[applause] good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As our guests are being seated im steven knapp, president of George Washington university and delighted to welcome you to our city rom. This balcony affords a broad view of the nations capital. This is an excellent symbol of what it means to be the Largest University the nations capitol and has an excellent view of the washington monument. Our monument, and this location is rather extraordinary here. If you drew a line from the state department to the white house and another line from the Federal Reserve to the world bang they would actually intersection right where we are seat sitting right now. That tells you about the importance hover this location and affords us an opportunity to convene important discussions of events of global significance. So im delighted to welcome you to todays discussion nightle. Nato in the age of uncertainty. A conversation with the secretary general of nato. Were horde he could make time during his brief steroid washington to come to our camp plus. Im pleased to acknowledge members of the diplomatics community, the ambassador after estonia to the United States, the ambassador of bulgaria to the United States, and the ambassador of georgia to the United States. We also have with us the former governor of the commonwealth of virginia, james gilmore, and id like to extend a special welcome to the distinguished alumnus of the school, curt voelker, ambassador to nato, and now the executive director of the Mccain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State universitys washington center. I have to say that as the president and now in my tenth year here, aliving lived on campus, i live in a cows called the f street, formerly the F Street Club and that where is some of the founding discussions and negotiations of fifth creation of the nate toy took place. So we have an intimate historical connection right here. Other connections of George Washington university to nato include, in addition to ambassador voelker, a former Elliott School alumni, the nato supreme allied commander from 1993 to 1997 and who was department sect general in october and the first woman to hold the post, and now my great pleasure to introduce the secretary general of the nato. He became 13th secretary general of nato on october 21, 2014. A distinguished Public Servant hey was state secretary of know we january ministry of the environment in 1990 after ashe his post graduate degree in check from oslo. He was in a variety of leadership roles including that that of minister of energy and finance and was Prime Minister prom 2000 to 2001 and then again from 2005 to 2013. He led a transformation of norways armed forces, increase norways defense spences spendig and committed norwegian troops to nato peacekeeping missions. Among his international assignments, he has chaired the United NationsHigh Level Panel on coherence and the Advisory Group on Climate Change financing he also served as u. N. Special envoy on Climate Change, as secretary general of nato he has enhanced translat thick cooperation and strengthened ties with the European Union for secure peace and Economic Development in you were and beyond. So please public the secretary general. [applause] thank you for those kind words and thank you for all of you for having me here today, and it is a great pleasure to meet you all because to be here today is to be one of the most recognized institutions when it comes to educating leaders, especially within diplomacy Foreign Service and as you mentioned, in nato we have several people who have the education, who are graduated from the Elliott School. I worked very close with rose, the deputy secretary general. She is a graduate from the the Elliott School and later i we share the debate together with me and hes also a graduate from this school. So, the students at this university and the Elliott School, they are the leaders of tomorrow and therefore it is a great honor to see you and meet you all. Then i also have to say that its not only because this is very recognized institution but i appreciate to be here, but im also delighted to be here because actually originally my plan was to not become a politician put to become apodaca and my plan was to do research in economics and i have the i started to teach the university of oslo in economics and i tide that for two years. Then i was off to become the deputy minister of the space secretary of the minister of environment in norway and i prom is myself and my wife i would only stay there for wound or two years and then can go back to the academic life. And that the promise i have not been able to keep, so i stayed in politics since 1990. And i feel that my chances for doing a academic career has diminished. So, therefore i like to come to institutions look this because is the closest i come to any kind of academic life. So if you fail at academics you can become a Prime Minister or secretary general of nato. I will be very brief because the idea is to have an interaction and just really share with you some very brief remarks or reflections and then we will i will be well before we have some discussion. What i will say is that nato is the most successful alliance in history for two reasons. Reason anyone, we have been loyal to our core value, our core task ever since we were founded in 1949. And that is that we are an alliance, where we have prom mitt today protect each other. One for all, all for one. If one ally is attacked, it will trigger response from the whole alliance and this strength of the unity of the alliance has been the main reason why the alliance has been so successful. The strength of nato is not aimed at provoking conflict but the strength of nato is to prevent the conflict. By delivering credible deterrence we have been able for close to seven decades, to prevent armed conflicts, armed aggression against any nato ally country. Thats a great success, especially in europe, because the normal thing in europe was we were fighting each and since the end of the Second World War and foundation of nato there have been no serious conflict, at least involving nato allies in europe, no nato ally has been attacked. So, the unity, one for all, all for one, is the main reason why nato is has been such a successful alliance. The other reason is that nato has been a able to adapt, to change, so when the world is changing, nato is changing. For almost 40 years actually 44 years nato was focused on one and actually only one task and that was to deter the soviet union from attacking west europe. Nato ally countries. And were quite successful. The cold war ended without firing a single shot and ended in a peatsful way. The berlin wall came down and people started to ask whether nato was needed anymore. The saying was that nato either has to go out of business or out of area. And actually we went out of area after the fall of the berlin wall, the end of the cold war. We helped ending to two ethnic wars in the balkins and helped fight terrorism in afghanistan, fighting piracy in africa and we did Crisis Management beyond our borders. We did that from the begin of the 1990s until today. Now nato has to change again because we have to continue to project the ability to manage crisis beyond our borders in afghanistan, in the north africa, the middle east region, but the same time we have to come back to europe and focus once again on collective defense dense terrorism in europe and thats especially the case after the illegal annexation of crimea and russiall assertive behavior, especially against ukraine. So now nato has a collective defense in terms of the cold war. We are tripling the side of the Nato Response force. Increasing the military prepares in the eastern part of the eye lines and of alliance and southeast of the alliance so were adapting to respond to a more challenging and difficult security environment. Again, the message is that we are invest are in our defense not to provoke conflict but to prevent conflict and what we do is defensive, it is proportionate, and it is measured in a way that we dont want to provoke a new cold war, a new arms race and we continue too seek dialogue with russia based on the idea theres no contradiction between strength and local defense, deterrence. We strongly believe as long as nato is united and firm and predictable, then we can and should engage in political dialogue because russia is our neighbor, there to stay and we have to manage the relationship with russia the best possible way, because it is in both our interests to try to diffuse the tensions to reduce tensions, and to find better ways to live together. This was the main issue i excused with President Trump yesterday in the white house. And his security team. This will be the main issue. We are going to discuss when nato leaderred meet in may in brusse, and this is the main issue i hope to discuss with you in the coming hour or so. Thank you so much and then im ready to take your questions. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much, secretary general. Thank you for those remarks. Again, my name is curt volcker, the exec director of the Mccain Institute for national leadership, part of Arizona State university and a very proud alumnus of the Elliott School, even before it was called the Elliott School, longer than i care to state publicly, but it has been a great privilege to have gone here and then had a career built upon that. Secretary general, im going tone up the question and answer with you and then well turn to the audience here to ask questions. Well bunch them a few at a time. I do want to give priority to students here the Elliott School. So students think about what you want to ask secretary general, we have heard from President Trump and this administration, beth during the course of the president ial campaign and since then many, many things from nato is obsolete north objects lease, nato am lites need to pay theyre share, well decide whether we defend them based on whether they have paid their dues or not. When chancellor mark el was here, talk about how much germany owes the United States. Nato needed to reform, deal with counterterrorism. Way want to Work Together with russia, russia is a threat, intervened in our lee leks. Just about everything you can imagine. You could chart this and say theres been a progression overtime and theres been movement and you have had at love of interacts with the president you have been on the phone we him. You had a meeting yesterday with ad in washington. You met with secretary mattis in the defense ministers meeting. You met with secretary tillerson and you met vicepresident pence the munich security conference. Where do you see the u. S. Administration on nato today . How would you characterize the u. S. Policy, u. S. Support, u. S. Interests, u. S. Concern . The mess nato has been very consistent, and all directions, in all my different conversations with the president and also with his security team, the Vice President , the secretary tillerson, mcmaster and his whole team, and the message has been all the time that they are firmly committed to nato, that they see the value of they want to make sure that nato continues to adapt. Welcome that. Both fro strong commitment to nato, which was resetter reasserted yesterday and also discussed the president expressed to me just a few days after he was elected i welcome the message about committed to nato. We have to remember that somehow they spend 2 of gdp. But united kingdom, they have 92 target. And this year they declared they will meet the 2 target 17. Latvia has to quit they will meet the 2 target next year. So nato is adapting. Nato is changing but i welcome the strong focus from the u. S. Administration on the need to continue adaptation. Very good. And do you believe that allies are responding to this call to spend more on defense . In case you didnt hear the answer was absolutely there going to 2 and beyond. [laughing] what was it . Again, secretarygeneral, you have articulate a clear sense of your support for nato but part of the question from the u. S. Is, our allies willing to support nato . Do you seem doing the . Yes, we have turned the corner because what weve seen is that after many years of decline and cuts in defense spending across europe and canada, we actually saw that in 2016. We saw for the first time a significant increase in defense spending across europe and canada. And we saw increase of 3. 8 in real terms, or 10 billion u. S. Dollars. That is a significant increase, amount of money for defense. We still have a long way to go and much remains, but at least the europeans have started to move in the right direction. And as i said, some allies already meet the 2 guideline, other allies have declared that he will meet it this year or next year. So what we discussed, what i discussed with the president yesterday was how can we make sure that we keep up the momentum that were able to continue to cds positive developments. Because what we promised in wales in 2014 when we made what a nato recall the defense investment plates was to stop the cuts, gradual increase in the move towards 10 2 within a decade. We. We started to get and my top priority as secretary jewell has been to focus on defense spending because it is important for the strength of all aligned. To add one more thing, and that is what we call the defense investment pledge is not only about spending. Its about spending more spending better, to be more efficient, to work closer together and its about the capabilities we need in data and its about contributions to nato operations and mission fits every often we speak about the pledge is about cash capabilities and contributions and all of that is important at the same time. In your remarks you said that nato wants to deal with russia from a position of strength and rep deterrence and defense but also got dialogue and outreach toward russia to try to Work Together with russia. Does russia want to Work Together with nato . Yes and no. In a way that we see some areas where they are willing to Work Together with us, in other areas we see that is much more difficult to establish any kind of understanding or real dialogue. But we have to continue to work for dialogue because the world is safer when russia and nato are able to speak, to talk and to strengthen, or to improve our relationship. Its hard to predict how the relationship between nato and russia will be in the future, but i am absolutely certain that we have to do everything that we can to defuse the tensions and to avoid a new cold war. And thats why we pursue this dual track approach with russia, deterrence, defense and dialogue. And this is also something which is very much based on my own experience as a norwegian politician because norway as you all know is bordering russia up in the north. Have a land border and we have a border in the sea, the continental shelf, where there is a lot of oil and gas and fisheries and so on. And norway was able to develop a pragmatic working relationship with the soviet union during the cold war and later on with russia on issues like energy, like border, as we agreed on the border in the sea, the delimitation line, environment, fishery, but also military issues where we have some search and rescue exercise together and someone with regular contact within the Norwegian Armed forces and six fleet or the Russian Armed forces up in the north. His cooperation in the north between notary and nato ally and russia takes place not despite norways membership in nato but because of norways membership with nato because our membership in nato provides the strength, the platform to engage with russia. So i strongly believe that we should not be afraid of talking to russians. They are there to stay. They are our biggest neighbor, and it will be a all of us it will help all of us if we are able to improve the relationship with russia. And a final question for me and then were going to pull from the audience and students in particular. Did you and the president discussed ukraine and how does ukraine fit in that scenario of west russia relations and giving ukraine a feeling of security so they can get with russia . We discussed ukraine. And, of course, we are concerned about the situation and especially Eastern Ukraine and the fact that russia illegally annexed a part of ukraine, crimea, and that is a First Time Since the end of the Second World War that one country annexed a part of another country in europe by force. So this is of course serious for ukraine but it is also undermining the whole idea of a rulesbased order in europe which has been so important for the peace and stability in europe. So nato, the United States, nato allies provide support to ukraine. We help them to modernize their defensive structures, their armed forces, their defense institutions, trained them. We have different trust fund for cyber, for command and control. So nato, provide political and practical support to ukraine and the same time i think its important to understand that this is not only about ukraine, because nato has, the main reason why we have implemented this str