Transatlantic Relations after the German Elections
Speech by Karsten D. Voigt,
Foreign Office Coordinator of German-American Cooperation

At the Eric M. Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany
and The German Society of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, November 12, 2002

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for inviting me to talk about the current state of
Transatlantic Relations after the German elections.

I.
For over fifty years, the transatlantic partnership has been one of the fundamental pillars of German foreign policy alongside the European unification process in the EU. This special relationship for all of us was, is and will be based on values, interests, and, ultimately, visions of what the world should look like. Germany's reaction to September 11 exemplifies our closeness. The German people were the one's who after Sept. 11 demonstrated second to none their horror, grief and sympathy with the American people. The shared feelings made possible the incredible success of the German American Solidarity Fund, which our Embassy in Washington established. No other nation donated more than the German. In the political arena Chancellor Schröder pledged unlimited solidarity to the U.S. in the global fight against terrorism. As he decided to commit troops to Operation Enduring Freedom and the military campaign in Afghanistan last year, he also placed his political existence on the line - and succeeded.

A recent study by the German Marshall Fund and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations reconfirms that when it comes to values and principles, Germans and Americans do not think as differently as media reports would have us believe.

When we stop and think about this solid bedrock, the obvious question is how did we get from there to our present discord. During the process of German unification the Bush 41 administration had a farsighted vision about Germany's future role in international politics. They understood that Germany, integrated into the EU and into NATO, will continue to share and support in principle US global positions, though differences in opinion would occur in individual cases. This optimistic analysis still stands to be corrected, even if our current discord about the right methods how to deal with Iraq is dominating the headlines.

I would like to make a couple observations on this note of discord.

First and foremost, even in the transatlantic debate on Iraq we agree on fundamentals. We all - Americans and Germans alike - agree that Saddam Hussein is a dictator whose rule has inflicted enormous suffering on the people of Iraq. We agree he has flouted UN Security Council resolutions. We agree that he is striving for weapons of mass destruction, we have to assume that he would not shy away from threatening to use them, and we agree that Saddam Hussein has been aggressive in the past and could be aggressive again in the future. We agree that weapons inspectors should return to Iraq as soon as possible, and that they should have full and unrestricted access to all possible weapons sites - as Baghdad has promised. To sum up, we agree that all relevant Security Council Resolutions should be implemented in their entirety and without delay.

However, regarding a military strike against Iraq Germany has been asking a number of questions and we feel quite strongly that they need to be addressed.

What consequences would an attack on Iraq have on our joint war on terrorism? How could a post-war Iraq look like, how can we minimize the risk of disintegration? Are our societies prepared to bring a long-term engagement in Iraq? Would we turn the Arab street even more against us? What are the likely repercussions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? How can we avoid further destabilizing the Middle East as a whole?

In the face of these questions Germany remains skeptical regarding military actions.

Secondly: The discord on Iraq is mainly between our current governments. The people on both sides of the Atlantic ask the same questions and voice similar concerns. As the American population seems to be relatively supportive about military actions against Iraq, even the population of it's most vociferous ally on this issue, the British is deeply skeptical. At the same time, a significant minority in Germany would support military action against Iraq if the UN expressly sanction such action and other options do not ensure that Iraq stays free of atomic weapons.

Thirdly: Let there be no mistake. I am talking about differences of opinion on Iraq, not on transnational terrorism. Differing on Iraq does not mean we are backing away from the war against terrorism. On the contrary, we remain fully engaged. Roughly, 1300 German troops remain stationed in Kabul, and indeed, the Netherlands and Germany will jointly assume lead nation responsibility in Afghanistan next year. Some 100 German elite soldiers are fighting alongside U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, German tanks remain stationed in Kuwait, and the German navy patrols the Horn of Africa. All this is part of a coalition effort to win the war against international terrorism. In fact, a full third of all military personnel engaged in this effort is not American!

Currently, roughly 9.500 German troops - second only to the US - are fulfilling military missions abroad, be it in the Balkans (KFOR 4600, MAZ 220, SFOR 1500) or in the context of Enduring Freedom. With this engagement, we have for the time being more or less exhausted our capabilities for military engagement beyond homeland defense.

This too has to be taken into account when we are talking about actions against Iraq and engagement in Iraq afterwards.

Fourthly: Looking at German engagement abroad we should not forget that ten years ago such an engagement not only would have been impossible but also unimaginable. Since the fall of the Wall Germany has seen its troops in action in Somalia, Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo, the Caucasus, Macedonia and now Afghanistan.

Still, Germans remain to be conflicted about war in general, and about Iraq in particular. Because of our traumatic memories of World War II Germans are very adverse to the thought of German troops going to war. In the past forty years, the Federal Republic of Germany has had great success with its multilateral foreign policy (e.g. Euro-Atlantic integration, CSCE) and it will continue to strive to solve problems primarily along this line. The situation is even more complicate amongst my fellow citizens in East Germany. As a result of their own post-war history, they tend towards pacifism, wish to avoid any additional uncertainties after the overwhelming changes of 1990 and remain suspicious about global power politics.

Additionally, when President Bush called for a "war" against terrorism, many Germans were frightened. Unaware of the different use of the word "war" in American political terminology, take for instance the "war" on poverty, for Germans the word "war" stirs up memories of devastation on European soil wrought by two world wars.

Concluding from this prevailing attitude, the current mood in Germany is not about Anti-Americanism but about German attitude vis-à-vis military power and the exertion of military power. Coming back to the GMF and CCFR study I already referred to, it clearly underlines this observation.

In comparison to French and British:

more Germans think that the EU should play a regional role and leave the global tasks to the US; Germans are less inclined to think that the EU should become a superpower like the US; Germans are less willing to increase the defense budget and expand economic aid; Germans are less thinking that it will be the best for the future of their own country if it takes an active role in world affairs; Germans are much less willing to act militarily even if Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.

At the same time the figures in the study underline that Germany has already come a long way since 1990. Not least, political leadership contributed to this development. It has changed gradually political patterns and even soul with regard to the use of force in foreign policy. However, election campaigns are usually not the time in which politicians try to change deep rooted public opinion. Quite the contrary they try to cater to public sentiment and opinion - I presume both the German and the US democracy share this experience. On top of this general observation the red-green coalition government has not been convinced before and after the elections that a German participation in a military campaign against Iraq is justifiable.

Only slowly, Germans are getting adjusted to a more robust policy based on the use of force as a means of last resort. Optimistic as I am, I predict that in a decade from now Germany, France an the UK will have quite similar military capabilities at their disposal and will pursue similar defense policies.

Fifthly: Turning to the issue of Anti-Americanism the study comes up with interesting numbers too. In comparison to French and British, less Germans have problems with US superpower status and Germans share as many warm feelings towards the US as the British do.

Some harsh words and accusations have been traded back and forth across the Atlantic these past weeks. At the same time representatives of the media are tossing stereotypes about rather than arguments: American cowboys or Rambo figures on the one hand, and naive and timid Europeans or EU-nuchs on the other.

I do not need to point out how much I think that these verbal tradeoffs were most unfortunate and, even more, how much they misrepresent the reality of German-American friendship. The display of anti-American prejudice in Europe or anti-European prejudice in America is as unhelpful as the stereotypes are inaccurate.

I would wish that both sides would deal with their differences in a less heated, more sober manner. That we are facing more points of friction is also a result of our relations becoming ever closer. Growing economic and social integration and the lively cultural exchange help nurture the almost domestic-policy character of transatlantic relations. Take for instance Halloween: A decade ago, Halloween played no role in German live. Since then the tradition has been gaining popularity steadily.

Today people on both sides of the Atlantic are discussing issues that were traditionally the preserve of domestic policy: environmental and consumer protection, domestic security, the death penalty etc. The domestic policy debates impact each other, particularly during an election campaign.

A final remark on this: As an outcome of the general elections, the only political party in the former Bundestag which is truly anti-American, the PDS didn't make the cut and stays shut out of the parliament for the first time in their existence.

Sixthly: Eurobashing, too is back in fashion in the US. Pick up any US-newspaper on any given day, and you can find somebody speaking out against Europe. What has prompted these anti-European rumblings?

First, US is constantly ambivalent in its approach to Europe, on the one hand supporting European integration, on the other fearing the birth of a new rival, calling for burden sharing, but refraining from sharing leadership.

Second, as America wields unprecedented power, it is susceptible to disregarding others.

Third, still Americans suffer from dwindling information and expertise on Europe, the EU as well as about the changes in countries like my own. Take for instance the American response to the EURO. First inattention, then assertions that it cannot succeed, then a debate about its potential to rival the Dollar. Most of American reactions to European progress follow this pattern.

However, the Europeans are making a much greater contribution, as mentioned, to the fight against international terrorism and to the solution of other global issues than many American commentators are willing to admit. The European Union and its member states contribute three times more development aid around the world than the US; they provide four times more soldiers or personnel both in the Balkans and for general United Nations peacekeeping missions; to date they have spent ten times more on economic reconstruction and integration in Central and Eastern Europe; they shoulder 40 per cent of the total UN budget.

Turning around the famous quote attributed to Henry Kissinger about the lack of a single phone number in Europe - which definitely has its merits - we Europeans too have to grapple with the confusion of competing power centers in the Administration itself and Washington on the whole.

II. Ladies and Gentlemen,

The events of Sept. 11 have made it clear that we are living in a time of change which has begun long before the attacks on Washington and New York. Until then, especially European attitudes, mindsets, and the transatlantic routine were still trapped in cold war thinking and thus a Eurocentric viewpoint, even if the Berlin Wall had fallen more than ten years earlier. Since 1990, for the first time in centuries, Germans have been living with the reassurance that they are surrounded only by friends and partners for the first time in centuries. There are more than a million fewer soldiers stationed in Germany now than in 1989; almost all nuclear weapons and most foreign troops - happily not all - have been withdrawn. The legitimate joy over new opportunities after the end of the cold war in Germany and in other European countries thus blurred the perception of new risks - until Sept. 11 changed the world.

I would like to highlight only a couple of the fundamental changes which have occurred in the last decade:

The number and character of international players has grown and changed considerably. Sept. 11 proved that the world has entered a new period in which non-state actors, even individuals are capable of seriously threatening national and international security. We are confronted by a host of "new" issues, some of which are not totally new but have been suppressed or been of secondary importance during the Cold War, for example terrorism, illicit trade in drugs, international crime, money laundering (which accounts for an estimated 2 to 5% of global income), disease; some of which have changed their nature as transnational terrorism; others which we have inherited from the Cold War, for instance global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, large quantities of highly toxic plutonium, huge stockpiles of chemical weapons. The attacks of Sept. 11 demonstrated the vulnerability of an open society. What has been the favorite pass-time for some experts, to analyze hypothetical attacks against public utilities or our communication systems, amongst other via cyberspace, has now moved to the center of our attention. If we used to think almost exclusively of nuclear weapons as weapons of mass destruction, events since Sept. 11 - I need only refer to the anthrax attacks - have made it clear that in future we also have to fear biological and chemical attacks on our security. As the potential to wreck havoc has increased, we have to concentrate more than ever on preventing emerging risks from materializing. The geographical distance to a crisis becomes less and less important. In consequence, we can no longer think of security in entirely military terms or simply in terms of defending borders.

The impression of a new uncertainty in the sense of a reality that is growing more and more complex has been made possible and enhanced by the rapid pace of technological development and economic liberalization in the last decades. New technologies are changing our societies in fundamental ways, offering tremendous new challenges and opportunities. The Internet and the New Economy are enabling, individuals, enterprises, organizations, associations and communities to operate, learn and communicate in previously impossible ways and moreover ever more quickly and cheaply. Three decades ago, phone lines could accommodate about 80 calls at one time between Europe and North America; today they can handle one million. Today, every day, 500,000 airline passengers, 1.4 billion e-mail messages, and 1.5 trillion dollars cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The US have for quite a while made efforts to adapt their security policy to the emerging threats. Missile defense is an outcome. With the myth of American invulnerability shattered on Sept. 11, the debate on how to tackle these new threats and how to devise international security has picked up speed. On the one hand, the US has a desire to establish a deterrent capacity against asymmetric attacks. Additionally it is pondering the possibility of preemptive strikes in case prevention, deterrence and containment fail. On the other hand, also the US acknowledges that military power alone doesn't resolve conflicts. To quote President Bush: "To make the world secure, we have to create a better world". In consequence policies, furthering development, democracy, human rights are perceived to be equally necessary. The National Security Strategy published on Sept. 20 reflects this comprehensive approach. Unfortunately the other side of this coin receives too little emphasis in the rhetoric of the Administration and in consequence even less attention in European public opinion.

Europe is invited to challenge these new ideas or security doctrines and the assessment on which they are based on. For instance, it is not in the interest even to the US to develop principles that grant every nation the right of pre-emption on the basis of it's own definition. Other questions are floating around. When would regime change be legitimate? Could regime change be in accordance with current international law?

The National Security Strategy deserves broad and critical reflection, but not cheap criticism. It is not the US view on security strategy which has changed first, the security environment has. Europeans have to develop viable alternatives and position these on the market place of ideas, especially in Washington.

III. In domestic European policy, the attacks of Sept. 11 spotlighted the importance and necessity of further deepening and enlarging the European Union (EU). It is true that military decisions in the crisis were taken in the national capitals, but at the same time decisions made by the European Councils (summit meetings of the European heads of State and government) on September 21 and October 19, 2001 on combating terrorism gave strong impetus to the "deepening" of the EU, particularly in the "third pillar" of justice and home affairs, but also in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as well as ESDP. The Europeans must go further and think through how to reform the mechanisms and instruments of CFSP to guarantee more effective policy-making and uniform external EU action. The Convention on the Future of Europe is currently considering not only internal institutional reforms of the EU, but also Europe's future role in the world. The European public has invested high hopes in the Convention's treatment of this issue. Both the convention and the subsequent intergovernmental conference that will act on the convention's recommendations in 2004 must live up to these expectations. Only if Europe manages to make decisive progress in the field of CFSP, ESDP and the shaping of EU foreign policy as a whole will Europe satisfy its citizens' expectations and be able to counter the new security threats. Last but not least, with capabilities Europe would become more and more a relevant partner to the US.

NATO, of course, is no longer the cold-war instrument it once was. Both President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the definitive end of the cold war in their speeches in the Reichstag in Berlin, the city that most symbolized that era. Given the dangers that have been identified since the fall of the Berlin Wall, security issues will continue to play an important role in the Euro-Atlantic community. In future it will still be NATO, which will focus on these issues. On September 12, 2001 NATO invoked Article 5 of the alliance's original Washington Treaty in a situation utterly different from that envisaged by the founders of NATO fifty years ago. But this did not change NATO and its role of keeping crises at bay and, where necessary, acting militarily even beyond Europe against aggressors, regardless of whether an attack comes from Europe or beyond. The theoretical discussion about "in" and "out-of-area" - a difference not addressed in the Washington Treaty - is thus finally obsolete. In November in Prague we will, on the basis of the flexible NATO Strategic Concept of 1999, provide guidelines for the profile of the capabilities individual member states must have to meet the new security threats. This will include a debate on the recent US proposal for setting up a NATO response force.

The application of the mutual defense clause after September 11 also demonstrated that it has been a long time since NATO was targeted at Russia. Indeed, the first invocation of Article 5 in the alliance's history brought NATO and Russia closer together. The Russian president used September 11 as an opportunity to move his country closer to the Western community. This in turn paved the way for creation in 2002 of the NATO-Russia Council and the far-reaching American-Russian nuclear arms reduction treaty, along with the bilateral Strategic Declaration that closed the cold war and the admission of Russia as a full-fledged member of the G7. All these steps were in keeping with long-standing European objectives and interests.

All these developments confirm, that the Alliance is alive and is capable of adapting to the new international challenges after the end of the Cold War. It is doing its job in today's security environment. It is an alliance of nations whose values and interests broadly coincide and an alliance not only of tactical but also of strategic partners. It is here that the most trusting multilateral dialogue is nurtured, it is here that national defense and security policies are integrated into multilateral structures and perspectives. Last but not least it is the key institutional link between Europe and North America.

To sum up: NATO and the EU have become institutions, which no longer symbolize the division of Europe, but rather its unification.

IV Despite the current disagreements, we have to keep the big picture in mind. As I have outlined right at the beginning, Americans and Europeans are linked by shared values, interests, and, ultimately, visions of what the 21st century world should look like: a world based on freedom, human rights, and the rule of law. Neither Europe nor the US can successfully work for peace and democracy in the world when they stand alone, even less so in opposition. Only together we will be able to defend our convictions. The transatlantic partnership is one of the key prerequisites for global stability and security.

The management of the new agenda of common values and of differences will in the future, as in the past, keep putting the Euro-Atlantic relationship to the test. Transatlantic common ground and differences are two sides of the same coin, and this in itself is a measure of how close we have become.

Thank you very much for your attention!

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