marketplace than simply relying on the East. And I think that makes sense. It's a very difficult argument here in America to argue that things like Nord Stream are a good idea. So let me get this straight. We're deploying 25,000 American troops on exercise right now to deter Russia, but we're building, we're gonna double the capacity to import Russian natural gas into Western Europe. I'm sorry. That's another conversation to have with Corey's mom. It just doesn't make sense, right? So these are things, that's a dimension that we should take on. I agree with that. Look, on this question of populism or insular politics on the left or the right, this goes back to values. And when we drift from our values, we get some political outcomes, like political outcomes that rising authoritarianism in Turkey, a NATO member state. Turkey signed the Washington Treaty. Authoritarianism in Hungary. Hungary is a NATO state. It signed the Washington Treaty with those core values, elements of Polish politics today that are obvious drift away from democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law. As Americans, I think we have to take a hard look at ourselves with regard to those three values, right? And the more we adhere to those values and remind ourselves of those values and bind ourselves to others who have those values, the stronger we are domestically. But look, politics are going to take their waxes and wanes, right? They're going to take their ups and downs. But I think it's really fundamental that we remind ourselves of those values. And there's some serious drift away from core values today inside NATO. And I believe NATO needs to find a way to address those drifts. So I agree with Doug's point about energy diversification. I think I give Europeans a higher grade than he does, though. You know, the EU's genuine superpower. If the EU were a Marvel Comics hero, its genuine superpower would be regulatory tools and the rule of law. And so I think a better solution for all of us than excluding China or Russia from economic involvement with us is to force them to play by the rules. And the EU is an actual Marvel Comics superpower in regulatory and legal issues. And it ought to celebrate and lead with that. Because that's how you tame Gazprom, not by preventing them from being a provider of energy when Europe needs energy. On the populism issue, I have a slightly different answer than Doug, which is that I think it's a pretty natural phenomenon in a time of such technological and therefore economic and therefore political upheaval that people are unmoored by the pace of change that we are all experiencing. And so values are how we ground ourselves, but we ought not to be quite so worried that free societies lack the tools to recenter ourselves because at least what American politics look like to me at the moment is everybody understands that President Trump found a way to reach past terrorism elites like me and talk straight to my mom. But my mom also doesn't very much like his answers to stuff. And so everybody's turning keys in the lock to figure out how do we have authenticity in talking about these issues? How do we get first order solutions? We're going to find an answer to this. So is France, so is Britain, so is Italy, but it's messy, it's loud, it's unpleasant, and welcome to the free world. But I distinguish between populism, which you can argue comes and goes, right? I mean certainly in American history we've seen these threats, right? And the drift towards authoritarianism, right? Which is fundamentally anti-democratic and so forth. So that's the distinction. That's an important distinction. General Pulten, final remarks. Final remarks on the Eastern neighborhood and EU relations on defense and security. We are taking first steps. We have not been very active in terms of defense relations between the Eastern neighborhood. But there is a process and progress on that. And I've seen more and more these Eastern friends starting their defense relationship, having some formal agreements with the EU and contributing to the militaries for our missions. It's a very good step forward and so that they serve a solidarity with that regard on security. On the populism and its mediterraneanity we have to suspend the operation Sophia because of lack of solidarity and also the, let me say, or emphasize the role of the illegal immigration. So solidarity we need more in future and illegal immigration will be in future one more litmus test for that fact in Europe. On if I look the future on Europe, it's very obvious that Europe needs to take more responsibility on our security. I hate to say strategic autonomy because autonomy has a bad connotation. Finland was a part of the Russia, Russia and seeking autonomous status in order to become independent separate from Russia 100 years ago and I think that's not the idea. To take on EU side, to take more responsibility but in such a way that it will not break the trust. Excellent. I think that's a great final remark to end on. I think this has been a fascinating conversation. I hope of course mom's been watching the live stream. I want to thank the Finnish government and the Swedish government for their continued support and I want to thank all of you for coming. Please join me in thanking our speakers. Thank you. Thank you for your good work for us all. Thank you.