Welcome to the President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States.

I'm Jim Lindsay, Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This week's topic is assessing the NATO summit.

With me to discuss the decisions reached at last week's two-day meeting of NATO countries in Vilnius, Lithuania, is Ambassador Evo Dahlder.

Evo is the chief executive of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

From 2013 to earlier this year, he was the Chicago Council's president.

From 2009 to 2013, he served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Evo has written widely and well not just on NATO, but on U.S. foreign policy, European security, transatlantic relations,

and national security affairs generally. His most recent article written for Politico is how to ensure a strong, independent Ukraine. And also, in the interest of full disclosure,

I will note that Evo and I have been friends

for three decades, and we have often written together. With that introduction, Evo, thank you

for joining me. Jim, it's always a pleasure to be on the show. So, Evo, let's begin with

the big picture. The NATO summit wrapped up last Wednesday.

Was it a success, a failure, or something in between?

It was a success. It's very hard to see that it was anything but that.

Think about the three audiences that really were the main purpose for this summit.

First, of course, the members of NATO themselves.

And with that regard, they came together united, demonstrating that whatever differences they may have, both domestically and among them, are overwhelmed by the need to be united when it comes

to confronting the threats that they face. We saw that Turkish president Erdogan came to the

summit a day early to lift one of the sticking points, Sweden's entry into NATO, and say,

you know what, I'm no longer going to block that. And that was one of the

indicators that everybody understood that being united was important. Similarly, they came together

...