David Kapler

that the United States has many facets to its superpower sets of capabilities.

And one of the most significant, in fact, is its friendships and alliances.

I am hard pressed to see a real threat to the United States

that the United States would choose to, or in some scenarios could even go it alone.

So I'm more in the camp that transatlanticist by default, having served those four years at NATO.

But I have a deep belief that alliances and friendships are essential to national security and to common security.

So it is a bit painful to hear the questioning.

The thing that worries me the most though is that all of these things, whether you go back to where you began with the intelligence questions or you talk about policy, politics, military dynamics, they all hinge on trust.

Trust takes a lot to sustain and it does take focused effort.

It takes some curation.

It takes constancy.

It takes knowledge of each other, work with each other.

to even raise questions.

Would this, would article five hold?

Would this occur?

Would that occur?

Does eat a bit at the very foundation that's so critical to the building of all of that

trust and the security commitments to each other.

The thing that I worry about when I hear this, and frankly, it's one of the reasons why I benefit so much of having now come to Europe so many times in recent months, is to hear directly from Europeans about what their concerns are in this space.

So I'm listening for things about, does trust still endure?