Thank you! It’s a pleasure to be back in Denmark, one of NATO’s most committed allies. I thank the Danish Atlantic Council for inviting me to participate in this celebration, and the US Embassy for its sponsorship.

Over the course of this year of celebrating NATO’s 70th anniversary, I’ve reflected on the somewhat scary fact that I’ve been working on European security issues for 50 of those 70 years. And I don’t plan to stop anytime soon.

Today, I’ll discuss the internal and external challenges facing the alliance and the West more broadly, including a few historical reflections.

I then will suggest three possible futures for the alliance and its key institutions.

First, I want to make it clear where I’m coming from.

• ➢  I support liberal democracy as the best, albeit not perfect, political system for our countries.
• ➢  My outlook on how to defend the West is influenced as much by this ideological bias as it is by theneed for governments to defend against physical threats.
• ➢  Finally, in my years of working on transatlantic relations I’ve analyzed and written about many“crises.”

o It’s my judgment that the crisis currently facing the West is the most dangerous of any seen in the past seven decades.