Transatlantic relations after changing political elites
Pavol Demeš
The context of NATO and Slovakia show that for both Slovak political elites and public, being a member of NATO is on one hand an enormous achievement but on the other hand it brings enormous challenges since we are members of this Transatlantic Alliance. NATO will celebrate soon sixtieth anniversary and there are many pressing fundamental challenges which previous panel addressed so eloquently and from various angles. In this panel we are supposed to look at broader issues related to transatlantic relations especially after elections in the United States which not only Americans but those of us in Europe and others all over the world are somehow considering historical that after eight years of presidency of George Bush, who lived through very complicated post 9/11 period and was engaged with numerous shifts in American foreign and domestic policies, that now Barack Obama is associated with many issues called new/renewed, so there are numerous things which are in a way hopes but at the same time question marks. What we would like to address in this panel are exactly these open issues related to transatlantic relations after changes in the United States, the eve of sixtieth anniversary of NATO but this year we will have also changing European politics, new European parliament, Comission will change. This will be the year of changes but at the same time year of reflections, sixtieth anniversary of NATO, twentieth anniversary of the Fall of Berlin wall and of the bipolar world.
We have four excellent panellists. On my right two Americans, on my left two Europeans. I am creating slight transatlantic divide between two of them. We have Martin and Marcin, we have John and Scott. Both of them will first answer two questions which I will post to them and then we will open it to your questions and comments, we would like to make this post lunch session as much interactive as possible. Since we are going to tackle issues of transatlantic relations after changing the political elites, mostly we are thinking of changes in White House. I thought that it would be useful first if two gentlemen, John Hulsman, who is now in German Council on Foreign Relations but John is well known from Think Tank Community since he worked in Heritage CSIS, commented foreign policy issues in numerous media across the Atlantic. I would ask John first to take on this question: “What are the expectations on new transatlantic relations after changes in White House?” After him I would ask Lieutenant Colonel Scott Ruther who is retired from US Military, who unlike very few of us in this room what Desert Storm and Iraqi battlefield look like. He was not writing so much about that but in his twenty years old carrier in US Military he has achieved numerous awards, rewards and now he is retired working with BAE Systems. He was commenting, writing, chairing numerous sessions of similar nature and is serving on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations. After that two Europeans for whom Barack Obama is not their president but since we are members of Transatlantic Alliance and Barck Obama is soon coming to Europe, I would like to ask Martin Butora, who is leading analyst in this country, former ambassador of Slovakia to the United States in critical period when Slovakia’s destiny was shaped and Martin was there when all NATO agenda was being discussed and when we needed to win the support of Congress. So Martin has very deep knowledge of this topic, both as analyst and diplomat. And then Marcin Zaborowsky, who is now in European Institute for Security Studies in Paris. Marcin is Pole who is classically European analyst, who went through multiple positions, wrote extensively spoke both in Europe and in the United States about transatlantic relations, security studies etc.
“How do you see the transatlantic relations after January 20th?”
John C. Hulsman
I remember being here in a more heroic period when we were trying to get Slovakia into NATO, which was one of the real highlights of my carrier and it is always good to come home on a way. What are expectations? Well, I think a short answer if I were doing a pity kind of American briefing would be: They are too high! I have read a piece of Italian saying: “Despite what you may think, Barack Obama does not walk on water.” This is going to be a real challenge. The great news about Obama is also the parole about Obama: “He is going to agree with you.” He is going to say: “I think the world is multilateral and multipolar and we must coordinate more, and we must work through international institutions and we must coordinate policy together at every level and we must come up with common views on as much as humanly possible. All this will be music to the ears of Europeans. But then will come the sting on the scorpion’s tail, and you have to do a hack of a lot more. Because the years under Bush were an excuse in many ways for those in Europe to say I did not like the administration, it thought it too unilateral, too neoconservative, I just do not agree with their policies. I did not like the look of him very much. I mean it could have been that basic, but the bottom line is an excuse not to think in the policy terms. And what do I mean by policy terms. Let us be quite specific in what we are saying. It means to solve a specific problem, using specific mechanisms over period of time with a strategy and a specific outcome. Not to talk about it as the Germans do quite much, but let us talk about the real world slightly more. And the danger is that Obama is going to agree. There is no hiding; you can watch American policy like a movie, passively. I like it, I do not like it. It moved me, it did not move me. Much will be demanded. Let me give you just a couple of examples.
Guantanamo Bay. It is already happened. Obama did what every European was dreaming that he might do. He said we will begin the process of closing the bays. Hoora! And then he said, and we do not want sixty harden cases that we do not have trial material for to be wandering the streets of Bratislava this afternoon and as such we need help with you taking them because we can not send everyone home to the places where they would be tortured, that would be wrong. Do not you agree? And if the Germans look at their shoes and do nothing, this will be a problem. The Europeans as a collective do not come up with a common policy on dealing with this. Same like the Portuguese were forthright about doing things and the Germans were somewhere not. If you want involvement in the world, you have to put forward wherewithal and ideas. Otherwise you will not have involvement. That would be the sting on the tail on all these issues.
Afghanistan. Same thing. We are opened to a changing strategy. The bottom line will be: we may coordinate a common policy that involves linking much more closely ISF the military means and civilian use, the whole territory put up high risk high heal projects in hearts and minds and we will say to the Germans: doing all this we now need troops in the south, guarding the north is no help at all, by the way you did not pacify it, nor did the NGO community The CIA and particularly ruthless group of Warlords did, who by the way have local legitimacy. Welcome to the problems of the real world. We will say about Iran bombing would be a mistake and that means you have to be much tougher to change the molest capabilities on economic sanctions, particularly relating to investment freeze. We do not have time for sanctions to work. So torch your bank in the high of the worst economic crisis in the memory. This has to stop funding the Iranians. But if you do not want the military bombing, you will have to do far more than you have done. This is the complexity of the real world diplomacy and policy. And I hear no one talking about it.
Scott E. Rutter
I am honoured to be here in the presence of many distinguished guests here. My comments are going to be straight from the heart. As we know, in combat and in direct engagements many soldiers lose their lives. I had the honour to command the Task Force 27 in the initial attack into Iraq. Nine hundred of my soldiers were present, executed their missions and executed magnificently. I understand the horrors of war, the death, the shock. I lost ten soldiers and then forty were seriously wounded and then moved and then marched to Bagdad.
As we transition from conventional operations into stability or security operations we recognize the need for us to work together. With the groups that are within Iraq with the inter-agencies that were provided there in order for us to blend them in and help to provide a solution in order to stabilize Iraq. Things have changed. When I went back as a news reporter in 2004 and 2005 and witnessing the battles, those areas we have seen on the news we have recognized the need for the integration of soldiers working with the local community with the law enforcement. The rules of engagement have changed in this world. A symmetrical warfare is throughout the Middle East. We have realized that it is not necessarily the enemy that is directly in front of you. It is an individual or it is targets inside the human population. How do we deal with that local communities how do we address that how do we understand the second and third order affects that we make when we decide to make on footbridge across the Euphrates. What happens to that store down the original bridge that had original crossing side. How do we deal with that from a tactical level? These are the areas that I will focus on today on this discussion.
Today’s soldier and this generation, the generation between the ages eighteen and twenty-five is unbelievable. Focused and determined, as quick as young soldiers engage the enemy was as quick as the medics went to render aid. As it was evolving in front of me that I witnessed, I recognized that this generation deserves to be led and to be focused in order to accomplish the mission. Many of you may say whether it is right or wrong, to be in the Middle East and in Afghanistan, but the job is ours. To pave the future. To work with the local areas, to train and develop the partnerships that we need within the coalition, within the NATO as well as the United Nations. When we commit, it is more than providing soldiers. It is economic, it is diplomatic, it is information. All those condition setters in order to allow young soldiers on the ground when the time is there and when the turns fails, when we put up those soldiers and they are well trained and they are organized, it is not showing up to the battlefield, it is setting the conditions before we get there. Training. Interoperability between forces. Working command post exercises, exchanges that happen well before the time that we put soldiers in harms way, that we have within our power, within ourselves as countries in order to make that commitment right now. It is more than words, it is deeds, it is focus. The next time we put soldiers, men and women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, that are not executing combat operations for the first time in direct combat. There are plenty of ways in order to prevent that, to work with that and to develop them so it is for understanding of the full spectrum of operations. Soldiers today or in a three hundred and sixty degree battlefield, it is not as clear cut as it was in the past, in World War II waves going in D-Day. The decisions that are being made by these young man and women affect cross the world and affect the entire campaign. Thank you.
Martin Bútora
First of all, let me tell you that I always feel honoured and humble, if I have an opportunity to share the foreword with a man in a uniform who has been doing his best with his deepest heart and devotion. And I am also glad that so young boys and girls, young people who practically put this conference together and I want to thank them for organizing this Globsec.
First, let me reflect on what was said on panel in the morning, very briefly. Someone mentioned very old and for all of us very well known phrase at the beginning of NATO: “Americans in, Soviets out and Germans down!” Visegrad was extraordinary successful, it was that miraculous period when gradually one country after another were able to get in. It was again Americans in, Soviets out (because we still had the troops) and instead of Germans we could see the national populists – national populists down. We succeeded entering the new phase, new period, new epoch. In this period, sixty years after establishment of NATO and twenty years after the Fall of Berlin Wall, all three elements are under question mark. What to do to keep Americans in? What to do to preserve Russians out in that sense that they would not create their special field of influence? And what to do in times of economic crisis, simply not to face the real deep and serious backlash? In case of reviving not only the national social populism, isolationism, nationalizing policies etc. Secondly, Robert Shepherd touched it a bit; I think this might sound provocative, and my comment will be a sort of complementary to what we heard in the first presentation. The US and EU, the Americans and Europeans, they simply do not talk to each other sufficiently and in an appropriate way. There is no time, there are no platforms but this would change. We have to think about how all possible levels of such debate should be achieved, it should obviously concern on hot issues like Afghanistan, Iran and Middle East, energy Russia etc. and appropriate policies. Even this is not simple. For instance at this time we have these three teams in the US which are dealing with Afghanistan/Pakistan. There is Joint Chief of Staff, there is National Security Council, there is a State Department Team, then there is General Petrews, there is a special representative Dick Holebrook. It will not be that easy to coordinate at all. We have Davos, we have Krynica oriented at economic issues. There is Munich – security issues. There is Brussels Forum. But maybe we need another forum, systematically conducted, systematically prepared which would really deal with civilization issues and values. Which would, as Robin put it, improve the quality of thinking. We need not only to think big, as it was in times of EU and NATO enlargement but we have to think deep. The debate is important also because of the crisis. It is simply here. It is not just a buzzword, it is reality and it will be reality. But it can even substantially change political landscapes and horizons.
As for the transatlantic relationships Europeans should be at least prepared to come with their positions to talk with Americans very seriously about their issues which I mentioned. In case of Russia, NATO, Middle East and Balkan.
NATO. Even if we all understand that out-of-area missions, non Article 5 operations, for the countries, especially for the newcomers, Article 5 is still an issue. If we listen to our friends from Poland or Estonia, we simply hear another tone and we should and we should be sensitive to this tone.
Russia. We understand that the US does not need that much the Europeans to achieve the contract or treaty on nuclear materials but on all the other issues the EU is equally important. Any possible future agreement with Russia should not be achieved at the expanse of the Europeans. Let it be Ukraine, let it be energy issues, let it be frozen conflicts or other sensitive issues as for Russia.
The Middle East. Here I see that the relationships could improve, if the Europeans are able to achieve a more efficient assistance to Palestinians, for instance to prevent unfortunately repeatedly cases that European money have ended in problematic hands and were used for problematic purposes.
Finally, Balkan. It is now much more European responsibility, having in mind not only Bosnia but the whole conflict region of Balkan. Even if we are more responsible and we are trying to achieve something it would be a mistake if the US would totally disappear, and if it would disappear from the plans and strategies of our American partner and friends.
Marcin Zaborowski
I wish I could speak with passion about the future of transatlantic relationship. I cannot but I am optimistic. There are various reasons for my optimism. The transatlantic relationship has actually considerably improved during the second presidency of George W. Bush. Obviously there have been a lot of improvement gone on the official level. Agreeably the public opinion has not really noticed and has not moved as much as the politicians have done. But it has moved a little bit. In 2008 public opinion in Europe and its perception of United States has been considerably better than in 2003. Now with the election of Barack Obama, who was supported by about eighty per cent of Europeans, if I am not mistaken. For this reason to believe that that public opinion would shift with the certain constraint that the politicians in Europe have had concerning closer cooperation with the US for example in Afghanistan may be not exactly gone away but maybe more of a factor. We have seen Barack Obama in the first days of his presidency inching towards European positions on the whole host of issues. Israeli conflict, climate change, Guantanamo, Iran, Iraq. In all this issues Barrack Obama has moved to more possible extend than it was expected and faster than it was expected. I was one of these people who has tried to play down the expectations and saying there would be more continuity than change. I am surprised by the pace of change so far. What sort of issues are there? Clearly the issue that has been identified here in the previous panel and in this panel is Afghanistan. This really will be in his first years of the presidency a defining issue for this relationship. I am not entirely sure that we in Europe are fully prepared to grasp with that. It has been argued for some time that in April Barack Obama will come to NATO summit and will ask for more troops. I am no longer sure that it will happen because I think he has already heard enough. If he asked for that, it might not be affective. Some member states will contribute packets of increases. France will contribute 300 more, UK maybe from 300 to 1000, Poland additional 600 but is ….what his administration would have expected as a result of that I do not think that an official request would be really on the table. However, a request will be probably made for a contribution to a greater civilian presence in Afghanistan. And that is something that Europeans have argued for a very long time. We have always argued that the strategy Afghanistan which is putting the military aspect at the very head is not working, is not delivering results. There needs to be more stress on governance, on development etc. If we have a response from Washington saying: OK, we agree with you, what is it that we can do in that dimension? We are entirely prepared to respond in kind. There are some debates now in EU about offering European Union their own PRTs, from five to ten EU PRTs for Afghanistan. There was some talk about offering twinning monitoring programs, which would be similar to what we have in the framework of European Neighborhood Policy. But I have not heard a clear strategy really, an alternative strategy. This is something to be watched and I am not entirely optimistic at this point about European response there.
To the United States I would have two things to say, as regards the relationship with the European Union as the organization. The EU is not just the three big member states. And that is something that people in Obama’s administration seem to focus on to a very considerable extend. That was also seen in July when Barack Obama was to travel the whole Europe. Or was it just the three big member states? Who are the foreign ministers who are listening to in Washington not presidencies as it does everybody in the world, but the three big member states? The EU has its own structures, has its own system, it should be respected. It has its High Representative, it has its presidencies and that is something Washington should grasp with and not just continue perceiving the opinion as a trade block. Consequently, the next ambassador to the European Union should not be a person who just deals with trade and economics as it has been to this point. The message number two is that clearly bilateral relationship between the United States and the European Union. The bilateral relationship between them two has gone gradually in importance in the recent years. The portfolio of this relationship has enlarged to number of security issues including Iran. Iran is really the issue which is not done by the NATO, it is really done on bilateral basis between the EU and the US. And now this area will grow to issues like climate change. Institutionally, that bilateral relationship does not work very well. Some proposals for reforming institutions for US-EU relationship should be put on the table possibly in June during the EU-US bilateral summit.
Pavol Demeš
Barrack Obama is coming soon to Europe, very likely he will attend NATO Summit, 60th anniversary celebration, commemoration but also looking ahead, bringing probably some new vision, new ideas, where NATO should go and how NATO sees US in contemporary world. If you could speculate and now none of you work for governments, you can speculate. What do you think will be key messages Barack Obama may bring to upcoming NATO Summit. Will there be disagreement between what he is bringing and between what Secretary General of NATO will be saying?
John C. Hulsman
It will be some disagreement but now I think the challenge will be. The problem is not that the Americans are moving quickly, the problem is that the Europeans’ responding. We are whistling about the graveyard here if we think there is a tiny problem in Afghanistan. It is the number one issue that Obama has articulated that matters to him. The reason that Secretary Gates was kept is because they agree on broad strategy to move troops out of Iraq over the period of time to be determined between two and move them in for a search for some kind of Afghanistan. And to say yes of course we need a civil military coordination and everyone needs to agree that it needs to be done far more effectively than it has been done. It is just the smoke screen. And at the end of a day after this agreement we need more troops and the answer is “gosh, do not ask us for our troops do not ask us to do difficult things,” no alliance survives if it does not solve problems.
I have been doing this for ten years and we are still talking about the same things. I can do first twenty-seven moves of our disagreement on cause of all. In my head like St. Augustine, how many angels can you put on a head of a pin? But until you solve policy problems check things off. The alliance, well, going to the meetings, we will go to young glamorous European summits, make a good living. But the bottom line is that we are not solving the problems. And of course it will still go but it will not matter. Obama is looking for every multilateral forum he can find to work with as many people as he can find right now to solve the global governance problems. That is the good news, that is the big headline. I truly believe that. But to solve the problem, not to siege it for twenty years from now, maybe we will have a new forum. And solve it then. What we need is a new structure. What we need is not a new structure, not new perceptions, new ideas to solve policy problems. Without that no alliance will survive nor should it survive in the era that we find ourselves in. The good news is that the door is opened. Obviously working with Europe means paramount in whatever form we do. And here I do not agree. Look, if the EU can solve certain problems, where would it put European Union. We will all be studying diagnostics about the forum of European political governance. That is your problem. One of the striking things working on me in Washington over the last ten years is that the dialogy argument is gone. The right wing of which I was a member was, the EU was trojan horse designed to challenge America. Nobody thinks that any more. The left wing thought that was a wonderful thing to copy. Nobody thinks that anymore. Nobody think that EU is a federal utopia, nobody thinks that it is out to subvert us. It is neither of those things. We just want help in any form that you can help us in. I would argue about Iran an issue I worked on. It is not the EU that is running the policy, it is EU3. It is the three big countries in Europe with Mr. Solana coordinating. But let us not fantasize on how the European Union is in charge of this. The only reason that matters is that we have Germany, Britain and France sitting in a room together coordinating. Which are the great powers within Europe. We have to talk candidly about these things. On trade issues it is the EU in deed. They are the superpower and talk to them there. But that is not true across the border. I mean this is not a show game. We have to be serious about what we do. What Obama will offer is that this global governance notion multilaterally. But what he wants is policy help and it does not mean agreeing with the United States. I want to make that clear. If policy alternatives are put to us that are better, witness Gordon Brown that the financial crisis on the first go round. Everybody thought that was better so everyone does his best practises and adopted what he did. Not because some glorious view about multilateralism but because it worked better. Then what Paulson had proposed. That is how you influence the United States. Have better ideas and of course we will rush to adopt them. That is the good news. But you have to have those good ideas and you have to wherewithal. But frankly we are whistling past the graveyard here.
Scott E. Rutter
Staying in my line again, reflexion of my personal thoughts. I believe our Commander in Chief will stay the course, stay the the commitment, remain focused in interoperability for us to share the information across boundaries. Technology, information sharing across the borders, commercial and government industries working collectively together in order to provide the best possible solutions to our war fighters as they are working hand in hand on a military application of global security and the importance of lessons learned that we have learned from the United States as I was abroad in various other campaigns collectively brought to the table to share the information. Lots of technologies across the border as I witnessed from 2003 and then had an opportunity to go back in 2005. The amount of cognisance and surveillance, vehicle systems that are round there in order to provide conditions setting or shaping operations to the soldiers before they put individuals in harms way, the amount of information being shared across boundaries. The quickness and rapid response of industries is witnessed in Afghanistan, armoured vehicles that were sent there in order to protect soldiers, situational awareness applicants that are being provided with the multiple forces in order to provide the interoperability and to increase the combat capability and tightliness in order to engage the enemy and focus on getting the job done. Focus is a key effort. I think our Commander in Chief as he transitions from his ideas in Iraq of departure in 2010/11 time frame. Shifts that are right a little bit because of the president and the Commander of Chief understanding and listening to soldiers and leaders on the ground and quickly transitioning to a full response in Afghanistan.
Martin Bútora
It is not so easy to elaborate, to speculate on Obama speech. I would be very brief. We are somehow thinking on three levels, three dimension of such a possible speech. Yes, I think he is deeply devoted and convinced about the necessity of issues like multilateralism and global governance. At the same time I think he could show in his speech and I believe he will show it that this can be combined with the special role of NATO as the alliance, with its history, with its track record, with its unique achievement in uniting Europeans and Americans and challenging both, the past horrors and the Soviets and now operating at the global scale. This is not just one of all the possible multilateral tools. Again emphasizing a very special and very unique role of this alliance.
Secondly I think it could be a combination of a motivation speech with some outline of policies, probably not so detailed as our friend has suggested. Not just staying without content, not just staying totally and completely without policies, but showing examples of policies which have already worked if they were conducted and executed properly and could work if all the participants do their best and contribute.
Could you imagine that he would talk not only in the perspective of tools for years, maybe in a perspective of a decade? Because a lot has changed. I think his story and his background, very multicolour vision of the American president, I do not mean the family ties but everything that has occurred at that occasion is somehow suggesting approaching new era he could also use broader time reference than just two years, it could be a decade and finally combining all this he really could return to what might sound to some analysts or political observers or journalists as almost a phrase, he might repeat that: “Yes, we can.” We can change the world if we proceed in a coordinated and cooperated way to achieve the goals which he was suggesting.
Marcin Zaborowski
Before I respond to this point, very brief response to John’s comments. John, obviously you have reputation in Europe for announcing the Europeans was dead three years ago but I can understand your scepticism here. Look, when it comes to Iran for example, I think the role of Javier Solana is much underestimated. Not only does he represent the three big member states but also he plays very major coordinating role between the three of them and they have very different positions. The French are actually now at the point when they are very sceptical about the policy of the engagement with Iran whereas the Germans have called for that for many years. So you have the French being on the right of Obama and the Germans being on the left. It is quite a spectrum really there. To try to bang these heads together and to come up with the unified position is what Solana has been doing for years.
Now about delivering results in Afghanistan. Talking to the Big Three. What that you are going to get from Germans? I am sorry but they are not going to wake up yet. Definitely not until the October elections. From the French you may get the additional 300 troops, maybe. The Brits are extended to beyond way capacity. They have already invested and done so much. And they have been doing it for number of years. They simply are not in a position to offer that much more. These poor capacities are there for example in Spain. It is the Poles and the Dutch who have operated in Afghanistan. I am not focusing on the Big Three will and if it delivers results.
I think that Obama’s message will be too fold. And it is not that difficult to predict. I mean on the first issue on the table - Afghanistan, as I said before. I am not quite sure that the formal request for more troops will be put on the table because they would know before whenever it could be answered in kind or not. But there will be a request for engagement of any sort in Afghanistan. We need to be prepared for that and I am not quite sure we are. The second issue will be Iran. Here what we can get from certain people is for example what Gordon is saying: “Why do not we strike a new bargain now, we will talk with the Iranians but you will sanction them.” This is not exactly a kind of the bargain Europeans are looking forward to. We will need to coordinate our positions before the Summit.
Robin Shepherd
France cannot provide for this reason, Germany because it has the elections and so on. Frankly the Americans and Brits since we both have a lot of soldiers in Afghanistan, sorry that is not good enough. That is not good enough to say, I know you are saying it on behalf of what your countries think. But it is not good enough, it is not the sign of seriousness, in terms of getting the job done, in terms of delivery. To say, “well, there is election coming up, so, you guys are on your own in Afghanistan, maybe in six months time you could get back to us, we may have a better response but do not hold your breath.” To come back to the other point about the seriousness or otherwise the European Union as a foreign policy player, I debated with John about this meet EU mission in Washington and the Americans should pay attention to it. It is kind of, you know, if a supermodel walks into the room, the men do not have to be told to look. The United States is not ignoring the European Commission in Washington out of big headedness. It is simply not treating it in the manner it treats big capitals in Europe because the EU cannot deliver but the Brits, the Germans, the French can or cannot but ultimately you can persuade them and if they will agree, they can deliver. Ultimately, that is a question of delivery. European Union can deliver a lot in terms of trade policy and that is not to be underestimated. That still fuels within the realm of hot power according to nice definition. Ultimately it comes down to military forces, the European Union has to prove it works because it has not done so yet and the Americans thus say they do not ignore Europe because they do not like Brussels. They just want a better delivery. If they do not get it they. When we get there, they will take EU more seriously.
Ortwin Hennig
The panel seems to be starting from the assumption that more troops will be the solution to the Afghan problem. Let me question this basic assumption – for the moment I do not exactly know how many troops the NATO has in Afghanistan right now (70 000 round about). The Russians when they had to leave they used to have round about 130 000 troops. The British at the end of the 19th century with their troops did not manage to militarily defeat Afghanistan and here we are talking about couple of more thousand NATO troops. Why are we here so sure that more troops here indeed will be solution to the problem?
Milan Ježovica
I am inspired by what both Martin and John were telling us about thinking more deeply and of course about providing new ideas. As we look at NATO which is turning 60 in April we can see that for 60 years NATO has been strong and solid pillar housing the roof of the free and prosperous and when we look especially at the last 20 years NATO has proven that it is capable of both thinking big and deep. First undoing the shameful legacy of Yalta and overcoming the division of Europe and offering to those who wanted to be free and prosperous to come to join. But you know that at the age of 60 you can be either old or wise. So the question is: Is NATO when turning 60 old or wise? What will be the narrative after these 20 successful years? What can we offer to the member countries and to the world? What are we going to tell the world. Who we are? What we want?
Scott E. Rutter
On the first question we manage the troops even the speed, how fast we going to do it rather then the tempo, the pasty, the amount of information collection, the amount of time that is needed for collecting information to develop a decisive point in order to focus on your combat power. It is not measured by the many troops, it is measured by the result of collective organization fighting collectively in order to get the mission done, focus and understanding the commanders and tent at the tactical level in order to have the job done, work and cross boundary operations with your coalition partners and setting the conditions before we get in the battle to have that interoperability.
The answer is not necessarily the amount of troops but the specific mission of troops, the expertise that various countries within NATO bring to the table from their past experiences and combat, from a support role or from other capabilities that they bring and the importance of us all working together – the commitment, the result, the focus and the determination is the need for us to move forward in Afghanistan.
John C. Hulsman
Let us think of it from Obama's point of view for a minute on Afghanistan. He says: I agree with you on Kyoto and we need to work on post-Kyoto protocol because he will. He says I am going to close the Guantanamo Bay – that is what you want and we gonna talk about the torture in the army field. But then we want to talk about something that is important to us - the commitment and focus.
Is key on Afghanistan many commanders if not most think that we have understaffed that war if not overstaffed Iraq and certainly more troops are not the entire solution. I think of German and Dutch to get them away from the fact that it is part of the solution. No one is saying we do not need a new policy and new coordination, we do, but to say we do not need more troops on the ground neither - talk to the people there, most of them will tell you, we do. And it brings the ball across the court back to the Germans. It was mentioned that this was the problem and we get the usual excuses: “We have a difficult history.“ We have come so far in the last 50 years and I get a recitation on the Treaty of Rome onward.
The thing that is missing on this discussion is timing and it was eluded to. There is a limit to the amount of time that these problems have to be dealt with. Iran is the great example. We have a year, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less but not indefinite amount of time to coordinate policy. Frankly what we have done up to now in coordinating policy is a joke. No one will change its calculations over what to do based on the sanctions of the UN. That is not a serious deterrent. If you going to take the military option of the table (and by the way as I would because it is all kind of strategic downsides) we do not have to be firm or tough or creative about selective sanctions around investment. Which means we have to be far tougher than we have been and in a very short period of time or we do not solve the problem. Then we have the existential Iranian choice.
If you do nothing the NPT is dead and you have an arms race in the Middle East. Ask our Turkish allies and NATO when they say if your enemies can get a bomb why cannot your friends have a bomb.
I Witnessed the Egyptians saying with the sphere of Islam and the toughest army in the region we would also like a nuclear weapon if the Iranians have one. The Saudies go and buy them and you have nuclear brinkmanship in the most unstable region of the world and that is the „good option!“
So to avoid these two terrible options we have to be far tougher very quickly. That is the policy and I am not making it that way. That is what we have to do for serious.
As for Afghanistan if Obama gives way on all these points and has nothing to show for it but German excuses about how difficult their election cycle is and how difficult their history is and that 70% of their people are against any foreign policy involvement anywhere (which is true)... Anyway FDR had the same problem in 1936. The US were passing the neutrality acts. He saw what was coming, he educated people (Kissinger book on its fantastic over 5 year period) to prepare them. That is what leaders do. They do not hide behind public numbers. When you talk to German parliamentarians privately and off the record they are utterly aware of this problem but they hide behind every possible excuse for non action.
We have to be a lot more clear that if they want to play a role in the world, if they want their view to be out there they must do more, this linking not be severed.
Martin Bútora
I would like to touch two of the comments. What is the role as for NATO? To move from becoming a path of the problem to a path of the coalition of actors bringing about the change. And there are local actors, there are international actors, there are economic actors, there are many of them. Here is the well know and old instruction. We have been able to achieve some success because of applying of „3 C“: communication, cooperation, coordination. Those 3Cs are extraordinary important and I would add „3Ts“ to it. Rather what we should prevent, rethink or what we should be aware of. It means to really prevent talibanisation not only of the Afghanistan but of other areas. Then to rethink the concept of training, all dimensions of training local people and then to be aware of time. The third T is time.
This is a part of long debate but to answer the question of the narrative it could be: In the absence of other efficient organisations, NATO because of its history and its capacity has simply the duty to become an organisation that is not about security not about military but which has also large mission. I think this should be a basis of certain narrative and then we could go on and talk about the structure of it.
Marcin Zaborowski
With Afghanistan we do forget about very important factor here which is a public opinion. The public opinion in the United States continues to be supportive of that operation, the public opinion in Europe is not. And the support in Europe for the presence of our troops has been declining and in some states it is at very dramatic level. Now is some states that could be ignored e.g. in Poland. It has been ignored for some time. In Poland the public support for troops presence has been very low and nonetheless our presence was growing. In France it could also be ignored, but in Germany it cannot. Because of political system and because of what that would mean for German politics. And I am not trying to make any excuse here and I agree with you. It is not good enough but that is the way it is, it is the reality of politics. We can ask Angela Merkel to make a political suicide and go out and say: we gonna leave... and then SPD wins the elections and you have troops out completely. There is other reality here. Various political systems are constrained by different things e.g - the president, the Commander in Chief, has been constrained for many years from lifting the visas from Eastern Europeans because of Congress. This is also the political factor that we have to accept.
Now why this situation in Afghanistan is as it is? We are in it together but we look at it very differently. Here are two things – clearly this alliance of 11th of September in United States is very different than in Europe. Secondly we have to think about the origins of this war. We have to think about how it was conducted at the beginning. NATO offer to go together was rejected. And then we have war in Iraq that Europeans overwhelmingly opposed and as a result of that we have a kind of lukewarm European support and presence at very patchwork kind of way. Then you have all these PRTs which do not coordinate among themselves. We are in it but we are not in it the way we should have been. But it is not our fault. It is not only our fault. What we really need in Afghanistan is a new contract with completely new strategy. We need to get back to that and see what we need or how we can really work together on it.
Collin Namalambo
I am asking this question as a member of a country that is non NATO member. Does the opinion of the international community really matters when it comes to Iran? Mindful of the fact that the DG of IEA has on number of occasions said that there is no evidence to suggest that there is deviation of nuclear material into a military programme?
Miroslav Wlachovský
What do you think in general is the role of Europe in American foreign policy led by president Barack Obama vis-a-vis other continents and other regions in the world? Because there were several mentions since the beginning of the century that this is an Asia century. What is the role of Europe in overall American foreign policy?
Second question – we have mentioned Afghanistan as the issue of Transatlantic relations like 300 times during this panel but no one has mentioned the world economic crisis, financial crisis. What is the role of Europe and America as an engine of the world economy? Is the engine broken? There are prophets in these country and other countries that this is the end of capitalism and there was a prophet couple years ago saying that we are facing the end of the history. So what do you think about these prophets?
Oksana Antonenko
It seems that the most important relationship for the United States in the next several years will be the relation with China. There is no doubt that China is already funding big part of the US domestic economic package and of course will be funding US programmes in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere. There is no absolute certainty that they will continue in funding it and there are now growing signs that they might not for a variety of reasons. It could be said that Europeans now for a number of years have developed much more pragmatic and productive relationship with China that the US have done and it will be interesting to know what the panelist think. Kind of very much following previous questions of how the Europeans could within the context of the transatlantic relationship actually contribute to help to redefine this relationship. We all read Brzezinski article about this new ideal US-Chinese relationship which could be as the primary strategy in the world. Is there any way to make it more trilateral relationship? It is something that would certainly contribute both in solving global economic crisis.
And the second question is about G20. This seems to be a new mechanism emerging as definitely it seems that G8/G7 is dead for the time being and we are now in a new territory of G20. Is there an area where again the transatlantic relationship could help to built this institution further or is it actually not at all matter within this context?
John C. Hulsman
Back to Afghanistan, remember that we did this right. Europe agreed to this. It is not Iraq, we went to the international community. We went through the UN we gave the Taliban the chance to give up Al-Qaeda. We did not just start shooting everyone when we worked with locals we behaved proportionally.
We made a lot of mistakes but that is no an excuse not to live up to the commandments that were made. Because the reality is that Secretary General of NATO is quite right whether we like it or not. Credibility of NATO is on the line in Afghanistan. That is where we are. And for us just to say - I do not like everything you have done so I am not going to live up to my commitments is not remotely good enough for the future survival. Thriving of the elite that is what we all want. And I totally like your point for the new strategic kind of contract. That is very creatively for us to get out from under this so we need to work it out and it needs to be not something written down or treaty but privately discussed in NATO. That is what NATO does so well but no one brings up. NATO is a club house to coordinate differences as they get worse and to limit whats on. That is why they survived and thrived. That is a great example where we all should sit down and after this actually come up with a few basic points and then draw them to our leaders. That is a wonderful way out of this. Because what is also politics in a real world far more then German elections is that if Obama gets nothing for proposing this mouldy leather of world view the UN conservatives will crawl from whatever Iraq they hiding behind and say to guys like me: Why do you bother with Europe? Look what happens and at the end we accomplish nothing and we have to behave unilaterally. That is the last thing anybody on this panel particularly us want. So that is a great solution to that problem to begin to talk about that.
As for the future, yes, somebody finally begin to hit near the door what matters. The key strategic in period of our generation is how do we integrate the rising powers into the Euroatlantic norm space world. If we do that in the next 20 years we win. If we do not do that we live in a jungle because in 10 years we will not have the power to do that and set norms. Why would anyone agree to them? As we relatively decline and it is not just America who relatively declines. Look at the economic and employment numbers in Europe. Look at the structure on employment numbers. Look at the GDP ratio numbers which is far worse than in United States, look at the lack of dynamism. This is not good but we have got to deal with it. We have about 10 years to get this right collectively. Let us do that. Tha is what matters.
To point about G20 that is a great point. Why the international institution not work very well right now? Because they do not reflect power realities of 2009, they reflect power realities from 1945. This will make us all make choices. Benelux has a greater voting weight in the WB and the IMF then China. This does not pass the lab test anymore. Why would China agree to do this? We have to find new ways to engage them to get them involved. We have to look creatively to make this thing real G8 state. It can solve the problem. Not its fault, the world has changed. But we need to end this unbearable period. Your last point about the financial crisis. Obama the first 6 things he is going to do – are the economic crisis. If you look at the exit polling from the election the first 6 areas of 100 000 people poll were economic concerns of some kind or another. The best thing that president can do is to get them out of this crisis and return America to relatively economic prosperity for the rest of the world.
If he does that alone it will put him up on the rush more, that is fantastic. What this means by the way is - Hillary Clinton will be subcontracted running by foreign policy which explains why she resigns as a Senator when she could have been Senator forever. Because she has the power now in fact to conduct foreign policy. But that is the key point we are trying to fit to this. I would argue that this is a success of foreign policy engagement. I am no fan of the last administration but the last three have engaged China brilliantly.
The sticks are greater and the characters are greater for China to remain power. If you ask the former Under Secretary of Treasury who is the most helpful country right now for dealing with the economic crisis, he says China. They have the most to lose if the American consumers stop consuming. Who loses, export driven countries - Germany but particularly China. We have integrated 300 million new people in the middle class through the global economy. This is a tremendous success. They are important in economic system. They sure do not want to fail because they are out of the door and they know it. That is the greatest way to bring people a lot. Based on their interest, when we do not share values as we do with NATO. With the countries who we do not share values we need to talk a lot more about interest and this has been a great success. Europe has a role not to make it just bilateral but to engage. That is something the Europeans are good at - to engage them so no Chinese leader will ever be a revolutionary power precisely not because they are nice people but because it does not suit their interest. And in 20 years we will be there.
Scott E. Rutter
There are obviously plenty of lessons learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan that the European community and US should focus on, lessons learnt from that nation building. Having spent time on the border between North and South Korea for 2 years I understand that the North is about to implode. I think US realizes, North Korea as well as China also - here is the opportunity to gather the lessons learnt. I witnessed in Baghdad during that time as we transitioned from conventional force now to security of operations trying to establish a government order to maintain a momentum to bring life back to civilisation. If you can imagine what it is like in Iraq and imagine what it is like going to be in North Korea. Thousands of South Koreans follow to reintegrate themselves with family members to bring back 50 years of loss from the actual border and commitments that have not been made in the past concerning reuniting North and South Korea. In Iraq during my time the things that were reported were basically broken glass in museums that was the main highlight of what was on the evening news as compared to French embassy being completely devastated. What is announced on media that is what is going to excite the people actually listening.
At that time the broken glass at the museum was more news as compared to devastating of a specific embassy. Some of my soldiers and myself sort of wondered - so many good things happening right now compared to things that are getting reported. But getting back to China. I think there are lots of coalitions and military exchange we can do in order to accomplish that phase of the battle which a lot of times is not thought of. We think of conventional fight we do not think of asymmetrical fight and the human dimension, the human terrain, the structures that are involved. That is a common bond that we can work collectively from a military stand point with China and that is something that ourselves and the European community should take a loan to bear.
Marcin Zaborowski
I am very respectful of professor Brzezinski and all of it but I think he went a little bit too far on this one. Honestly, Europe might be boring. And obviously if president Sarkozy comes to Washington he does not pull as great crowd as president of China. Europe is just too predictable, it is not very exciting. Even a mayor of Thai Pei would pull greater crowd in fact. But on many major issues Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan - Where could the United States get any support from? Who they could really work with? It is still down to Europeans. Even on the issue of the predominance of economic link the amount of the trade which is done between the Europeans and the Americans and even in recent years is number of times greater than with China. The amount of foreign investment, whole American foreign investment in China is comparable with foreign investment in the Netherlands. I might be slightly wrong on the numbers but it could be somewhere in the region of that. It is deeply exaggerated I disagree with Oksana's point that this relationship has suffered in recent years. I think that Bush has actually handled China pretty well and one of the reasons is that he did not handle it he delegated it to the Trade Secretary and he has done good job with it. The first sound we heard form Obama's administration is for Geithner to come out and say that China has been manipulating the currency. If that becomes official, that means official procedure – going for Congress and the detriment to the relationship.
On the issue of G20 that is really the future for the opening of the international system and the Americans are more open here to integrate other emerging powers than Europeans are open to make the space for them. That is something that we in Europe have to face up to.
Martin Bútora
We all remember what sort of fascination was for the US at the end of last century Japan. Everyone was preoccupied with Japan. Japan was an emerging competitor sometimes even an emerging monster and the performance of American economy could not be compared to Japan. Obviously one can not compare China and Japan but I am just reminding that there is such a fashion. There is always such a country or a continent or region which becomes an object of fascination and I would like to remind you how it was in Japan and we know how it continues. As for China I would like to challenge one convention of wisdom. I agree with Marcin that that policy was relatively reasonable. I also feel some new tones in Timothy Geithners statement but at the same time all the projections in media are in a very deterministic way speaking of an incredible progress in China. But this might not be quite a case because of the ecologic situation and changing political landscape. If we project China we have this percentage of GDP and many other too deterministic and optimistic projections about China and they might appear to be a little bit more problematic that it is now. And that will make the Chinese more prepared to enter the cooperative patterns in the future.
I will simplify the issuer of Iran. The difference here is that if the US will proceed in communication and cooperation with other NATO members then in cooperation with EU and discussion with Russia and maybe together with some thinking about commitment of reduced warheads it will not be so easy for Iran simply not to offer something on their side. The good policy is to enter the partners to create a new coalition of those who are concerned with Iran. Once it will be a bigger coalition then if Iran really will not be able to politically and appropriately communicate then there might come time to think about the tougher sanctions. This is a good policy to involve more actors in dealing with Iran.
Amb. György Bánlaki
One of the most profound ideas heard today was the challenge for us to involve the emerging Asian giants into our value system over the next decade or two. I would like to return to this question and ask John: How do you see this play out in the real world? What kind of a process this would be? Are we going to tell the Chinese and the Indians that „Well, we know that between the two of you you have two and half billion people but we think really that going the individualistic way is the real path. Would it mean really that either we make them accept our rules or is it going to be a two way street and to what extent and how long that way should we be accommodating?
John Bartner
The British who are apparently still European would be very disappointed if Barack Obama did not ask for more troops on the ground. That is a fact. Afghanistan is gonna be for long term. Do you think that industry has responsibility to revive the support for the soldiers coming back? This could be a 10 year war. How will we look for employment opportunities. When the government make the commitment to support the US and the UK and the other countries in Afghanistan some day they have to pick up the human pieces, the tragedy. It is not just the body bags it is the survivors. And I would ask to think very carefully about that because at the end of the day if we want our governments to provide financially boiling world for industry to benefit that actually we have got the responsibility as well.
John C. Hulsman
Let me react to the statement that China does not matter all that much. It is the 3th largest economy in the world now. It holds more American treasury paper than any other country in the world. That is the fundamental link. They are buying our debt. They need to consume more, we need to save more. That is the fundamental global imbalance that is the heart of the crisis for end that will take decades to change those patterns. That is not enough to snap a finger and say let us legislate that. But that is the coordination that is vital in that sense. Those are the two outlines. They save too much paradoxically and we live 10% beyond our means a year. What you cannot do based on the mortgage prices going down and credit card debt. Think of that coming as next big problem. The FTA number - this is Dan Hamilton shell game. I like Dan but this is nonsense that Europe is the largest investor. Its true but it overlooks some facts as you know it is not spread remotely evenly. The British are buying large - overwhelmingly the largest foreign direct investor in US and we are in Britain. And that pumps this number up as the Britain of Europe and every way. The Dutch are very high but I think they are third. But then our FTA with Greece is not very high at all, with Germany it is not a size you would expect, with France it is way too low. And again that is done at the state level. Europe is indeed going to remain important and of the key point linking the question with its values. The great advantage is when we talk about freedom, trade, whatever we speak roughly the same language. We mean relatively the same things in the way we do not with the rest of the world. That is a huge advantage in working together. We do not even think about that advantage but it is fundamental thus working together and that will remain true. Because to answer the EU question is how do we work with China based on interest. We dont share the values and we are not going to share the values. But we agree on the interests of the capitalist system - should be dominant because we both have thrived this results of it. The Al-Qaeda is a bad thing, trust the Chinese they are not happy about the rest of Muslim provinces. Xinjiang province is a hot bad and they are terrified of that blowing up. We have the commonality of interests. Nobody wants that to be a Basquic case. That does not suit either of our sides. We must talk in a very hardheaded Palmerstonian way about the Chinese. When we do that we will integrate them and then based on their own interest they will do what we would like them to do. That is the trick.
It is not to talk about values they are not gonna adopt the western values tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. That is the great advantage that NATO allies still have. That we do share all that. That we can talk in short hand about what freedom means, what democracy means not in the whistling by the graveyard approach of too many to communicate but in the real world approach to get things done.
The last point on the deterrence and what happens to them when they come home, folks come home. I am gonna leave this to Scott but I fundamentally think that this is very important. The department of deterrence should be given a lot more money. Because of course we have a contract that these people out on the thin end of the wedge for guys like us sitting around doing policy. I would argue the imperative here is that everyone must remember that what we do influences real people with real families, mortgages and children on the other end of the line. And if we ever forget the fact that if we make mistakes real people suffer for it we should give up what we are doing and find another work.
Scott E. Rutter
When deterrence fails it is boots on the ground. Is deterrence nuclear weapons or is it unity of command within our community collectively working together and setting the conditions before we go on the battle field and executing these combat operations. Lot of people say it is come-as-you-are-war but there are things we can do to work collectively. Going to the days of 1940s and 50s war was high level type of training exercise. Its a block war in Iraq it is the next hill top in Afghanistan. How have soldiers ad
Pavol Demeš
The context of NATO and Slovakia show that for both Slovak political elites and public, being a member of NATO is on one hand an enormous achievement but on the other hand it brings enormous challenges since we are members of this Transatlantic Alliance. NATO will celebrate soon sixtieth anniversary and there are many pressing fundamental challenges which previous panel addressed so eloquently and from various angles. In this panel we are supposed to look at broader issues related to transatlantic relations especially after elections in the United States which not only Americans but those of us in Europe and others all over the world are somehow considering historical that after eight years of presidency of George Bush, who lived through very complicated post 9/11 period and was engaged with numerous shifts in American foreign and domestic policies, that now Barack Obama is associated with many issues called new/renewed, so there are numerous things which are in a way hopes but at the same time question marks. What we would like to address in this panel are exactly these open issues related to transatlantic relations after changes in the United States, the eve of sixtieth anniversary of NATO but this year we will have also changing European politics, new European parliament, Comission will change. This will be the year of changes but at the same time year of reflections, sixtieth anniversary of NATO, twentieth anniversary of the Fall of Berlin wall and of the bipolar world.
We have four excellent panellists. On my right two Americans, on my left two Europeans. I am creating slight transatlantic divide between two of them. We have Martin and Marcin, we have John and Scott. Both of them will first answer two questions which I will post to them and then we will open it to your questions and comments, we would like to make this post lunch session as much interactive as possible. Since we are going to tackle issues of transatlantic relations after changing the political elites, mostly we are thinking of changes in White House. I thought that it would be useful first if two gentlemen, John Hulsman, who is now in German Council on Foreign Relations but John is well known from Think Tank Community since he worked in Heritage CSIS, commented foreign policy issues in numerous media across the Atlantic. I would ask John first to take on this question: “What are the expectations on new transatlantic relations after changes in White House?” After him I would ask Lieutenant Colonel Scott Ruther who is retired from US Military, who unlike very few of us in this room what Desert Storm and Iraqi battlefield look like. He was not writing so much about that but in his twenty years old carrier in US Military he has achieved numerous awards, rewards and now he is retired working with BAE Systems. He was commenting, writing, chairing numerous sessions of similar nature and is serving on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations. After that two Europeans for whom Barack Obama is not their president but since we are members of Transatlantic Alliance and Barck Obama is soon coming to Europe, I would like to ask Martin Butora, who is leading analyst in this country, former ambassador of Slovakia to the United States in critical period when Slovakia’s destiny was shaped and Martin was there when all NATO agenda was being discussed and when we needed to win the support of Congress. So Martin has very deep knowledge of this topic, both as analyst and diplomat. And then Marcin Zaborowsky, who is now in European Institute for Security Studies in Paris. Marcin is Pole who is classically European analyst, who went through multiple positions, wrote extensively spoke both in Europe and in the United States about transatlantic relations, security studies etc.
“How do you see the transatlantic relations after January 20th?”
John C. Hulsman
I remember being here in a more heroic period when we were trying to get Slovakia into NATO, which was one of the real highlights of my carrier and it is always good to come home on a way. What are expectations? Well, I think a short answer if I were doing a pity kind of American briefing would be: They are too high! I have read a piece of Italian saying: “Despite what you may think, Barack Obama does not walk on water.” This is going to be a real challenge. The great news about Obama is also the parole about Obama: “He is going to agree with you.” He is going to say: “I think the world is multilateral and multipolar and we must coordinate more, and we must work through international institutions and we must coordinate policy together at every level and we must come up with common views on as much as humanly possible. All this will be music to the ears of Europeans. But then will come the sting on the scorpion’s tail, and you have to do a hack of a lot more. Because the years under Bush were an excuse in many ways for those in Europe to say I did not like the administration, it thought it too unilateral, too neoconservative, I just do not agree with their policies. I did not like the look of him very much. I mean it could have been that basic, but the bottom line is an excuse not to think in the policy terms. And what do I mean by policy terms. Let us be quite specific in what we are saying. It means to solve a specific problem, using specific mechanisms over period of time with a strategy and a specific outcome. Not to talk about it as the Germans do quite much, but let us talk about the real world slightly more. And the danger is that Obama is going to agree. There is no hiding; you can watch American policy like a movie, passively. I like it, I do not like it. It moved me, it did not move me. Much will be demanded. Let me give you just a couple of examples.
Guantanamo Bay. It is already happened. Obama did what every European was dreaming that he might do. He said we will begin the process of closing the bays. Hoora! And then he said, and we do not want sixty harden cases that we do not have trial material for to be wandering the streets of Bratislava this afternoon and as such we need help with you taking them because we can not send everyone home to the places where they would be tortured, that would be wrong. Do not you agree? And if the Germans look at their shoes and do nothing, this will be a problem. The Europeans as a collective do not come up with a common policy on dealing with this. Same like the Portuguese were forthright about doing things and the Germans were somewhere not. If you want involvement in the world, you have to put forward wherewithal and ideas. Otherwise you will not have involvement. That would be the sting on the tail on all these issues.
Afghanistan. Same thing. We are opened to a changing strategy. The bottom line will be: we may coordinate a common policy that involves linking much more closely ISF the military means and civilian use, the whole territory put up high risk high heal projects in hearts and minds and we will say to the Germans: doing all this we now need troops in the south, guarding the north is no help at all, by the way you did not pacify it, nor did the NGO community The CIA and particularly ruthless group of Warlords did, who by the way have local legitimacy. Welcome to the problems of the real world. We will say about Iran bombing would be a mistake and that means you have to be much tougher to change the molest capabilities on economic sanctions, particularly relating to investment freeze. We do not have time for sanctions to work. So torch your bank in the high of the worst economic crisis in the memory. This has to stop funding the Iranians. But if you do not want the military bombing, you will have to do far more than you have done. This is the complexity of the real world diplomacy and policy. And I hear no one talking about it.
Scott E. Rutter
I am honoured to be here in the presence of many distinguished guests here. My comments are going to be straight from the heart. As we know, in combat and in direct engagements many soldiers lose their lives. I had the honour to command the Task Force 27 in the initial attack into Iraq. Nine hundred of my soldiers were present, executed their missions and executed magnificently. I understand the horrors of war, the death, the shock. I lost ten soldiers and then forty were seriously wounded and then moved and then marched to Bagdad.
As we transition from conventional operations into stability or security operations we recognize the need for us to work together. With the groups that are within Iraq with the inter-agencies that were provided there in order for us to blend them in and help to provide a solution in order to stabilize Iraq. Things have changed. When I went back as a news reporter in 2004 and 2005 and witnessing the battles, those areas we have seen on the news we have recognized the need for the integration of soldiers working with the local community with the law enforcement. The rules of engagement have changed in this world. A symmetrical warfare is throughout the Middle East. We have realized that it is not necessarily the enemy that is directly in front of you. It is an individual or it is targets inside the human population. How do we deal with that local communities how do we address that how do we understand the second and third order affects that we make when we decide to make on footbridge across the Euphrates. What happens to that store down the original bridge that had original crossing side. How do we deal with that from a tactical level? These are the areas that I will focus on today on this discussion.
Today’s soldier and this generation, the generation between the ages eighteen and twenty-five is unbelievable. Focused and determined, as quick as young soldiers engage the enemy was as quick as the medics went to render aid. As it was evolving in front of me that I witnessed, I recognized that this generation deserves to be led and to be focused in order to accomplish the mission. Many of you may say whether it is right or wrong, to be in the Middle East and in Afghanistan, but the job is ours. To pave the future. To work with the local areas, to train and develop the partnerships that we need within the coalition, within the NATO as well as the United Nations. When we commit, it is more than providing soldiers. It is economic, it is diplomatic, it is information. All those condition setters in order to allow young soldiers on the ground when the time is there and when the turns fails, when we put up those soldiers and they are well trained and they are organized, it is not showing up to the battlefield, it is setting the conditions before we get there. Training. Interoperability between forces. Working command post exercises, exchanges that happen well before the time that we put soldiers in harms way, that we have within our power, within ourselves as countries in order to make that commitment right now. It is more than words, it is deeds, it is focus. The next time we put soldiers, men and women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, that are not executing combat operations for the first time in direct combat. There are plenty of ways in order to prevent that, to work with that and to develop them so it is for understanding of the full spectrum of operations. Soldiers today or in a three hundred and sixty degree battlefield, it is not as clear cut as it was in the past, in World War II waves going in D-Day. The decisions that are being made by these young man and women affect cross the world and affect the entire campaign. Thank you.
Martin Bútora
First of all, let me tell you that I always feel honoured and humble, if I have an opportunity to share the foreword with a man in a uniform who has been doing his best with his deepest heart and devotion. And I am also glad that so young boys and girls, young people who practically put this conference together and I want to thank them for organizing this Globsec.
First, let me reflect on what was said on panel in the morning, very briefly. Someone mentioned very old and for all of us very well known phrase at the beginning of NATO: “Americans in, Soviets out and Germans down!” Visegrad was extraordinary successful, it was that miraculous period when gradually one country after another were able to get in. It was again Americans in, Soviets out (because we still had the troops) and instead of Germans we could see the national populists – national populists down. We succeeded entering the new phase, new period, new epoch. In this period, sixty years after establishment of NATO and twenty years after the Fall of Berlin Wall, all three elements are under question mark. What to do to keep Americans in? What to do to preserve Russians out in that sense that they would not create their special field of influence? And what to do in times of economic crisis, simply not to face the real deep and serious backlash? In case of reviving not only the national social populism, isolationism, nationalizing policies etc. Secondly, Robert Shepherd touched it a bit; I think this might sound provocative, and my comment will be a sort of complementary to what we heard in the first presentation. The US and EU, the Americans and Europeans, they simply do not talk to each other sufficiently and in an appropriate way. There is no time, there are no platforms but this would change. We have to think about how all possible levels of such debate should be achieved, it should obviously concern on hot issues like Afghanistan, Iran and Middle East, energy Russia etc. and appropriate policies. Even this is not simple. For instance at this time we have these three teams in the US which are dealing with Afghanistan/Pakistan. There is Joint Chief of Staff, there is National Security Council, there is a State Department Team, then there is General Petrews, there is a special representative Dick Holebrook. It will not be that easy to coordinate at all. We have Davos, we have Krynica oriented at economic issues. There is Munich – security issues. There is Brussels Forum. But maybe we need another forum, systematically conducted, systematically prepared which would really deal with civilization issues and values. Which would, as Robin put it, improve the quality of thinking. We need not only to think big, as it was in times of EU and NATO enlargement but we have to think deep. The debate is important also because of the crisis. It is simply here. It is not just a buzzword, it is reality and it will be reality. But it can even substantially change political landscapes and horizons.
As for the transatlantic relationships Europeans should be at least prepared to come with their positions to talk with Americans very seriously about their issues which I mentioned. In case of Russia, NATO, Middle East and Balkan.
NATO. Even if we all understand that out-of-area missions, non Article 5 operations, for the countries, especially for the newcomers, Article 5 is still an issue. If we listen to our friends from Poland or Estonia, we simply hear another tone and we should and we should be sensitive to this tone.
Russia. We understand that the US does not need that much the Europeans to achieve the contract or treaty on nuclear materials but on all the other issues the EU is equally important. Any possible future agreement with Russia should not be achieved at the expanse of the Europeans. Let it be Ukraine, let it be energy issues, let it be frozen conflicts or other sensitive issues as for Russia.
The Middle East. Here I see that the relationships could improve, if the Europeans are able to achieve a more efficient assistance to Palestinians, for instance to prevent unfortunately repeatedly cases that European money have ended in problematic hands and were used for problematic purposes.
Finally, Balkan. It is now much more European responsibility, having in mind not only Bosnia but the whole conflict region of Balkan. Even if we are more responsible and we are trying to achieve something it would be a mistake if the US would totally disappear, and if it would disappear from the plans and strategies of our American partner and friends.
Marcin Zaborowski
I wish I could speak with passion about the future of transatlantic relationship. I cannot but I am optimistic. There are various reasons for my optimism. The transatlantic relationship has actually considerably improved during the second presidency of George W. Bush. Obviously there have been a lot of improvement gone on the official level. Agreeably the public opinion has not really noticed and has not moved as much as the politicians have done. But it has moved a little bit. In 2008 public opinion in Europe and its perception of United States has been considerably better than in 2003. Now with the election of Barack Obama, who was supported by about eighty per cent of Europeans, if I am not mistaken. For this reason to believe that that public opinion would shift with the certain constraint that the politicians in Europe have had concerning closer cooperation with the US for example in Afghanistan may be not exactly gone away but maybe more of a factor. We have seen Barack Obama in the first days of his presidency inching towards European positions on the whole host of issues. Israeli conflict, climate change, Guantanamo, Iran, Iraq. In all this issues Barrack Obama has moved to more possible extend than it was expected and faster than it was expected. I was one of these people who has tried to play down the expectations and saying there would be more continuity than change. I am surprised by the pace of change so far. What sort of issues are there? Clearly the issue that has been identified here in the previous panel and in this panel is Afghanistan. This really will be in his first years of the presidency a defining issue for this relationship. I am not entirely sure that we in Europe are fully prepared to grasp with that. It has been argued for some time that in April Barack Obama will come to NATO summit and will ask for more troops. I am no longer sure that it will happen because I think he has already heard enough. If he asked for that, it might not be affective. Some member states will contribute packets of increases. France will contribute 300 more, UK maybe from 300 to 1000, Poland additional 600 but is ….what his administration would have expected as a result of that I do not think that an official request would be really on the table. However, a request will be probably made for a contribution to a greater civilian presence in Afghanistan. And that is something that Europeans have argued for a very long time. We have always argued that the strategy Afghanistan which is putting the military aspect at the very head is not working, is not delivering results. There needs to be more stress on governance, on development etc. If we have a response from Washington saying: OK, we agree with you, what is it that we can do in that dimension? We are entirely prepared to respond in kind. There are some debates now in EU about offering European Union their own PRTs, from five to ten EU PRTs for Afghanistan. There was some talk about offering twinning monitoring programs, which would be similar to what we have in the framework of European Neighborhood Policy. But I have not heard a clear strategy really, an alternative strategy. This is something to be watched and I am not entirely optimistic at this point about European response there.
To the United States I would have two things to say, as regards the relationship with the European Union as the organization. The EU is not just the three big member states. And that is something that people in Obama’s administration seem to focus on to a very considerable extend. That was also seen in July when Barack Obama was to travel the whole Europe. Or was it just the three big member states? Who are the foreign ministers who are listening to in Washington not presidencies as it does everybody in the world, but the three big member states? The EU has its own structures, has its own system, it should be respected. It has its High Representative, it has its presidencies and that is something Washington should grasp with and not just continue perceiving the opinion as a trade block. Consequently, the next ambassador to the European Union should not be a person who just deals with trade and economics as it has been to this point. The message number two is that clearly bilateral relationship between the United States and the European Union. The bilateral relationship between them two has gone gradually in importance in the recent years. The portfolio of this relationship has enlarged to number of security issues including Iran. Iran is really the issue which is not done by the NATO, it is really done on bilateral basis between the EU and the US. And now this area will grow to issues like climate change. Institutionally, that bilateral relationship does not work very well. Some proposals for reforming institutions for US-EU relationship should be put on the table possibly in June during the EU-US bilateral summit.
Pavol Demeš
Barrack Obama is coming soon to Europe, very likely he will attend NATO Summit, 60th anniversary celebration, commemoration but also looking ahead, bringing probably some new vision, new ideas, where NATO should go and how NATO sees US in contemporary world. If you could speculate and now none of you work for governments, you can speculate. What do you think will be key messages Barack Obama may bring to upcoming NATO Summit. Will there be disagreement between what he is bringing and between what Secretary General of NATO will be saying?
John C. Hulsman
It will be some disagreement but now I think the challenge will be. The problem is not that the Americans are moving quickly, the problem is that the Europeans’ responding. We are whistling about the graveyard here if we think there is a tiny problem in Afghanistan. It is the number one issue that Obama has articulated that matters to him. The reason that Secretary Gates was kept is because they agree on broad strategy to move troops out of Iraq over the period of time to be determined between two and move them in for a search for some kind of Afghanistan. And to say yes of course we need a civil military coordination and everyone needs to agree that it needs to be done far more effectively than it has been done. It is just the smoke screen. And at the end of a day after this agreement we need more troops and the answer is “gosh, do not ask us for our troops do not ask us to do difficult things,” no alliance survives if it does not solve problems.
I have been doing this for ten years and we are still talking about the same things. I can do first twenty-seven moves of our disagreement on cause of all. In my head like St. Augustine, how many angels can you put on a head of a pin? But until you solve policy problems check things off. The alliance, well, going to the meetings, we will go to young glamorous European summits, make a good living. But the bottom line is that we are not solving the problems. And of course it will still go but it will not matter. Obama is looking for every multilateral forum he can find to work with as many people as he can find right now to solve the global governance problems. That is the good news, that is the big headline. I truly believe that. But to solve the problem, not to siege it for twenty years from now, maybe we will have a new forum. And solve it then. What we need is a new structure. What we need is not a new structure, not new perceptions, new ideas to solve policy problems. Without that no alliance will survive nor should it survive in the era that we find ourselves in. The good news is that the door is opened. Obviously working with Europe means paramount in whatever form we do. And here I do not agree. Look, if the EU can solve certain problems, where would it put European Union. We will all be studying diagnostics about the forum of European political governance. That is your problem. One of the striking things working on me in Washington over the last ten years is that the dialogy argument is gone. The right wing of which I was a member was, the EU was trojan horse designed to challenge America. Nobody thinks that any more. The left wing thought that was a wonderful thing to copy. Nobody thinks that anymore. Nobody think that EU is a federal utopia, nobody thinks that it is out to subvert us. It is neither of those things. We just want help in any form that you can help us in. I would argue about Iran an issue I worked on. It is not the EU that is running the policy, it is EU3. It is the three big countries in Europe with Mr. Solana coordinating. But let us not fantasize on how the European Union is in charge of this. The only reason that matters is that we have Germany, Britain and France sitting in a room together coordinating. Which are the great powers within Europe. We have to talk candidly about these things. On trade issues it is the EU in deed. They are the superpower and talk to them there. But that is not true across the border. I mean this is not a show game. We have to be serious about what we do. What Obama will offer is that this global governance notion multilaterally. But what he wants is policy help and it does not mean agreeing with the United States. I want to make that clear. If policy alternatives are put to us that are better, witness Gordon Brown that the financial crisis on the first go round. Everybody thought that was better so everyone does his best practises and adopted what he did. Not because some glorious view about multilateralism but because it worked better. Then what Paulson had proposed. That is how you influence the United States. Have better ideas and of course we will rush to adopt them. That is the good news. But you have to have those good ideas and you have to wherewithal. But frankly we are whistling past the graveyard here.
Scott E. Rutter
Staying in my line again, reflexion of my personal thoughts. I believe our Commander in Chief will stay the course, stay the the commitment, remain focused in interoperability for us to share the information across boundaries. Technology, information sharing across the borders, commercial and government industries working collectively together in order to provide the best possible solutions to our war fighters as they are working hand in hand on a military application of global security and the importance of lessons learned that we have learned from the United States as I was abroad in various other campaigns collectively brought to the table to share the information. Lots of technologies across the border as I witnessed from 2003 and then had an opportunity to go back in 2005. The amount of cognisance and surveillance, vehicle systems that are round there in order to provide conditions setting or shaping operations to the soldiers before they put individuals in harms way, the amount of information being shared across boundaries. The quickness and rapid response of industries is witnessed in Afghanistan, armoured vehicles that were sent there in order to protect soldiers, situational awareness applicants that are being provided with the multiple forces in order to provide the interoperability and to increase the combat capability and tightliness in order to engage the enemy and focus on getting the job done. Focus is a key effort. I think our Commander in Chief as he transitions from his ideas in Iraq of departure in 2010/11 time frame. Shifts that are right a little bit because of the president and the Commander of Chief understanding and listening to soldiers and leaders on the ground and quickly transitioning to a full response in Afghanistan.
Martin Bútora
It is not so easy to elaborate, to speculate on Obama speech. I would be very brief. We are somehow thinking on three levels, three dimension of such a possible speech. Yes, I think he is deeply devoted and convinced about the necessity of issues like multilateralism and global governance. At the same time I think he could show in his speech and I believe he will show it that this can be combined with the special role of NATO as the alliance, with its history, with its track record, with its unique achievement in uniting Europeans and Americans and challenging both, the past horrors and the Soviets and now operating at the global scale. This is not just one of all the possible multilateral tools. Again emphasizing a very special and very unique role of this alliance.
Secondly I think it could be a combination of a motivation speech with some outline of policies, probably not so detailed as our friend has suggested. Not just staying without content, not just staying totally and completely without policies, but showing examples of policies which have already worked if they were conducted and executed properly and could work if all the participants do their best and contribute.
Could you imagine that he would talk not only in the perspective of tools for years, maybe in a perspective of a decade? Because a lot has changed. I think his story and his background, very multicolour vision of the American president, I do not mean the family ties but everything that has occurred at that occasion is somehow suggesting approaching new era he could also use broader time reference than just two years, it could be a decade and finally combining all this he really could return to what might sound to some analysts or political observers or journalists as almost a phrase, he might repeat that: “Yes, we can.” We can change the world if we proceed in a coordinated and cooperated way to achieve the goals which he was suggesting.
Marcin Zaborowski
Before I respond to this point, very brief response to John’s comments. John, obviously you have reputation in Europe for announcing the Europeans was dead three years ago but I can understand your scepticism here. Look, when it comes to Iran for example, I think the role of Javier Solana is much underestimated. Not only does he represent the three big member states but also he plays very major coordinating role between the three of them and they have very different positions. The French are actually now at the point when they are very sceptical about the policy of the engagement with Iran whereas the Germans have called for that for many years. So you have the French being on the right of Obama and the Germans being on the left. It is quite a spectrum really there. To try to bang these heads together and to come up with the unified position is what Solana has been doing for years.
Now about delivering results in Afghanistan. Talking to the Big Three. What that you are going to get from Germans? I am sorry but they are not going to wake up yet. Definitely not until the October elections. From the French you may get the additional 300 troops, maybe. The Brits are extended to beyond way capacity. They have already invested and done so much. And they have been doing it for number of years. They simply are not in a position to offer that much more. These poor capacities are there for example in Spain. It is the Poles and the Dutch who have operated in Afghanistan. I am not focusing on the Big Three will and if it delivers results.
I think that Obama’s message will be too fold. And it is not that difficult to predict. I mean on the first issue on the table - Afghanistan, as I said before. I am not quite sure that the formal request for more troops will be put on the table because they would know before whenever it could be answered in kind or not. But there will be a request for engagement of any sort in Afghanistan. We need to be prepared for that and I am not quite sure we are. The second issue will be Iran. Here what we can get from certain people is for example what Gordon is saying: “Why do not we strike a new bargain now, we will talk with the Iranians but you will sanction them.” This is not exactly a kind of the bargain Europeans are looking forward to. We will need to coordinate our positions before the Summit.
Robin Shepherd
France cannot provide for this reason, Germany because it has the elections and so on. Frankly the Americans and Brits since we both have a lot of soldiers in Afghanistan, sorry that is not good enough. That is not good enough to say, I know you are saying it on behalf of what your countries think. But it is not good enough, it is not the sign of seriousness, in terms of getting the job done, in terms of delivery. To say, “well, there is election coming up, so, you guys are on your own in Afghanistan, maybe in six months time you could get back to us, we may have a better response but do not hold your breath.” To come back to the other point about the seriousness or otherwise the European Union as a foreign policy player, I debated with John about this meet EU mission in Washington and the Americans should pay attention to it. It is kind of, you know, if a supermodel walks into the room, the men do not have to be told to look. The United States is not ignoring the European Commission in Washington out of big headedness. It is simply not treating it in the manner it treats big capitals in Europe because the EU cannot deliver but the Brits, the Germans, the French can or cannot but ultimately you can persuade them and if they will agree, they can deliver. Ultimately, that is a question of delivery. European Union can deliver a lot in terms of trade policy and that is not to be underestimated. That still fuels within the realm of hot power according to nice definition. Ultimately it comes down to military forces, the European Union has to prove it works because it has not done so yet and the Americans thus say they do not ignore Europe because they do not like Brussels. They just want a better delivery. If they do not get it they. When we get there, they will take EU more seriously.
Ortwin Hennig
The panel seems to be starting from the assumption that more troops will be the solution to the Afghan problem. Let me question this basic assumption – for the moment I do not exactly know how many troops the NATO has in Afghanistan right now (70 000 round about). The Russians when they had to leave they used to have round about 130 000 troops. The British at the end of the 19th century with their troops did not manage to militarily defeat Afghanistan and here we are talking about couple of more thousand NATO troops. Why are we here so sure that more troops here indeed will be solution to the problem?
Milan Ježovica
I am inspired by what both Martin and John were telling us about thinking more deeply and of course about providing new ideas. As we look at NATO which is turning 60 in April we can see that for 60 years NATO has been strong and solid pillar housing the roof of the free and prosperous and when we look especially at the last 20 years NATO has proven that it is capable of both thinking big and deep. First undoing the shameful legacy of Yalta and overcoming the division of Europe and offering to those who wanted to be free and prosperous to come to join. But you know that at the age of 60 you can be either old or wise. So the question is: Is NATO when turning 60 old or wise? What will be the narrative after these 20 successful years? What can we offer to the member countries and to the world? What are we going to tell the world. Who we are? What we want?
Scott E. Rutter
On the first question we manage the troops even the speed, how fast we going to do it rather then the tempo, the pasty, the amount of information collection, the amount of time that is needed for collecting information to develop a decisive point in order to focus on your combat power. It is not measured by the many troops, it is measured by the result of collective organization fighting collectively in order to get the mission done, focus and understanding the commanders and tent at the tactical level in order to have the job done, work and cross boundary operations with your coalition partners and setting the conditions before we get in the battle to have that interoperability.
The answer is not necessarily the amount of troops but the specific mission of troops, the expertise that various countries within NATO bring to the table from their past experiences and combat, from a support role or from other capabilities that they bring and the importance of us all working together – the commitment, the result, the focus and the determination is the need for us to move forward in Afghanistan.
John C. Hulsman
Let us think of it from Obama's point of view for a minute on Afghanistan. He says: I agree with you on Kyoto and we need to work on post-Kyoto protocol because he will. He says I am going to close the Guantanamo Bay – that is what you want and we gonna talk about the torture in the army field. But then we want to talk about something that is important to us - the commitment and focus.
Is key on Afghanistan many commanders if not most think that we have understaffed that war if not overstaffed Iraq and certainly more troops are not the entire solution. I think of German and Dutch to get them away from the fact that it is part of the solution. No one is saying we do not need a new policy and new coordination, we do, but to say we do not need more troops on the ground neither - talk to the people there, most of them will tell you, we do. And it brings the ball across the court back to the Germans. It was mentioned that this was the problem and we get the usual excuses: “We have a difficult history.“ We have come so far in the last 50 years and I get a recitation on the Treaty of Rome onward.
The thing that is missing on this discussion is timing and it was eluded to. There is a limit to the amount of time that these problems have to be dealt with. Iran is the great example. We have a year, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less but not indefinite amount of time to coordinate policy. Frankly what we have done up to now in coordinating policy is a joke. No one will change its calculations over what to do based on the sanctions of the UN. That is not a serious deterrent. If you going to take the military option of the table (and by the way as I would because it is all kind of strategic downsides) we do not have to be firm or tough or creative about selective sanctions around investment. Which means we have to be far tougher than we have been and in a very short period of time or we do not solve the problem. Then we have the existential Iranian choice.
If you do nothing the NPT is dead and you have an arms race in the Middle East. Ask our Turkish allies and NATO when they say if your enemies can get a bomb why cannot your friends have a bomb.
I Witnessed the Egyptians saying with the sphere of Islam and the toughest army in the region we would also like a nuclear weapon if the Iranians have one. The Saudies go and buy them and you have nuclear brinkmanship in the most unstable region of the world and that is the „good option!“
So to avoid these two terrible options we have to be far tougher very quickly. That is the policy and I am not making it that way. That is what we have to do for serious.
As for Afghanistan if Obama gives way on all these points and has nothing to show for it but German excuses about how difficult their election cycle is and how difficult their history is and that 70% of their people are against any foreign policy involvement anywhere (which is true)... Anyway FDR had the same problem in 1936. The US were passing the neutrality acts. He saw what was coming, he educated people (Kissinger book on its fantastic over 5 year period) to prepare them. That is what leaders do. They do not hide behind public numbers. When you talk to German parliamentarians privately and off the record they are utterly aware of this problem but they hide behind every possible excuse for non action.
We have to be a lot more clear that if they want to play a role in the world, if they want their view to be out there they must do more, this linking not be severed.
Martin Bútora
I would like to touch two of the comments. What is the role as for NATO? To move from becoming a path of the problem to a path of the coalition of actors bringing about the change. And there are local actors, there are international actors, there are economic actors, there are many of them. Here is the well know and old instruction. We have been able to achieve some success because of applying of „3 C“: communication, cooperation, coordination. Those 3Cs are extraordinary important and I would add „3Ts“ to it. Rather what we should prevent, rethink or what we should be aware of. It means to really prevent talibanisation not only of the Afghanistan but of other areas. Then to rethink the concept of training, all dimensions of training local people and then to be aware of time. The third T is time.
This is a part of long debate but to answer the question of the narrative it could be: In the absence of other efficient organisations, NATO because of its history and its capacity has simply the duty to become an organisation that is not about security not about military but which has also large mission. I think this should be a basis of certain narrative and then we could go on and talk about the structure of it.
Marcin Zaborowski
With Afghanistan we do forget about very important factor here which is a public opinion. The public opinion in the United States continues to be supportive of that operation, the public opinion in Europe is not. And the support in Europe for the presence of our troops has been declining and in some states it is at very dramatic level. Now is some states that could be ignored e.g. in Poland. It has been ignored for some time. In Poland the public support for troops presence has been very low and nonetheless our presence was growing. In France it could also be ignored, but in Germany it cannot. Because of political system and because of what that would mean for German politics. And I am not trying to make any excuse here and I agree with you. It is not good enough but that is the way it is, it is the reality of politics. We can ask Angela Merkel to make a political suicide and go out and say: we gonna leave... and then SPD wins the elections and you have troops out completely. There is other reality here. Various political systems are constrained by different things e.g - the president, the Commander in Chief, has been constrained for many years from lifting the visas from Eastern Europeans because of Congress. This is also the political factor that we have to accept.
Now why this situation in Afghanistan is as it is? We are in it together but we look at it very differently. Here are two things – clearly this alliance of 11th of September in United States is very different than in Europe. Secondly we have to think about the origins of this war. We have to think about how it was conducted at the beginning. NATO offer to go together was rejected. And then we have war in Iraq that Europeans overwhelmingly opposed and as a result of that we have a kind of lukewarm European support and presence at very patchwork kind of way. Then you have all these PRTs which do not coordinate among themselves. We are in it but we are not in it the way we should have been. But it is not our fault. It is not only our fault. What we really need in Afghanistan is a new contract with completely new strategy. We need to get back to that and see what we need or how we can really work together on it.
Collin Namalambo
I am asking this question as a member of a country that is non NATO member. Does the opinion of the international community really matters when it comes to Iran? Mindful of the fact that the DG of IEA has on number of occasions said that there is no evidence to suggest that there is deviation of nuclear material into a military programme?
Miroslav Wlachovský
What do you think in general is the role of Europe in American foreign policy led by president Barack Obama vis-a-vis other continents and other regions in the world? Because there were several mentions since the beginning of the century that this is an Asia century. What is the role of Europe in overall American foreign policy?
Second question – we have mentioned Afghanistan as the issue of Transatlantic relations like 300 times during this panel but no one has mentioned the world economic crisis, financial crisis. What is the role of Europe and America as an engine of the world economy? Is the engine broken? There are prophets in these country and other countries that this is the end of capitalism and there was a prophet couple years ago saying that we are facing the end of the history. So what do you think about these prophets?
Oksana Antonenko
It seems that the most important relationship for the United States in the next several years will be the relation with China. There is no doubt that China is already funding big part of the US domestic economic package and of course will be funding US programmes in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere. There is no absolute certainty that they will continue in funding it and there are now growing signs that they might not for a variety of reasons. It could be said that Europeans now for a number of years have developed much more pragmatic and productive relationship with China that the US have done and it will be interesting to know what the panelist think. Kind of very much following previous questions of how the Europeans could within the context of the transatlantic relationship actually contribute to help to redefine this relationship. We all read Brzezinski article about this new ideal US-Chinese relationship which could be as the primary strategy in the world. Is there any way to make it more trilateral relationship? It is something that would certainly contribute both in solving global economic crisis.
And the second question is about G20. This seems to be a new mechanism emerging as definitely it seems that G8/G7 is dead for the time being and we are now in a new territory of G20. Is there an area where again the transatlantic relationship could help to built this institution further or is it actually not at all matter within this context?
John C. Hulsman
Back to Afghanistan, remember that we did this right. Europe agreed to this. It is not Iraq, we went to the international community. We went through the UN we gave the Taliban the chance to give up Al-Qaeda. We did not just start shooting everyone when we worked with locals we behaved proportionally.
We made a lot of mistakes but that is no an excuse not to live up to the commandments that were made. Because the reality is that Secretary General of NATO is quite right whether we like it or not. Credibility of NATO is on the line in Afghanistan. That is where we are. And for us just to say - I do not like everything you have done so I am not going to live up to my commitments is not remotely good enough for the future survival. Thriving of the elite that is what we all want. And I totally like your point for the new strategic kind of contract. That is very creatively for us to get out from under this so we need to work it out and it needs to be not something written down or treaty but privately discussed in NATO. That is what NATO does so well but no one brings up. NATO is a club house to coordinate differences as they get worse and to limit whats on. That is why they survived and thrived. That is a great example where we all should sit down and after this actually come up with a few basic points and then draw them to our leaders. That is a wonderful way out of this. Because what is also politics in a real world far more then German elections is that if Obama gets nothing for proposing this mouldy leather of world view the UN conservatives will crawl from whatever Iraq they hiding behind and say to guys like me: Why do you bother with Europe? Look what happens and at the end we accomplish nothing and we have to behave unilaterally. That is the last thing anybody on this panel particularly us want. So that is a great solution to that problem to begin to talk about that.
As for the future, yes, somebody finally begin to hit near the door what matters. The key strategic in period of our generation is how do we integrate the rising powers into the Euroatlantic norm space world. If we do that in the next 20 years we win. If we do not do that we live in a jungle because in 10 years we will not have the power to do that and set norms. Why would anyone agree to them? As we relatively decline and it is not just America who relatively declines. Look at the economic and employment numbers in Europe. Look at the structure on employment numbers. Look at the GDP ratio numbers which is far worse than in United States, look at the lack of dynamism. This is not good but we have got to deal with it. We have about 10 years to get this right collectively. Let us do that. Tha is what matters.
To point about G20 that is a great point. Why the international institution not work very well right now? Because they do not reflect power realities of 2009, they reflect power realities from 1945. This will make us all make choices. Benelux has a greater voting weight in the WB and the IMF then China. This does not pass the lab test anymore. Why would China agree to do this? We have to find new ways to engage them to get them involved. We have to look creatively to make this thing real G8 state. It can solve the problem. Not its fault, the world has changed. But we need to end this unbearable period. Your last point about the financial crisis. Obama the first 6 things he is going to do – are the economic crisis. If you look at the exit polling from the election the first 6 areas of 100 000 people poll were economic concerns of some kind or another. The best thing that president can do is to get them out of this crisis and return America to relatively economic prosperity for the rest of the world.
If he does that alone it will put him up on the rush more, that is fantastic. What this means by the way is - Hillary Clinton will be subcontracted running by foreign policy which explains why she resigns as a Senator when she could have been Senator forever. Because she has the power now in fact to conduct foreign policy. But that is the key point we are trying to fit to this. I would argue that this is a success of foreign policy engagement. I am no fan of the last administration but the last three have engaged China brilliantly.
The sticks are greater and the characters are greater for China to remain power. If you ask the former Under Secretary of Treasury who is the most helpful country right now for dealing with the economic crisis, he says China. They have the most to lose if the American consumers stop consuming. Who loses, export driven countries - Germany but particularly China. We have integrated 300 million new people in the middle class through the global economy. This is a tremendous success. They are important in economic system. They sure do not want to fail because they are out of the door and they know it. That is the greatest way to bring people a lot. Based on their interest, when we do not share values as we do with NATO. With the countries who we do not share values we need to talk a lot more about interest and this has been a great success. Europe has a role not to make it just bilateral but to engage. That is something the Europeans are good at - to engage them so no Chinese leader will ever be a revolutionary power precisely not because they are nice people but because it does not suit their interest. And in 20 years we will be there.
Scott E. Rutter
There are obviously plenty of lessons learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan that the European community and US should focus on, lessons learnt from that nation building. Having spent time on the border between North and South Korea for 2 years I understand that the North is about to implode. I think US realizes, North Korea as well as China also - here is the opportunity to gather the lessons learnt. I witnessed in Baghdad during that time as we transitioned from conventional force now to security of operations trying to establish a government order to maintain a momentum to bring life back to civilisation. If you can imagine what it is like in Iraq and imagine what it is like going to be in North Korea. Thousands of South Koreans follow to reintegrate themselves with family members to bring back 50 years of loss from the actual border and commitments that have not been made in the past concerning reuniting North and South Korea. In Iraq during my time the things that were reported were basically broken glass in museums that was the main highlight of what was on the evening news as compared to French embassy being completely devastated. What is announced on media that is what is going to excite the people actually listening.
At that time the broken glass at the museum was more news as compared to devastating of a specific embassy. Some of my soldiers and myself sort of wondered - so many good things happening right now compared to things that are getting reported. But getting back to China. I think there are lots of coalitions and military exchange we can do in order to accomplish that phase of the battle which a lot of times is not thought of. We think of conventional fight we do not think of asymmetrical fight and the human dimension, the human terrain, the structures that are involved. That is a common bond that we can work collectively from a military stand point with China and that is something that ourselves and the European community should take a loan to bear.
Marcin Zaborowski
I am very respectful of professor Brzezinski and all of it but I think he went a little bit too far on this one. Honestly, Europe might be boring. And obviously if president Sarkozy comes to Washington he does not pull as great crowd as president of China. Europe is just too predictable, it is not very exciting. Even a mayor of Thai Pei would pull greater crowd in fact. But on many major issues Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan - Where could the United States get any support from? Who they could really work with? It is still down to Europeans. Even on the issue of the predominance of economic link the amount of the trade which is done between the Europeans and the Americans and even in recent years is number of times greater than with China. The amount of foreign investment, whole American foreign investment in China is comparable with foreign investment in the Netherlands. I might be slightly wrong on the numbers but it could be somewhere in the region of that. It is deeply exaggerated I disagree with Oksana's point that this relationship has suffered in recent years. I think that Bush has actually handled China pretty well and one of the reasons is that he did not handle it he delegated it to the Trade Secretary and he has done good job with it. The first sound we heard form Obama's administration is for Geithner to come out and say that China has been manipulating the currency. If that becomes official, that means official procedure – going for Congress and the detriment to the relationship.
On the issue of G20 that is really the future for the opening of the international system and the Americans are more open here to integrate other emerging powers than Europeans are open to make the space for them. That is something that we in Europe have to face up to.
Martin Bútora
We all remember what sort of fascination was for the US at the end of last century Japan. Everyone was preoccupied with Japan. Japan was an emerging competitor sometimes even an emerging monster and the performance of American economy could not be compared to Japan. Obviously one can not compare China and Japan but I am just reminding that there is such a fashion. There is always such a country or a continent or region which becomes an object of fascination and I would like to remind you how it was in Japan and we know how it continues. As for China I would like to challenge one convention of wisdom. I agree with Marcin that that policy was relatively reasonable. I also feel some new tones in Timothy Geithners statement but at the same time all the projections in media are in a very deterministic way speaking of an incredible progress in China. But this might not be quite a case because of the ecologic situation and changing political landscape. If we project China we have this percentage of GDP and many other too deterministic and optimistic projections about China and they might appear to be a little bit more problematic that it is now. And that will make the Chinese more prepared to enter the cooperative patterns in the future.
I will simplify the issuer of Iran. The difference here is that if the US will proceed in communication and cooperation with other NATO members then in cooperation with EU and discussion with Russia and maybe together with some thinking about commitment of reduced warheads it will not be so easy for Iran simply not to offer something on their side. The good policy is to enter the partners to create a new coalition of those who are concerned with Iran. Once it will be a bigger coalition then if Iran really will not be able to politically and appropriately communicate then there might come time to think about the tougher sanctions. This is a good policy to involve more actors in dealing with Iran.
Amb. György Bánlaki
One of the most profound ideas heard today was the challenge for us to involve the emerging Asian giants into our value system over the next decade or two. I would like to return to this question and ask John: How do you see this play out in the real world? What kind of a process this would be? Are we going to tell the Chinese and the Indians that „Well, we know that between the two of you you have two and half billion people but we think really that going the individualistic way is the real path. Would it mean really that either we make them accept our rules or is it going to be a two way street and to what extent and how long that way should we be accommodating?
John Bartner
The British who are apparently still European would be very disappointed if Barack Obama did not ask for more troops on the ground. That is a fact. Afghanistan is gonna be for long term. Do you think that industry has responsibility to revive the support for the soldiers coming back? This could be a 10 year war. How will we look for employment opportunities. When the government make the commitment to support the US and the UK and the other countries in Afghanistan some day they have to pick up the human pieces, the tragedy. It is not just the body bags it is the survivors. And I would ask to think very carefully about that because at the end of the day if we want our governments to provide financially boiling world for industry to benefit that actually we have got the responsibility as well.
John C. Hulsman
Let me react to the statement that China does not matter all that much. It is the 3th largest economy in the world now. It holds more American treasury paper than any other country in the world. That is the fundamental link. They are buying our debt. They need to consume more, we need to save more. That is the fundamental global imbalance that is the heart of the crisis for end that will take decades to change those patterns. That is not enough to snap a finger and say let us legislate that. But that is the coordination that is vital in that sense. Those are the two outlines. They save too much paradoxically and we live 10% beyond our means a year. What you cannot do based on the mortgage prices going down and credit card debt. Think of that coming as next big problem. The FTA number - this is Dan Hamilton shell game. I like Dan but this is nonsense that Europe is the largest investor. Its true but it overlooks some facts as you know it is not spread remotely evenly. The British are buying large - overwhelmingly the largest foreign direct investor in US and we are in Britain. And that pumps this number up as the Britain of Europe and every way. The Dutch are very high but I think they are third. But then our FTA with Greece is not very high at all, with Germany it is not a size you would expect, with France it is way too low. And again that is done at the state level. Europe is indeed going to remain important and of the key point linking the question with its values. The great advantage is when we talk about freedom, trade, whatever we speak roughly the same language. We mean relatively the same things in the way we do not with the rest of the world. That is a huge advantage in working together. We do not even think about that advantage but it is fundamental thus working together and that will remain true. Because to answer the EU question is how do we work with China based on interest. We dont share the values and we are not going to share the values. But we agree on the interests of the capitalist system - should be dominant because we both have thrived this results of it. The Al-Qaeda is a bad thing, trust the Chinese they are not happy about the rest of Muslim provinces. Xinjiang province is a hot bad and they are terrified of that blowing up. We have the commonality of interests. Nobody wants that to be a Basquic case. That does not suit either of our sides. We must talk in a very hardheaded Palmerstonian way about the Chinese. When we do that we will integrate them and then based on their own interest they will do what we would like them to do. That is the trick.
It is not to talk about values they are not gonna adopt the western values tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. That is the great advantage that NATO allies still have. That we do share all that. That we can talk in short hand about what freedom means, what democracy means not in the whistling by the graveyard approach of too many to communicate but in the real world approach to get things done.
The last point on the deterrence and what happens to them when they come home, folks come home. I am gonna leave this to Scott but I fundamentally think that this is very important. The department of deterrence should be given a lot more money. Because of course we have a contract that these people out on the thin end of the wedge for guys like us sitting around doing policy. I would argue the imperative here is that everyone must remember that what we do influences real people with real families, mortgages and children on the other end of the line. And if we ever forget the fact that if we make mistakes real people suffer for it we should give up what we are doing and find another work.
Scott E. Rutter
When deterrence fails it is boots on the ground. Is deterrence nuclear weapons or is it unity of command within our community collectively working together and setting the conditions before we go on the battle field and executing these combat operations. Lot of people say it is come-as-you-are-war but there are things we can do to work collectively. Going to the days of 1940s and 50s war was high level type of training exercise. Its a block war in Iraq it is the next hill top in Afghanistan. How have soldiers ad
