{"id":84483,"date":"2019-11-18T18:32:07","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T18:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flad.pt\/nato-70-years-and-a-future-of-challenges\/"},"modified":"2020-03-05T20:00:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T20:00:59","slug":"nato-70-years-and-a-future-of-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flad.pt\/en\/nato-70-years-and-a-future-of-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO: 70 years and a future of challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An afternoon devoted to the challenges faced by NATO, with leading figures such as Michael J. Murphy,<\/strong> Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US State Department, Augusto Santos Silva<\/strong>, Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Tom Wright<\/strong>, of the Brookings Institution<\/a>.<\/span><\/h3>\n

On November 18, FLAD, <\/strong>together with the Portuguese Institute of International Relations<\/strong><\/a> (IPRI), marked NATO’s 70th anniversary, with a conference that brought together national and international policy makers and experts to discuss NATO’s role from its founding up to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the opening of the conference, FLAD’s president, Rita Faden,<\/strong> stressed NATO’s ability, against all expectations, to reinvent itself and at every moment answer the great threats it met, from the Soviet Union, through 9\/11, to the challenges that the Alliance faces today.<\/span><\/p>\n

“NATO is not an obsolete alliance, nor a trade agreement. NATO is an enduring alliance between Western democracies. It is an irreplaceable pillar of the international order.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nuno Severiano Teixeira,<\/strong> the director of IPRI, pointed out some of these challenges, noting NATO’s ability to respond to them and rejecting the idea that NATO is “brain dead,” as argued by French president Emmanuel Macron. <\/span><\/p>\n

The conference was attended by US Ambassador George E. Glass<\/strong> and <\/span>Michael<\/strong> J. Murphy,<\/b> Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US State Department, who affirmed the United States’ commitment to invest in NATO. He also stressed the need for enhanced political cooperation within the alliance and with the Mediterranean as the only ways to address the Russian threat:<\/span><\/p>\n

“We have to explain to our citizens the importance of investing in defense.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A panel on the theme “NATO and European Security<\/strong>” also took place. In it were discussed the great threats to the Alliance’s democratic order and the current differences in political narrative within NATO.<\/span><\/p>\n