Address at the World Trade Center of New Orleans

on the topic of

Mr. Schreiber, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is an honor and a privilege to be here. I thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about NATO at a time when the future of the Alliance is being actively discussed on both sides of the Atlantic.

I welcome this dialogue. Our governments, our parliaments and our publics ought to talk about the future of NATO. NATO is the greatest Alliance in history because it reflects the democratic ideals and the popular support of its members.

Later this year, President Bush will join leaders of other NATO countries at the Prague Summit. It is a reflection of NATO’s past success and continued dynamism that the first formal gathering of Alliance leaders in the 21st century will take place in a former Warsaw Pact state. The leaders will meet in the same castle from which Hitler once surveyed his brutal conquest of the free people of Czechoslovakia. The same city where thirty years later Soviet tanks crushed the peaceful and spontaneous outpouring of the human spirit known as the Prague Spring. The NATO Prague Summit is about banishing these ghosts, meeting new threats, and leading the way to a secure, democratic future for a Europe whole, free, and at peace.

Meeting last week in Reykjavik, NATO Foreign Ministers recognized that to remain a force for stability, the Alliance cannot stand still. As NATO charts its agenda for the 21st century, the first priority will be to ensure that the Alliance is able to respond ever more effectively to the full range of threats posed to our people and their freedoms. Now more than ever, this includes responding to the threats posed by terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The leaders will also extend invitations to some of Europe’s newer democracies to join the most successful Alliance in world history. Finally, they will take steps to intensify NATO’s outreach to and cooperation with Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

This ambitious agenda - - new capabilities, new members, and new relationships -- endorsed by Foreign Ministers in preparation for the Prague Summit, reflects the continuing value to the United States of the transatlantic relationship embodied in NATO. Nearly fifty-three years after its creation during an earlier era of threat, NATO remains the essential link between Europe and North America.

The barbaric attacks of September 11 and NATO’s rapid and steadfast response highlight the continuing value and vitality of the Alliance. Invoking the mutual defense provision of the Washington Treaty for the first time in its history, NATO sent a clear message that an attack on one Ally is an attack on the entire Alliance. NATO remains united in its determination to defeat the scourge of international terrorism.

The Administration greatly values NATO’s resolute response, as well as the contributions of individual Allies to Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. As we speak, there are now more troops from coalition partners on the ground in Afghanistan than there are Americans. Since September 11, NATO Allies collectively and individually have provided vital support to our common cause. Alliance aircraft as a whole have logged over 2600 hours patrolling over American cities including New Orleans, while NATO Allies have provided overflight rights and access to bases, and stepped up intelligence efforts. And they have suffered battlefield casualties alongside our troops.

September 11 has brought home to us all that the world has moved on from the dark days of the Cold War but remains a dangerous place. That is why NATO ministers at their meeting in Brussels in December and in Reykjavik last week agreed to intensify our efforts to meet the threats from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction that all Allies face. When President Bush meets with Allied leaders in Prague, we expect that Allies will be ready to approve a comprehensive program to enhance NATO’s ability to deal with these and other threats.

I am confident that NATO will demonstrate the resolve and the flexibility to respond to these challenges, just as it has responded to every challenge throughout its history.

It is with considerable understatement that I assure you that rumors of NATO’s demise are - to say the least - premature. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has actually become more active and more integral to the stability and security of the Euro-Atlantic area. In the immediate post-Cold War years, NATO moved to reach out to former enemies and build new patterns of cooperation, encouraging integration through the Partnership for Peace even as it acted to quell ethnic hatred and violence in Southeast Europe.

As Czech President Vaclav Havel observed. September 11 "alerted us to the evil existing in this world." Allies are indispensable if we are to defeat new threats posed by terrorists and hostile states seeking weapons of mass destruction. Those who suggest that NATO is no longer essential ignore the tremendous dynamism that has always been NATO’s greatest resource. NATO derives its strength from the common purpose of defending our people and our values. It is a living Alliance that will continue to evolve and expand, adding new members while extending security and stability throughout the Euro-Atlantic area. Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nations are eager to join NATO - not to leave it.

The Prague Summit this November will mark an important step in our ongoing effort to shape an Alliance for the new century. Our threefold agenda parallels NATO’s founding goals as set out in the Washington Treaty - - to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of our peoples, live in peace with all peoples and governments, and promote the stability and well-being of the North Atlantic area.

Our effort to improve NATO’s capabilities to meet today’s threats will build on work that has been ongoing since the end of the Cold War. NATO recognized in 1991 that "Alliance security interests can be affected by other risks of a wider nature, including proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, disruption of the flow of vital resources, and actions of terrorism and sabotage." In 1999 NATO leaders noted that "new risks to Euro-Atlantic peace and stability were becoming clearer - - oppression, ethnic conflict, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the global spread of weapons technology and terrorism. We salute the vision of Alliance leaders who played such vital roles in identifying these challenges and laying the foundation to meet the new threats.

Our mission now is to intensify our efforts to translate this strategic direction into real capabilities and forces.

In doing so, we recognize that NATO is not perfect. Just as our enduring and ongoing national goal is to create a more perfect union, as Allies we are seeking to build a more perfect Alliance. NATO has some serious work ahead to improve its capabilities. The growing capabilities gap between the United States and Europe is still the most serious long-term problem facing NATO and must be addressed. The current global environment demands balanced, flexible, sustainable forces, able to move long distances in a hurry and deliver overwhelming firepower on arrival to meet and defeat threats whatever their origins. Today, the United States has the vast preponderance of such forces. Other allies, by comparison, have only limited capabilities in critical areas.

NATO Secretary General Robertson shares our commitment to bridging the gap between the U.S. and European Allies, and will make this a centerpiece of the Prague Summit. We welcome these initiatives and will continue to urge Allies to refocus their defense efforts, if need be by pooling their resources to do collectively what they are unable to do individually. If our Allies are serious about bridging this gap, however, they must be prepared to do much more to improve their capabilities and to ensure that NATO’s command structure and related force structure are able to use new capabilities effectively.

NATO will also have to recognize the implications for the geographical scope of its potential operations. The terrorist attacks, directed from Afghanistan, have made clear that threats to allied societies can come from anywhere. This new reality has ended the old debate regarding the limits of NATO’s responsibilities. As Foreign Ministers noted at Reykjavik, NATO must be prepared to act whenever and wherever its members are threatened.

Our second goal for Prague is to continue the process of building a united Euro-Atlantic community by extending membership invitations to those European democracies who have demonstrated their determination to defend the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law, their desire to promote stability, and their resolve to unite their efforts for collective defense.

As the President observed last year in Warsaw, "Yalta did not ratify a natural divide, it divided a living civilization." He made it clear that his goal is to erase the false lines that have divided Europe and to "welcome into Europe’s home" every European nation that struggles toward democracy, free markets, and a strong civic culture. The process of enlargement launched in 1997 has fulfilled NATO’s promise and brought us closer to completing the vision of NATO’s founders of a free and united Europe. But our work is not done.

The President has affirmed his belief in NATO membership for "all of Europe’s democracies that seek it and are ready to share the responsibilities that NATO brings." In his first meeting with Allies last June, the President secured a consensus to take concrete, historic decisions at Prague to advance enlargement. He made clear to Allies and aspirants his belief that NATO "should not calculate how little we can get away with, but how much we can do to advance the cause of freedom."

Some have asked in the aftermath of September 11 whether enlargement should remain a priority. The events of September 11 have reinforced the importance of even closer cooperation and integration between the United States and all the democracies of Europe. For if we are to meet new threats to our security, we need to build the broadest and strongest coalition possible of countries that share our values and are able to act effectively with us. To step back from enlargement now would mean that we were allowing terror to divert us from our lasting purposes. With freedom under attack, we must demonstrate our resolve to do as much as we can to advance its cause. NATO aspirants have demonstrated that they are ready, willing, and able to act as Allies, representing the common values and assuming the responsibilities of NATO membership. NATO’s newest members - Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic - have done just that, from the start of NATO action in Kosovo just days after their accession up to the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan.

We believe that NATO enlargement is a means of achieving NATO’s founding purpose, and will contribute to NATO’s continuing dynamism as the central security institution in the Euro-Atlantic area. NATO remains the living embodiment of what Secretary of State Dean Acheson termed "our community of social and spiritual values." Not to embrace countries that have overcome years of communist dictatorship and have proven their ability and willingness to contribute to our common security would be to abandon the very principles that have been NATO’s source of strength and vitality. We need to move ahead with courage and determination to build our common strength in meeting today’s dangers.

Our third goal for Prague is also aimed at advancing NATO’s core principles -- those of living in peace with all peoples and promoting stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.

Building on increased Russian cooperation on terrorism, and spearheaded by the close relationship between President Bush and President Putin, NATO and Russia have taken steps to give new impetus and direction to their extensive cooperation in the aftermath of September 11. NATO’s relationship with Russia has already evolved in ways many considered unimaginable ten years ago. While some are quick to point out that NATO was created to defend against Soviet communism, its longstanding goal has been to overcome the suspicions and hostility of the Cold War era, build mutual confidence, and establish genuine cooperation with and among all countries in Europe. We are now moving forward to realize a more confidant and mature partnership with Russia.

At the most recent ministerial meetings in Reykjavik, Allies agreed to create a new NATO-Russia Council that will facilitate joint decisions and actions in areas of common concern between NATO and Russia. This new body will be formally inaugurated next week at the NATO-Russia Summit in Italy.

This new and qualitatively different relationship will offer Russia the opportunity to participate in shaping the development of cooperative mechanisms in areas that we chose, such as counter-terrorism, civil emergency preparedness, airspace management, and joint training and exercises. It will not give Russia the ability to veto NATO actions in any areas. Nor will it infringe on NATO prerogatives to take any decision by consensus on any issue at any time.

It will be up to Russia to seize this chance for closer cooperation. If it continues to work cooperatively on these and other initiatives the Alliance will put forward, prospects for partnership can be extended. It is a win-win relationship for Russia and NATO; if pursued seriously, it will allow us to work with Russia on concrete, well-defined projects to meet new threats from terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and missile technology, and to develop new habits of political, military and technological cooperation.

While forging new links with Russia, our cooperative vision for NATO embraces all of NATO’s Partners, including Ukraine, countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and Mediterranean Dialogue partners. We are particularly determined to focus NATO’s Partner activities on countries of Central Asia that have played such constructive roles in the war against terrorism. The partnership for Peace and EAPC have been successful vehicles for integration, but we believe that much more can be done to expand cooperation between NATO and these countries. Through specific and tailored programs, we should strive to do for our Central Asian Partners in the coming decade what we did for Eastern Europe in the 90s.

Nearly fifty-three years after its creation, NATO remains the bridge between the United States and Europe and the bedrock of our security and stability in a still dangerous world.