Rethinking the Transatlantic Relationship in the 21st Century

Speaking Notes for a Lecture

by

Marten van Heuven

at

Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont

January 14, 2005

 

Introduction

 

It is a pleasure to be at Middlebury, and an honor to speak in a program associated with Felix Rohatyn, who represented our country with distinction as Ambassador to France and came up with imaginative ways to enhance our representation in that country.

 

Before I start, I want to note the role Canada plays in this process of transatlantic relations.  Time will not permit me to go into this aspect of the relationship.  However, Canada has in the past made significant contributions to the transatlantic relationship and no doubt will do so in the future.

 

Declaring myself

 

Nowadays, it is customary for a teacher to declare himself.  So, up front, here are my core beliefs and points of reference, based on experience.

 

My life – and my working life – have been spent about equally on each side of the Atlantic.  So it should not come as a surprise that I care deeply about transatlantic relations.

 

Having served at NATO, I feel a personal stake in that organization. I also believe that an effective EU is good for the US.

 

Let me add a caveat: The longer I work this field, the more I realize how little I know. This requires a degree of modesty. When in 1956 the American author H.L. Mencken died, he left the obituary writer of the Baltimore Sun a terse note in a sealed envelope.  The note read: “Don’t overplay it!”

 

In this vein, I am taking the liberty of making a slight change in the title of my presentation.  The Middlebury organizers – thinking broadly as usual – would have me address transatlantic relations “for the 21st century.”  When you think ahead, a century is a long time.  So I’ll limit my scope and address the subject of transatlantic relations “in the 21st century.”

 

I have one other preliminary point:  The title of my talk starts with the verb “rethinking”.  This is exactly what I propose to do. I am not here to dispense received wisdom. My purpose is for you to reach your own conclusions. So please fasten your safety belts.

 

Outline

 

Let me now show you the outline of what I propose to cover:

 

.                     Perspectives matter

 

.                     The hard job of defining the national interest

 

.                     Reaching for US objectives: Policies, power and approach.

 

.                     The state of Europe

 

.                     The effect of 9/11

 

.                     The transatlantic dialogue

 

.                     Some questions for Europe and the US --- and for you

 

Perspectives

 

What you think depends on where you sit.

 

For the historian, anything is potentially interesting; so it is for a student.

 

For the foreign policy maker the criterion is what serves the national interest.

 

For the diplomat the issue is how best to achieve national objectives.

 

So pick your vantage point, but be aware that each vantage point comes with a different prism, and will produce different pictures.

 

So it is with transatlantic relations.  They look different in each of the many countries that are part of the relationship. 

 

The national interest

 

Any attempt to assess transatlantic relations – indeed, US foreign policy – must start with the national interest. This sounds simple.  It isn’t.

 

In the 1990s, the Council on Foreign Relations made an attempt to define the US national interest.  The results were all over the map.  Only one of 12 interests on the list enjoyed unanimous support: The physical defense of US territory.  Everything else was contested.

 

In 1996, the Commission on America’s National Interest made another try.  It came up with four what it called “Blue chips:”

 

            Prevent, deter and reduce threat of NBC weapons attacks on the US

            Prevent emergence of hostile hegemon in Europe or Asia

            Prevent emergence of hostile major power on US borders or in control of the seas

            Ensure survival of US allies

 

These blue chips sound defensive, even negative.  They lack a Wilsonian ring.  There is no trace of carrying liberty abroad. 

 

A more recent attempt by the Commission produced a fuller statement:

 

Protection of US territory and American citizens from external attack that could cause mass casualties or disrupt the essential functions of the national government.

The security of North America, Canada, Mexico, the surrounding waters and the nearby islands in the Caribbean, and the air space – and space itself.

Avoidance of the dominance of Europe and Northeast Asia by a hostile power, given the importance of these places as centers of economic and military power and their strategic positions on the opposite shores of the oceans that guard the United States.     

Maintenance of key international systems on which the United States depends: Trade, financial markets, energy, transport and environment.

 

It strikes me that this definition has been overtaken in part by events. It defines “strategic” mostly in geographic terms. It speaks about “oceans guarding the United States,” though the most recent attacks came from within the US. It makes no mention of health, as anyone who last year went through the SARS scare in Toronto will point out.

 

Europe, you will notice, makes both lists, but only in terms of what we do not want to happen there.  There is no mention of transatlantic relations.

 

There is another factor that bedevils the definition of the national interest.  It is easier to define an interest in response to a threat.  The Cold War tended to conflate threats and interests.  The threat was present and acute.  Meeting it became a vital interest for the United States and other countries.  It became easy to forget that the Cold War was about the stability of Europe, rather than the Soviet threat. (Robert L. Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., 1997, Conclusion).

 

In the post-Cold War years, in contrast, a physical threat was absent.  In the immediate postwar period, what animated US European policy was defense of interests that had not disappeared with the threat.  But as the nineteen nineties progressed, American strategic thinking lost its bearing.  Administration officials sought to conjure up new threats and to find a new catch-all for an American global role.  The attempt did not succeed:  “Instability” was too vague.  Phrases such as “democratic enlargement” and “new world order” did not take as workable concepts around which to shape a foreign policy that Americans would support.

 

Today, we are again faced with an immediate threat, namely of jihad terrorism.  Once again, it is easier to conclude that meeting this threat is our overriding national interest.  So we find ourselves back with a threat-based foreign policy and lack of clarity about what are our national interests.

 

There is another point.  Americans may feel uneasy about the concept of national interest; it smacks of power politics.  We tend to be more comfortable talking about values and principles.  However, promotion of our core values and principles is part and parcel of our national interest.

 

Now that we have identified the difficulties surrounding the definition of American interests, who decides what they are?

 

In our system of government, the President has responsibility for the conduct of foreign affairs.  He exercises this role together with the Congress.  Americans trust them to do the right thing.  However, when presented with a foreign policy issue that touches Americans across the board, the electorate can, slowly but powerfully, affect the direction of the country.  Remember Vietnam.  Growing disenchantment with the war turned to active opposition, eventually forcing the administration to change course.  Ultimately, the national interest of the United States is shaped by the American electorate.

 

So, while vital interests will continue to shape American foreign policy, it will take a perceptive eye to discern how America defines its interests at any given moment.  It will also be a matter of judgment to what degree these perceived vital interests translate into specific US policies.

.

Even though transatlantic relations do not appear on any short list of US interests, I do not hesitate to identify constructive relations with Europe as a vital interest of the United States.  Despite obvious differences, the two continents share a large common heritage and key values.  Moreover, the capacities of Europe, when harnessed to those of the United States toward agreed objectives, can provide the effective leadership which so many of today’s global problems require. (Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Geostrategic Triad, CSIS, Washington, D.C., 2001, Washington, D.C. 1997, Ch. 2).  Though the threats to the United States today originate mostly outside Europe, the potential role of the countries of that continent can give crucial leverage to American policies toward common objectives.  In short:  Europe matters.  It is a “blue chip.”

 

Reaching for US objectives

 

US foreign policy objectives have undergone drastic transformation in my lifetime.  In the nineteen forties it was the defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan.  In the nineteen fifties and beyond, it was to meet the challenge of Soviet communism and the danger of nuclear war.  The policy was containment.  With the fall of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the policy in Europe became one of cooperation.  The United States sought, in the words of President George H.W. Bush, a Europe “whole and free.”

 

To this end, the United States actively promoted the enlargement of NATO and supported the enlargement of the European Union.  At the same time, the US sought to get NATO involved out-of-area.  Meanwhile, trade and investment between Europe and the US have grown robustly, and the number of visitors back and forth has increased exponentially.

 

Today’s to-do list of major Washington foreign policy objectives includes, not necessarily in order, the following:

 

            Countering global terrorism

            The security, reconstruction and democratization of Iraq

            The security, reconstruction and democratization of Afghanistan

            Progress toward a solution of the Palestine-Israel conflict

Elimination of the North Koran nuclear weapons program through a multilateral six-power                    effort

            Peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s status

            Inspection and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program.

 

Globally, the US is engaged as seldom before.  The US position as the world’s sole super power virtually guarantees that America is involved, even if it would prefer not to be.  In strategic terms, the United States has provided security, stability and prosperity, first to Western Europe and now also to Europe as a whole.  It has played a similar key role in North East Asia, providing security to Korea and Japan, while guarding against any forcible change in Taiwan’s status.  The crisis in the Middle East has vastly expanded the US role and force presence in that and surrounding areas.  This is not the picture of an isolationist America.

 

The approach of the administration of President George W. Bush has put increasing emphasis on the bilateral US relationships with big powers – Russia, China, India, and Japan.  At the same time, US official ambivalence about the United Nations continues, even as polls show continued, though soft, popular American support for the UN.  The administration sees NATO as the best – and only – multilateral institution capable of applying effective military muscle to foreign policy objectives.  However, it is my impression that today’s Washington unfortunately tends to see NATO more as a military than as a diplomatic tool.  There is a continued tendency to want NATO countries to fall in line with whatever policy the US decides on.  This tendency is reinforced by the residue of bad feelings, chiefly in the Pentagon, that in the Kosovo conflict NATO was reduced to waging war by committee.  This picture shows a mix of unilateralist and multilateralist tendencies.

 

Alongside principles, interests and threats, power is a key element of foreign policy.  I like the model of Harvard Kennedy School’s Joseph Nye, who likens it to a three level structure.  The top level is military power.  Here the US is paramount.  The second level is economic.  Here, the US and the EU work with each other pretty much as equals.  The third level is the thick web of relationships largely beyond the control of any government.  Globalization has powerfully helped it along.  At this third level, US influence is considerable.

 

In the area of military power, the transatlantic relationship is out of balance, on two accounts.  First, the capabilities of the United States far exceed those of the Europeans.   

Second, America is generally more disposed than Europeans to use military power.  The National Security Strategy of the United States is explicit: “Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.”  But, as Professor Sloan has noted, even with these capabilities and this strategy, the United States is dangerously exposed in the Middle East (The Use of U.S. Power, Georgetown University, 2004, p. 13).

 

It remains for me here to add a comment about the American approach.  Throughout the history of the United States, two schools of thought have characterized the American approach to the world.  One sees the United States as a beacon, as an example for others to aspire to.  The other sees America as a crusader, intent on bringing to other people those virtues and systems – freedom, democracy, human rights and free trade – that Americans found worked for them.  Both schools of thought are products of the American experience.  Both have in common a sense of American exceptionalism.  (See Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994, p.18).  Both contain a dose of divine providence.  Otto von Bismarck is alleged to have muttered:”God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”  The current US administration appeared to start off as a member of the first school, but it is now firmly part of the second.  This carries the danger of overstretch.  As George Kennan once trenchantly observed, “We are not, really, all that great.”

 

The state of Europe

 

By any yardstick, Europe has been spectacularly successful.  Devastated by two world wars, it is now a prosperous and democratic area.  War between France and Germany is now inconceivable.

 

America played a major role in this outcome.  The Marshall plan constituted the basis for recovery.  The United States military and diplomatic presence provided security.

 

The collapse of Soviet communism opened the door for the countries of East Central Europe, realizing the vision of a Europe whole and free.

 

The European Union has helped settle local conflicts; this has been a useful requirement for states wanting to join.  The conflict in Northern Ireland seems, finally, to be on the road toward a definitive conclusion.  Press reports suggest the waning of Basque terrorism.

 

The EU has created a common market and introduced its own currency. 

 

But, in the phrase of Steven Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos of the National Defense University, there is trouble in paradise. (INSS McNair Paper 49, 1996).  It is not just, as they point out, the sclerosis of many European economies and the unbearable costs of the social welfare systems created in the flush period before the turn of the century.  There are other factors.

 

Despite the surface unity of a European structure in Brussels and an elaborate mass of laws and regulations, Europe remains a diverse place.  This diversity is rooted in different historical experiences, perspectives, outlooks and expectations.  Yet the stated goal of the Treaty of Rome is “an ever closer Union.”  Much of what passes within the EU is driven by these two basic but contradictory elements.

 

Moreover, there is no agreed concept of what should be the end point for the EU.  What will be its size?  Could enlargement, paradoxically, lead to its breakup?  What will be its nature, a strong center or a federation of nation - states?  After years of work, the EU now has a constitution.  It is, in my view, an impossibly long and unwieldy document, which must now be approved by all member states.  This is not a sure thing.

 

Furthermore, I submit that Europe today is unstable.  I don’t mean the instability that is a normal part of economic, social and political change.  I refer to the real danger of armed conflict.  Even today, Greek and Turkish air forces are chasing each other above the Aegean.  The strong Greek reaction to the recent United States decision to call the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia simply Macedonia, is rooted in the historic belief that name changes are a precursor to armed invasion, ludicrous though the prospect of Macedonia invading Greece may be to an outsider.  The armed Turkish presence in Northern Cyprus continues to ring alarm bells south of the demarcation line, as well as in Athens.  Peace in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo is provided – not always successfully – by EU and NATO troops and a large international presence.  Only last month, the outcome of the initial elections in Ukraine almost led to civil war, the breakup of the country and the possibility of armed intervention. 

 

Though the US military presence in Europe is now much reduced, as is the dominance of America with respect to many other aspects of life in Europe, most Europeans, and almost all European governments, including France, want a continued US role in Europe.  In my dealings with Europeans over many years, it became clear to me that often Europe worked better when there was an American in the room.  The American factor in Europe is still regarded as a good thing.  Perhaps this partly explains the strong reactions when the US does something with which Europeans disagree.

 

Europe now faces the additional destabilizer of immigration.  For centuries – even millennia – Europe been the magnet drawing people from the east.  So, after World War II, immigration of Yugoslavs, Hungarians and Czechs to Western Europe was nothing new.  The Federal Republic of Germany handled with success the huge inflow from ethnic and East Germans in the early nineteen nineties.  But the process has now become difficult.  France for years has been trying to assimilate a stream of immigrants from Algeria and the Maghreb.  Germany has experienced difficulty with Turks, who came in large numbers.  The Balkan conflict attracted Muslim fighters to the area.  Then, Italy handled with great discomfort a sudden inflow of Albanians who, in the popular perception, brought along crime, drugs and prostitution.  As a result, Europe has found itself engulfed not just with foreigners but a growing number of Muslims.  These migrations have put to the test the policy of multiculturalism.  Two assassinations in The Netherlands with racial and religious overtones have precipitated a sharp debate in northwestern Europe.  The emerging consensus seems to be that multiculturalism is dead.  These developments have made many in Europe exceptionally weary about any European exposure to the tinderkeg in the Middle East.  This partly explains the deep unease in Europe with the declared policy of the United States to bring democracy to the greater Middle East, with the upheaval that this effort entails.

 

Finally, the existence of the EU has not put an end to the traditional European habit of jockeying for national power.  This competition continues.  The difference is that disagreements are no longer settled by war, but by maneuvering within the structure and rules of the EU.  Moreover, enlargement has changed the playing field.  The notion of France and Germany as the economic and political locomotives of the EU - and with it the notion of French leadership within the EU - is no longer sustainable.  The larger countries – the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland – now find themselves forming coalitions to deal with specific issues.   The smaller countries are facing the challenge how to maximize their limited influence, forcing them to either become junior partners of major countries, or group together in coalitions of the small.

 

It should not come as a surprise that, with all that is going on within the EU and aspirant countries, much of Europe’s time and energy is directed at itself.  For this reason, and because Europe has limited military capabilities - and not much taste for using military forces except in peacekeeping roles – Europe is more of a regional than a global power.  There are numerous examples of European action, such as with respect to the Iranian nuclear weapons program, assistance to the Palestinians, and recently, in Ukraine.  But there is little evidence of a meaningful European policy with respect to its large neighbor, Russia.  Europe has a difficult time speaking with one voice and being effective on other big issues.  The Iraq war split Europe badly.  As I see it, the damage to relations with the US was outdone by the damage within Europe when Germany, contrary to its declared policy, took a position on a major issue without consulting its European partners.

 

This, then, is the picture I see of our transatlantic partners.

 

The effect of 9/11

 

Today, America finds itself in a qualitatively and radically different situation.  First, the nature of terrorism has changed.  Second, the threat posed by Al Qaeda remains real.  Third, the capacity of Al Qaeda to inflict massive harm has grown.  Fourth, the US homeland is at risk.  And fifth, the United States is by no mean prepared to cope with – let alone defeat – terrorism.  Any doubt on this score was removed by the 9/11 Commission Report: “Countering terrorism has become, beyond doubt, the top national security priority for the United States.  This shift has occurred with the full support of the Congress, both major political parties, the media, and the American people.”

 

The United States government has made major adjustments to deal with this new threat.  It has articulated a new national security strategy.  It has established the Department of Homeland Security.  It is overhauling the structure of its intelligence apparatus.  Congress has passed the Patriot Act, strengthening intelligence and law enforcement, though at a cost to civil liberties.  A substantial portion of the armed forces of the United States is engaged in Iraq, even as the country maintains military missions in Afghanistan and many other countries.  The budget surplus has turned into a deficit.  The cost in human lives is mounting.  Pressures to see the Iraq engagement come to an end are bound to grow.

 

The new situation begs the question of what strategy the United States should pursue to meet these new threats.  The National Security Strategy of the United States, issued by the Bush administration, is explicit.  The United States, as a matter of common sense and self defense, will act against emerging threats before they are fully formed.  Also, the United States will hold to account states that are compromised by terror, including those who harbor terrorists.

 

The new US strategy has been controversial.  How does it tie into Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which preserves the right to individual and collective self-defense “if an armed attack occurs?”  And what are the consequences if any state felt free to act upon suspicion of threat?  The new threats facing the world today – terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, failed states, regional instability – all contain a lethal mix of radicalism and terrorism.  Must we wait until these threats materialize?  If we act to prevent this from happening, on what evidence?  And with what justification?  World opinion will be a factor influencing state behavior.  But world opinion has not coalesced around an acceptable answer to these questions.  As is historically the case with the growth of international law, state behavior, including that of the United States, will in due course shape a pattern which may become accepted as law.  But we are not there yet.

 

The problem of how to respond to the new threats is real.  It needs more thought and discussion.  Meanwhile, Yale’s John Lewis Gaddis reminds us that hegemony, preemption and unilateralism are historically as American as apple pie (Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, Harvard, 2004).

 

The transatlantic dialogue

 

Now let us return to the core of our theme.

 

It seems to me that the transatlantic relationship has three elements. 

 

First, the substance.  There is hardly an issue – strategic, political, economic, social, or cultural – that could not be the subject of dialogue.  The issue is what subjects the transatlantic partners wish to bring to the table.  On the European side, there will be a wide range of interests and motivations for interface with the US.  On the American side, there is a focus on terrorism and nuclear proliferation.  Given the substantial overlap of interests, there is a potentially full agenda.

 

Second, there is the issue of manner and style.  A satisfactory relationship has elements of speaking, but also of listening, in a proportion that satisfies expectations of the participants.  Often, Europe wants to be told.  In the nineteen seventies and eighties, in the field of arms control,  I had a part in a pattern in which Washington would work out a position and then send emissaries to London, Bonn, Paris, Brussels, and sometimes Rome, to consult with the allies.  In effect, the US was telling its allies what would be done.  And this is what they wanted.  When, at the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis, Secretary of State Warren Christopher toured European capitals merely to listen, he was severely criticized.  Today, the balance has swung and Europeans want to do some of the talking.  They want to feel that the US is capable of listening.

 

Last, there is the issue of venues.  There is no shortage of institutions available for transatlantic consultation: NATO, the US-EU dialogue, various contact groups, and even organizations that include countries from other parts of the world, such as the UN Security Council and the G-8.  But transatlantic channels change with time and circumstances.  This poses the choice of adapting existing venues or of creating new ones. There is always a tendency to look for new fora as a way to get a fresh start.  Moreover, statesmen, like politicians, tend to prefer something new to which they can attach their name.

 

On December 12, 1989, Secretary of State James Baker proposed “that the United States and the European Community work together to achieve, whether in Treaty or some other form, a significantly strengthened set of consultative and institutional links.  Working from shared ideals and common values, we face a set of mutual challenges – in economics, foreign policy, the environment, science, and a host of other fields.  So it makes sense for us to seek to fashion our responses together as a matter of common cause.”

 

My colleague Professor Simon Serfaty of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has collected an impressive list of experienced transatlantic hands around the proposition that NATO and the EU should continue, but be reinforced by new institutional mechanisms to help coordinate US and European priorities, decisions and needs. (“Renewing the Transatlantic Partnership,” The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., May 2003.  See also “Initiative for A Renewed Transatlantic Partnership,” CSIS, p. 5, November 3, 2004 ).  The core of this process would be a new action group as an “institutional mechanism that allows for more direct consultation between the United States and the EU.  This approach would create “a new Atlantic compact for the new century.”

 

Here at Middlebury, Professor Stan Sloan takes the view that the confines of NATO and the EU are now too narrow to accommodate a discussion by all interested parties on all subjects on today’s agenda. (NATO, the European Union, and the Atlantic Community, Rowman & Littlefield 2003, chapters 10 and 11).  Sensibly, he thinks about the need for a broader context of a new transatlantic community.

 

Last month, the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, the former director of the London School of Economics Lord Ralph Dahrendorf, and former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, in a letter from Europe published in the International Herald Tribune (12/15/04, at p. 8) suggested a new strategic forum in the form of a Contact Group to fashion what they call a new transatlantic deal.

 

So the elements of a new approach to transatlantic relations are there.  In my view, it is not all that important exactly what form or forms this will take.  The key issue is whether the principal partners on both sides of the Atlantic feel that these venues serve their ends.  If a new structure of cooperation works, let us use it. 

 

I would caution, however, against any attempt to try for a new grand design encompassing Europe and North America.  This will, I am afraid, turn into a fruitless search for the Holy Grail, or worse, split the alliance on peripheral issues.  In any event, it is unlikely to happen.  I cannot conceive of any American administration, under current circumstances, willing to spend time and energy on such a project when the agenda calls for action on specific issues.

 

Where do we go from here?

 

First, what will be the nature of Europe and what role will it play?  Will the EU provide the structures and processes which, in a hugely differentiated continent, are nevertheless seen as meeting the common needs and aspirations of its people?  Or will, in a favorite phrase of my German colleague Michael Stuermer, the old demons reappear and the EU acquis – that vast body of programs, procedures and regulations -  not prove up to the task of channeling European vision and action into commonly agreed ways?

 

Second, will the preoccupation with the consequences of 9/11 drive America to focus defensively on the war against terrorism or will it confront terrorism as part of a larger view of its world role?  And how will America combine its historic instinct toward unilateralism with the lessons it learned as the leading architect of international cooperation in the past century?  And how will America apply wisely its sense of being an agent of divine providence?

 

Finally, will the sense of common challenge be strong enough to bring the countries on both sides of the Atlantic to act on the proposition that together they can accomplish a lot more than apart?

 

All of this is plenty of material for further discussion.

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Marten van Heuven is a retired U.S. foreign service officer, former National Intelligence Officer for Europe, senior consultant RAND Corporation, and a director of The Atlantic Council of the United States.  These are the personal opinions of the speaker.