Distinguished delegates

As the discussions at this important conference have made clear, we gather at a time of grave and deepening dangers to our community of nations. Since meeting here a year ago, there have been disappointing developments in the war we are in with radical Islam. The insurgency in Afghanistan has strengthened. The situation in Iraq has grown worse. Iran continues to develop its nuclear program. Despite hopes of a thaw in the political order across the greater Middle East, the forces of extremism are surging in Lebanon and Palestine.

In the face of these setbacks, the clarion calls for the democratization of the Middle East heard just a short while ago have grown softer. Where once we spoke confidently about more political and economic liberty as the best response to the violence of radical Islam, now we hear far less of that.

Others go further still. They look at the violence in Iraq and say not only has democracy failed to be the solution; it is a cause of the problem.

They look at the election of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories and conclude that the people of the Middle East are not ready for the democracy so much of the world enjoys.

This morning I want to explain why I believe these arguments, and the approach they counsel, are mistaken, why they misunderstand the nature of the terrorist threat we face, and the larger war of ideas we must fight and win.

Today, a vast number of nations in the world find themselves part of a global struggle with Islamist extremism. It stretches from the mountains of Afghanistan to the deserts of Iraq, from the cities of Western Europe to the jungles of Southeast Asia. Although this enemy has headquarters in Waziristan and Teheran, it is neither a monolithic movement nor a single organization that can be isolated and destroyed by military force alone. Terrorism is its chosen method, but not its primary motivation.

What we are fighting is an ideology-the totalitarian ideology of radical Islam, as brutal and hostile to personal freedom as the fascism and communism we fought and defeated in the last century.

To prevail against an ideology requires more than battlefield victories; it demands we fight, and win, a larger, longer, harder war of ideas and values, competing with Islamist extremism for the hearts and minds of Muslim men and women across the greater Middle East and throughout the world, including here in Europe.

Radical Islam has positioned itself carefully in this ideological contest. It has effectively exploited a deep reserve of anger, frustration, and disappointment about the status quo. It has tapped into local grievances-about economic inequality and corruption, about political oppression and disenfranchisement-and attempted to globalize them.

In this sense, the war of ideas is an asymmetric war. The movement of ideas cannot be tracked like the march of armies, the shipment of weapons, or the flow of money. They cannot be intercepted by force of arms, in which we are so much stronger than our enemies. And when ideas clash, the outcome is both unpredictable and opaque, unfolding on a battlefield where culture, psychology, history, religion, and education provide the most critical terrain.

To defeat the ideology of radical Islam demands not just that we fight for our security, but that we argue for our ideas and values. To discredit a totalitarian vision committed to the use of violence, we must offer our own, more powerful vision of freedom, justice, and opportunity.

These are not Western values. They are universal values. In fact, of the three largest democratic states in the world today, two are not Western-namely India and Indonesia.

No single culture or civilization has a monopoly on the principles of liberal democracy, as their advance over so much of the globe, including Europe, during the past half century has proven.

They are, however, the ideals that have guided much of American foreign policy from the inception of our republic, and they are the ideals that animate our most important and lasting relationships in the world today. They are at the core of the transatlantic alliance, and they are at the core of the new partnerships we are building in this new century. And so, too, they belong at the center of the long, difficult global struggle ahead against Islamic extremism.

We cannot win this larger war of ideas with totalitarianism, however, if we lose confidence in our own democratic values.

That is why the backlash against democracy promotion we hear today is so misguided and self-defeating.

After beginning to open the door to greater political freedoms and economic opportunities in the Muslim world, the worst thing we could do now is to slam it shut. Of course, democracy means more than elections. But it also means, at times, that people we do not like-and who do not like us-will win an election.

Every nation’s circumstances are different, and every nation’s path to freedom is unique. But the presumption should always be against those who argue in favor of the “stability” of dictators and against the basic rights of mankind.

That was certainly the presumption that formed the foundation of NATO at the dawn of the Cold War and that has sustained our alliance.

Nearly sixty years after its creation, it is easy to forget just how audacious an idea the transatlantic alliance was at the time it was proposed.

The United States had a long tradition of avoiding entangling alliances. The countries of Western Europe had a recurring history of falling into war with one another.

And yet, the founders of our alliance believed they could transcend these differences and divisions-with an architecture designed not merely around our shared security interests, but also around our shared values. Thus it presented something new: a promise not just of security, but of a better, freer way of life.

Our present war of ideas demands boldness in equal measure. The fact is, we lack the means to wage a long, ideological struggle in the Muslim world. Our vulnerability in this regard lies not in the content of our convictions, but in the constraints of our institutions.

We need new capabilities to win this war of ideas, and that means dramatic reforms.

Many of these reforms must involve innovative changes in the way our governments are organized, improving our capacity to reach out and make real the practical dividends of democracy to millions of Muslims worldwide.

It also may require bold changes to our international institutions. NATO itself is in the midst of a transformation, from a regional defense pact to a global security organization, capable of operating out of area. As we discussed yesterday, the alliance has assumed new responsibilities over the past decade-first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo, and now in Afghanistan. It is entering into new dialogues with nations in the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific. And it has welcomed numerous new members-with more soon to follow.

I believe, however, we must be prepared to go even farther.

I want to ask you to consider today if it is now time not just for a transatlantic organization capable of acting globally, but a more formal global alliance that binds together democratic nations-irrespective of where they are located.

NATO is the gold standard for the security of free nations, but freedom’s cause does not and cannot end at Europe’s or America’s borders. On the contrary, as our current struggle against radical Islam is global, our alliance must be global. In the Black Sea region, in the Middle East, in Central Asia, and beyond, NATO must be prepared not only to act. I ask that we also begin to consider welcoming new members, beyond Europe, that are willing to meet the high political and military standards of our alliance.

On the one hand, this means a willingness to incorporate strong democratic states like Japan and Australia with which we are already partnering and that can make major contributions to our capabilities as an alliance.

But it also means opening the door to membership by fledging democracies like Georgia and Afghanistan, bringing them under our collective security umbrella.

By providing a formal guarantee that free nations will stand united, a global NATO would profoundly reshape the ideological battlefield of the twenty-first century.

Much as the founding of NATO in 1949 put to rest doubts about America’s long-term commitment to the security of Europe, so too would a global NATO end any uncertainty that exists today about the West’s long-term commitment to democracy in nations around the world, including, particularly, in the Muslim world. It would make clear that our presence in places like Afghanistan is not just a temporary arrangement, subject to the whims of public opinion and the leaders of the moment, but part of a deeper, formal alliance bound by common principles from which we cannot and will not withdraw.

These are the same principles enshrined in the original NATO charter, which declares the alliance is founded on “democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law.”

These principles know no borders-and they are under attack today across many borders. Our enemies are clear about who they are. Radical Islamists have stated openly, in the words of one jihadist group:  “We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it.”

I cannot speak about the global war of ideas without also acknowledging our struggle in Iraq.

I understand the frustration and anger that the Iraq war has created in America and toward America throughout the world, but I ask that those feelings not blind us to the larger truths about the enemy we are fighting, and about our shared interest in its defeat.

We are fighting in Iraq against the same violent ideology of radical Islam that NATO is fighting in Afghanistan and against which so many of our societies are struggling worldwide. The asymmetrical war of ideas I have discussed is irretrievably bound up in the outcome of the war in Iraq, as our common enemy keenly appreciates-at times it seems, better than we do.

As we have seen in Iraq, America is capable of mistakes large and small, but we are a principled nation, not a pariah nation.

Surely principled in the sense that America remains the indispensable nation in the fight for freedom throughout the world, precisely because we are willing to put our powers-economic, diplomatic, and, yes, military-in pursuit of our principles. But we have not and cannot act alone.

President Putin said yesterday that there is -one single center of power-in the world today. He is correct.

But that power is not the United States. It is the power of freedom.

Freedom speaks all languages and knows no borders. Walls and prisons cannot contain it, and totalitarianism cannot defeat it.

But the cause of freedom does not belong to one nation alone. On the contrary, the greatest triumphs of democracy in the twentieth century were achieved by the strength of our alliances, including particularly NATO.

Today once again our community of democratic nations faces profound challenges, and we have encountered disappointing setbacks.

But these challenges must call us now to remember who we are and what we stand for and to summon the will to defend both.

Rather than falling victim to doubt or exhaustion or division, let us sustain and strengthen our faith in all that binds and animates us-the values of freedom and tolerance and justice and democracy. Let us move forward, united and confident in our ultimate victory-the victory of freedom.

Thank you.