Testimony
Philip H. Gordon
Assistant Secretary
Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Washington, DC
May 10, 2012

Chairman Kerry, Ranking Member Lugar and Members of the Committee,

Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the NATO Summit, which the United States is proud to be hosting in Chicago on May 20-21. I appreciate the Committee’s support for this meeting, as well as its sustained recognition of the significance of this Alliance to transatlantic security. This will be the first NATO Summit on American soil in 13 years and the first ever outside of Washington. In addition to the opportunity to showcase one of our nation’s great cities, our hosting of the Summit is a tangible symbol of the importance of NATO to the United States. It is also an opportunity to underscore to the American people the continued value of the Alliance to the security challenges we face today.

Indeed, NATO is vital to U.S. security. More than ever, the Alliance is the mechanism through which the U.S. confronts diverse and difficult threats to our security together with like-minded states who share our fundamental values of democracy, human rights and rule of law. Our experiences in the Cold War, in the Balkans and now in Afghanistan prove that our core interests are better protected by working together than by seeking to respond to threats alone as individual nations. MORE