official texts and speeches
The International Picture: Looking Ahead
Speech by Deputy Chief of Mission Thomas Countryman
9th Annual American Studies Seminar
Thessaloniki, Friday, April 14, 2006
Thank you. It is a real pleasure for me to be here; it is a pleasure to see a few people I have already had a chance to speak to today; it is a pleasure to be out of my office, out of Athens; it is always more fun for me to talk to students than to talk to journalists, diplomats, and bureaucrats. So, thank for coming on a Friday evening.
I understand the theme for this year’s course is “Hard Realities and Soft Power,” and this is a good time to talk about it. For 50 years and more after the end of World War II the global balance of power was steadied by the push and pull of the Cold War. In the fifteen years since the Cold War ended we have experienced unsurpassed technological innovation giving rise to new realities and we have experienced challenges that we could not have imagined 15 years ago. The hard realities on the positive side include technology. Technology has given the world many benefits permitting global communication and action anywhere by anyone with the cell phone. But these same tools of instant communication can also allow individuals or small groups of terrorists to coordinate their actions as well with terrible consequences.
Secretary Rice recently said “technology right now is collapsing the distance between ‘right here’ and ‘over there’.” That distance is not what it used to be. Governments all over the world are re-thinking the way that they engage with the rest of the world. To strengthen their economies, nations engage in the global market place in a more far-reaching way than they ever had. To provide security inside their borders they are thinking about global security and threats that exist far outside of their borders.
The second reality after technology and after the nature of globalization shrinking the size of the globe is the shared values and the transatlantic relationship. The relationship between Europe and the United States is as important as ever. Nothing of great and lasting importance can be achieved by either the United States or Europe when acting alone. Everywhere where we want to make a change in the world for the better, we must act together. The fact is that we are cooperating globally on political and economic and security issues and we are absolutely committed to making this cooperation ever stronger. Right now there is a broad agreement on both sides of the Atlantic that we have a responsibility to the rest of the world to help spread our core values: human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. A recent poll by the German Marshal Fund found that 74% of Europeans support joint American and European action to advance these values in the world. This is the positive change that we can help bring.
These are long-term goals: advancing democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. They will take generations in some places. In other places closer to Europe the results will be seen more immediately. Along this way, my generation and then your generation are going to have a lot of difficult choices to make. There will be points at which this overriding goal of advancing democracy and human rights may temporarily have to take second place, behind other important considerations and goals that we all have; issues such as stability, energy security, and humanitarian issues. But the important thing is that we agree to work on these overriding goals, democracy and human rights, on a continuous basis and to make it an issue in our relationship with every country, every corner of the world. It is a strategy, which, as Secretary Rice has said, consists of understanding where history is going and giving it a push.
We work together in the projection of soft power around the world in support of democracy and human rights. Within Europe our key tool is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It is doing invaluable work in fighting human trafficking, promoting human rights, and establishing the standards by which the fairness of democratic elections are judged.
A second example of soft power that we are working on together is the Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative originated by the G8 nations and now supported by many nations including Greece as a charter member. Through the component parts of this initiative, government and big businesses and NGOs in Middle Eastern countries are working toward reform in the region, are having a dialogue on how to promote civil society and democracy and economic reform.
I think you have a speaker later tonight on the issue of whether democracy is attainable for the Islamic world. Let me tell you our strong belief, and my personal belief from living in the Arab world, that the Islamic world is just as capable and just as desirous of reaching those democratic values as we are in Europe and North America.
The next hard reality is that providing security and stability at home sometimes requires direct action far from home. For the United States, any discussion of transatlantic action on security begins with NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO kept the peace in Europe for five decades of the Cold War and enabled Western Europe to expand its own democratic development. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has shown that it can adapt to new challenges and new threats. NATO is the institution where leaders go when something needs to get done. Whether it was patrolling the skies above America immediately after September 11, peacekeeping in Afghanistan, training a new Iraqi military, patrolling the Mediterranean Sea against smuggling of drugs and technology and human beings, transporting African Union troops to crisis points in Sudan, or delivering humanitarian aid in Pakistan or in Louisiana, the transatlantic community turns to NATO for action. So we agree with what the German Chancellor Merkel laid out a couple of months ago when she said that NATO should be the primary forum for strategic dialogue between the United States and Europe. When we act together on security, we act through NATO. NATO is the security link in the connection that joins the United States and Europe.
The other link that contributes to the strength and importance of this connection is economic. We share an economic and trade relationship worth 2 1/2 trillion dollars. This relationship does not just help America and Europe, it does not just help consumers and workers in the United States and in Europe, but it creates millions of jobs all over the world. Although we have differences on details, the United States and Europe share an orientation to free economic markets domestically and free trade internationally.
We also work together on providing economic assistance. Together we account, U.S. and Europe, for almost 80 % of the economic assistance that goes to poor nations around the world. We need to continue this. We need to work together on coordinating our assistance better. But let me say that there is a tendency among my friends -- in Europe particularly after the U.S.Iraq -- to think that Europe does soft power and the United States does hard power. This is a false distinction. The United States under President Bush has increased the amounts of international development assistance that we give to the world’s poor countries by more than 50 % over the amount given under the Clinton Administration. We have started the biggest global health initiative ever to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis worldwide. We are as committed to soft power, more committed than ever. intervention in
I know that there is a long list of economic differences between Europe and the United States and those will always be there. Our interests will never be identical. Besides the basic orientation of free markets domestically and globally, there are other areas we need to improve our cooperation. One is on deregulation, improving markets, and another very important, as you have seen in dramatic events in Europe in the last few months, energy security.
If I could turn from these very broad realities to a few specific issues for a moment, I want to talk about the common U.S. and European approach to some of the hard realities that we face today. Let us start with the area where we have had perhaps the sharpest disagreement with friends in Europe, and that is in Iraq. Today Europe and the United States are united and focused on achieving a better future for the Iraqi people. Whatever your opinion about the American decision with partners to invade Iraq is, the current reality is that the occupation is over. For the first time there is a freely and democratically elected government in Iraq and that government has made a choice. It has made a request to the international community to keep coalition troops in Iraq and to help build not only the security forces of Iraq but rebuild the economic and democratic infrastructure of the country. We agree now with partners in Europe that a democratic and secure Iraq is not only essential to the stability and security of Europe but it can also set the stage for the greater spread of democracy and freedom throughout the Middle East region.
How do we go forward from here? The U.S. wishes to see coalition forces stay and work with the Iraqi people and their democratic government until the Iraqi security forces are capable of giving security to their own country and when they ask us to go we will go. We will ask our coalition partners to stay with us and we will continue to work with all of our allies through NATO to provide training in a variety of forms for the Iraqi security forces. In doing so each of us also increases our ability to persuade the people of Iraq and the political leadership of Iraq to move away from the narrow sectarian view and to work together towards a unified civil society, towards the rule of law and towards tolerance within Iraq.
Secondly, Afghanistan. We have a joint interest in a secure and democratic Afghanistan. We look forward to seeing a peaceful and prosperous country. NATO forces are there now to make sure that the country does not again become a haven for terrorism and I salute the contribution that Greece has made. About 200 soldiers who are running the most advanced medical clinics in the city of Kabul and are doing an incredible job in helping the Afghan people rebuild their schools and the rest of their civilian infrastructure.
I have to take an extra minute to talk about Iran. In Iran today we are faced with a repressive regime whose nuclear ambitions are a threat to regional security and to global security. The international community is united today in its opposition to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. We are committed to using all diplomatic means to resolve this dispute and all diplomatic means must include the United Nations Security Council and the use of the soft power at the disposal of the United Nations. We welcome the leadership of the three EU members and we follow them as leaders. But let us be very clear about what is at stake here. Iran has made a strategic decision to obtain the hardest of hard power: nuclear weapons. So far it can do so without having to make any compromise on its next most important priority, which is maintaining a robust trade relationship with the European Union. Until Teheran is forced to make some hard choices among its different goals, it can continue full speed ahead on its development of nuclear weapons. If you are concerned about someone using hard power against Iran or if you are concerned about Iran using hard power against its neighbors or against Israel, then now is exactly the time for the European Union and the United Nations to deploy maximum soft power against Teheran’s ambitions, and that means hard economic choices. Soft power cannot be limited to words. That’s not power, that’s just words.
A few words about issues closer to home in the Balkans. I have spent half my career working on Balkans issues. I would have to say that with the end of the Cold War the Balkans, and especially the area of the former Yugoslavia, no longer has the same geo-strategic significance it once had. Places like Kosovo and Bosnia do not have the resources, the transportation routes, and the level of economic development that make them strategically interesting. They are interesting primarily because of their capability; their potential, as we saw in the 1990’s, to create chaos for the rest of Europe. This was the hard decision that NATO made in the 1990’s when for the first time NATO deployed hard power. It deployed hard power not against the hard power of the Soviet Union and not in order to obtain a strategic goal. It deployed hard power in defense of soft targets. In defense of human beings who were being killed in Bosnia and in Kosovo.
Now we need maintenance of
security forces in Kosovo, in Bosnia,
and we need soft power, dedication of the European Union and the United
States, to rebuild the society. Our joint goal in the Balkans that we share
with Europe 2006
is a big year for this. We -- that is
the Contact Group of which the U.S. That does not mean that we make
the decision and then we walk away. It
means they make a decision and then we stay and engage and help and build
Kosovo and its neighbors. It is also a
year in which we want to see modernization of the Dayton Accords. We would like to see Bosnia
and Herzegovina move towards a more
functional constitution that will reflect the real desire of most of the people
of Bosnia and Herzegovina
to live together in a functional state.
Now my personal and very strong belief from my years in this region is
that these issues -- status, borders, names, constitutions -- are much less
important to the future of the region than the threat of organized crime and
corruption. This is what is destroying
the societies and undermining the governments in each part of this region. The governments that are most determined to
begin to fight these scourges right now are the governments that will be the
most successful future members of NATO and of the European Union.
I want to say just a couple of words about Turkey. The U.S. was very glad to see the European Union begin accession negotiations with Turkey last October. I especially want to salute the Greek government -- both the current government and the previous government -- for a far-sighted view, for realizing that it is in Greece’s strategic interest to encourage Turkey’s progress towards the European Union. There is a lot of work to be done, but a Turkey that is closer to the EU in its political, economic and social structures is good for Greece, is good for everyone in Europe, and is good for Turkey. So, we support the standard of full compliance with EU standards in return for full membership of the European Union. It is not a question for tomorrow. It is going to take years. That is why it is important to work on it today.
In these areas and in many others, Greece is rightfully assuming a leading role. Greece is one of the very top investors in the Balkan region, in the former Yugoslavia, in Albania, in Bulgaria and is playing a very positive role in economic development in this region. These are the actions of a mature democracy that is using its influence and its proximity in the region in order to promote a positive change for these countries, and we welcome it.
Let me say just a word about what we call the strategic partnership between the United States and Greece. Strategic partnership is one that is not limited to the immediate neighborhood. We may still have a slightly different angle in Washington than we do in Athens on how to approach the status of Kosovo or the name of the Republic of Macedonia or the right way to re-unify Cyprus. Different angles, same goals. But our strategic partnership goes well beyond this immediate neighborhood.
In the 21st century, when Greece is a member of the world’s most important economic grouping, the European Union, when Greece is one of the thirty strongest economies in the world, when Greece is a magnet for economic immigrants, not a source of economic immigrants, then Greece has an interest in what happens not just in Cyprus, in Macedonia and in Kosovo, but it’s got an interest in the actions of a terrorist sitting in Cairo or in Berlin. It’s got an interest in the action of a farmer growing heroin poppy in Afghanistan. It’s got an interest in a people-smuggler operating from Iran to Turkey into Greece. It is in those areas that we have built a strategic partnership, where Greece, within the limits of its abilities, is pushing itself together with its European partners to work with us to fight proliferation of weapons, to fight human smuggling, human trafficking, to fight narcotic drug traffic, to fight against terrorism. We welcome these actions of the Greek government. We recognize that it means they see a strategic partnership as being in the best interest of the Greek people, the best interest of a secure and prosperous Greece in the future.
Let me stop right there. I have many more pages, but I will throw them away because I know that with this group, and the fact that you have taken the time to take this course, means that you will have many interesting questions, and I will give you very straight answers to each of them.