Top 360 NATO Quotes & Sayings

I realised that if we were not in the E.U., there were people in the E.U. who were also members of NATO that would veto our joining NATO.

Now I know a lot about NATO - NATO is obsolete, and the reason it's obsolete is because of the fact they don't focus on terrorism.

I think NATO needs to redefine itself. There has been no substantial thought about what NATO is for since the Berlin Wall came down.

I think NATO is a Cold War product. I think NATO historically should have shut up shop in 1990 along with the Warsaw Pact; unfortunately, it didn't.

We've had some fairly intensive discussions leading up to these meetings between NATO and Russia, preparing for them, and it's going to be a very important six months for NATO.

Okay, NATO expanded to East Berlin and East Germany. Under [Bill] Clinton NATO expanded further, to the former Russian satellites. In 2008 NATO formally made an offer to Ukraine to join NATO. That's unbelievable. I mean, Ukraine is the geopolitical heartland of Russian concern, quite aside from historical connections, population and so on.

The United States is NATO's leading military power, and President Barack Obama has required NATO to align behind a doctrine that has amounted to the most disastrous American foreign-policy debacle since Vietnam.

I'm deeply satisfied with the decisions that were taken by Warsaw NATO Summit in 2016, where the presence of the military forces of NATO in Poland was guaranteed.

Back in 2007, many people criticized me for my talk at the Munich Security Conference. But what did I say there? I merely pointed out that the former NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner had guaranteed that NATO would not expand eastwards after the fall of the Wall.

NATO was constructed on the - with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault. Once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, that reason was gone. So, first question: why does NATO exist?

I am encouraged by the president-elect's [Donald Trump] insistence that NATO is a commitment that does not change. And his full commitment to NATO as the foundation for our international security I think is very important.

It is possible there will be much less support for NATO because there is a lot of identification of the United States with NATO.

I have no doubt that the U.S., even under Trump, will stick to the mutual defense commitment in the NATO treaty in the event of an emergency. Trump described NATO as being obsolete during his election campaign, but he made clear afterward that he considers the alliance to be an indispensable necessity.

The question was never whether the United States, E.U., NATO, Arab League, U.N. Security Council, and African Union could together using economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and military attacks to bring Qaddafi down. The question was always how much time, how much blood, and what damage to NATO.

I read on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that NATO is opening up a major terror division. And I think that's great. And I think we should get - because we pay approximately 73 percent of the cost of NATO. It's a lot of money to protect other people.

I think before 1997 is over, NATO will have taken giant strides in what's called adaptation, the discussions about bringing the French fully into the NATO forces.

I know very well that Berlin attaches great importance to NATO and solidarity, in terms of sharing the burden. For this reason, I feel confident that the German government will take the right decision, one that serves both German and NATO interests.

Turkey's NATO membership is one thing that is forestalling the worst-case scenario - open conflict between Russia and Turkey - because neither Moscow nor the West wants a Russian NATO conflict to erupt.

We stand firmly behind the decision made at the summit in Bucharest where it was decided that Ukraine could one day become a member of NATO. That is not only in the interest of Ukraine, but also in the interest of Europe and peace on our continent. But we also know it will take a long time until Ukraine fulfills the standards for NATO membership.

We created NATO. It was a United States invention for the collective security of Europe. It has been a Russian desire since 1947 to break up NATO.

Turkey initiated true multiparty elections in 1950 to join NATO. As a requirement of its membership, NATO can and should demand that Turkey honor its commitment to the alliance's democratic norms.

Right at the beginning of all of this [Ukraine to join NATO], serious senior statesmen, people like [George] Kennan for example and others warned that the expansion of NATO to the east is going to cause a disaster. I mean, it's like having the Warsaw Pact on the Mexican border. It's inconceivable. And others, senior people warned about this, but policymakers didn't care. Just go ahead.

The Hungarian people voted for NATO membership. We are active in the joint actions of NATO.

What's the purpose of NATO? Well actually we have an official answer. It isn't publicized much, but a couple of years ago, the secretary-general of NATO made a formal statement explaining the purpose of NATO in the post-Cold War world is to control global energy systems, pipelines, and sea lanes. That means it's a global system and of course he didn't say it, it's an intervention force under US command, as we've seen in case after case. So that's NATO.

NATO's got a vital role to play. It's very important that we protect NATO.

I think NATO is obsolete. NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger - much larger than Russia is today. I'm not saying Russia is not a threat. But we have other threats. We have the threat of terrorism. And NATO doesn't discuss terrorism. NATO's not meant for terrorism. NATO doesn't have the right countries in it for terrorism.

You have to listen to Trump in a nonpolitical way. When Trump starts talking on the campaign trail, "NATO's pointless, it's worthless. We're paying the lion's share and these people aren't contributing, and that's gonna end. This make America great, put America first." People think, "Wow! We're gonna get out of NATO, finally. He's gonna close up NATO!" No. If you listen very carefully, he was complaining that the other members were not doing their part.

It's been a long time since NATO was created, and I also think Donald Trump has spoken very wisely about the need to rethink the mission of NATO.

While Slovakia did not make the first round of NATO membership, as various requirements and reforms are instituted, these actions will enhance the opportunities to join NATO.

In the case of Yugoslavia v. NATO, one of the charges was genocide. The U.S. appealed to the court, saying that, by law, the United States is immune to the charge of genocide, self-immunized, and the court accepted that, so the case proceeded against the other NATO powers but not against the United States.

[Mikhail] Gorbachev said that he would agree to the unification of Germany, and even adherence of Germany to NATO, which was quite a concession, if NATO didn't move to East Germany. And [George] Bush and [James] Baker promised verbally, that's critical, verbally that NATO would not expand "one inch to the east," which meant East Germany. Nobody was talking about anything farther at the time. They would not expand one inch to the east. Now that was a verbal promise. It was never written. NATO immediately expanded to East Germany.

I don't believe Russia would attack a NATO country or NATO as such, no matter which country we are talking about.

For the United States to be a global leader, we have to have a very tight relationship with Europe. And we've held that relationship since 1949 when we established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. NATO is the bond. It's a security bond.

Around 2008 and again in 2013 NATO officially offered the Ukraine the opportunity to join NATO. That's something no Russian government is ever going to accept. It's right at the geopolitical heartland of Russia.

I think if NATO haven't expanded, we would have a no-man's zone between the E.U. and NATO and Russia, and that would be very dangerous.

NATO was formed post-World War II. We're a little bit more than a half-century old. Do we want NATO to go on for another half-century? I think that the answer is, sitting here today: I don't know. If I had to bet on it, I would say, yeah, we have to have these alliances going forward and see who's going to pay for them.

NATO has a special relationship with countries far away from Europe: Australia, Japan, South Korea. They have joint projects and programmes which are being implemented without these countries becoming members of NATO.

I think that there is a bipartisan consensus that's incorrect that we should have the whole world be in NATO. For example, if we had Ukraine and Georgia in NATO - and this is something McCain and the other neocons have advocated for - we would be at war now because Russia has invaded both of them.

We are seeing reports that NATO's sending early warning radar planes and German military personnel to Turkey. That might reduce the chances of another incident like this jet shoot down. And obviously both NATO and the U.S. are pressing their ally Turkey to urgently deescalate the situation.

Nato is supposed to be here to protect the alliance... If Poland and other central European countries constitute the real flank of Nato, then it seems natural to me, a logical conclusion, that bases should be placed in those countries.

You know, NATO as a military alliance has something called Article 5, and basically it says this: An attack on one is an attack on all. And you know the only time it's ever been invoked? After 9/11, when the 28 nations of NATO said that they would go to Afghanistan with us to fight terrorism, something that they still are doing by our side.

In the case of Yugoslavia v. NATO, one of the charges was genocide. The U.S. appealed to the court, saying that, by law, the United States is immune to the charge of genocide, self-immunized, and the court accepted that, so the case proceeded against the other NATO powers, but not against the United States.

What NATO troops are doing in Afghanistan is to train, assist and advise Afghans, but they are actually doing the fighting. They are actually taking the responsibility for the security in their own country. And that is a great achievement, compared to what we saw just a few years ago, when NATO troops had to conduct the combat operations fighting the Taliban.

NATO is in our national security interests. And, yes, we pay a lot for it, but, when we had Afghanistan, NATO troops were by our side from almost all of the NATO members. And they put their life and treasure on the line for us.

I welcome the fact that Trump has clearly stated that NATO is not obsolete.And I think, also, that reflects that NATO is adapting. NATO is the most successful alliance in history because we have been able to change, to adapt when the world is changing. And now NATO is stepping up its effort in the global fight against terrorism, and we are responding to a more assertive Russia with an increase of our collective defense, with more presence in the eastern part of the alliance.

Americans have long felt that NATO isn't doing its job and that the Europeans aren't contributing enough. Trump has accelerated the decline in Atlantic solidarity by offering open contempt for NATO allies as well. The future of NATO now very much depends on Europeans. Can you begin to identify security threats, prepare yourselves and arm yourselves without the US?

Right now, Russia's future should be wedded to Europe. Why they see NATO as a threat is beyond me. Clearly, NATO is not a threat.

When President Clinton opened NATO's doors in 1994, some predicted a crisis with Russia. That did not occur, mainly because the Kremlin understood that NATO enlargement did not threaten Russia's interests.

I see NATO as a good thing to have - I look at the Ukraine situation and I say, so Ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it affects other countries in NATO, and yet we are doing all of the lifting, they're not doing anything.

Nato allies have been looking at various missile-defence options for some time. Nato itself is developing protections for our deployed troops.

Following the end of the Cold War, there was much discussion concerning the point of NATO. In the event, it was reinvented as a means of reducing Russia's reach on its western frontiers and seeking to isolate it. Its former East European client states were admitted to NATO, as were the Baltic states.

We want to be sure that both NATO's territory and NATO soldiers are well protected. We need to make sure that there is the air defense and the air support for these forces in case that is necessary.

Can the wider West establish a global 'cyber NATO?' It would be difficult, but so, too, was the founding of NATO itself, which was called into being only after successive communist coups in Eastern Europe.

Bringing the Baltics into the alliance is not a zero sum game in which NATO's gain is Russia's loss, NATO's strength Russia's weakness.

The controversy over Russian gas deliveries shines a glaring spotlight on the risks involved in this industry. In an energy NATO, EU and NATO member states would guarantee one another assistance in obtaining energy, in any form, but without violence. Of course, we need an additional pipeline system for this purpose.

NATO was a wonderful idea. It was formed in 1949. We are as far away from NATO as NATO was when it was done in time from the presidency of Grover Cleveland.

We're committed to NATO. From the conversations I've already had with President [Donald] Trump over the phone, he has shown to me his commitment to NATO as well.

We continue to receive reports that the morale of some elements is being damaged, .. They are being affected by the impunity with which NATO aircraft can operate over Kosovo and Serbia, the accuracy and the growing knowledge.. of deployed locations. In summary, NATO has eroded the capability of Milosevic's war machine and it is being further reduced as each day goes by.

In Ukraine, there has never been a consensus behind NATO membership. Even Yulia Tymoshenko was noncommittal when she was still prime minister. Georgia under President Mikhail Saakashvili pursued a rather aggressive stance, which stood in the way of its NATO membership. Given both states' unique relationships with Russia, concerns were justified that NATO membership would trigger Russia's reasonable fears of encirclement.

Ever since I became NATO Secretary General, I have emphasised the need for enhanced political dialogue among the Allies. And I am glad that, over the last few years, we've had more regular, and increasingly constructive, political discussions in NATO on a wider range of issues.