Thanks to Karen, thanks to Ivan. It’s great to be back at GMF. Karen, I miss you in government every day. But I know that you are bringing your energy and your vision and your creativity to an equally worthy institution, GMF. And it is a pleasure to be here for my first Transatlantic Trends since becoming Assistant Secretary. As I was about to say, it was terrific to see that a GMF alumna, Foreign Minister Mogherini delivered the report in Brussels. It seems like you have to do a stint in GMF if you want to accede to the highest levels of the EU these days.

We all consider this Transatlantic Trends report to be a report card on us, particularly those of us who are charged with protecting and defending this incredibly precious transatlantic relationship, the NATO relationship, the U.S.-EU relationship, the relationship from, as we used to say, Vancouver to Vladivostok and as we hope to continue to be able to say as we move forward.

You all will not be surprised that I am going to take the glass mostly full take on these statistics. First of all, I think the data bears it out. But second, that’s what we are paid to do. We are paid, as I said, to be good stewards of this relationship.

First and most importantly, I would argue that the desire among our populations for strong, resolute transatlantic leadership has rarely been higher. Seventy percent of Americans want strong EU leadership in the world. An increase of 13 percent since 2013. I’m going to take personal responsibility for that one. And a strong majority, 56 percent of Europeans want American leadership in the world, on par with 2010 which was one of the highest levels of European support for U.S. leadership in the history of the poll.

The numbers confirm what we in this room already knew, that a majority of Americans and Europeans want more transatlantic leadership, not less in today’s world, and I think the reasons for this are clear. And the numbers have only strengthened since the poll was taken in June.

Our security and our values, the bedrock of the bond that we have with each other are once again being tested. Rule of law, sovereign choice, peace and security and human rights are now threatened by revisionist [inaudible] powers, radical extremists, corrupt cronies in our midst and beyond. The key message, and I think it’s reflected in the data, is that the majority of Americans and Europeans now know that these things that we hold most dear -- our security, our way of life, our values -- are once again being challenged and they want their leaders both to stand up and to stand together in defense of all that we hold dear.

As with old polls, some of the data is a little contradictory. We should do it strongly in the NATO and the EU. We should do it independently. But one point is consistent. In a family of civilized democratic nations like ours, the stronger and more capable and more willing to act we are, whether it’s independently or whether it’s together, the better off we are. Whether it’s supporting Ukraine in her hour of challenge and need; whether it’s battling ISIL; promoting a revitalized security alliance; or strengthening our economies, this poll supports the conclusion that the people of the U.S. and Europe are more determined and more committed to work together than in almost any time in our recent memory.

Solid majorities on both sides of the Atlantic as Ivan has pointed out, see NATO as essential to their countries’ security. In both the U.S. and Europe the perception of NATO’s importance is trending upward. Even in Turkey the trend lines show renewed recognition of NATO’s centrality to their national security.

The data also shows increasing support for the EU, as I said, on both sides of the Atlantic. Across the board, from Germany to Greece to the U.K., a majority of Europeans see membership in the EU as beneficial, which contradicts somewhat the anecdotal data we thought we had after the EU elections and the strong showing of anti-EU parties. But the polling says something different and this polling was taken in June.

Support for the EU in the U.S. has also increased and I think this reflects the good work we’ve done together as a U.S.-EU community, particularly on Ukraine and standing up to Russian aggression. And in Turkey a majority would welcome EU membership, an important signpost for the EU’s continuing ability to attract countries to membership even in the aftermath of the Eurozone crisis.

I’m particularly heartened to see that one reason why Europeans perceive EU membership as a good thing is because of the role that the EU plays as a community of democracies. For decades the appeal of EU enlargement has helped young democracies transform, promoting principles like media freedom, minority rights, rule of law, strong public institutions and open spaces for civil society to flourish. It’s as important today as it has ever been for us to protect all of those things including in our own space.

And as Ivan pointed out, we are able to move forward with our strong transatlantic response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine because our publics support what we are doing with the sanctions policy and they support a sovereign democratic independent Ukraine that wants to be closer to Europe. Those numbers have only strengthened as well since the shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner and Russia’s direct intervention in Ukraine.

At the NATO summit last week leaders spoke eloquently about the challenges that we face today both from our south and from our east to the democratic world order, challenges to international law, to state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the liberal values on which our transatlantic community is based. And they took concrete actions which we must now implement. NATO’s 28 leaders in Wales resoundingly endorsed a work plan that demonstrates our readiness to, as the communique says, “act together and decisively to defend freedom and our shared values of individual liberty, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.”

We launched the Readiness Action Plan to maintain the strong reassurance that we are providing on land, sea and air to our eastern allies and to adapt NATO’s long term posture to respond to challenges posed by Russia and by events in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. We pledge together to stop the downward slide in defense spending and to put all members back on the track towards a two percent defense target.

We also created an Enhanced Partnership Program for NATO’s most capable partners—the “Gold Card,” as Karen and I dubbed it colloquially when we first began working on it more than a year ago together.

And also, most importantly, we set out a Defense Capacity Building Initiative to ensure that NATO can [inaudible] and strongly continue to export defense capacity building and training to partners around the world who face security challenges of their own. This will be particularly important for our partners across the Mediterranean who are facing threats from ISIL and other extremists in their midst.

These must not be simply political promises that evaporate in weeks. They have got to be made real now by the choices our nations make and the resources that we commit to them. They must reflect a renewed sense of unity and action to invest, defend and fight for the liberal, democratic, peaceful world that our citizens want and deserve and the Europe whole, free and at peace we’ve been working for more than 20 years to build together.

Playing our full role as global leaders also requires that we protect and advance the sources of our strength at home— our own democracies and our own prosperity. This means completing the ambitious comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that we have set ourselves out to do, to deliver more jobs, more growth, and more prosperity to all our citizens. It means shoring up a secure, robust, independent European energy market, and it means rooting out the cancer of corruption that is eating away at our livelihoods, and our democracy and our security in too many parts of our own states.

President Obama said it best last week during his stop in Tallinn. “As free people, as an Alliance, we will stand firm and united to meet the tests of this moment.”

The numbers that we see in this GMF poll today indicate that our citizens support strong leadership, they support strong measures and actions, and they will pay for those things to defend the world order that favors freedom, to defend all that we have built in our own societies and that we stand for in the world together.

Thank you to GMF, for once again demonstrating that our community is strong, but that we’ve got a lot of work to do together.