NATO at 70: Forging Bonds to Strengthen a Key Alliance

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg chronicles the alliance's successful history and outlines its future endeavors to strengthen eastern Europe and commit more to collective defense.

On April 4, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) partnered with the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the Munich Security Conference to convene “Nato Engages: The Alliance at 70” in Washington, D.C.

The event commemorated the 70th anniversary of NATO, bringing together members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, US policy experts, leading business representatives, and other key international leaders, including Vice President Mike Pence and NATO Security General Jens Stoltenberg, to discuss NATO’s history, current challenges, and future.

Panels featured discussions on the need to adapt to new threats in the 21st century, NATO’s expansion into eastern Europe and the Balkans, and its aid for the US mission in Afghanistan following the 9/11 terror attacks.

Vice President Pence’s speech reaffirmed America’s commitment to the alliance and quoted President Trump’s Warsaw speech: “Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg extolled the alliance as the most successful in history, describing how its members are cooperating more than ever, increasing their strength on NATO’s eastern flank, and committing to spend $100 billion more on collective defense. He also praised President Donald Trump’s push to make NATO’s European members spend more on defense, citing the President’s statement that “to be a strong alliance, NATO must be a fair alliance.”

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke of her experience growing up in Czechoslovakia, escaping Nazi tyranny, and watching her country fall to communist control in 1948. She said the communist takeover awakened the world to the need to found an alliance of democratic states, and that throughout the Cold War, NATO “preserved hope in the West while keeping hope alive in the East.”