Trans-Atlantic Relations in a Postmodern World

By Anton Speekenbrink

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a pivotal moment deeply impacting the post-World War II order, with American nuclear might standing sentinel for the preservation of the liberal democratic values of the trans-Atlantic community. The end of the ideological struggle freed the forces shaping the postmodern world. The end of the security trade-off, American nuclear protection against critical but loyal European support, meant that a new partnership based on equality, mutual respect, and legitimate self-interest was needed and that stability and peace on the Eurasian landmass was the overriding goal. Neither the United States nor Europe, the two constituent communities of the Western world, grasped the opportunity to bring about the needed change. Both remained prisoners of their past instead of innovators of the common future. American exceptionalism and Russophobia was the maze that entrapped the first; introvert preoccupation and divisiveness of purpose lamed the other.
The book traces the formative forces of the geopolitical environment during the Cold War and the decades beyond and places these in the context of the emerging postmodern world order: where regional and global project-driven functional cooperation is gradually replacing the Westphalian state, where the provision of physical security and the material well-being for the individual replaces ideology as the driving force for political action, and where the rule of law prevails over the rule of power.
The penultimate section enumerates some of the most significant issues facing the trans-Atlantic partnership and formulates policy suggestions on how to deal with them. Acknowledging the significant differences within the partnership, the two main themes are: first, that these differences are more tactical than fundamental and can and must be overcome; and second, that the partnership is essential for the preservation of the values and beliefs of Western civilization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496989451

Anton Speekenbrink

The author studied at Georgetown University, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Leiden University. In 1966 he joined the diplomatic service of the Netherlands. He served with the Netherlands’s delegations to the United Nations and NATO, as deputy at the embassy to the German Democratic Republic at the time of the détente and the opening to the East, and at the military mission to the Allied Control Council in Berlin at the time of the fall of the wall. In The Hague he worked in the European integration section of the ministry of foreign affairs. After postings as ambassador to a number of African countries, his professional career ended as ambassador to Kazachstan, Kyrgystan, and Tadjikestan. He was fortunate to be at the right place at the right time to witness several of the most important developments in the trans-Atlantic partnership and in East-West relations and to observe first-hand the emergence of the post-Soviet successor states. He considers his writing to be a personal but objective view of the current state of the trans-Atlantic relationship and the most urgent problems confronting it. His intention is to provide the professional person not of the discipline who is interested in global political interrelationships with the information needed for a sound judgment. It is a pragmatic analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of central players in the trans-Atlantic cooperation, the United States of America and the European Union, in the formative years of the postmodern world order: where the Westphalian state is gradually being replaced by regional and global project-driven functional cooperation, where the need to provide for the physical security and the material well-being of the individual has replaced ideology as the driving force for political action, and where the rule of law prevails over the rule of power.

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Published by AuthorHouse   11/11/2014

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Contents

Introduction

Section I

The Breakdown of the Old Order

1 The Trans-Atlantic Interaction

● Definition

● Drifting apart

● The challenge

2 The End of the Post-World War II Geopolitical Order

● The post-war architecture

● The rise of Europe and the eclipse of the United States

● September 11, 2001

● Changing the agenda: the military intervention in Iraq

● The legality of the armed intervention

Section II

American Hubris

● September 11, 2001

● The abdication of civil norms

● The robust response

● The breakdown of the control mechanism

● Guantanamo Bay—torture and secret rendition

4 The Implosion of US Global Standing

● Lost esteem

● Trans-Atlantic impact

● The longer-term perspective

● American pretentions and global acceptance

Section III

The Transition

5 The Major Partners

● Post-war illusions—the restoration of the continental order

● The ideologization of the confrontation

● The Western reaction

● The emerging reality, the centrality of Germany

● Lessons learned

- Lesson one—The Suez crisis

- Lesson two—The Cuban missile crisis

- Lesson three—Berlin 1948, Berlin 1953, and Berlin 1961

- Lesson four—Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968

- America’s decisive contribution

6 The United Nations

● A Western preserve

● Bashing the West

● The US reaction

● The European reaction

● A new beginning

● Iraq: The United Nations and Western powers

7 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

● Keeping the Russians out

● Keeping the Germans down

● Harmel detente

● Keeping the Americans in—the strategic umbrella

● The alliance post-1989

● OSCE

● The vision thing

8 The Limits of Power

● Force as a political tool

● Use of force in recent Western tradition; A-moralizing war

● Post-World War II

● War by proxy

● Legal proscription

● Legality and legitimacy

● Types of conflict

● Low-intensity conflict

- People’s war

- Internal instability

● Public acceptability

9 Soft Power

● Definition

● Hard versus soft power

● Credibility and receptivity

● Modernization versus Westernization

● The trans-Atlantic dimension

Section IV

The New Order

10 Postmodernism

● Definition

● Security

● The Westphalian system

● The postmodern world order

- Non-interference versus intrusive participation

- Primacy of the individual

- Territorial versus functional sharing of authority and responsibility

- Politico-military security - secrecy versus transparency

- Trust through openness, accountability, and predictability

- The rule of law

● Unipolarity versus pluripolarity

● Leadership in the PMWO

11 The European Union

● The origin

● Deepening versus widening

● The geopolitical entity

● The nature of the union

● The European idea

● The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)

● Institutional weaknesses

- 1. The weakness of internal discipline in politico/military issues

- 2. The missing fiscal unity and discipline

- 3. The democratic deficit

● Newly acceded states

● The British case

● What next?

12 The Structure of the Partnership

● A Western perestroika

● Partners in the postmodern world

● The substance of the partnership

● Institutional arrangements

● NATO: problem or solution?

● Strategic concept

● What could be done?

Section V

The Trans-Atlantic Partnership in the Global Community

13 Global Governance

● Definition

● Newly emerging actors - growing diversity

● Human rights and democracy

● The institutional architecture

- 1. The UN Security Council

- 2. Bretton Woods

- 3. G20

- 4. International Trade Organization (ITO), General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and World Trade Organization (WTO)

● Sustainable multilateralism

14 International Humanitarian Activism

● The long incubation

● Fusion of international humanitarian law and humanitarian activism

● How to proceed

● International criminal justice

● R2P

● Lybia

● Assesment

● Humanitarian activism versus neo-colonialism

● Role of the trans-Atlantic community

Section VI

The Immediate Issues

15 Dealing with Russia, Neither Victor nor Vanquished

● The implosion of the Soviet Union

- Reaction in the United States

- Systemic weakness

- The glacis

- The end play

● Yeltsin

● Putin

● The new situation

● From neither victor nor vanquished to condescending triumphalism

● Europe-Russian Federation

● Georgia-Ukraine

● Europe’s task

● Rebuilding neither victor nor vanquished

16 The Rise of China

● Superpower in waiting

- Political

- Economic

- Military

● China’s external projection

● China, the conundrum for the trans-Atlantic partnership

17 From Baghdad to Tel Aviv

● Ideology versus rationality

● The United States

● Europe

● Oslo and after

● The Palestinian issue

● The trans-Atlantic tandem

● Israel’s nuclear capacity

18 Transnational Terrorism

● The nature of terrorism

● Al Qaeda versus Islamism

● The Shia revival—Arab Spring

● Generalizing the particular

● The trans-Atlantic dimension

● Interdiction

● Assessment

● Terrorism and WMD

- A. Chemical and biological agents

- B. Nuclear terrorism by a nonstate agent

● Conclusion

19 Nuclear Proliferation

● The fiction of a nuclear weapons-free world

● The nuclear threat

● The Non-Proliferation Treaty

● Non-proliferation and limitation

- 1. Horizontal proliferation

- 2. Vertical proliferation

- 3. Limitation

- 4. Supervision and control

● Political problems

● Iran

● Strengthening the NPT

● Seeking improvement—the European role

Section VII

Deal with the immediate but never lose sight of the ultimate

20 Conclusion

About the Author

Glossary

Bibliography

About the Book

The hope that my grandchildren will grow up in a world not divided by a north-south line of confronting battle tanks but an east-west flow of cooperation and mutual trust is the reason for writing this book.

Introduction

November 9, 1989, was one of those pivotal moments in history when the forces that determine the evolution of human society set the stage for dramatic and fundamental changes in the geopolitical environment. The real significance of the date was not the fall of the hated and despised Berlin Wall; that was only the symptom. The fall of the wall marked the moment that will go down in history as the turning point for a sea change in interhuman and interstate relations, in particular in the northern hemisphere.

The real significance of the moment was that, in accepting the realities as they presented themselves, the responsible leaders, both East and West, but in particular the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Michael Gorbachev, allowed the underlying forces, the shifts and trends shaping the sociopolitical environment, to run their course. They chose to swim with the tide rather than attempt to turn it. In doing so, the currents that had been molding and shaping Western and Communist societies during the seventies and the eighties were set free. The most significant and determining of these was the course of unpredictable and radical changes in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, unleashed by their own Communist authorities. Perestroika and glasnost were to be irreversible.

This radical change meant also the end of the ideological East-West confrontation, the de-ideologization of the relationship between the West and the Soviet Union and its allies. This could now be recast as a pragmatic, functional relationship based on considerations of national self-interest. Initially, with the Reagan/Bush-Gorbachev-neither victor nor vanquished exchanges, it seemed that this would be the case. A new order was in the air, but the contours at the time remained vague and undefined; it was still too early to fill in the details, which in no small measure depended on the existence of political will, Eastern as well as Western. Soon, however, this realistic approach was drowned in the sea of an exuberant triumphalism, marked by a return of mutual suspicion and distrust. Some extremists¹ even warned of the return of the Cold War and declared the need to prepare for that eventuality.

The new relationship between East and West could and should have had a profound effect on the Eurasian political space. But even more profound should its effect have been on the trans-Atlantic discourse. However, many political leaders and virtually the entire foreign policy establishment in the United States and in Europe took the fall of the wall and the end of the Cold War in their stride: the confrontation is past, let us go over to the order of the day. Few were the voices that pointed to the deep significance for the trans-Atlantic relationship, as it had developed since the end of World War II, of the de-ideologization of foreign and security policy, the end of the existentialist threat of mutual assured destruction (MAD)² posed by the nuclear superpowers, and the demise of the Soviet Union.

The reality was that the whole edifice had lost its significance and meaning. Western Europe was no longer the bone of contention between the two powers, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the two real victorious powers had as a result established themselves on Europe’s periphery, the one as the Atlantic power, the other in its occupation of the Eastern European space. Their efforts to prevent the other from expanding into the other`s sphere of influence was the determinant for the Cold War. Under the new circumstances, Europe was knowable to fend for itself. As the Soviet Union imploded America reshuffled its cards, withdrawing to a certain extent from its European engagement in the pursuit of other interests. In doing so, it failed to take into account the impact in the global community of forces such as globalization and the technological and the information and communication revolutions. Pretending to remain the leader and guided by the false claim of American exceptionalism,³ it failed to adapt to the new circumstances.

This exceptionalism turned out to be the maze in which America lost its bearings. The linkage between Europe and the United States, with loyalty in exchange for protection under the nuclear umbrella, had lost its meaning and thus was no longer a solid basis for the trans-Atlantic partnership. Henceforth it was to be the currents, forces, and trends defining Western civilization and its societies that were to be the glue for this partnership. For Europe this meant that its own immediate and long-term interests were to be the determinant for its further development and its participation in the trans-Atlantic partnership. Europe thus had to redefine itself, not in relation to the United States, but in relation to its own functional needs and self-interest.

As America lost its way, Europe failed to stand up to the challenge. It still has not fully accepted the fact that the relevancy of the trans-Atlantic partnership is one of equals based on functionality and legitimate self-interest. Many in the European foreign and security policy establishment still hold, if not cling to, the belief of America as the final arbiter and protector and accept that a European price should be paid for this. They also manifest a good deal of reticence in accepting that, with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, within Europe the rules of the game have changed. But it still is too early to judge the real effect of the treaty on European foreign and security policy making and its execution.

The year 2014 will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Wall, that seminal event in history. The significance and potential of that event were enormous and imposed a real urgency for new visionary initiatives and innovative building of a new world order: the postmodern world order (PMWO). Neither the United States nor Europe met the challenge. Both partners remained prisoners of their past instead of innovators of their common future. They must develop a partnership based on equality, trust, mutual respect, and legitimate self-interest, and set in the conditionality that each is guaranteed its essential breathing space.

The emerging changes in international structures, which remain power-based rather than rule-based, are still too weak and marginal, and as such, are far from sufficient to assure that stated goal. Nevertheless they are a beginning. The primary task, to build the structures needed to assure global peace and security, remains as vital as before. The immediate duty of the international community⁴ is to consolidate what has been achieved, to seize the window of opportunity to restructure international society to be able to respond to the real challenges it faces, not the imaginary and exaggerated ones.

It is my contention that the window of opportunity to build this new order is still open and should be seized forthwith. This book is an attempt to present a picture of what has, or perhaps better, what has not been achieved and where and why certain developments went off course. It also tries to formulate an initial estimate of what may be expected from the current American administration. European euphoria, which greeted the then-presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama in Berlin in July 2008 and his subsequent election and reelection, has since died down, giving way to concern that he may not live up to the high expectations. But he is the president of the United States operating in the American political space. Is it not to be preferred that Europe engages itself directly rather than expecting that President Obama pursue Europe`s agenda? In that sense, this book is meant to be a call to action, notably from the side of the European partners.

The trans-Atlantic community will have to play an important if not leading role in this process. For that it must stand united and resolved to work constructively toward the stated goal in close cooperation with the other relevant global actors. Developments since the fall of the Berlin Wall have not been propitious to the much-needed redefinition and restructuring of the internal cohesion of the trans-Atlantic community. The illegitimate unilateral military intervention in Iraq in 2003 was to be the trigger to bring this into the open. It is the thesis of this book that the trans-Atlantic community survives but that its political cohesion has been weakened, if not seriously undermined, and with that, its potential formative impact on the emerging postmodern world order (PMWO). The goals remain shared, but the evaluation, and with that, the input and the tactics, diverge and need to be recalibrated. This recalibration is the direct and immediate task of the trans-Atlantic community.

The attacks of September 11, 2001,⁵ on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon added a new and dangerous dimension to the international community, but that must be placed in its proper perspective. The danger that these attacks exposed does not represent an existential threat. Its relevance and significance must be assessed in this light. Terrorism is a tactic used by non-state actors in order to achieve a specific goal best known to them. A state actor can also resort to the use of this tactic, but more often than not, it would be regarded as illegal warfare or illegal use of the state’s monopoly of force, state terrorism. I, therefore, do not share the idea that the greatest danger facing the international community at the present time is international terrorism. A nuclear conflict between two or more state adversaries remains infinitely more dangerous than an isolated attack or even a number of coordinated strikes by a terrorist organization, even if they are executed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD)⁶. As the former threat recedes, the world thus becomes relatively safer. Assertions by American leaders to the contrary or attempts to portray the danger posed by international terrorism as comparable to that of international communism are misleading, incorrect, and irresponsible scaremongering. Regrettably the Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred statement by President Obama in his first inaugural address in 2009 also lacked the necessary nuance.

The core issue is to prevent the world sliding back into an order structured by the strategic nuclear equation that dominated politico-military thinking throughout the Cold War. Given the facts on the ground, the probability of a recurrence of MAD appears relative and hypothetical rather than real, but that justifies neither complacency nor satisfaction. The opportunity to permanently close that chapter came with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union. This brought the need for a reconstruction of the global geopolitical order, beginning with the Eurasian landmass but ultimately extending far beyond. Once the non-productive, highly dangerous, and stultifying face-off between the two nuclear superpowers had been broken, the global community could move on and explore new and exciting opportunities and challenges. The most important of these is the replacement of the power-based international order, with its inherent security dilemma,⁷ by a rule-based architecture of global-good governance.⁸

In tackling the subject, I have attempted to adhere to the rough structure of a judicial opinion: facts, issue, reasoning, and consequences.

● The first section of this book defines the terms of reference and the immediate issue.

● The second section analyzes the significance and consequences of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and in particular the illegal military intervention in Iraq; the erosion of American standing in the international community must be seen as the most serious consequence. It may be hoped that the death of Osama bin-Laden, America´s nemesis number 1, will prove to be the symbolic closing of a chapter of self-flagellation and let America return to its moorings.

● The third section, under the adage To know where one will go, one must be aware of where one came from, addresses the motivation and formative impulses governing the international behavioural patterns of the main state actors and international organizations during the Cold War and after. Subsequently, the major changes in the relative power equation, military as well as political, the limitations of hard military power, and the rise and nature of soft power, which now define interstate relations, are outlined.

● The fourth section, taking the fall of the Berlin Wall as the caesura, focuses on the demise of the power-based and the rise of the rule-based international order, the postmodern world order (PMWO), and how the European Union (EU) has come to the fore as the leader of this global transition; the elaboration of the nature of and structures for the trans-Atlantic dialogue in its new context shaped by the demise of the existentialist threat of the Soviet Union (SU) closes this section.

● The fifth section centres on the role of the trans-Atlantic partnership in the global context. A discussion of global governance and humanitarian activism, both of which are increasingly becoming main drivers for active involvement by the trans-Atlantic partnership in the restructuring of the global community from a power base to a rule base, serves as the frame.

● The next, the sixth, section then assesses the most pressing concrete issues confronting the trans-Atlantic partnership.

- First and foremost are relations with the other superpower, the Russian Federation, and the superpower in waiting, the People’s Republic of China, and securing lasting peace and stability on the Eurasian landmass.

- The Palestinian issue and the issue of transnational terrorism have regrettably become so intertwined that deciphering the relevant strands has become well-nigh impossible, but they will, nonetheless, be dealt with separately since they essentially remain two specific, although linked, issues that touch the core of trans-Atlantic cooperation.

- Last but not least, attention will be given to the major problem confronting the international community at present, that is, the control of nuclear armaments, non-proliferation, and disarmament.

The list in section VI certainly is not all-inclusive, but for the moment are the issues on which I feel confident to comment. There are others, such as the construction of an equitable and just system of global economic relations; the need to safeguard the planet from the looming existential threat of ecological disaster; and problems such as energy security, financial transparency, and coordination of monetary and fiscal policies.

The conclusion in section VII attempts to draw the different strands together. The concern for all of these are shared on both sides of the Atlantic, although the view of their respective priority and how to deal with them is not always the same. This gives rise to tension and disjointing forces that could undermine the common input. It is, however, significant to note, as will be shown later in addressing the individual issues, that the tension is not one of a substantive nature. The definition of the individual challenges and the goals to be aimed at are generally shared, but the views of the ways and means of achieving these can differ substantially. At the core of the divergent views are the psychological and institutional aspects.

This book neither pretends nor attempts to be an academic study of this very complex subject. It is a personal point of view based on and drawn from experience and observation during my thirty-five-year career in the diplomatic service of my country, the Netherlands. I hope that it may contribute to the debate by clarifying the issues in play, notably to the interested non-expert, and assisting in a refocusing away from the often media-driven, perceived immediacy to a longer-term perspective. Considering the intended audience, the wide spectrum of interested professional persons whose daily fare is not international relations and whose expertise lies elsewhere, a good deal of explanatory historical background has been woven into the text. It is hoped that this will be of assistance in understanding how the issues of today have been shaped by the forces of yesterday. Preferring a pragmatic political style over a theoretical academic approach gives me the opportunity to consider the subject on the merits of what real forces shaped the issue within the given political margins rather than what would or should have been theoretically desirable.

One of the main lessons learned in thirty-five years of globetrotting and living the life of a luxury gypsy was that there is no universal man. There is no global common denominator defining and determining human relationships. There are universal values commensurate to us all, but even there, the uniqueness in all its diversity of the human being and the individual’s perceptions will influence and shape his or her reactions as well as those of his or her society. It is this rich texture of human interrelationships that provides the dispassionate observer the opportunity to constantly absorb new impressions, learn new lessons, seek to understand the other point of view, and accept the inevitable. It is also the explanation why the discipline of international relations holds such fascination for so many.

Another lesson learned was that international affairs is and always will remain the discipline of intra-human discourse. The state, the organizational instrument for the ordering of the international community, is essentially neutral; its soul and direction is its population, with diplomacy being the means of communication among the constituent elements of the international community. This being so, the discipline reflects the motivations of the human being, which Thucydides points out are in essence fear (phobos), self-interest (kerdos), and honor (doxa), which I would capture in the leitmotif of self-preservation. By nature and personality, the human being is status quo-inclined, weary and mistrustful of change, relying on the group for safety and protection, egocentric but inherently rational. With these building blocks it is not surprising that the decision making of the international actors so often seem to reflect the emotional vicissitudes of the human being rather than the realities on the ground. Thus, the observer has to take great care not to fall into the trap of determinism, be it geographical, historical, or cultural.

Rejecting the ideas of practical realism as well as idealistic moralism as the guideline, I embrace the notion of the French philosopher Raymond Aron of a probabilistic determinism. Since human choice always operates within certain contours or restraints such as the inheritance of the past, this approach offers the necessary flexibility to understand the motoric forces of the respective societies. It has served me well in observing and formulating my judgments of the societies and situations I encountered during my career. Pressing the discipline into an academic straightjacket only exacerbates the tendency to elevate it to the level of abstract theorizing rather than following the flow of what for the body politic is practically desirable but at the same time obtainable. To be able to discern these underlying flows of human concerns and needs and to capture and channel them into creative and constructive action is the mark of a true statesperson, of which there are only a few. By design or intuition, these few can formulate the correct response to the many issues that can arise in the international discourse, more often than not by reducing them to their essence and formulating the most direct and logical reaction.

For the experienced in the field, there might be some theses in the book that they would directly relegate to the world of utopia, but while the perfect may be the enemy of the good, the politically possible should not always be the limit for pushing for the politically desirable. The suggestions for reforming the UN Security Council (chapter 13) and the new role for NATO (chapter 12) come to mind. Refusing the constraints of an esoteric academic study in preference of a personal impression, I have sought to keep the narrative as straightforward as possible and shied away from the use of too many confusing footnotes and references. When used, these are intended either as supportive of a contentious point or illustrative of but only indirectly related to the particular point made, and when useful, anecdotal. As a great number of the footnoted refer to articles and comments in either the International Herald Tribune now the International New York Times or the Financial Times I have permitted myself to use the abbreviations IHT and FT respectively followed by date, month and year. A glossary of the acronyms, unfamiliar terms, and expressions has been added for the convenience of the uninitiated.

The nature of the book, a personalized take on the state of international relations after the fall of the Wall in Berlin, does not lend itself to a wide range of acknowledgments. During my years in the diplomatic service, I was privileged to be able to observe in situ the dynamics of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Alliance, and the European Union (formerly called the European Communities), and from the vantage point of Berlin witness the realities of the Cold War, the dawn of the Ost-politik, and later the fall of the Wall, while on my last posting in Central Asia, I could witness the post-Soviet awakening. Indeed, I owe much to the hundreds of people, officials as well as private, with whom I became acquainted and who shared their thinking with me, thus helping me to formulate my own opinions. They—many of great distinction but also some very unsavoury characters—are the sources, and I am grateful to have been able to meet and work with them.

I do, however, want to make specific mention of three persons who contributed significantly to the book’s realization. In the first place is Gerald Skinner, colleague, friend, mentor, and critical advisor. His expertise and wisdom helped me to hone my thinking and avoid mistakes. Needless to say that the opinions expressed and conclusions drawn are mine, and I take full responsibility for them. Chas Alexander, friend and sharp observer, helped me enormously to get the manuscript in shape so that I found the courage to present it to the reader. Finally, Kathrin, my partner and wife, diligently and with great care read through the final version of the text to clean up the mess left by my careless treatment of punctuation and sentence construction.

Section I

The Breakdown of the Old Order

Considering developments since November 9, 1989, the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the buildup to and the follow-up after the unilateral military intervention in Iraq, there is reason for concern that tensions within the Atlantic community were being strained to the breaking point. This was expressed loudly and clearly on both sides of the Atlantic, sometimes in nearly apocalyptical terms. Much stress was placed on the danger that the United States and Europe were decisively drifting apart, and that thereby the trans-Atlantic dialogue was turning into a dialogue of the deaf and the trans-Atlantic partnership was in danger of losing its moorings. But what should we understand by these concepts of trans-Atlantic interaction, dialogue, and partnership?

1

The Trans-Atlantic Interaction

United we stand; divided we fall.

Definition

The trans-Atlantic interaction, in its broad sense, is the totality of the interrelationships that form the fabric of Western civilization. The trans-Atlantic partnership is the much narrower concept of the politico-military component of that interaction, while dialogue is one, albeit the most important, vehicle for this interaction. The trans-Atlantic interaction thus is the commonality that binds the communities of the European and the North American continents and its offshoots in the Pacific Ocean, Australia and New Zealand. It is that large social group whose internal relations, while by no means homogenous, with and among each other, are much more intense than their relations with those outside the group. It is a collectivity where the centripetal, inner-directed, binding forces are much stronger than the centrifugal, the outward-directed. This is essentially the Western world, or the West, with, at its centre, the peoples living in the geographic space bordering the North Atlantic Ocean. Thus, the totality of the interactions within that group and the common values that they share define Western civilization and set it apart from other contemporary civilizations. As indicated, this interaction is not the same as the much more limited political/security component, the partnership, which has as its driving force the need to assure the survival and development of Western civilization. Throughout the twentieth century, this element largely translated itself into the trans-Atlantic security equation based mainly on the intervention in and protection of continental Europe by the United States and the willingness, if not eagerness, of the European states to seek and welcome this.⁹ The significant effect of the end of the existential struggle of the second half of the century on this trans-Atlantic interaction is the major topic of this book.

These intra-civilization interactions are an integral part of and function as the motoric force for every civilization. They are the lifeblood for their development, but while similarities among different civilizations may well exist, in each and every civilization these interactions have their own significance and distinct interpretation. For civilizations, like any other living organism, there is no point of equilibrium; a civilization must either progress or regress, while immobility means regression and, ultimately and inexorably, demise. The same goes for the interaction between civilizations. Throughout history this process has governed human development, be it for good or for evil. This interaction can be violent but need not be. It can be destructive but also creative. There is no immutable law governing the process. The essence is to understand and accept that the underlying forces driving this process cannot be adopted or guided by specifically construed external forces, but are steered by and depend on their own dynamic. Civilizations are an organic whole, with their own particular inner driving force that determines the civilization’s development and evolution but also its decline and demise. Some¹⁰ see this as the result of different forces; others hold that there is one predominant driving force. Only to a marginal extent can they be influenced or shaped by conscious human intervention. But considering human inclination for preservation rather than for innovation, it more often than not seems that pressures exerted by external forces do provide the compelling impulse for internal evolution, adaptation, and change.¹¹

Historians such as Carroll Quigley from Georgetown University¹²in the 1960s identified no less than nine civilizations: to wit, the Western, the Latin American, the African, the Islamic, the Sinic, the Hindu, the Orthodox, the Buddhist, and the Japanese. Samuel Huntington uses the same enumeration,¹³ but Samuel Huntington makes the profound conceptual and practical error of treating civilizations which are a cultural phenomenon, as if they were nations.¹⁴

The spiritual roots of Western civilization in its modern-day context are widely considered to lie in the Enlightenment in the seventeenth century. This was a unique experience that finds no comparison in any other civilization. It was the simultaneous arousal of many different forces and ideas that had passed a period of gestation in the preceding two centuries; but even before that, starting in the fourteenth century, the Reformation and the Renaissance and their fusion into a composite whole marked the singularity and specificity of their influence on the component parts, the e pluribus unum of the Western world. Other civilizations indeed also had moments marked by a strong surge of development of specific attributes, but none, for one reason or another, experienced the creative simultaneous fusion of all the basic governing forces. The result was an enormous but also harmonious qualitative surge of all the essential attributes across the spectrum of its component parts. The Enlightenment brought to Western civilization the element that sets it apart from all other civilizations, present or past, as they have been identified. It is the rigid separation of the religious, the spiritual dimension of the individual human being, and the socio-political organization of the collective, of which the same individual is a component part. The former, the spiritual, was relegated to the private sphere; the other, the socio-political organization, was part of the public sphere. It is not an either/or situation: both can coexist in Western society. Secularism does not necessarily imply conflict, or even a breakaway from religion. A secularized society can remain in step with religious culture and values. Secularization affects faith, but not necessarily values, and when it is political (separation of religion and state), it does not automatically involve a debate on moral values: supporters of the clergy and anticlericals can share the same conception of morality, and changes in practice do not automatically result in a conflict between religion and culture.¹⁵

It is neither the edifice nor the structure, but the content that defines the trans-Atlantic interaction; it defines itself in the reality of Western civilization. This interaction is not a specific process but a concept. But as with all civilizations and their component societies, it shares the need for spiritual and material organizing principles. These can and do vary from civilization to civilization. The totality of its organizing principles defines each civilization and its contributing societies; however, since they are the building blocks of a living organism, their specific characteristics are not necessarily comparable in content, neither from civilization to civilization, nor even between the individual societies of a civilization, although in the latter case, there is a commonality that defines the general principle. As for Western civilization, these elements may be summarized as follows:

● Politically: The liberal or social democratic structures that now prevail in Western civilization. These have evolved in the Western geographic space over the centuries; in Great Britain with the Magna Carta, and in the low countries with the replacement of the autocratic rule of the Habsburgs by the Republic of the United Netherlands, as early examples, followed by the French and American revolutions and subsequently the European continent-wide revolutionary movements of 1848 and the subsequent rise of social democracy.

● Economically: The determining structure is the free-market economy of Adam Smith, and Carl Weber and others, as it has evolved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into liberal or social free-market economies.

● Socially: It is individualism that is the key word. Descartes’s cogito ergo sum—I think, therefore I am—sums it up. The individual is the ultimate social particle in the composition of his society, and as such, has the final decision capacity; a society is organized bottom-up rather than top-down, with the governor responding to the governed and the latter controlling the former.

● Religiously: The Western world is mostly identified with its adherence to Christian pluralist traditions and cults, although societal organization has been marked by a secularist approach and the separation of church and state.

● Philosophically: The concept of humanism became the driving force.

● Culturally: The level of diversity makes it impossible to capture the essence of Western culture in one or two words, although perhaps the individual’s freedom of creative expression could serve as the identifier. A better way to capture it might be to note that, with the Enlightenment, the accent in cultural expression, be it literature, music, or painting, shifted from the sacred to the profane, and symbolism made way for realism and perspective.

● Ideologically: Its societies are guided by respect for the rights of the individual, social justice, the rule of law,¹⁶ and human rights.

● Militarily: One could say that the concept of the justified use of force and the concept of the just war as articulated by Thomas Aquinas and the proportionality of the use of force are seen as the important if not the decisive shared markers.¹⁷

There are, thus, in all of the areas mentioned above, certain basic elements that define Western civilization. These elements or principles can differ widely from one civilization to another, but great care must be taken in drawing comparisons and even more in making value judgments about the way in which these are expressed in the other contemporary civilizations, their cultures, and their societies. Civilizations have coexisted as long as humanity has organized itself into distinct societal organisms, and there is no reason to fear that the present reordering of the global order imposes change through conflict. It does not have to be a clash of civilizations that leads to a new world order as Samuel Huntington argues.

The political structure of Western civilization is the Westphalian state system.¹⁸It is also the cornerstone of the modern international political edifice. As the result of empire-building lasting into the early twentieth century and the subsequent decolonization during the second half of that same century, this model became the signature of the global political order in the wake of World War II. Many argue that beginning in Western Europe in the sixties, this organizational structure has been overtaken by the forces governing the changing global community. This has incorrectly been called the emergence of a post-Enlightenment world order. But since the spiritual content of Western civilization remains rooted in the Enlightenment, that is to say, its individualism and secularism, which are its essential characteristics, we are not witnessing the eclipse of Western civilization but emergence of a new global order, the postmodern world order (PMWO). This new global order will not be structured around or dominated by any one civilization; it will be formed by the coexistence of a rich texture of consolidated civilizations—the Western, the reviving Sinic, the renewing Arab, the others including perhaps new still to be defined civilizations, to name but a few. Globalization¹⁹ and the technological and information and communications revolutions resulted in the breakdown of the principle of absolute national sovereignty and fostered the ascent of new international players: international organizations, international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), new states, failed states, multilateral business organizations, and so on, all of which play their role, as will be discussed later. The basic premise is that, beginning in the realm of the trans-Atlantic community, which is both the proactive and the reactive participant, the world is in the process of further evolution toward new structures. This will be discussed in chapter 10.

Each of the nine named existing civilizations has its own particular value structure, which translates in its own way the elements enumerated above. This means that Western civilization’s interpretations of fundamental human and political rights, as well as the economic and social rights enshrined in international covenants,²⁰ are not necessarily the same as those of the others. Acceptance of these differences, however, does not mean quiescence in the face of violation of the basic rule of respect for human dignity. That is the bottom line: care must be taken not to impose one’s subjective criteria and values on another’s respect for this basic rule, but concern is legitimate and should be voiced in those situations where this rule is breached. This is a difficult balancing act, at which the Western world is not very adept. It also very often is politicized as public opinion and/or state interests become involved.

The litmus test is thus not a comparison with the supposedly superior Western approach or values, but the way in which respect for and implementation of these rights in the different civilizations corresponds to the essential respect for the human personality. The error of arrogance is that those holding the conviction of the superiority of Western civilization tend to define all civilizations in terms of what they hold to be the epitome of human development. From a Western perspective, individual freedom is the highest good, but what does it mean in other societies formed and reared from another perspective? For that matter, even within Western civilization, there is no decisive common denominator of the meaning of individual freedom. It is generally understood as the right and opportunity to make free choices for one’s own individual life and also the right and opportunity to participate in the collective choices and decision making in the collective of which the individual is a part, but as in any society, there are options and accepted rules of organization and of conduct, often reflecting the historical development and the preferences of the community. The American preference for the liberal free-market economy is not matched in Europe, where greater stress is put on the balance between individual freedom and social responsibility, with the development of the social free-market economy and social democracy as the result.

Some examples from other civilizations illustrate the point. Is this Western stress on individualism appreciated or wanted in the strongly stratified but socially more secure Japanese society? It seems rather that the concept of okami—the implicit interdiction to pursue one’s own selfish goals in defiance of higher authority and thus upset the accepted social order—has a stronger influence as an organizing principle. How does the competitive individualism of Western civilization relate to the principles of meritocracy and harmony that are considered to be the essence of the Sinic Confucianism? Will the cooptive hierarchical tribal structures of the African continent accept individualism or find other ways to overcome the continent’s social and economic regression? The experiment of superimposing Western socioeconomic and political structures on African tribal societies after decolonization does not augur well for successful development. Will the communal organization of the Turkic peoples of the Central Asian landmass ever accept the concept of individual property ownership?

The really important question is how the interplay of the cultural and sociological specificities of the individual and the universally held human values is balanced and respected in the respective civilizations and their component societies. The answer to this question requires that the perspective be shifted from the outsider looking in and defining in terms of his or her own value structure to that of the insider looking out to seek the comparative benefit of the differences. The following commentary, taken from the pages of the letters to the editor of the Financial Times, quoted in its entirety so as to let the writer speak, illustrates this point:

Sir, Your editorial Religious wars in a secular world (April 10, 2004) posits that Muslim religious and political leaders must not make religion an instrument of power and must assert, the universality of human and democratic rights.

While I sympathize with your criticism of intolerant, so-called religious fundamentalism, I cannot agree that Islam in particular and religions in general should deny themselves and turn to post-Enlightenment European concepts such as democracy and human rights that strip religion of any significance outside the personal.

The Abrahamic tradition’s core belief is the absolute centrality of an ineffable, transcendent, yet immanent God. Intellectually speaking, doctrines such as human rights and democracy violate this core belief, placing man, as egoistical individual, at the centre of human consciousness and political projects, thereby fuelling the narcissistic hyper-individualism of modern society with its excessive consumption and destructive environmental practices. In placing God at the center the Abrahamic tradition recognizes that all emanates from God and, ultimately, returns to the same source. Naturally, humans bear heavy social, environmental and political responsibilities towards God’s emanations.

Such religious insight requires states to place the Divine at their centre in ways that respect individual dignity, provide social justice, achieve ecologically balanced economies and most importantly, allow for all their inhabitants to turn spiritually toward the one constant in existence: God, the real, the infinitely good, and all merciful.²¹

This perspective clearly demands the acceptance of a specific deity as the defining element for the social political order and implies that non-acceptance is a discrediting weakness. This is in direct opposition to the Western separation of the spiritual to the private sphere with the material in the public. Recognition of and respect for these values are not dependent on the structure of the society but derive from the collective will of the group to accept them and, in accordance with their particular social environment, to give them substance. It certainly is not something that can be imposed successfully by outside pressure or intervention.

Drifting apart

It is my contention that the trans-Atlantic interaction as it has been described and defined above has not really been adversely affected by the events of September 2001 and thereafter. This interaction does not relate to the words and actions of administrations, politicians, diplomats, academics, journalists, and all those purporting to be the essential mouthpieces or spokespeople for their niche in the societal structures of Western civilization. It is the interaction of the forces shaping events and the manner in which these are translated into concrete activities and actions by the general public that is decisive. Beginning with the essential shared characteristics and the divergent interpretation of the individual elements as enumerated above, there still is a strong commonality. It is this trans-Atlantic interaction and commonality that is the binding force and glue of Western civilization. What has suffered is the trans-Atlantic partnership, which means the interstate relationships within Western civilization and the acceptance of the need to act in conjunction and on the basis of shared principles to achieve a common sociopolitical objective: the defense and preservation of that civilization in the emerging postmodern world order (PMWO). This partnership, which was the essential element of the Western security structure of the Cold War era, depended on mutual trust, close consultation, cooperation, and loyalty, with the acceptance of American leadership under its nuclear umbrella. With the momentous changes wrought by the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and the subsequent implosion of the Soviet Union, this partnership has come under stress as the basic security equation dissipated. The American response to the attacks of September 2001 and subsequent actions impacted on the relationships and led to the creation of an environment of misunderstanding, distrust, disdain, and even abhorrence, which persists to this day on both sides of the Atlantic. The drastically changed global geopolitical and military environment, together with economic globalization and the technological and information and communications revolutions, imposed the need for a thorough rethinking and redefinition of the trans-Atlantic partnership.

The main effect of the events of September 2001 was to serve as the catalyst for the Washingtonian decision-making process to fall victim to its angst and anxieties and to break out of the consensual cooperative structures²² that were the mark of trans-Atlantic cooperation during the Cold-War years. Whereas the defining concept of the partnership during the Cold-War era had been the exchange of the nuclear security umbrella and close consultation for the loyalty, acceptance, and support of American leadership, the post-Cold-War environment required a different, a critical and mutually supportive, partnership and the acceptance of responsibility for one’s own security. The brusqueness and single-mindedness with which President George W. Bush presented, defended, and pursued his divisive policies manifested long-existing fault lines and exacerbated them. The United States chose the road of unilateralism while laying a false claim to leadership. The expressions of we have the power, we will do it on the one hand and who is not with us is against us on the other became the hallmark of the American attitude. Both go against the grain of Western traditions and values; the first because it put raw military power at the center in disregard of the legitimacy of its use, and the second because it proclaimed a leadership by might and right in disregard of leadership by consensual conviction and acceptance. Making this ill-considered choice, the United States effectively isolated itself from its Western partners, the trans-Atlantic partnership, and indeed the global community. Today the U.S. lacks concrete European support on vital issues, and European confidence in American leadership has collapsed.²³

But as will be discussed shortly, it was not only the American administration that failed in the needed redefinition. The European partners, whether old or new, also failed to recognize the new realities and act accordingly. Europe did not provide a critical and restraining influence and thus let American impulsiveness and hubris carry the day. Regrettably the real issue, which is how to restore the mutual trust and consideration, has not been addressed as yet. The new American administration makes the right noises, but there is little real substance.²⁴ It still believes in its impunity to do as it deems fit, expecting the European partners to fall in line regardless of their own interests. A number of faulty premises held by the American side, on the one hand, and what have been called illusions on the European side, on the other, lie at the heart of the present differences.

The American premises may be summarized as follows:

● The United States defeated the Soviet Union and won the Cold War.

The Soviet Union imploded because of its internal political weakness and its economic inefficiency and mismanagement. It remained a major second tier nuclear power²⁵; the idea that Russia should be a grateful supplicant heeding America’s whims is as patronizing as it is unrealistic.

● The United States has a specific and unique responsibility assure the maintenance of international peace and security on a global scale, benevolent hegemony as phrased by two leading neoconservatives, William Kristal and Robert Kagan.

This self-assumed pretension depends on its acceptance and legitimization by the international community.

● American values are superior to all, and the maintenance of international peace and security is best served by their global acceptance.

This is a delusion; those values are neither unique to the United States nor are they the only valid building blocks for a global human society.

● Hard military power is in the last resort the decisive element to promote and achieve the national interest on a global scale.

This fails to recognize the existing limits of power and of its effective use in the postmodern international political environment and the realities of the newly emerging nuclear states and non-state nuclear adversaries.

● The attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, marked a fundamental change in the world order, justifying unilateral aggression under the guise of pre-emption.

The significance of the attacks is that terrorism became an internal political problem for the United States, which should have been addressed as such.

● The road to peace in the Middle East leads through Baghdad and the imposition of democratic structures in the region.

Peace in the Middle East depends on the acceptance and implementation by Israel and by the Palestinian authority of the agreed principles for a lasting solution of the central issues: the exchange of land for peace, the refugee problem, and last but not least, the status of Jerusalem, as laid down in the Security Council’s resolution 242.

● The centrifugal forces within the European Union are greater than the centripetal, and the union consequently can be disregarded.

The historical development of the union points to a further consolidation and deepening of intra-European cooperation, leading to a more pronounced and robust global role for the union, equaling in many respects but not necessarily rivaling that of the United States.

The logical consequence of these false premises, which are rooted in the doctrine of American exceptionalism, is that the United States, being the superior power acting for the good of all, can never accept the emergence of a power equalling it in strength. It also justifies the principle of pre-emptive strike. As a result, the United States turns into a friend of none and a menace to all.

On the other hand, a recent study identifies the following illusions²⁶ on the European side:

● European security continues to depend upon the protection of the United States.

This is no longer the case. Scenarios can be envisaged in which it might become so again, but that is a different issue.

● Europe and the United States have the same fundamental interests. So if Americans act in ways Europeans do not like, they have evidently miscalculated and need Europeans to explain things properly to them.

While the core issues converge, there are divergences that have become more pronounced with the sea change caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissipation of the existentialist threat.

● The preservation of trans-Atlantic harmony is therefore more important than securing European goals on any specific issue.

Europe’s responsibility is to define and stand for its own interests and to work for an open, balanced, and effective trans-Atlantic partnership based on equality and mutual respect.

● To these three illusions the majority of European states add a fourth: that they (individually) enjoy a particular special relationship with Washington, which will pay better dividends than collective approaches to the United States.

This will only serve to perpetuate the understandable preference of the United States to deal on a bilateral basis with the individual European countries, playing one against the other.

In my own opinion, there is a fifth and even more fundamental illusion haunting the European chancelleries. That is the broadly held view that the basic geopolitical forces and fundamental building blocks for a constructive trans-Atlantic partnership are in essence a linear extension of those from before. It is the non-recognition by Europe of the need for a Western perestroika. In that respect, the Europeans and the Americans both failed, but from different perspectives: America by refusing to recognize the limits of raw military power as a decisive force in international relations and the persistence of the dream of American exceptionalism; and Europe, by commission or omission, in failing to accept that the end of the existential security threat also meant the dissipation of the centrality of Europe for American political/military interests and thinking. No longer was control of the Western European landmass the overriding strategic goal. With the demise of the Soviet Union, that goal became irrelevant. This strategic chimera, which so tragically had driven European politics since the Peace of Westphalia and even before, and had dominated global politics in the twentieth century, had become history. Europe had finally been able to forge unity in its diversity and put an end to the catastrophic animosities that over the centuries had torn it apart.

Europe could now be left to its own devices; it was strong enough to stand on its own two feet. The changed geopolitical realities gave rise to a fundamental qualitative caesura. Bereft of its ideological and security-defined raison d’être, the trans-Atlantic partnership became one defined by its shared values, ideas, and interests. Each of these perceptions and illusions will be examined in more detail in the following pages because they need to be understood if the problem is to be properly assessed and addressed. Regrettably these misperceptions have given rise to a very unifocal attitude in Washington and an almost callous disregard of the realities of present-day international relations. It is useful to elaborate on this unifocal attitude so that it can be properly positioned within the much wider context of the trans-Atlantic interaction in general and the partnership in particular. That leads to the question whether, and if so to what extent, the intrinsic nature of that partnership has been affected. Are we looking at a genuine drifting apart or just squabbles between politicians?

I will argue that the former, drifting apart, is a highly charged and inaccurate description of the real situation, but the issue does concern much more than squabbling politicians. At stake are the differing conceptual worldviews held on the two sides of the Atlantic: the hubris of empire and the propagation of a one-sided power-based global agenda on the one side, versus the reordering with the emerging PMWO based on trust, transparency, cooperation, and the rule of law, on the other. This affects an important and substantial aspect of the relationship, the shared values. It cannot be shrugged off as a mere accident de parcours, which will rectify itself in time. Much hard work is needed to rebuild the mutual trust and reshape the trans-Atlantic partnership in accordance with the new geopolitical realities. The core issue that emerged with the implosion of the existential threat posed by the Soviet Union was the end of the security dependency of Europe on the United States. Europe was obliged to fashion her behavior in accordance with her own interests. America had to adjust to the new reality that the dictate, however benevolent it was, carried no more weight. Neither really made the necessary adjustments to face this new reality. But as the centripetal commonality of Western civilization is greater than the centrifugal forces, the present difficulties are not the precursor to the demise of the intrinsic content or value of the relationship.

The challenge

On November 9, 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall inaugurated a totally new geopolitical reality for the Western world in particular, but also with many global repercussions. As if with a stroke of the pen, that seminal event effectively ended the confrontational model that had so marked the twentieth century, replacing it with a cooperative experiment, which hopefully will prevail in the twenty-first century. With the breakup in 1991 of the nuclear superpower the Soviet Union, international power relationships effectively changed. The adversarial nuclear standoff had, for the time being, given way to mutual cooperation. The United States did not become the only superpower or hyper-power, as one might have it. The Russian Federation, as the successor state and the inheritor of the Soviet nuclear capacity, retains a fearsome arsenal and an effective deterrent capacity. The event did not significantly affect the nuclear balance. What did change was the risk calculation for a potential nuclear confrontation. As a result, the effective ability of the United States to influence, if not determine, international developments decreased. No longer was Washington’s word as decisive as it had been. The replacement of the nuclear existential danger by a search for a global community of interests meant that the principles of loyalty and consensual decision making of the Western alliance had to be replaced by a critical and open-ended partnership between the two sides of the Atlantic, a situation