This house in Reykjavik hosted the October 1986 meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

For more than two decades, the world benefited from the peace and stability that followed. But history did not end here.

That order began to unravel in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia and occupied part of its sovereign territory. The failure to respond decisively paved the way for the illegal annexation of Crimea and parts of Ukraine in 2014, followed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

These events demonstrated that the current system of international law and collective deterrence proved incapable of preventing aggression, protecting the territorial integrity of sovereign states, or imposing timely and decisive punishment on the aggressor.

A security system that cannot prevent aggression, protect sovereign states, or punish the aggressor has failed its fundamental purpose.

It is time to build a new European and global security architecture—one founded on credible deterrence, collective resolve, and the certainty that every act of aggression will bring swift, inevitable, and overwhelming consequences.