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| Tomáš Valášek's speech at the "Towards a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership: NATO's Transformation and ESDP" conference |
23.11.2005 |
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 Prepared remarks
Conference: "Towards a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership: NATO's
Transformation and ESDP"
Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, Italy, November 21, 2005
Tomas Valasek,
Director, Center for Defense Information Brussels.
Thank you Admiral for the invitation and the chance to speak. I am afraid
that this may turn out to be an utterly boring and dull panel because I will
not only agree with everything that Yves Boyer and Ambassador Robert Hunter
have just said, I will actually begin by quoting something you already
heard: "It is time to put behind us the squabbles over the roles of those
two institutions that have proved so debilitating at times in the past."
It's been said already - two minutes ago, by Ambassador Hunter - but I think
it needs to be said again by a European. For too many of us in Europe the
temptation to capitalize on the current drop in America's stock around the
world is simply too strong, and too many debates on the transatlantic
security cooperation descend into a beauty contest between the EU and NATO.
And that's of course the wrong debate to be having. One thing we all agree
on is that we're in trouble, we don't quite know yet how to deal with the
new threats, and the questions we should be asking are as follows: what are
the right tools and what is the right context?
On the first count, what are the right tools, I don't think that NATO has it
right anymore than the European Union has it right. In terms of
transformation to deal with the new threats we are far closer to the
starting line than the finishing line. What both institutions inherited
from the Cold War is not particularly useful: you wouldn't use NATO's
tactical nukes to deal with terrorism anymore than you would treat leukemia
with leeches but, at the same time, nor is offering EU membership to al
Qaeda the right answer to the problem. I exaggerate, of course, but only to
underscore the need for transformation that both Yves Boyer and Ambassador
Hunter pointed out and that we all, I think, can agree on.
The point is, we are all working on finding the right answers - EU and NATO,
Europeans and Americans, by which I naturally also mean the Canadians. The
question is not which institution has it right or wrong because both are new
to the game, both are flexible, both are capable of great creativity, and
both are under tremendous pressure to respond to the challenges. So I find
discussions of which institution's past has better prepared it for today of
very little use because neither one is still doing particularly well but
both are improving and both are perfectly capable of doing much better,
given the time and attention.
To me, the debate about EU-NATO relations in one of context: as we go about
devising the right set of responses to terrorism & WMD, do we Europeans do
it jointly with the Americans or do we go it alone? I think there is no
question that we should do it jointly: time and again, whether it's Iran,
whether it's Israel/Palestine, whether it's Ukraine, we find that we are
effective only when we work together. That's both a cliché and a hard fact.
The very fact that our adversaries spend considerable time trying to divide
Europe from the United States - whether it's Bin Ladin's infamous ultimatum
to Europe or the Iran government's rhetoric - is a testimony to the power
and effectiveness of the transatlantic security partnership.
The next logical question, however, becomes: can we work together? Yves
spoke eloquently of the different and divergent policy outlooks and he's
absolutely right, we're not of one mind when thinking about the best
strategy for WMD and terrorism. Yet our differences haven't kept us from
working together in the past. The disparities have been blown out of
proportion lately because both sides felt it necessary to talk them up for
domestic consumption. In the United States, it was for electoral purposes
and as a way of dealing with the trauma of Sept 11; in Europe as a way of
building and branding the European Union. When you look at what we do
rather than what we say one cannot help but be struck by the increasing
similarities, particularly as we both learn from our own mistakes.
The EU has rightly been preaching multilateralism and restraint in use of
force and, lo and behold, the White House has backed away from threatening
war in Iran and has essentially outsourced the problem to Europe's dynamic
diplomatic trio of Germany, France and Great Britain..
The same learning process takes place on the opposite side. It is not just
the White House that is talking democracy promotion; so is the European
Union - the EU is now funding its own version of "Radio Free Europe" aimed
at black holes like Belarus and Transdniester; the European Initiative for
Democracy and Human Rights is being redefined to emphasize democratization,
and the EU has relaxed rules on funding foreign NGOs specifically to
encourage civil society in totalitarian regimes. If it all sounds similar to
what the United States has been doing that's because it is. We may call it
democracy assistance rather than democracy promotion but it's the same thing
and it's the right thing to do. To pick up on the Jack Straw quote that Yves
used in his speech: yes, it would be terrible if democracy came to be viewed
as an American concept, and the best way to make sure that it doesn't is for
Europe to take an active role in promoting democracy, as it increasingly has
been.
To conclude, we are far less different than the chattering classes would
have us believe. And it is both illogical and hypocritical for us Europeans
to argue that the Americans should be more inclusive and considerate in
their diplomacy yet at the same time refuse to engage the Americans because
of perceived differences in the strategic outlook. Overcoming differences
is the whole point of diplomacy. |
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