President’s Views

BY TOM YAZDGERDI

In this edition, which celebrates the enduring nature of NATO, you will hear from U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith and three former U.S. ambassadors to NATO: Nick Burns, Sandy Vershbow, and Robert Hunter. Each describes critical moments in the history of the Alliance—including the end of the Cold War and the search for a new relationship with Russia, the response to 9/11, the current war of aggression against Ukraine, and the accession of NATO’s newest members, Sweden and Finland. The personal perspectives and efforts of these high-level diplomats throw into stark relief why NATO has been and remains the most successful alliance in the history of the modern world.

Like millions of Americans who have roots in East-Central Europe, I had an abiding desire to see these countries decide their own futures when the Berlin Wall fell. But they would need to be backed up by an ironclad security guarantee that would prevent them from falling victim to aggression from powerful neighbors.

When I was of an age that I could understand these things, I asked my grandfather why he had fled Czechoslovakia in the mid-1930s to come to America. He said after Hitler came to power, it was only a matter of time before Czechoslovakia would be occupied and dismantled. As a freethinking journalist in his hometown of Prague, he thought in the aftermath it was likely that he and many others would be rounded up and silenced, or worse.

As a graduate student in international relations, I spent the summer of 1989 as a USG-funded exchange student learning Czech in the Moravian capital of Brno. While there, I had the opportunity to visit my grandmother’s first cousin, Jana, at her home in Prague. When Jana wanted to let me know what she really thought, we would take a walk.

As a young woman, Jana had witnessed firsthand the trauma of the German occupation of Prague in March 1939. As an ethnic Czech, she found that many possible life choices were now closed off to her due to the occupation. And things were clearly much worse for Czech Jews, who faced the prospect of being deported and killed.

Jana told me she greatly admired President Ronald Reagan. When I asked her why, she said that President Reagan, with what she saw as his uncompromising support of freedom against continued Russian occupation, “gave us hope for a better future.”

Those words have stayed with me. A few short months after my language study ended, the road to this better future opened with the advent of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 and elections in June 1990—the first free and fair elections since the imposition of communist rule in 1948.

Fast forward to my fourth Foreign Service assignment, as Czech desk officer in 1997-1999. I had bid this job specifically in the hopes of seeing the Czech Republic, along with Poland and Hungary, become the newest member in the first wave of NATO enlargement. It was not a slam dunk: Some in Congress and in parliaments throughout the NATO alliance had to be convinced that it was in the best interests of the other NATO members to ratify this enlargement.

Working at the NATO 50th anniversary summit in Washington in March 1999, I was never prouder than when these three countries formally joined the Alliance and NATO decided to keep the door open for other nations with these same aspirations. I knew then that Jana, who had the chance to live out her final years in a free and independent country, and her fellow citizens would never again have to stand alone.

As we celebrate and reflect on NATO at 75, let us remember that the United States is stronger as a country when we commit to working together with our NATO allies. While there remain issues of burden-sharing, inadequate defense spending, and capability gaps, as Amb. Smith points out in her article, there is clearly no alternative to NATO that can confront aggression and promote our shared values and commitment to collective action.

Please let me know your thoughts at yazdgerdi@afsa.org or member@afsa.org.