there was a time, before the war in ukraine, when europe thought about its place in the world, and how it could become less dependent on the united states. as washington turned inwards, and administrations refocused us foreign policy towards asia, france and germany talked about the need for strategic autonomy . but today in warsaw, at a meeting of the bucharest 9, it was the american president sat at the head of the table. all nine members of this group were part of the former soviet union or the defunct warsaw pact. the commitment of the united states to nato, i ve said it too many times, i ll say it again, is absolutely clear. article five is a sacred commitment the united states has made. we will defend literally every inch of nato, every inch of nato. and this is an important moment. i look forward to the discussion, the next steps we can take together and to keep our alliance strong and to further deter aggression. because what literally is at stake is notjust ukraine,
there was a time, before the war in ukraine, when europe thought about its place in the world, and how it could become less dependent on the united states. as washington turned inwards, and administrations refocused us foreign policy towards asia, france and germany talked about the need for strategic autonomy . but today in warsaw, at a meeting of the bucharest 9, it was the american president sat at the head of the table. all nine members of this group were part of the former soviet union or the defunct warsaw pact. the commitment of the united states to nato, i ve said it too many times, i ll say it again, is absolutely clear. article five is a sacred commitment the united states has made. we will defend literally every inch of nato, every inch of nato. and this is an important moment.
position of to have the foresight of information at his fingertips and go through the possible consequences of what appear to be potentially very big shifts in u.s. foreign policy. we going to move from a situation where america is trying to manage china s rise to a more confrontational policy as gordon was saying. that needs to be something that s discussed through a wider prism of foreign policy thought than just a conversation with a president elect on the telephone. gordon, a lot of these, you know, leaders of nations are trying to figure out where trump stands on a lot of things here. and it s still very cloudy. but is there a problem with a little bit of uncertainty? well, you know, of course there can be. the united states maintains the international system. people look to us for consistency. and that s important. but, you know, with regard to the chinese, you know, they have challenged the two previous presidents in the first months in office.
foreign policy without any plan. that s how wars start. steven, do you think it really is that series, that s how wars start? i mean, it is, after all, just a phone call. that s true. but i think what this does, martin, is increase pressure on donald trump to get through that process of naming a secretary of state and senior foreign policy advisors around him pretty quickly. it s true that elections have consequences. and the president elect soon to be the president will have wide latitude of deciding what u.s. foreign policy towards asia and everywhere else will be. the problem is it s not clear right now whether these changes that appear to be taking place in american foreign policy are part of some strategic grand design that s been fully thought out, or whether they re just ad hoc changes taking place on a telephone call with a president elect. i think when president elect trump gets that foreign policy team around him, we know he s narrowing in the choice of secretary of state.