At the NATO summit in Vilnius, the United States allied itself with Germany, the greatest appeaser of the Western alliance. As a result, there were no breakthroughs in the decisions of the summit despite promising pronouncements going on for months. The overwhelming goal of the summit seemed to be the prevention of any possibility of escalation with Russia. This is a constant goal throughout the war. William Burns, head of the CIA, is regularly meeting with Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russian intelligence, to discuss escalation, or what Russians would consider escalation.