 Good morning, and welcome to Hudson Institute. My name is Peter Rao. I'm a senior fellow here and director of our Center on Europe and Eurasia. And it's my absolute pleasure and privilege to welcome to the stage one of the big brains in German foreign policy, Thomas Baga. Thomas Baga has a long and distinguished career in the German federal foreign officer. He began when the capital was still in Bonn in the early 1990s in the Foreign Service in Germany, has had a variety of positions over the years, including most recently as ambassador