4.6.1: Europe

Strengthen our alliances, while pressing our allies to bear a greater share of the burden for tackling regional and global challenges.

Other Information:

The cornerstone of our engagement with the world is our alliances, which had been badly damaged under the Bush administration. The President and the Democratic Party believe the foundation of global security remains our relationships with traditional allies in Europe and Asia, and our enduring commitments to their defense. That is why President Obama has worked to methodically strengthen our alliances there, while pressing our allies to bear a greater share of the burden for tackling regional and global challenges. The President and the Democratic Party recognize America's enduring interest in supporting peace and prosperity in Europe, as well as bolstering the strength and vitality of NATO, which is critical to the security of the continent and beyond. A decade of military operations in Afghanistan has strengthened NATO's fighting skills and enhanced its ability to cooperate at the political level. This proved critical to the alliance's timely, unified, and effective response in Libya. Going forward, we need to further improve the ability of NATO countries to operate collectively. Modernizing the alliance will be challenging given fiscal constraints on both sides of the Atlantic. But as large-scale military involvement in Afghanistan winds down, NATO has an opportunity to focus on further developing the capabilities required to address 21st century challenges. Therefore, we will continue to urge our NATO allies to pool, share, and specialize their capabilities, and to improve their capacity for effective coalition operations. Meanwhile, even as the presence of U.S. forces in Europe necessarily evolves, the United States will maintain its Article 5 collective security commitments to NATO and will continue to leverage America's comparative advantage in high-end military capabilities to ensure the defense of our allies. For example, the President is moving forward with a "phased adaptive approach" to European ballistic-missile defense that will protect both Europe and the United States from missile threats emanating from Iran and elsewhere. We believe that the United States and Russia can cooperate on missile defense, but we have also made clear that we will move forward with our system, beginning with the steps we have taken to deploy it in Poland, Turkey, and Romania.

Stakeholder(s):

• Europe

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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