 We're going to go straight into our lunchtime session. And let me begin by saying that according to some analysts, U.S. policy priorities under the Barack Obama administration have shifted away from Europe, whether west-central or in particular central-east Europe. One therefore wonders what our keynote speaker does in all the spare time he has available. Joking aside, one can only admire someone who covers such an extensive and diverse area as Europe and Eurasia, especially during a time of such enormous flux both within these vast regions and in U.S. policy towards the numerous states and multinational organizations therein. Maybe we can compare it to a three-dimensional chess game. And our lunchtime speaker today, I think, will be admirably able to enlighten us on the current state of play, particularly on U.S. policy towards this region. Let me therefore welcome Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia. Just a little background on Phil. Prior to his current position, he was Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. Before that, serving as Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, where he played a key role in developing NATO policy in the run-up to the Alliance's 50th Summit. He has also held teaching and research posts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, and the German Society for Foreign Affairs in Bonn, amongst others. He has published a number of books on international relations and foreign policy, and we welcome him and honor to have him here at the center. Thanks, Phil. Janusz, thank you very much for inviting me here and for putting this on together with Slava Mir and the Polish Institute for International Affairs. Really appreciate the opportunity to be here. I regret I missed the opening panels, which looked very interesting. I actually spent my morning at the US-EU Summit, which was also relevant for much of the discussions here, not least because of the degree to which we talked about Central and Eastern Europe in the Eastern Partnership. And for the past hour, the launch of the US-EU Energy Council, which I think is also relevant for our discussions today. I've been a long admirer of the CSIS Europe program and Central Europe program, with which I have worked extensively in the past. Indeed, I remember a year or so ago being at this very podium, then speaking about Senator Obama's view of Europe and Central and Eastern Europe, and I'm delighted to be back now, less than a year into the new administration, to talk about our perspectives and accomplishments and the challenges that we face together in this part of the world. This is also a timely conference because Central and Eastern Europe is in the spotlight this fall, not only because of the many policy issues at the forefront, which I hope to discuss, including Russia and missile defense and NATO and the global financial crisis, but it's also in the spotlight because this year, of course, marks the 20th anniversary of the revolutions that toppled dictatorial regimes in the region and communism. As I believe you know, the Sunday Secretary Clinton will travel to Berlin for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall to join other European leaders to celebrate that anniversary, which set off such a positive domino effect throughout Central and Eastern Europe, liberating tens of millions of people. These events deserve to be recalled, not just to honor and celebrate those who took part in them, but also to learn the lessons about how to get rid of ideology and authoritarianism and to promote democracy, stability, and prosperity, a set of issues that is, alas, all too relevant for many other parts of the world today. The remarks I was asked to give are about US perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, and that is what I will do. But I would like to just make one point about the overall focus of this conference, which is the question of whether US and Central and Eastern Europe strategic interests are converging or diverging. And let me say, and I particularly want to do so because I think it challenges some of the conventional wisdom and perhaps some of the views that were expressed this morning here, that I actually think US and Central European interests are converging and not diverging. And the main reason I say that is actually a consequence of the point or the reference I just made to 20 years ago and what has happened in Central and Eastern Europe since. That is to say that the democratic revolutions that took place in Central and Eastern Europe 20 years ago put that region on a path towards Europe and the West in terms of its values and institutions and economies and interests. And these countries are now very far along that path. In other words, we see increasingly Central and Eastern European countries the same way we see Western European countries, which is to say stable, prosperous democracies with which we cooperate extensively on a whole range of global interests. When you think about Central and Eastern Europe strategic interests, in other words, there are some particular regional interests, but what are the main ones? They include just as our own coping with the international financial crisis, succeeding in Afghanistan where we're fighting together, preventing climate change, improving energy security, helping to develop a democratic and non-threatening Russia, dealing with immigration. These are the questions the United States deals with. These are the questions Western Europe deals with. And these are the questions more and more Central and Eastern Europe deals with. Obviously, and I want to make this clear, we are sensitive to Central and Eastern Europe's enduring particular interests. Historical legacies do not quickly disappear and geography does not change. Central Europeans still face security threats that I think for understandable reasons are felt with more intensity than in the distant United States. Countries in Eastern Europe have been subject to energy cut-offs, cyber attacks, political pressure, and in the case of Georgia, the use of disproportionate military force by a large neighbor, that's all clear. But my point is these are not causes for a divergence in interest between Central Europe and the United States, because the United States strongly shares Central and Eastern Europe's interest and security from such threats and risks. And that's not only because of the rock-solid Article 5 commitment that the United States has with some of these countries, but out of our own interest. History has taught the United States that security risks in Central Europe are a threat to all of Europe and that the security of all of Europe is a vital national interest of the United States. So I see no divergence between Central and Eastern Europe and the United States when it comes to keeping the region safe from outside threats, whether they be political, military, economic, or in the area of energy security. So that's a broad overall point I wanted to begin with, and what I'd like to do now is turn to some of the particular policy issues that I think are relevant to the region and offer our, offer the Obama Administration's perspective on some of them. And I'd like to start with Russia. And I'd like to start with the President's thinking on Russia and what we're trying to do in a policy sense on Russia in ways that I think are relevant to the region. The President explained early on in the Administration and the Vice President articulated it publicly early on at the Munich Security Conference the way that we're thinking about Russia and relations with Russia. And that is to say, what we inherited was a poor and deteriorating relationship with Russia that we think served nobody. And President Obama thought it should be possible to pursue concrete cooperation with Russia in areas where we have come in interest, and there are some, while at the same time agreeing to disagree about other issues where we have different interests and without sacrificing any of our important principles or our friends. And that is what the President announced we would try to do as part of his foreign policy, it's what the Vice President talked about in Munich, and it's what we've been trying to do ever since. So there was a reset with Russia announced, but it came with the corollaries that were quite clear as well that we didn't accept the notion of foreign spheres of influence within Europe that we thought that democracies in Europe should have the right to join the security alliances of their choosing, and that we would not recognize breakaway regions like South Ossetia and Ambrosia. The President's summit in Moscow in July, I think, demonstrated how this can work. There were some concrete achievements. The presidents agreed on a start follow-on framework. They agreed on an Afghanistan lethal transit arrangement, which is just the sort of concrete agreement in areas of common interests that we were talking about. Benefits the United States because we have more diverse supply routes to Afghanistan. It saves us potentially a lot of money depending on how many flights there are to Afghanistan. We could save over 100 million dollars. And there was no trade off to get it because both countries have a common interest in succeeding. Military to military cooperation was reestablished to try to overcome some of the mistrust. And a bilateral presidential commission was launched with 17 sub-areas ranging from the environment to culture to allow us to pursue these common interests more institutionally. And the two countries agreed on a joint threat assessment regarding the ballistic missile threat, including from countries like Iran and North Korea. So all of that was in the basket of things where we think we can work together. But at the same time, the issue was clear, both publicly and in his private meetings, that our core principles still held and that we had some differences on issues like NATO enlargement and on Georgia and on democracy and human rights, which he talked about in his speech at the new economic school and in his private meetings with NGOs, civil society and opposition leaders. Secretary Clinton, as you know, was in Moscow two weeks ago and did the same thing. Pursued common interests where we have some and we want to cooperate like Iran, Afghanistan and start nuclear nonproliferation, but at the same time making clear our differences and our determination to uphold our principles. So in short, some have questioned whether this pursuit of a reset with Russia is a sign of a diverging strategic interest with Central Europe. I think not. I think a more open and trusting relationship with Russia where possible and the pursuit of common interests where possible is actually in the interest of both the United States and Central Europe. Let me offer a couple of thoughts on the issue of missile defense, which is also, I know, been a great focus of people in the region. And I specifically want to address this issue because I think there has been a significant amount of misunderstanding about it, especially when we saw signs after the Obama Administration announced its plans about how to pursue missile defense, headlines about sell-outs or betrayal and there's still talk, frankly, and no doubt there were some of it this morning. I'll just venture a guess from critics of the administration suggesting that somehow the missile defense plan was designed to appease Russia and somehow sold out Central and European interests in the name of a reset with Russia. I'll be blunt about this. I think that line of thinking is simply wrong. We've had a chance to explain the missile defense approach. We've had a chance to explain it publicly and to our friends in the region. I actually think that understanding of what we are doing is growing and we're getting to the point that we wanted to get to, which is people understanding that we think we have a better plan to protect Americans and Europeans from a growing threat from nuclear proliferation and ballistic missiles, but also a better plan to enhance and encourage strategic cooperation with our Central and East European partners. That's the part of it that I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding about. Again, I think in the time since the announcement we've had plenty of opportunity to explain this, to underscore that the factors driving this had to do with the intelligence, the realization that Iran was moving forward very quickly on short and medium-range ballistic missiles, a threat already to Europe, including Southeastern Europe and soon to Central Europe and then soon thereafter to Western Europe, and that to us it didn't make a lot of sense to deploy 10 interceptors against ICBMs that didn't exist while leaving these countries vulnerable to a threat from dozens or hundreds of short and medium-range missiles that do exist and will soon exist in much greater numbers. So that was the critique of the old plan and the reason for exploration of a different one which was supplemented by technological developments, namely success in the development of this standard missile 3 technology which is what the new phase adaptive approach is going to be based on in phases that will lead ultimately by 2020 to a very significant capability to deal with both short, medium and longer-range threats. And then finally, in addition to intelligence and technology, it was a policy decision. We wanted to cover all of Europe and we wanted to do it together with NATO rather than simply bilaterally and that is what we're working towards as well. So frankly, we think it's a better plan on every level to defend Americans, deploy to American forces and our allies in Europe and as for the speculation on Russia of which there has been a lot, some have criticized us for doing it for Russia, some have criticized us for not doing so for not trying to negotiate or bargain something and that I would just simply say the reality is that Russia was an ancillary point to the points that I just made. The decision was made about how to best protect America, its allies and its forward deployed troops and the reality is we didn't know how Russia would respond. It was always an open question whether Russia would decide that this was more in their interest in the previous plan. They might have decided otherwise we had no control over that. As it happens, they have been largely positive about it, which is also okay. Just because the Russians aren't criticizing it doesn't mean that it's a bad plan. Let me also reinforce the point about cooperation with Central and Eastern European allies because I've had conversation with some friends in Central and Eastern Europe who said actually prior to our decision who were saying we actually don't believe in missile defense we don't think it's necessary, we don't think it will work but we really want you to go ahead with the plans with Poland and Czech Republic because they wanted strategic cooperation with the United States, which is fair enough but the point I want to make here is in the new plan we think we have just such strategic cooperation with our partners in Central and Eastern Europe. Much of the focus has been on Poland where the decision was made of course not to pursue previous agreement on ground-based interceptors but think about the current agreement or what is on offer from the Obama administration. It was an offer, a right of first refusal to Poland for whose cooperation we were grateful in the previous plan to deploy SM3s if it so chose. It was an agreement to move forward with the Patriot anti-air system that needed a more robust version that had been previously on offer and a decision to move forward with all of the strategic dialogue and defense cooperation groups that the Bush administration had agreed with Poland in the final year. So if someone can explain to me how moving forward in basing missile defense interceptors moving forward with all sorts of strategic dialogues and moving forward on Patriots is somehow walking back from strategic cooperation I would like to hear it because we in fact think it's moving in the opposite direction and we have also with the Czech Republic engaged in serious discussions about how they might be involved in the new plan and about moving forward with our strategic and defense dialogue with the Czech Republic and finally the new plan will offer other opportunities for Central and Eastern European countries and all NATO allies to be involved in what will be much more NATO-ized missile defense plan. In short, far from abandoning Central and Eastern Europe this phased adaptive approach to missile defense should be a sign seen as a sign of enduring commitment. Let me say a word about our perspective on NATO and how it relates to the region. We think that NATO enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe has been a historic achievement of Democratic and Republican administrations since the end of the Cold War. I'm proud to have been involved in that process earlier in the Clinton administration and to continue the process in the Obama administration. In 1999 we, of course, welcomed in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary to the alliance. Since then, under the Bush administration, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia have all come in and Croatia and Albania in 2009. This really is a historic set of achievements that have contributed to stability and prosperity throughout the region, and we believe that the door to NATO enlargement must remain open. Applicants need to meet demanding criteria, but if they do, they should be free to fulfill their Euro-Atlantic aspirations just like those who preceded them. There's also the issue of NATO's strategic concept, which, of course, is being revised this year for the first time in 10 years. And there's a great debate about whether the focus should be on Article 5 or if it should be on global engagement or on new threats. And our answer to that question is simple. It needs to be all of the above. It's not a choice between focus on Article 5 or focus on global engagement. Obviously, Afghanistan is important. The alliance is at war. We're at war there together. There are more than 30,000 European troops as part of ISAF, including many troops who are making important contributions from Central and Eastern Europe. That is a core part of what NATO does for a century. But that doesn't mean that Article 5 doesn't remain central, and we need to make that clear in the strategic concept and in the reality of what we do on the ground. President Obama has said that NATO must have contingency plans in place to deal with new threats wherever they come from. And that task needs to be reflected in the strategic concept and that's what we're seeking to do as it is revised. Let me just mention a final issue because I want to make sure we have more questions and comments, which is the wider Central and Eastern Europe neighborhood. I mentioned that this morning and yesterday in the extensive discussions as part of the USEU summit, the Vice President, the President, and today at the State Department many of these issues were discussed, stability in Ukraine, prospects of engagement with Belarus, the hope to integrate the Balkans into Euro-Atlantic institutions, our desire to bring stability to the Caucasus, and in the course of these discussions we expressed our very strong support for the EU's Eastern partnership, which is in many ways a Central and Eastern European brainchild with the Czechs, the Poles, and together with the Swedish presidency providing resources and engagement with Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. We strongly support this. It is a reflection of a process that we think needs to move forward. The extension of democracy and stability to Central and Eastern Europe, as I said previously, was a huge bipartisan success over the past 20 years, but that process is not yet complete. And we look forward to working with our partners in Central and Eastern Europe and throughout the EU to bring those countries in the Balkans and in the Eastern partnership closer to Euro-Atlantic institutions if they so choose. There are many other issues that we could address. I haven't said much about the economic crisis that we have been working together with our partners to deal with, and the US has contributed to tackling through our stimulus plan and support for international financial institutions. We could and should talk about energy security, which is another central concern of the countries in the region, and I'm happy to discuss any of these in the discussion period. But here in conclusion I would just say that I think and I hope that the perspectives I have offered on the issues I have addressed, Russia, Missile Defense, NATO, the neighborhood underscores my initial point, which is that US and Central European strategic interests are deeply entwined and converging. Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions. Okay, thank you very much, Phil. Phil can stay for about 15 minutes, so we'll have time for some questions. Let me jump in with the first one and let me just say that actually surprisingly enough, Missile Defense was not mentioned that much this morning. We didn't really discuss it in any detail and I don't think anybody realistically or rationally views the new system in a negative light. I don't think so. The question I have is in terms of the positioning of planning and positioning of the system that's now on the table, what role both will Central-East Europe play, but also will Russia play? Because there is a possibility and I think it may already be happening, that Russia may well start to criticize the new system, not because it's a threat to Russia, it's a Russia strategic arsenal which has never been the case even with the Bush system, but because it may deepen military and security cooperation between the United States and the Central Europeans. So what is the role of Russia in this? It's a good question. What are the other levels of that? First, as I said, we didn't know how Russia would react even to this system. It is quite plausible that Russia's main objection to the Bush administration's plan based on ground-based interceptors had less to do with the technology and the type of interceptors than with the places that it was being planned to deploy. And so one wondered what if you proposed deploying a different missile system in the same places? And essentially that's what we've done because we made clear from the very start that we would go to Poland and express our gratitude for the previous cooperation and express an offer, a right of first refusal to deploy the new technology. It was quite possible that Russia would just simply say the same thing. We're not going to accept anything deployed in former Warsaw Pact countries or in Central Eastern Europe. They didn't and as I said that's fine with us. If this removes, if this facilitates cooperation with Russia on other issues we're certainly not going to complain about that. At the same time we're going to, and the President has made clear that what he was doing was deciding on a missile defense system best place to defend Americans and their allies. So we'll see as it develops it's possible that the Russians will over time raise objections, but that's not going to determine the decisions that have already been made or decisions that we made in future which should be driven by how to protect Americans and their allies. The other point I would make about Russia is we have said that we remain open to a missile defense cooperation with Russia. We think Russia is also threatened by nuclear proliferation and ballistic missiles. And there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to work together on missile defenses that would protect them as it contributes to the protection of Europe as well. Great. Thanks very much. Let's start with the question. Lukash was first. If you could reintroduce yourselves to the film. Of course. Lukash Kulesa, Polish Institute of International Affairs Warsaw. And the question is about one thing that you have not mentioned in your introduction which is the Russian proposal for the new security architecture in Europe, so-called mediatives proposal. And we hear from Moscow that 2010 could be the decisive year to move forward with this issue. Of course, also taking into account the fact that Kazakhstan would be chairman in office at the OSCE and the core process is going on. My question is, what's your assessment of the current state of the discussion and what do you think would be the future of this whole idea? Needless to say, when the Russians are talking about the Helsinki 2 or Helsinki Plus it implies that we have a very bad situation in Europe and we need to secure what we have and we have two blocks, as strange as this may sound. So what's your assessment on this one? Thanks for raising that important issue. We have said from the start when the Russians first raised this that we remain open and ready for serious European security discussions with all countries across Europe including Russia. If they have issues that they want to discuss we don't want to reject anything out of hand. We are open to dialogue and discussion. Institutions can always be improved. There was a war in Europe in 2008. Nothing's perfect and we should remain open to serious dialogue. That said, we also made clear that in terms of institutions in Europe we already have some pretty good ones, not just NATO and the European Union but the OSCE and in terms of Russia's pitch to have a comprehensive security dialogue, well that's what the OSCE is for in part. And we have insisted that that discussion take place within the OSCE which is a comprehensive organization and everyone gets a voice and that's where we should have this discussion and that's where we have had this discussion. We have also said that in terms of principles for European security we also have some pretty good ones of those too. And many of them are enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act. Non-use of forest or spectrum borders, territorial integrity, sovereignty, resolution of disputes and we don't really see the scope for inventing new principles and we're skeptical about the need for a treaty enshrining new principles which would of course be difficult to enforce even if you could negotiate and ratify it. So that's where we are. We have also insisted that the Russians keep wanting to talk about hard security which is fine. We need organizations and institutions to talk about hard security. There is a CFE, an existing CFE treaty from which they have suspended participation and we'd like to see them come back into implementing the CFE treaty in terms of hard security. But we have also underscored that European security is not just about military issues and hard security, it's about human security and things that happen within borders and that's another of the great merits of the OSCE is that it recognizes this and it focuses on the human dimension of security and what happens within borders and we don't want to decouple those two. We're happy to talk about all aspects of security but we don't want to abandon those important dimensions in the OSCE and go off and have some other discussion. So these discussions do go on at the OSCE we're happy to continue that process but we do remain skeptical about the prospects for a treaty and we think there are already some pretty good institutions and principles and we should get on with the business of improving those institutions and implementing those principles rather than trying to invent new ones. Thanks very much Charles, I saw you next. Thank you Phil I was very pleased to hear what you just said a second ago about human security. For most of the people of Central and Eastern Europe the question would be all but irrelevant. They're not concerned about NATO they are mildly concerned about Russia but they are concerned about our domestic issues such as the growth of intolerance the extraordinary effects of that intolerance on the Roma growth of anti-Semitism etc. My question is aside from OSCE is there anything in a bilateral way or through existing institutions actually some innovative way by which we could influence the course of politics in these countries. I realize this is not particularly the forum where you would discuss intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states and I don't ask you to do that but in general terms is there anything that you're thinking about that might help the situation there? It's an interesting question Charles your first point on discourse my first point which is that increasingly Central and Eastern Europe faces similar challenges to Western Europe and OSCE these issues that you mention of democracy and intolerance and internal struggles are not unique to Central and Eastern Europe look at Western Europe on some of the same questions look at OSCE whereas I don't fair enough to say that the citizen issue of NATO in Article 5 is less relevant although I want to underscore I still think that these issues are relevant in the region and certainly leaders and even publics pay attention to them increasingly you're right the day to day bread and butter issues are these others we're certainly not in a position to lecture on these things that was again the point I made that we all are facing similar challenges to improve democracy, multi-ethnic societies and tolerance all I can say is we need to do that together I don't know if there are any special initiatives but that's what the European Union is good at that the OSCE plays an important role in the human dimension and we need together as true partners with similar values continue to focus on how we can improve our societies in the United States in Western Europe and Central Europe my name is Tudor Ulyanovsky from the embassy of Moldova and thank you again as Secretary of State for your support for our country especially after the elections that we had and even at the highest level including the Vice-President Secretary of State and yourself of course just two questions to issues the first one is related to the Vice-President Biden visit to Europe especially his remarks in Bucharest that the US is supporting the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of countries including like like Moldova when they are ready when at the same time having in mind your previous remarks with the strategic patients for Georgia and how do you think that the best reaction of countries like Moldova should be on receiving these positive signals of course encouraging signals in the context of a more assertive Russia if it's clear and the second issue is with regards to the larger European security context and happy that you mentioned the CFE treaty just in general and you what are your expectations of the upcoming December OSEE Ministry of Conference in Athens thank you okay well first well thank you and thank you for being here and for your comments Moldova one of the things I learned or discovered or experienced in my six months or so in office is there aren't a lot of a lot of more challenges than sort of things that we can celebrate and yet Moldova is actually in that latter category we were delighted to see free and fair elections take place and the government come to power interested in joining Europe and the West and emphasizing democracy and the values that we share and that's why we have indeed gone out of our way to try to underscore that and applaud what took place in Moldova and make sure that others see it as well because this is really what it's all about it's the demonstration effect that yes actually if you do the right thing and you embrace democracy and respect human rights there are rewards for doing so and we're going to do all we can to bolster and support the new government in Moldova financially and politically to demonstrate that it's important not just for Moldovans but we hope it will also be a message to others in the region because as I said there is still when you look out at countries that haven't or haven't yet joined the EU Ukraine, Belarus, Bosnia, Serbia Caucasus others they need to see too that there's a reward for this there's a benefit from doing the difficult work of overcoming ethnic divisions, accepting rule of law and again I applaud what Moldova has done and we're going to do everything we can to continue to support it and I think that that message is relevant you talked about strategic patience and the lessons that other countries can learn there are positive consequences for doing the right thing and that's the story of the past 20 years and we need to continue to make it the story of the next 20 we're looking forward to the OSCE summit our ministerial in Athens Secretary Clinton believes strongly in the OSCE she wants it to she wants American engagement with the OSCE to expand she unfortunately missed the last ministerial meeting because she broke her elbow so this will be her first opportunity to go and work on the issue she cares a lot about and it's a great platform for her because she has long underscored and emphasized the importance of the human dimension of security trafficking human rights and the OSCE summit in Athens is going to give her an opportunity to underscore that of course we're going to participate in the corporate process and talk about broader security issues but I would underscore that what we're looking forward to is going and emphasizing the human dimension and Athens will provide an excellent opportunity to do that would you say a few words about Bosnia what do you think what do you think the danger is an explosion well just to clearly address the last point I don't think Bosnia is on the verge of an explosion we experienced obviously terrible developments in Bosnia prior to the Dayton Agreement and you never want to be complacent because you never know but that's not what we're thinking about when we look at Bosnia today and yet what we are seeing when we look at Bosnia today is at best stagnation and at worst regression in terms of its political development and it's relevant for the discussion we just had of positive consequences from doing the right thing and negative ones from failing to do so and I'll be blunt that's really the message that the United States and the European Union together in the form of Foreign Minister built and Deputy Secretary Steinberg who've been to Bosnia twice now in the past month that's the message they carried with them they brought because we saw this stagnation and the political prospects of the country and because we feared that with elections coming up next year if we didn't take some initiative now we would miss another opportunity and an electoral cycle it would be set back even further United States and the European Union together and it has to be together because if we're divided on this then the message to the parties isn't clear enough together we would come to offer a package a reasonable package and indeed a modest package that would allow them to fulfill the conditions to transition from the UN Office of High Representative to a European Union Special Representative and what does that mean and why does it matter it means that they can get on the starting line for membership in the European Union and that would require them fulfilling those final conditions resolving the issue of how to divide up state property and taking modest steps of functional government that could as I say get on the starting line for membership in the European Union one thing that all Bosnians can agree on and they disagree on many things is that they want to be part of Europe and we should do all we can to help them on that path ultimately the choice is theirs and that's the point I made about positive consequences and negative consequences other Balkan countries are on that path some of them are further along than others the agreement between Slovenia and Croatia today or yesterday depending on what time zone you're in that process is moving along for at least one of them and others are on that path too and in many cases they're doing the right things and our message to Bosnia was they can also be on that path but they can also be left out I mean this the choice really is up to them we hope that they will agree to this package so that they with the rest of the western Balkans can start moving towards Euro-Atlantic integration and we're doing this very closely with our European partners very last question lady over there please grab a microphone because Phil has to run in a couple of minutes hi I'm Susan Cornwell with Reuters this morning the Polish Foreign Minister said that Central Europe needed some strategic reassurance and he talked about this recent Russian military exercise and said that he thought maybe there were six American soldiers in Poland so I'm just wondering how you think you can provide Central Europe with this strategic reassurance can that be done with more military hardware installations, exercises or how I think we have to do so I mean if reassurance is in the eye of the beholder if people say they need to be reassured then they need to be reassured and it's our job to do what we can to reassure them I don't think it's simply or even mainly a military question the military side is important and that's why I mentioned our military and strategic cooperation and that's why I mentioned missile defense and other aspects of military cooperation but I don't think that's the core of it I think that Central Europe wants to know that we care about the region we're integrated with the region and we define it as part of our interests again that's the first point I made and I said that we do to Central Europeans to know that the United States is paying attention values the partnership and we can always do more and I think that was the message the Vice President carried with him when he went out there a couple of weeks ago and it's a message we are going to continue to carry and it is one that as I said the cycle of 20th anniversaries provides us a good opportunity to do so because we can talk about what we have together achieved how important it is to us how it can be an example to others and we are going to work we realize that there's a perception out there because the United States is appropriately focused on Iran and North Korea and Afghanistan that Europe or Central Europe doesn't count as much as it used to but I think the President has been to Europe more times in his first year than I think any previous President Vice President going out and all of us are going to continue to show up to demonstrate that we see Central and Eastern Europe as a core part of our alliance and a very close partner of the United States That's a good note to finish on Thanks very much Phil, great job