EU-US: The Indispensable Partnership

Westdeutscher Rundfunk ARD Europa Forum

03 December 2002

I have been asked to address the last point which Joschka Fischer raised, that is our role in the world and our relationship with the United States. I want to begin with a remark that the last American Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, made during the years of the Clinton Administration. She described the United States as ‘the indispensable nation’ and I think that that is unarguably true. But it is my case today that the relationship between the United States and Europe should be seen as the indispensable partnership. I think, the United States is more likely to accomplish its objectives when it is working in partnership with Europe and I think it is even more likely that Europe is likely to achieve what we want internationally if we do so with the United States which is the natural leader of the institutions of global governance which Americans more than anybody else created.

Of course, the United States today is spectacularly powerful. Some people say that the United States is today’s only superpower. A friend of mine, a very distinguished American diplomat and Ambassador in London, Ray Seitz, said ‘no, America is not a superpower, it is a super-duper-power.’ And it is, economically, militarily, technologically, in terms of its cultural reach, universities which are magnets for the young of the world. But however strong the United States are, it cannot do everything on its own. And it seems to me that one of the lessons of the appalling atrocities of the 11^th September is to underline the case for international co-operation.

What is interesting is when you look at the surveys of American public opinion, there appears to be the view which American voters themselves take. There has just been a very interesting survey done by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the German Marshall Fund which demonstrated how similar American and European attitudes are to international threats and which underline the extent to which mainstreet America understands how vital international co-operation is in order for America to play as legitimately and credibly as possible it’s role as the leader of the international community.

I think the United States has always been at its best, at its most influential, at its strongest, when it has done that. American international policy for over a century after the Second World War, was based on principles associated with the names of two great statesmen, Truman and Marshall. Containment on the one hand and on the other the establishment of a global rule book which everyone, including the United States, was subject to, with international institutions which implemented the rules and provided – as generously as possible – assistance to those who shared the values of democratic capitalism. Those institutions, that global rule book, helped to sustain democracy, helped to sustain the international rule of law, and helped to open up markets to enterprise. I had the other day to go to make a memorial lecture about General Marshall. In Vancouver, in the town in Washington State where he had his post as a commander before he was summoned back to Washington by President Roosevelt. And I read in order to prepare myself for the encounter with several thousand high school students. I read a number of Marshall’s speeches, including the historic address that he made at Harvard in 1947, described by European statesmen at the time as the most generous single act – Marshall Aid – that any country had offered to others. And what was remarkable about what General Marshall said was how relevant his remarks in the 1940s and early 1950s are to our problems today. Nobody, he argued, should confuse a security policy with a war policy. Our enemy, he said, is not this or that country but desperation and chaos and poverty. It is very difficult, he argued, to give people lectures on democracy, if they have got empty stomachs. And above all, he argued the case passionately for international co-operation. I think all those arguments are equally valid today and if American citizens want – as they do – to live in a prosperous and secure world, then I think it is very important that they continue to recognise that international co-operation is essential in order to achieve those aims.

I think we face four threats as an international community today. First of all, we face the revolt of the alienated. Traditional cultures and traditional communities feel undermined by urbanisation and modern science. They think that those things represent a threat to their existing beliefs. What many people see of Western society is not the best: values of freedom underpinned by the rule of law. But all too often what they see is the worst: Licentiousness, brashness, greed, and what looks to them like cultural imperialism.

That revolt of the alienated feeds off the frustrations of the dispossessed. I believe passionately that globalisation is in the best interest of most people but helas we have left 1.2 billion trapped, marooned in misery on less than a dollar a day. We have left them behind. And I think we do face a challenge today to prevent globalisation choking on its inequities.

Thirdly, we face as well what I think you can easily describe as the ‘dark side of globalisation’: epidemic disease, drugs - now a bigger industry than iron, steel or motorcars - organised crime, trafficking in human being. All those problems which cause security challenges to all of us and which can only be dealt with by international co-operation.

And finally, the fact the main challenge we face is not the threat that comes from conquering states but from failing states, as we have seen in Afghanistan. Europe, I believe should work as a reliable and a serious counterpart, not as a rival, not as a competitor, but as reliable partner for the United States in tackling those problems. But if we are going to be taken seriously in that ambition, if we are going to make through our own action the case for multilateralism more compelling, then it does seem to me that we have to be prepared to face up to four things.

First of all, we are simply not doing enough as Europeans for our own security. Now that is not the realm of the European Commission – we are not talking here about Romano Prodi’s ‘finger on the nuclear trigger’. What we are talking about is the gulf between our rhetoric and the reality. America today spends 40% of the total global budget on defence. Nobody is suggesting that Europe should rival that. America spends as much as the seven rogue states that it has identified, Russia, China and all the other members of NATO put together. But it is difficult for us to be taken more seriously, unless we are prepared to do a bit more for ourselves, or as Lord Robertson says, unless ‘we are prepared to make sure that what we do spend is spent more effectively and more competently.’

Secondly, we have to make an even bigger contribution to what is called soft power. That first of all means development assistance, where we spend at the moment between four and five times as much as the United States – it is not bragging, it is a fact – but we have to live up to the promises we made at the UN Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development to spend more. It also means we have to give a lead in the development round that has followed Doha. In opening up markets and ensuring that the trade rules are fairer for poorer countries. It is very, very difficult to explain to poor countries that we care about them when rich countries spend seven time as much on subsidising agriculture in their own countries than we spend on development assistance.

Thirdly, we need closer political co-operation with the United States. I think we have taken up our share of responsibility in the Balkans, I hope we are doing that in Afghanistan, I hope we can do it in the Middle East and in South Asia. But all that will require political will from the Member States of the European Union. You can sometimes affect political will through institutional change but institutional change is not a substitute for political will.

The fourth point is that where we disagree with the United States, as we do from time to time, it is not enough for us to simply criticise. Criticising the United States is not the same as having a European foreign policy. Where we disagree, we have to take on our own responsibilities as we have done, I believe, with the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, where I think the United States is wrong and I hope in due course they will see that for themselves, as we have done over the International Criminal Court.

One last thought: Winston Churchill once said that that everyone, even the strongest country needed allies. The problem with allies is that they tend to develop opinions on their own. I think that if we want our own opinions to be taken more seriously by the United States, we have to take ourselves more seriously for a start. And taking ourselves more seriously means that we have to demonstrate that we have a foreign policy which consists not just of strong nouns and strong adjectives but from time to time also of strong verbs as well.