John Kerry: “I want to take a few minutes, if I may, to speak to the issue of the expansion. I have watched closely and participated…”

“I want to take a few minutes, if I may, to speak to the issue of the expansion. I have watched closely and participated closely as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and I have a number of different thoughts about the place we find ourselves in now with respect to this first Eastern European expansion of new democracies to NATO --first Eastern European, obviously, since 1949. I think most Americans who follow this kind of topic very closely are somewhat surprised by the level of the debate, the nature of the debate over the past week, sort of interrupted as it was for a period of time, and also by the seeming lack of significant concern in the country about this. There is, obviously, in the past weeks a sense by many of the pundits watching this who have observed it and pointed it out that, given the momentous nature of the transfer that is taking place, there might have been considerably more concern. Obviously, some of that concern has been heightened in the last weeks. Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say the American public is fundamentally relatively oblivious to the fact that we are extending NATO's geographic range and military commitments.”