NATO's role is that of a midwife of change. We are not satisfied with the status quo. We want to overcome it. The act of birth of a new system is autonomous. But it can best succeed with prudent and knowledgeable help.
Reform is in the shared interest of all, East and West alike.
Not only verbally but by deeds. We will assist them politically, economically and by arms control agreements to our mutual benefit. The bygone age of containment, of the Cold War, has afforded us the comforts of a paradoxical stability. The paradox of that age lay in the fact that this kind of stability was politically and morally untenable. It was not our intention to perpetuate it.