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| Updated: 19-Jul-2003 | NATO Speeches |
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Résidence 18 July 2003 |
"Renewing the Transatlantic Partnership” Introductory
Comments Moderator: It's a great pleasure to introduce an old friend, who during my journalistic days, was one of the few sources in think tank worlds who were worth consulting, because he always had some refreshing and insightful things to say that would make us look a lot smarter when we would write our articles. As somebody who was born in France, and is an American citizen,
he's uniquely situated to explain the foibles and strange attitudes
on both sides of the Atlantic. Simon Serfaty, who is the director of the Europe Program for the Center of Strategic and International Studies in Washington will be speaking to us on the record about the generic tensions that we've seen lately on the transatlantic relations and where we are going in the future. So Simon, turn it over to you. (APPLAUSE) Simon Serfaty (Director, Europe Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies): Thank you, Bill. For some reason it seems that you're taller that I am and I will attempt to ignore that. Now I would have said that I'm delighted to be here at this time in Brussels in late July, but Lord Robertson told us this morning that if I were to make such a statement that it would lack credibility somehow, and I will simply say the truth, that I'm honoured to be here with you and attempt to develop a few thoughts of 20 minutes, assuming that to be possible, on the status of the transatlantic partnership. Before we do this, let me make reference to a couple of documents we put out over the past six months, because I believe that they are relevant to the kinds of discussions we've had over the past several months. Lord Robertson, again, made reference to a report, CSIS and its Europe program released earlier this year on transatlantic defence co-operation. The report included a rather bulky paper as well as an agenda for action, or at least a number of principles that might help condition some specific actions should both governments and industry on both sides of the Atlantic decide to pursue anything that we suggested. What I found especially satisfying about the development of that report was the fact that consultation, dialogues held throughout (inaudible)... helped produce a consensus that proved to be solid enough to be endorsed by the 12 CEOs of the 11 leading companies that were included into that commission. A consensus need not come before consultation is engaged. It is not a precondition for consultation. Consultation is conducive to a consensus and I believe that this is very fundamental to the kind of debates we are having and will continue to have, both in the context of the transatlantic relationship as well as within the EU. In the same spirit we put out, as Bill mentioned, a joint declaration a bit earlier this spring in early May; two weeks or so before the summit that was to be held in Evian, France. That declaration was truly a statement of faith about the reality of the transatlantic partnership and the need not only to preserve it and sustain it, but also renew it. It was signed on the American side by four former secretaries of state, four former secretaries of defence, three former senior senators, a couple of previous national security advisors. It was truly non-partisan, bipartisan and included individuals formerly not known, not known for their overwhelming atlanticist personality or even their ability to spell EU, and yet they were willing to endorse every single word of it. That, in turn, prompted European responses, as Bill indicated, including a European response that was led by Giscard d'Estaing and the two vice presidents of the European Convention that is currently drafting a new constitution for the European Union, as well as by seven former prime ministers, five former foreign ministers, a couple of former defence ministers and others. And that declaration in turn endorsed the spirit, if not every word, of the joint declaration we had released earlier. Which tells me at least that we ought to be still bullish about the U.S.-European relationship, notwithstanding the real tensions that exist at this time and about which I will return momentarily in the spirit or folly of constructive pessimism. So we have, I think, we have I think available to us the tools needed to indeed proceed with the reinforcement of the transatlantic partnership as it was initially conceived. Now after... I've been told to speak for 15 to 20 minutes, not stand in the way of the main course. I take it that the new division of labour is not about your doing the lunching and my doing the work, as in working luncheon, and I will attempt to do my task, again to the extent that we can do that, in terms and rounds for questions. I had a beautiful speech actually, but I lack a lectern and you'll have to bear with me. First, what about? Next, what now? Third, what else? Fourth, what if? I think it's fair enough. What about? Bob Bauerlein was telling me over lunch that we are at a turning point and he was telling you late in the discussions that were unfolding this morning. It seems to me indeed that we are living a defining moment in U.S.-European, as well as in intra-European relations. A defining moment is quite clearly a moment during which decisions that are made, the way they are made, and the way they are enforced, have lasting consequences. Consequences not only for immediate lives, but arguably for the lives of our children as well. I think the last time, quite frankly, in the context of U.S.-European relations we lived such a moment comparable to what we're living now, may go back as far as 1945, 1957. That is to say, the aftermath of the Second World War, when we put in motion a strategy that was designed not only to win the Cold War, but also to end all the wars that had preceded the Cold War within the European continent. This was not an American strategy, this was not a European strategy, this was a western strategy. It was a strategy that was based upon two fundamental ideas, two simple ideas: The idea of a united and strong Europe, which was an American idea to the extent that the Americans wanted to force European nationalism into a cage from which there would be no exit because we in the United States would hold the key. That idea had been entertained by the Europeans for many, many years before, but it could not be enforced without the commitment of U.S. leadership and U.S. capabilities, and indeed American vision. Related to that European idea was an Atlantic idea; that is to say the idea that the United States would this time return to Europe and stay there, in order to provide the Europeans with the time they needed to achieve the pacification and the reconstruction and the rehabilitation and ultimately the reconciliation that was needed amongst all of those states on the continent. These two ideas together, with the latter now the Atlantic idea being a European idea, were not just compatible, they were complementary, and thus was borne, it seems to me, the western strategy, that unfolded throughout the Cold War, that enabled us, Americans and Europeans to build a community, a community of shared values and increasingly compatible interests, which in the end won the Cold War in 1989, 1991. And my first conclusion, therefore, if that indeed is what we are witnessing is all about, it is true my first conclusion is don't bore me with a vision thing. There is no need for a new vision. What we ought to do is stay the course, complete the vision that was started in 1945, 1957, because it is, indeed, a vision that worked well and to the benefit of both sides of the Atlantic. And the chance of finality for that vision where placed in the midst of the crisis we have left, in Prague in November of 2002 and in Stockholm, in Copenhagen in December of 2002, in the context of this commitment--the transformation of NATO on the one hand, and the finalization of the European Union on the other I would like to add some items to it, and the joint declaration touched upon it. I think we have to discuss the nature of U.S.-European relations past finality. There cannot be any finality with European Union without the final discussion of the ways in which EU-U.S. relations will unfold in the future. Don't give us a summit once a year. There is much more to be done in terms of the acknowledgement of the United States as non-member member state of the European Union. And therefore we must indeed address the issue of U.S.-Euro relations, and we need to develop better interface between the EU and NATO as the EU develops this identity of its own. Which leads me to the second, I think, question I raised, namely what now? We know that as that vision unfolded there were crises, crises. Can you remember any point in time over the past 50 years when we're not in the midst of a transatlantic crisis. Turn the clock back every ten years, '93, '83, '73, '63, '53, heck, go back to 1923 when the French were invading Germany. And the war most specifically thereby making in fact World War II inevitable, notwithstanding objections from the League of Nations. Crisis is a part of life in the U.S.-European relations.
Usually those crises are overtaken easily. A little summit,
as was the case for example, in October of 1954 in the aftermath
of the existential debate over Germany's rearmament, or in
May of 1983 as it took place in the context of the IMF debate
at Williamsburg, Virginia. Don't be complacent. I know that those crises have been resolved in the past, but this time the crisis, in my judgement, is different. There is something very fundamental about this crisis that makes me believe, indeed, that it is by no stretch of the imagination over as we speak. I know, of course, the role that the French play in the developing counterbalance to the U.S. coalition of the willing after January 20 of 2003, but this is not a bilateral crisis between the United States and France, or between the United States and Germany or between the United States even and the United Europe. What is very special about this crisis that frankly both sides can claim with equal legitimacy that they are speaking one, for a majority of Europe and the other for a majority of Europeans. That is what the French president could claim in the context of the crisis in early 2003, given the kinds of public opinion polls that were coming out of every single European country, including the U.K. before the war started. But that is also what the U.S. president could claim, with legitimacy, that he was speaking on behalf of a majority of European heads of state and government in the context of the positions that were being taken in late 2002 and early 2003. And the legitimacies of one acting and the other speaking is indeed something in my judge which is unprecedented. Nor is this crisis, nor is this crisis merely limited to Iraq. In fact, I would be willing to argue that it is over Iraq that we were able to achieve the highest level of European followership for the use of U.S. force to the extent, to the extent that indeed in the case of Iraq we were able to make, after September 11th a case for an imminent threat that may seem to be weaker to some now, but frankly, was very strong then, and remains very strong to my mind now as well. This crisis between the U.S. and the Europeans is about the difficulties of agreeing on a common policy about issues having to do with the Middle East, having to do with Southwest Asia, having to do with North Korea. Security issues about which intra-European differences may be lesser than U.S.-European differences and we'll have to work this out. Nor is this crisis limited to one point in time. This is not just about September 11th. In fact, in my judgement, Americans and Europeans now live in two different time zones. The time zone for the Europeans started in November 9 of 1989 when the Berlin wall collapsed. Thereby putting an end to the century of total war that had conditioned their lives throughout the 20th century. Thereby reducing really the extent that is really compelling the reliance and the use of force that have again conditioned their kind of hobbesian behaviour in the previous centuries. For us in the United States, of course, the clock began to tick on September 11th of 2001. Instead of ending the century of total war, we entered into a century of global wars, and the Europeans have not always understood, I think, the depth, the emotion, the significance of the territorial rape that took place in the United States on September 11 of 2001. A rape that was all the more unacceptable as we feared that it might be repeated and continue to fear that it might be repeated during the coming months and the coming years. And thus there is more to this crisis than just the aftermath of 9/11. There is a strategic gap between Americans and Europeans. There is a strategic gap that would have developed irrespective of 9/11, that would have developed because what we had to do after the Cold War was to transform this community of shared values and this community of increasingly compatible interests into a community of action. And it is very difficult to do, to transform those values and those interests into a joint shared action whenever those interests and those values might be at risk. Take NATO. NATO has been doing just that. NATO today is not on the verge of death, for God sake. NATO today is bigger, better, stronger, more relevant than at any time in its history. The problem is not with NATO. The problem is with the member states of NATO, because the member states within NATO are engaging to bilateral tensions, which are the worst we have seen since the mid-1950s in my judgement. Lord Robertson, I don't envy your job of putting those bilateral relationships together and you do it better than anyone we can recall. Beyond those bilateral tensions there is, indeed, emerging
as was pointed out this morning, a Euro-Atlantic culture for
robust intervention, quote/unquote, and we need to cultivate
that and the way it needs to be cultivated, first and foremost,
is in Iraq. I think there is no question that we need an imperative
sense to expand the coalition of the willing in Iraq into a
coalition that would also include those capable states that
refused to join the coalition of the willing earlier. And we
need to develop the international conditions that would make
it possible to do so in the near future. Third, time permitting, what else? Well, we cannot be NATO-tonic in the assessments of the U.S.-European relationship and the way in which that partnership is going to evolve. What dismays me most about the crisis, this unusual crisis that is still unfolding of the past several months, of the past year and a half, is its impact, the toll it has taken on the European Union and the ability on the part of the European states to integrate. This is part of the initial vision. We cannot save, it seems to me, the partnership at the expense of the process that was about to reach finality on the other side of the Atlantic. Because the other side of the Atlantic was, indeed, that is to say their side, engaging through a process of finality, deepen in order to widen, widen in order to deepen and reform and in order to do both. The agenda that the Europeans are still facing at this point in time is a debate that it is an agenda that would complete the third territorial revolution in Europe in half of millennium, from city states, to nation states and from national states to member states. That is to say, elusive political creatures that attempt to combine their commitment to national sovereignty to the discipline of the institutions to which they belong and I believe that this is a U.S. interest. And what makes it so very difficult to proceed, I think, with that agenda, is indeed, are indeed the bilateral tensions that have emerged within the EU. Had we taken a head count along the lines of the Nice summit, for example, neither as now Blair on the one hand, or Schroeder or Chirac on the other would have had a majority. Talk about the commitment on the part of the U.S. to desegregation of Europe is nonsense, is nonsense. I know that there is some European perception that the administration now is interested in stopping this kind of a process because it is uncovering a united Europe would be wholly under the control of an allegedly Gaullist France and thus stand in the way of U.S. preferences. I don't accept that. I do not believe that to be the case. The United States already speaks to the EU as one in all dimensions except the military dimension. And we do not do that in the military dimension, the foreign policy dimension because the EU simply is not prepared to do so. Capabilities, capabilities, capabilities, the EU has to develop that kind of a dimension and so long as it cannot develop that dimension it will not be able to play with Mike Jordan, let alone be like him if it is true that we all would like to be like Mike. Now fourth question, what if? What if notwithstanding the overwhelming achievements of the past 50 years this relationship in its transatlantic dimension, in its European dimension, were to collapse? Here I can save you time. There is no such what if. This is a challenge to imagination. This is a challenge to imagination to pretend that Europe and American are about to part company and that the Europeans are about their own ways and to become once again either the small pieces of real estate they used to be, or else the kind of divided Europe they were let's say in the late 1950s, when the EEC, EFTA and a few others bid for some kind of dominance on the European continent. The reason why it is irreversible has to do with the assets that we have in common. Look, it's like a 50-year-old marriage. I'm told that after 50 years a marriage can lose the dynamism it had during the first few years. You know, love tends to fade, or else takes different dimensions that used to be the case earlier. Both parties have become somewhat compatible, they behave in the same manner, they look similarly. The future for Europe is to be like America and the future for America is to become more like Europe. But the assets that couple has in common are just too woven together to be split. You cannot achieve a divorce under such circumstances. There is a tunnel under the Atlantic today which is worth $2500 billion, a year's worth of commercial transaction. There is a virtual Euro-Atlantic state today with a gross national product of $1300 billion, representing the output of U.S. firms in Europe and European firms in the United States. And if you can split those assets then maybe you can split the relationship. Otherwise American interests in Europe are too important to be left to Europeans alone, and European interests in the United States are too important to be abandoned to the whims of presidential elections every four years. So I believe, I believe quite frankly that there is no if. Talk of a weak Europe is just overdone. Please stop speaking of power and weakness. This is a weak, flawed argument. Europe from an American standpoint is weak only by military standards. Of course, it is important for Europe to develop some military capabilities, but by any other measurement of power Europe is strong. And by any measurement of American military power the strength of Europe are indispensable to the completion of what the United States will do on behalf of shared interest and shared values, which leads me to the case of complementarity. We are not speaking of a common policy in all instances. We're certainly not speaking a single policy. We are back to the early days when what we wanted to do was to do things in a complementary manner. We need not do everything together, but together we have to do everything. And I believe that if can work out the terms of the complementarity, relying upon American strength and European strength, starting with Iraq, but moving on toward other institu... other parts of the world, relying on the institutions inherited from the world, we will be in the position to complete the vision that was started after 1945 for the benefit of both Americans and Europeans allies. My 20 minutes are up. Thank you very much. (APPLAUSE) Moderator: Simon, would you like to take some questions and comments from the audience? And while we're finishing up the main course and serving dessert we'll go ahead and take this. Who would like to start off? Any comments? Are people exhausted? No, back there, Ilana. Is there a microphone to bring around? Q: My name's Ilana Bet-El and I just want to sort of make a few comments with regard to possibly what may be called the European perspective. Forgive me for playing devil's advocate, but a few people here today know that that's what I usually do. But a lot of today has been focused on the U.S. perspective
on issues. I think barring Tom Enders' contribution we haven't
really heard from the European point of view. NATO is an Alliance. Alliances were what Europe used to do. That's what got us into trouble over centuries and millennia. The EU is a concert. NATO is in the process of transforming itself into a concert also, which is what its process of enlargement is. The question is whether the U.S. can be part of a concert or not? The reason that the EU has gone down the path of a concert is that if not traditionally it breaks up into rival alliances. And that is to me probably one of the major issues that we're facing right now. It's not that the EU is a group of people or a group of states that necessarily is stupid or doesn't want to spend its money on defence. It has made a strategic decision over decades to not spend its money on defence because it's spending its money on mechanisms that keep stability. Stability being economic and social stability. Now, from a defence perspective that could be a bad idea, but nonetheless that is what the EU and the European nations have effectively been doing. And when they decided to transform themselves, possibly into another form of mechanism, which takes on defence, we'll have to see how that goes. But there's not a complete lack of logic or lack of interest necessarily in the way that the Europeans don't spend on defence. Which doesn't excuse them not having capabilities, but that's
a different issues. There was mutual interest in there though. It wasn't just as though the U.S. did this as a completely altruistic exercise. There's a necessity on both sides to recreate both international order after the Second World War, given the havoc that the EU... or sorry, rather the Europeans are capable inflicting upon the world and upon themselves, and because of the Cold War. The real issue that we're all facing is that when the Cold War ended nobody really knew what to do with it, and whereas the U.S. decided, quite rightly, that a threat still existed, and wanted to go off and find that threat, the Europeans decided to take what's known as the peace dividend. But coming back to the core issue which we're discussing here today, which is transatlantic defence alliance, we've got to constantly look at the core issues, which is being avoided. Which is what does the U.S. really want out of Europe? And I don't think that we honestly face that question very often. We constantly hear about the fact that European nations aren't spending enough on defence, the European nations don't have enough defence capabilities. But intrinsically the perception from here is often that the U.S. wants the Europeans to develop defence capabilities which will fall in line with U.S. strategic interests, whereas the Europeans have different strategic interests. Equally, however though, the U.S. should look at the history of Europe. A rearmed Europe, in one way or another, will not necessarily be in anyone's interest, especially not the Europeans, which is one of the reasons they stay away from it. Armed Europe has traditionally wrecked havoc over the world and over itself, not just in the last two world wars, but also over centuries it has basically ruled the world in one way or another. So the U.S., in constantly saying that the EU or European states are not living up to their defence capabilities and are not pulling its own part, is equally not making clear what it actually wants out of that, nor how it would face an armed Europe or a Europe that could have capabilities that in one way or another if not match its own, could definitely lead groups or nations that could be of equal capability to it. So I think that it would be an interesting exercise after listening today to a lot of discussions about U.S. capabilities and U.S. attempts to improve its export license controls, as to how the U.S. perceives a stronger Europe, or a Europe that is willing to actually meet it head on? Thanks very much. Simon Serfaty: Well, it's
a good comment, and let me pick on two items. It would not
be possible for me to really return to every single dimension
of this statement. Those policies, incidentally, were not initiated because of the Cold War. There was nothing visionary about those policies. The vision is what remains after everything has worked. At the time those policies were conditioned by recollections of a failed past. They responded on the side of the Europeans as well as on the side of the United States to the failures of the pre-war, inter-war, pre-World War II years. And I'm comfortable with that. I'm also comfortable with the fact that the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of those policies. If anything the United States became more actively involved in and with Europe after 1991. Economically, security-wise, and otherwise. So mutual interests, that all means in the context of that relationship the United States became a power in Europe and Europe moved toward the direction of becoming a single power. As to the perception of... the U.S. perception of the EU, look, there are three ways of looking at the EU. One is to dismiss it as a counterfeit. You guys will never put your act together. It's not just that you cannot spend money on defence, but in the end you will not be able to sustain the stability and growth pact. You bring up as political leaders, individuals, who frankly do not share the kind of motivation that conditioned political leaders after World War II and so forth. It's not to be taken seriously. I think the idea of Europe as a counterfeit ceased to exist in the late 1990s. I think that by and large Americans now take Europe and its institutions seriously. Now this means that there are two other options. You can view it as a counterweight, or you can view it as counterparts. I'm not concerned about, at this point in time, Europe as a counterweight. For the very reasons which you mentioned. Europe is not about to become the kind of complete power that the United States is. Europe's best future at this point in time is that of a counterpart. A counterpart does not mean that it follows U.S. policies in all directions. It means that it can make contributions to, in consultation with, the United States over issues of mutual interest or involving shared value. I use the word complementary. I didn't use the word common. I didn't use the word single. And I did more than using the word compatible. My sense of Europe is that it cannot be a counterpart without having some weight. A counterpart with weight then does become a counterfeit. So it seems to me that on that basis the Europeans should, in fact, not just spend more, but spend better, on defence. Our report on transatlantic defence co-operation did not make a big production out of spending more. Your call. But certainly spending better. So I'm still comfortable with the notion that the United States remains today committed to the idea of an increasingly united, ever larger, and progressively stronger Europe that can work in ways that are compatible with and complementary of U.S. policies on behalf of shared value and increasingly common interest. Q: (inaudible)... Simon Serfaty: Well, that seems to be settling
the terms of the partnership. Q: You mentioned spending better. Does that imply or does that mean spending towards the U.S.? Because at the moment what we've got is, it seems to me, a difference of interpretation of language and going back to this business of the monolithic amplifier, a product is a product is a product. Now if you want... if you give approval to a product then you must continue to give approval. If you give approval once and then remove the approval then you are automatically unreliable as a partner and therefore you should not expect to have money spent in your direction. What's the answer? Simon Serfaty: That's... no, I don't mean in the direction of the U.S. I mean in terms of a further... in terms of further steps or the development of a common foreign, common security and common defence policy. In this order incidentally. That's transatlantic defence report we
put out urged that there be consultation
not
on a bilateral
basis
between the United
States and the states of Europe, but
on the basis of the
U.S. going to a grouping of European
states beginning with the LOI
states, and we urged that to the extent
of the possible the EU be dealt with
as a virtual
member
state of
the European Union. The 16 member states,
or the 15 member
European
Union. Yes? I can say the opposite of what I just said. It's... Well Bill, I think it's your turn. Can I have a dessert too? 
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