On the recordApril 28, 1998
I was once asked by a mother in a town meeting I had in Oregon why her son or daughter should put his or her life at risk for a Hungarian or Pole or Czech through the expansion of NATO. My answer to her was that the surest way not to put her son's or daughter's life at risk was, in fact, to expand NATO. It is a very troubled area in world history. In a tough neighborhood, good fences make for better neighbors. I have fought to expand NATO because I think to leave the vacuum, to leave muddled 'international speak' out there at the border was a mistake. I think if we did not expand NATO, and the worst kinds of scenarios you could construct actually occurred, we would be spending far more than $1.5 billion--whether Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were in NATO or not because I don't think this time we would stand idly by. I certainly hope we would not.
Source
govinfo.gov
