Ronald D. Asmus is Executive Director of the Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels, Belgium. He has written widely on US-European relations and is the author of Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs from 1997 to 2000. He has previously worked as a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, Council on Foreign Relations, RAND and Radio Free Europe. Dr. Asmus has been awarded the U.S. State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award; the Republic of Poland’s Commander’s Cross; the Kingdom of Sweden’s Royal Order of the Polar Star; the Republic of Lithuania’s Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas; and the Republic of Estonia’s Order of the Cross of St. Mary’s Land; and the Republic of Latvia’s Order of the Three Stars.