Greetings to you both, and thank you so much for those presentations.
Professor Welsh, I wanted to explore the difficulties you've perceived with article 5, a cornerstone of the NATO alliance. You both mentioned that deterrence and collective defence is rooted in article 5. There was a suggestion after the First World War that the League of Nations should give an article 5 guarantee to all the other members of the league. That was refused back in 1919. It came back in 1949 with the North Atlantic Treaty and it has worked for a much more limited number of states. Prime Minister Borden was one of those refusing the blanket guarantee back in 1919.
For most of NATO's history it applied to under 20 states. Now it applies to 28 states. Professor Welsh, is it something that has given NATO the capacity to deter, or is it something that's coming under stress in Georgia, in Ukraine, in candidates for membership, and on the border with Turkey? Should we be revisiting this idea? I think our profound view is that it's worked, and that if we deny it forever and a day to countries like Georgia and Ukraine, we make them less stable. You may have a different view.