https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-10-2024
"“In 1949, when leaders of 12 countries, including President Truman, came
together in this very room, history was watching,” President Joe Biden said
yesterday evening at the opening of the 2024 NATO Summit, being held from July
9 through July 12, in Washington, D.C.
“It had been four years since the surrender of the Axis powers and the end of
the most devastating world war the world had ever, ever known,” Biden
continued.
“Here, these 12 leaders gathered to make a sacred pledge to defend each other
against aggression, provide their collective security, and to answer threats as
one, because they knew to prevent future wars, to protect democracies, to lay
the groundwork for a lasting peace and prosperity, they needed a new approach.
They needed to combine their strengths. They needed an alliance.”
That alliance was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the “single
greatest, most effective defensive alliance in the history of the world,” as
Biden said.
The NATO collective defense agreement has stabilized the world for the past 75
years thanks to its provision in Article 5 that each of the NATO allies will
consider an attack on one as an attack on all, and respond accordingly.
Biden looked back at the alliance’s 75 years. “Together, we rebuilt Europe from
the ruins of war, held high the torch of liberty during long decades of the
Cold War,” he said. “When former adversaries became fellow democracies, we
welcomed them into the Alliance. When war broke out in the Balkans, we
intervened to restore peace and stop ethnic cleansing. And when the United
States was attacked on September 11th, our NATO Allies—all of you—stood with
us, invoking Article 5 for the first time in NATO history, treating an attack
on us as an attack on all of us—a breathtaking display of friendship that the
American people will never ever, ever forget.”
Biden celebrated that the alliance has continually adapted to a changing world
and noted that it has changed its strategies to stay ahead of threats and
reached out to new partners to become more effective. Biden noted that leaders
from countries in the Indo-Pacific region had joined the leaders of the 32 NATO
countries at this year’s summit. So did the leaders of NATO’s partner
countries, including Ukraine, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of
Korea, and the European Union. “They’re here because they have a stake in our
success and we have a stake in theirs,” Biden said."
Via Kevin O'Brien.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
