36 | Managing the FCO

# Managing the FCO

## Management Structure

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is responsible for the work of the FCO. He is assisted by four Ministers of State, one of whom is also Minister for Overseas Development, and by a Parliamentary Under-Secretary.

The FCO is made up of 16 operational commands, reporting to a Board of Management chaired by the Permanent Under-Secretary (PUS), who reports directly to the

Secretary of State. The PUS is also Head of the Diplomatic Service.

As part of the drive to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our services, responsibility for managing resources has been devolved to the 16 Assistant Under-Secretaries who manage the commands.

## Resource Management

As the world changes, we have to change with it and redeploy our resources accordingly. We have opened or are about to open missions in 16 of the 22 new States that have emerged since the end of the Cold War. We have just announced plans for further Posts in the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union. Despite these new Posts, our UK-based staff has fallen by 21% since 1980. Further reductions are under way, especially in support areas, and some Posts have had to close.

To ensure that resources are put where they are most needed, inspectors rigorously examine every Post at periodic intervals. As crises develop, substantial resources may need to be shifted at short notice. For instance, the Yugoslav desk in London, once two people, has become the Eastern Adriatic Unit employing 19.

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Managing the FCO | 37

## People

Our major resource is people. The FCO employs 6,161 UK-based staff; 2,530 are based overseas. Diplomatic Service staff – from clerks to Ambassadors – are required as a condition of their work to serve anywhere in the world at any time.

On average, members of the Diplomatic Service spend every third posting at home. Our objective is for staff to combine an in-depth knowledge of particular countries or regions, while maintaining a sense of perspective and an up-to-date feeling for British interests.

We are very conscious of the lack of continuity that ensues from too many changes of staff. The business community in particular is critical of a high turnover. We are trying to increase the length of tours of duty abroad where possible, balancing the need for continuity against those of career development, fresh perspective and the problem of 'hardship' postings.

Members of Eastern Adriatic Unit answered almost 3,400 letters from members of the public and MPs last year on issues relating to the former Yugoslavia and Albania.

One important source of continuity is our 7,400 locally-engaged staff, whose knowledge of local conditions and contacts makes an invaluable contribution in all areas of our work.

Amit Kumar, locally engaged senior trade promotion officer at the British High Commission, New Delhi.

Percentage total of front-line staff overseas by function

38 | Managing the FCO

Our Citizen's Charter Commitments are on display at Posts around the world.

## Hardship Posts

Out of 215 Posts, around 100 are considered to be 'hardship Posts'. They are part of the problem of managing a global service. Difficulties include exposure to tropical disease (e.g. malaria – a frequent problem), lack of medical facilities, being without access to normal cultural activities like cinema, radio, TV or libraries, or being bugged by the local secret police.

Most of these difficulties we expect our staff to take in their stride. We help and advise our staff on health. Many Posts are issued with first-aid kits including plasma and sterile needles.

And, of course, we worry about the safety of our staff. Three of our diplomats have been assassinated since 1976, and others have been injured, kidnapped or held hostage.

We can look after those obviously at risk. High risk targets are accompanied by security guards. Our Ambassador in Lebanon, for instance, like all her European counterparts there, never goes out without her Close Protection Team. But if we were to guard every diplomat in every dangerous part of the globe, we would have to employ thousands of security staff.

An example of the kind of situation that causes great concern in London comes from a report on a far-away Post by our inspectorate: "The attractions of this beautiful place are overshadowed by the considerable threat of violence from roving bands of 'rascals' intent on theft and gang rape", it explained. "It is particularly serious for women, especially singles."

One of our young diplomats arrived in Algiers to find that though killings were frequent and machine-gun fire common at night, foreigners led relatively normal lives. Then three French Consular officials were kidnapped, and after the hostages were released, there was a time when a foreigner was killed virtually every day.

Armed guards were despatched from the UK and staff could travel only in convoys of at least two armoured cars. Apart from pre-arranged visits to colleagues' homes, they were in practice under house arrest: shopping or a walk around the block was out of the question.

The young man returned home feeling pleased with himself for having survived these conditions without any ill effects. He was therefore unprepared for the panic that gripped him when the fireworks went off on Guy Fawkes' Night.

The front entrance to our Embassy in Tashkent and the Ambassador, Paul Bergne, in his office.

Managing the FCO | 39

## Equal Opportunities: aspirations and reality

The FCO would prefer to be less white, less male and less Oxbridge. In 1994, only 27% of diplomatic staff were women, of whom 72% were concentrated in the two bottom ranks: equivalent figures for ethnic minorities were around 3% and 90%.

We have two major problems in our wish to become more representative of the gender and ethnic make-up of the population: the public perception of the FCO and the nature of its work.

First, perception. Media and popular stereotyping of the FCO as an enclave of male privilege militates against broadening its base. We are trying to overcome this with targeted recruitment literature, through increasing openness with the media and through taking every

opportunity to encourage women and members of ethnic minorities to apply to join us. We are also trying to encourage more non-Oxbridge careers advisors to recommend the FCO as a career prospect.

Second, there are some practical problems limiting ethnic recruitment and female advancement. For instance, there are certain nationality requirements demanded of applicants. You must be a British citizen, have a parent who has been a citizen of a Commonwealth country or of the Irish Republic and have close affiliations with the UK in terms of upbringing and residence.

Inevitably, it is difficult for some women to combine family life with the international mobility obligation of the Diplomatic Service. The FCO has a number of schemes to help officers juggle these two commitments, including a

generous maternity package, special unpaid leave, flexible working hours, part-time working and help with childcare. The under-representation of women in the more senior grades will not disappear overnight, but numbers (including six women currently holding ambassadorial appointments) are improving and the FCO is committed to making further progress.

## What does our budget cover?

The FCO diplomatic wing spends about £1.3 billion annually; this compares with £83 billion on Social Security or £23 billion on Defence. About 50% (£650 million) goes on running the FCO itself and on Posts abroad. In 1993-94 we spent £295 million – almost one third of our annual budget – on subscriptions to international organisations and peacekeeping. Our budget also covers grants to the BBC World Service, the British Council, and items of ‘programme’ expenditure (such as scholarships). The freeing of Kuwait (‘Desert Storm’) cost the UK £2.5bn – diplomacy is much cheaper than conflict.

<table><thead><tr><th>FCO DIPLOMATIC WING COSTS</th><th>1993-94<br>outturn<br>£ million</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="2"><strong>Overseas representation</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Running costs</td><td>458</td></tr><tr><td>Other current expenditure</td><td>88</td></tr><tr><td>Capital</td><td>108</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><strong>Other external relations</strong></td></tr><tr><td>International subscriptions</td><td>81</td></tr><tr><td>Peacekeeping</td><td>214</td></tr><tr><td>Military assistance</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>Scholarships</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>Other</td><td>29</td></tr><tr><td><strong>BBC World Service</strong></td><td><strong>172</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>British Council</strong></td><td><strong>97</strong></td></tr></tbody><tfoot><tr><td><strong>Total</strong></td><td><strong>1,276</strong></td></tr></tfoot></table>

Mrs Veronica Sutherland, CMG, British Ambassador at Dublin.

40 Managing the FCO

The Residence at the British
Embassy in Washington.

## Overseas Estate

Our overseas estate comprises some 3,900 properties, of which about 260 are offices, 215 residences for heads of mission and 3,300 staff houses or flats. Ancillary and amenity facilities account for the remainder.

Some buildings in the estate are noteworthy for their historical connections, architectural importance and location. The vast majority are more ordinary, ranging from good houses and modern offices to poor flats and outmoded, cramped or inefficient offices.

The estate needs constantly to adapt to change. Countries move their capitals (we are, for instance, having to build a new Embassy in Berlin); staffing or security requirements change; leases expire; new visa operations need accommodating. In cities where suitable office accommodation is in short supply, 'co-location' arrangements with EU partners have enabled us to rent accommodation in shared premises.

Almaty, where our mission is located with the French and German Embassies.

## Residences

One of the most discussed aspects of our diplomatic representation is the cost of some Ambassadorial residences. In 25 key cities overseas (among over 200 where we are represented) Britain owns important historic buildings which are used as residences. Like great houses in this country – and, indeed, the imposing Victorian headquarters of the FCO in London – they are part of our national heritage.

The Paris residence, for instance, belongs to Britain. It was purchased by the Duke of Wellington in 1814 from Napoleon Bonaparte's sister and is one of the most interesting houses in Paris, retaining most of the original contents bought with the house. In a country that admires style and respects history, it is the perfect instrument for advancing Britain's interests. The Washington residence, by Sir Edwin Lutyens, is a fine advertisement for early twentieth century British architecture and is the key place for exerting British influence in the capital of the world's most powerful country.

These and our other major Ambassadorial residences are used by their occupants to do a job. They are places

where senior guests are entertained (and put up), meetings held, exhibitions organised, and Britain's interests advanced in a multitude of ways. Most of the main rooms were designed for such use. Our Ambassadors and their families usually live in apartments within the building.

In 1994, for instance, the British Ambassador to France, along with his staff, played host to 3 members of the Royal Family, 20 Government Ministers, 57 MPs and 6,800 French and British businessmen/women. Like other residences, the one in Paris is often used for commercial promotions, most recently to promote British fashion, retailing and tourism.

Could these properties be sold off and all this be done elsewhere as effectively and more cheaply? The short answer is: no. Not only would these magnificent properties, which history has bequeathed to us, be lost to our common heritage, but to do the same job in hotels and restaurants would also be expensive and not half as effective as a shop window for Britain.

Our historical residences draw guests and confer prestige on Britain. They are an important and cost-effective tool for promoting British interests.

["MAY-31-1995 14:27", "DAEDALUS", "TO", "912127590042-210", "P.002/010", "Henry A. Kissinger", "We Live in an", "Many decades ago, longer than I care to admit, as a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, then recently retired as Prime Minister. He began the presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: \"As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, 'we live in an age of transition.'" That is also the theme of my remarks.", "I grew up intellectually in the age of the \"special relationship,\" which I believe to have been vital to the creation of the postwar international order. It was not a favor the United States granted to Britain; rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in helping shape the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and what generally came to be identified as the Cold War pattern of international relations. Britain brought crucial qualities to that relationship: experience in a multipolar world, a global orientation of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportions, and the English language—which today you hear practiced on American television by those who are genuine and those who engage in wishful thinking.", "All of those were great assets. But we are facing a new environment, and I would argue that the qualities that had made the special relationship work—broadened now to a European-American relationship—may be even more essential than they were before. This is not sufficiently said, and even when the words are uttered they express little more than respectful deference to yesterday's", "Henry A. Kissinger is Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc.", "This essay is adapted from a speech given at the \"Britain in the World\" Conference in London on March 29, 1995.", "1", "MAY-31-1995 14:24", "1 617 576 5088", "97%", "P.02"]

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We Live in a

MANY DECADES AGO, longer than I care to admit, as a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, then recently retired as Prime Minister. He began the presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: "As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, 'we live in an age of transition.'" That is also the theme of my remarks.

I grew up intellectually in the age of the "special relationship," which I believe to have been vital to the creation of the postwar international order. It was not a favor the United States granted to Britain; rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in helping shape the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and what generally came to be identified as the Cold War pattern of international relations. Britain brought crucial qualities to that relationship: experience in a multipolar world, a global orientation of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportions, and the English language—which today you hear practiced on American television by those who are genuine and those who engage in wishful thinking.

This essay is adapted from a speech given at the "Britain in the World" Conference in London on March 29, 1995.

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liturgy. Yet if there is to be a European-American relationship in
the twenty-first century that goes beyond occasional consultation
and a very active commerce, it must be based on something more
than a recollection of times past. It must address the common
interests of the two worlds, interests that were not extinguished
when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The United States faces an unprecedented situation where his-
torical roots need always to be recalled. It is the only major
country in the world whose history can be precisely dated; popu-
lated almost exclusively by immigrants, it has never had a power-
ful neighbor along its borders, and has never had to face the
problems of security confronted by less favored nations. The Ameri-
cans' perception of their foreign policy was always one of nearly
limitless choice and, above all, of having the ability to participate
or to withdraw from international engagements at will. Every
American initiative of the postwar period was presented to the
American public as having a terminal date, after which America
could again withdraw, allowing the underlying harmonious pat-
tern to reassert itself.

This explains why almost all of America's foreign policy has
traditionally been presented in alternately psychiatric and theo-
logical terms: either as a means by which relations among nations
could be conducted as they might be if they were relations between
individuals, and, when that did not seem possible, as a crusade to
destroy or, even better, to convert antagonists to the American
perception of international affairs. In that sense, the Cold War and
victory in the Cold War were a culmination of the American
approach to international affairs.

How many historical incidents, if any, can be recalled of a
nation's leaders and allies stating goals that, some forty years later,
were practically all achieved? That is the position in which we now
find ourselves. And it is occurring at the precise moment when, in
the United States, the now dominant leadership groups have alto-
gether different geographic origins from those that shaped the
postwar period. A comparable "generation gap," caused by other
factors, exists in Europe, and both need to be understood in
thinking about the future relations of the two sides of the Atlantic.

The foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War was
formed largely by the so-called Northeastern "establishment."

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Present-day leadership and foreign policy direction are drawn mostly from the West, the Southwest, or the South. America's relations with Europe are much less organic today than they were during the generation of Acheson, McCloy, and the other fathers of Cold War policy. This does not mean that the current group is hostile to internationalism; only that it is less identified with recent European history. The previous establishment drew from appeasement the lesson that the democracies around the Atlantic had to be unified; there is no comparable imperative for the new American leaders.

The present generation, with no personal experience of World War II, having never established the kinds of European ties that bound an earlier generation to the Old World, accepts the Vietnam War as its Epiphany. Very few of those who now hold major positions in Washington saw combat in Vietnam; a whole generation of university students stayed aloof, either openly resisting the war, or taking what they thought to be legitimate exemptions from compulsory military service. The Vietnam War, seen by them and by many others as a terrible mistake—the defining experience of their generation—guides much of their thinking about war and peace. Whether their experience in respect to Vietnam has inapacitated them for reflecting objectively about the new post-Cold War world, as many who deplored America's role in World War I used its injustices and cruelties as an excuse for the brands of nonintervention common in the 1920s and 1930s, is a proposition rarely considered. American policy, whether in the Balkans or the Caribbean, in Africa or Asia, can only be understood in the context of a generation that views the contemporary world through a lens largely provided by a local and unsuccessful conflict, Vietnam.

As a result, America is presently going through what I believe to be only the beginning of a national debate. And I really have no right to speak here of an American point of view because the American point of view is still being formed. The seminal debates have not yet taken place. For the first time in its history, America must conduct a global foreign policy without an overwhelming ideological enemy, without a clear-cut strategic plan, and in a world that it can neither dominate nor withdraw from. Thus, the classic maxims of American foreign policy—the invocation of an

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overwhelming ideological challenge in the face of which foreign
policy can be transmuted into large-scale enterprises to remedy the
immediate crisis—also do not apply.

It is said that the United States is the only superpower left. That
is a simplistic description of the situation. It may be the only
military superpower left, but the issues susceptible to solution by
military action are in decline. The kind of power in which the
United States excels is less and less relevant to most foreseeable
international crises. On the other hand, in economics, even in
technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced.
Even a cursory glance at the condition of the dollar makes it clear
that the relative economic position of the United States is not what
it was even a few years ago. Indeed, we are now living in a world
composed of six or seven major global players.

In such an international order, the United States faces the more
or less traditional foreign policy problem of global players of
operationally more or less equal strength. There are only two
roads to stability: one is hegemony; the other is equilibrium.
Hegemony may not be possible and in any case runs counter to the
convictions and public morale of the American people; equilib-
rium, or the balance of power, is a concept passionately rejected
by the American intellectual community as contributing to endless
tensions—an attitude Americans have fortunately been able to
transcend through much of their history. To say in America that
we must define a national interest is considered a revolutionary, if
not a reactionary, proposition. And even if one could formulate it
as an acceptable formula, the national interest is almost always
defined in sweeping, ideological terms. Still, the future of the
world will have to be based on some concept of the equilibrium or
some balance among its various regions.

It is impossible for every participant in an international system
to be always perfectly satisfied; that happy condition has never
been achieved by humanity. Still, it may be possible for the major
regions of the world to be not so dissatisfied that they seek to
overthrow the international system by violence, terrorism, eco-
nomic warfare, or certain other methods so well elaborated in our
century, which have proved so destructive. This is the first require-
ment of the moment, transcending in importance any of the indi-
vidual crises that so preoccupy the mass media and that occasion-

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ally prove useful to politicians who wish to demonstrate their resolve.

In the conduct of policy, I would define the American interest both negatively and positively. Negatively, it is against the American interest that any major region of the world, including either Europe or Asia—and surely both together—should be dominated by a country or group of countries that can then organize themselves to pursue objectives inimical to the United States. Second, the United States must accept to participate in a world community where global concerns, whether in respect to economics, communications, or technology, are acknowledged.

Theoretically, the United States could pursue policy on a global basis in the manner employed by Britain in Europe throughout most of the nineteenth century: adopting a posture of "splendid isolation," maintaining good relations with everybody but throwing its weight to the side that confers certain advantages at a specific moment (which, in the British case, was generally the weaker side). This would be a latter-day version of balance-of-power diplomacy. While that is theoretically possible, I do not believe the United States has the philosophy, the personnel, or the resources to do this on consistently a global basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy. Therefore, the more realistic approach to America's foreign policy problem in the post-Cold War world is to recognize that there are fundamental differences in America's relations with Europe, with individual countries in the Old World, and with those that exist in Asia.

Within Europe, the conflicts, rivalries, and historic memories have not wholly evaporated. Still, a strategic conflict among the European powers is out of the question. Whatever the differences in approach among the core countries of the European Union and the so-called rim countries, they are not likely to lead to military conflict.

Such is not the case in Asia. We can talk—as we do periodically—about a Pacific Community, but anybody studying the relations of Japan, China, Korea, the Asian part of Russia, and even India must acknowledge that, at this stage, their relations are more like those that existed between nineteenth-century European states than between twentieth-century European states. And, if we move to the area to the south of Europe, the growth of fundamentalism

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there poses not just an indirect but an explicit challenge to world order of a kind that does not exist in the heart of Europe. By linking religion and politics in a missionary concept that purports to be the only valid answer to contemporary political, social, and economic issues, in certain respects an explicit reaction to the material philosophies that have been dominant in the West, it challenges Western values across the board.

For this and many other reasons, just as at the end of World War II, the United States and the countries of Europe need to fashion a special kind of relation with each other. It is not so much that both have a common enemy, but that each is confronting comparable problems, both at home and abroad, and these can best be redressed by parallel approaches. It is not just a matter of deciding whether NATO ought to be extended into Central and Eastern Europe or how Russia's legitimate security concerns ought to be regarded, but how the old alliance, which contributed so much to the stability and prosperity of the Atlantic world for half a century, is to be made relevant to the political and economic requirements of the new era. Many parts of the world that drew few benefits from the Soviet-American "standoff" are legitimately demanding today that their interests be considered in something other than a purely military dimension.

At the end of World War II, Britain was the only major European country to have escaped occupation, to manage to preserve its institutions, and to be able to make the transition from power to influence in an extraordinary manner. It took exceptional self-discipline and skill for a nation that had been at the center of world affairs to shift its emphasis in the way that Britain did in the decades after 1945. While the Gaullist approach to the United States was to make disagreements extremely painful, the British approach was to make differences extremely embarrassing. In the long run, through a network of institutions and consultations, a general community of interests was engendered, with enormous benefit to both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Since then, many of the tacit bargains upon which Europe, America, and the European-American relationship were constructed have been altered. The end of the Cold War has been the capital event of recent years. When the division of Germany ended, the world in which France enjoyed a certain political leadership on the

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European continent, with Germany boasting a certain economic leadership, and America linked to both through its security role, could not be maintained in its old form. West Germany, organically linked to NATO by the United States and to the European Union by France, became an even more consequential European power after unification. Britain, extremely helpful in establishing the overall framework, remained ambivalent about the European Union.

But if a part of the international order is to free itself from reliance on largely strategic considerations, it must use the American relationship with Europe (and the Western hemisphere). This is less an institutional challenge than one of applying the principles of the special relationship between America and the United Kingdom to the North Atlantic area. I do not agree with those who say that America should shift its "special relationship" to Germany. That would not be helpful to Germany and it would not be meaningful for the United States. It is not in the American interest to seek a special continental partner. Nor do I know of a single German leader who aspires to such a relation. What is really needed today is for both the United States and the European Union, together with those democratic states who are not EU members to fashion together a global policy, geared not to enemies—the security danger linked to potential threats—but to global opportunities. These are still insufficiently perceived. Provincialism is not an American monopoly.

Historically, there have been two approaches to European-American relations. One was the Gaullist approach for which in its time I have had considerable sympathy. It reflected the necessities of a country that had passed through tremendous difficulties in the War and during decolonization, that desperately needed to reafirm its identity. The second approach was that of Great Britain, a nation more secure in its identity, which sought to establish a pattern of cooperation that would be difficult to challenge. Over time, it came to reflect the convictions of both sides that their common interests transcended all their minor differences. The British approach reflected a historic tradition of global foreign policy; the French approach was geared more to calculations of the margins on which stability depended in Central Europe—particularly so long as Germany was divided. The British approach

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was to establish its identity by explicitly postulating common
purposes; the French approach has been to emphasize distinctness.
During the Cold War, when the United States had the dominant
role in security, when there was only one visible international
challenge, it made some sense to define European identity by
trying to wrest it from the United States. Today, nothing is easier
than to induce America to turn away from Europe; nothing is
simpler than to convince Americans that they have no special
interest in Europe. The tasks before Europe are now so manifold
that they do not have to be granted by the United States. Issues
such as participation of the Central European countries in the
European Union will be resolved by the Europeans themselves.
There is no need for the United States to take a position or to
involve itself. Whether Europe follows a multiple geometry—which
I prefer—or becomes more closely integrated cannot and should
not be affected significantly by American pronouncements.

What is important today is that there not be too rigid separa-
tions between areas thought to be exclusively European and others
that are deemed exclusively American. What we ultimately require
is a dialogue between opinion as it has emerged in Europe and
what is beginning to emerge in America. The inventiveness of the
immediate post-World War II years needs to be looked for, but in
contexts very different from those that existed when Stalin and his
Communist successors ruled in the Kremlin. The Western civil war
that started in 1914 and ended in 1945 owes much to the fact that
the United States and its European allies and friends took counsel
together, were prepared to express their differences, but were able
in the end to collaborate, to act together.

In the United States, it is imperative that priority be given to
European relations. This has been lacking, not only in terms of
day-to-day policy, but also in the failure to take longer-range
perspectives and to act on them. Thus, for example, the debate
about NATO membership ought not to be permitted to fester
indefinitely. That issue ought to be resolved one way or the other,
everyone realizing that these are no longer the days of the Cold
War; hence it is no longer possible to build an Atlantic relationship
exclusively on security issues.

What we now need to do more urgently is create some goals for
the North Atlantic nations so that we are able to act again within

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a common framework. We should seriously begin to examine
some form of North Atlantic free trade association, a free trade
agreement that would go beyond any that now exists. Whatever
America builds in the Western Hemisphere needs to be related to
this Atlantic enterprise, enabling us—in the foreseeable turmoil in
other parts of the world and in the shifts of emphasis that will
inevitably arise as new powers emerge—to act with purpose and
direction.

A succession of American leaders of both political parties, many
not known for excessive sentimentality (a trait not common to
those who rise to the Presidency), have over a period of more than
a generation considered it natural that, on major issues, Britain
and the United States should cooperate. The level of consultation,
though never formalized, was central to the formation of policy in
both parties in both countries. Now, the challenge is to see whether
this can be done in terms of European-American relations as well,
where Britain's experience can make a signal contribution. Europe
no longer needs to wrest its identity from the United States. In the
world of the 1990s, both know their strengths and their weak-
nesses. It serves no purpose to dwell endlessly on either. The more
imperative issue is whether they appreciate their common interests
and are seeking to foster new forms of cooperation to serve those
interests. The nations of the North Atlantic, representing a compa-
rable civilization in a world in which democracy and economic
progress remain our hope but not our guarantee, are required to
do again, this time on a global basis, what they attempted so
successfully to do a generation ago.

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DÆDALUS

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May 22, 1995

BY FAX: 212-759-0042

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
350 Park Avenue, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10022

Dear Henry,

I have taken you at your word, and have made very minor changes in your text, giving it, I believe, more the quality of an essay. Needless to say, you must decide whether I have added anything that distorts your meaning in any way.

Margaret and I leave for England on Wednesday. If you can be in touch with me tomorrow, my cup would run over. I have given the essay a title -- not a very exciting one -- and you may prefer something that is a little more venturesome. Also, you must identify yourself. Do you wish "Former Secretary of State and the Kissinger Associates" both to be used, or only the latter? Do let us know.

You are saying things that are important not only for the U.S. and the U.K., but also for Germany and France, for the European Union and NATO. I have tried, without adding too much, to think of all those constituencies.

You may want to add one or two additional paragraphs. Please feel free to do so. However, this is our summer issue, and we are anxious to send the essay to our printer. My colleague, Phyllis Bendell, is always ready to accept revisions or additions. Also, I can be reached after Wednesday in our English barn; the telephone and fax is the same: 44-832-720-427.

The issue will be called "The Quest for World Order." As I indicated, it will carry memories of our three-decade-old Bellagio conference, "Conditions of World Order." Thanks again. It has been too long since you last appeared in the pages of *Dædalus*. I will be pleased to see you there again.

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yesterday's all nuclear-liturgy, the acceptance of a now-conventional
ritual that has not been wholly abandoned since the end of the
Cold War. If there is to be a European-American relationship in
the twenty-first century that goes beyond occasional consultation
and a very active commerce, it must be based on something more
than a recollection of times past. It must address the common
interests of the two worlds, interests that were not extinguished
when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The United States faces an unprecedented situation where his-
torical roots need always to be recalled. It is the only major
country in the world whose history can be precisely dated; popu-
lated almost exclusively by immigrants, it has never had a power-
ful neighbor along its borders, and has never had to face the
problems of security confronted by less favored nations. The Ameri-
cans' perception of their foreign policy was always one of nearly
limitless choice and, above all, of having the ability to participate
or to withdraw from international engagements at will. Every
American initiative of the postwar period was presented to the
American public as having a terminal date, after which America
could again withdraw from its commitment to whatever enterprise
had been under discussion, allowing the underlying pattern, as
sumed to be harmonious throughout the world, to reassert itself.

This explains why almost all of America's foreign policy has
traditionally been presented in alternately psychiatric and theo-
logical terms: either as a means by which relations among nations
could be conducted as they might be if they were relations between
individuals, and when that did not seem possible, as a crusade to
destroy even better, to convert, antagonists to the uniquely American
perception of international affairs. In that sense, the Cold War and
victory in the Cold War was a culmination of a uniquely American
perception of international affairs.

How many historical incidents, if any, can be recalled of a
nation's leaders and allies making claims that, some forty years
later, were practically all achieved? That is the position in which
we now find ourselves. And it is occurring at the precise moment
when, in the United States, the now dominant leadership groups
have altogether different geographic origins from those that shaped
the postwar period. A comparable "generation gap," caused by
other factors, exists in Europe, and both need to be thought of.

understood in thinking about
the future relations of the world
lines of the future

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The Cold War foreign policy in the United States was formed largely by the so-called Northeastern "establishment." Present-day leadership and foreign policy direction are drawn mostly from the West, the Southwest, or the South. Its relations with Europe are much less organic than were those of the generation of Acheson or McCloy, of all the fathers of Cold War policy. This does not mean that the current group is hostile to internationalism; only that it is less identified with European struggles. The previous establishment drew from appeasement the lesson that the democracies around the Atlantic had to be unified; there is no comparable imperative for the new American leaders.

The present generation, with no personal experience of World War II, having never established the kinds of European ties that bound an earlier generation to the Old World, accepts the Vietnam War as its Epiphany. Though very few of those who now hold major positions in Washington saw combat in Vietnam, it is not only the President who stayed aloof from that tragic struggle—a whole generation of university students pursued the same course, either openly resisting the war, or taking what they thought to be legitimate exemptions from compulsory military service. The Vietnam War, seen by them and by many others as a terrible mistake—the defining experience of their generation—guides them in all their thinking about war and peace. Whether their experience in respect to Vietnam has incapacitated them for reflecting objectively about the new post-Cold War world, as many who deplored America's role in World War I used its injustices and cruelties as an excuse for the brands of non-intervention common in the 1920s and 1930s, is a proposition rarely considered. American policy, whether in the Balkans or the Carribbean, in Africa or Asia, can only be understood in the context of a generation that views the contemporary world through a lens largely provided by a local conflict, Vietnam.

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4 Henry A. Kissinger

world that it can neither dominate nor withdraw from. Thus, the classic maxims of American foreign policy—the invocation of an overwhelming ideological challenge in the face of which foreign policy can be transmuted into large-scale enterprises to remedy the immediate crisis—also do not apply.

It is crucial to understand that we are now living in a world composed of six or seven major global players, it is said that the United States is the only superpower left. That is a simplistic description of the situation. It may be the only military super-power left, but the issues susceptible to solution by military action are in decline. The kind of power in which the United States excels is less and less relevant to most foreseeable international crises. On the other hand, in economics, even in technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced. Even a cursory glance at the condition of the dollar makes it clear that the relative economic position of the United States is not what it was even a few years ago. In practice

In such a world, the United States faces the more or less traditional foreign policy problem of global players of operationally more or less equal strength, where there are only two roads to stability: one is hegemony, the other is equilibrium. Hegemony may not be possible and in any case runs counter to the convictions and public morale of the American people; equilibrium, or the balance of power, is a concept passionately rejected by the American intellectual community as contributing to endless tensions—an attitude Americans have fortunately been able to transcend through much of their history. To say in America that we must define a national interest is considered a revolutionary, if not a reactionary, proposition. And even if one could formulate it as an acceptable formula, the national interest is almost always defined in sweeping, ideological terms. Still, the future of the world will have to be based on some concept of the equilibrium or some balance among its various regions.

It is impossible for everybody to be always perfectly satisfied; that happy condition has never been achieved by humanity. Still, it may be possible for the major regions of the world to be not so dissatisfied that they seek to overthrow the international system by violence, terrorism, economic warfare, or certain other methods so well elaborated in our century, that have proved so destructive.

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This is the first requirement of the moment, transcending in importance any of the individual crises that so preoccupy the mass media, that occasionally prove useful to politicians who wish to demonstrate their resolve.

In the conduct of policy, I would define the American interest both negatively and positively. Negatively, it is against the American interest that any major region of the world, including any continental region in either Europe or Asia—and surely both together—should be dominated by a country or group of countries that can then organize themselves to pursue objectives inimical to the United States. Second, the United States must accept to participate in a world community where global concerns, whether in respect to economics, communications, or technology, are acknowledged.

Theoretically, the United States could pursue policy on a global basis in the manner employed by Britain in Europe throughout most of the nineteenth century: adopting a posture of “splendid isolation,” maintaining good relations with everybody but throwing its weight to the side that gives certain advantages at a specific moment (which, in the British case, was generally the weaker side). This would be a latter-day version of balance-of-power diplomacy. While that is theoretically possible, I do not believe the United States has the philosophy, the personnel, or the resources to do this on a consistent basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy! Therefore, the more realistic approach to America’s foreign policy problem in the post-Cold War world is to recognize that there are fundamental differences in America’s relations with Europe, with individual countries in the Old World, and those that exist in Asia.

Within Europe, the conflicts, rivalries, and historic memories have not wholly evaporated. Still, a strategic conflict among the European powers is today out of the question. Whatever the differences in approach among the core countries of the European Union and the so-called rim countries, they are not likely to lead to open conflict.

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6 Henry A. Kissinger

like those that existed between nineteenth-century European states than twentieth-century European states. And, if we move to the area to the south of Europe, the growth of fundamentalism there poses an explicit challenge to world order of a kind that does not exist in the heart of Europe. By linking religion and politics in a missionary concept that purports to be the only valid answer to contemporary political, social, and economic issues, in certain respects an explicit reaction to the material philosophies that have been dominant in the West, it challenges Western values in a way that cannot be denied.

For this and many other reasons, just as at the end of World War II, the United States and the countries of Europe need to fashion a special kind of relation with each other. It is not so much that both have a common enemy, but that each is confronting comparable problems, both at home and abroad, and these can be best redressed by parallel approaches. It is not just a matter of deciding whether NATO ought to be extended into Central and Eastern Europe, how Russia's legitimate security concerns ought to be regarded, but how the old alliance, which contributed so much to the stability and prosperity of the Atlantic world for half a century, is to be safeguarded, indeed made relevant to the political and economic requirements of the new era. Many parts of the world, which drew relatively few benefits from the Soviet-American "standoff," are legitimately demanding today that their interests be considered in something other than a purely military dimension.

At the end of World War II, Britain was the only major European country to have escaped occupation, that had managed to preserve its institutions, and was able to make the transition from power to influence in a relatively easy way. It took exceptional self-discipline and skill for a nation that had been at the center of world affairs to shift its emphasis in the way that Britain did in the decades after 1945. While the Gaullist approach to the United States was to make disagreements extremely painful, the British approach was to make differences extremely embarrassing. In the long run, through a network of institutions and consultations, a general community of interests was engendered, with enormous benefit to both the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Since then, many of the tacit bargains upon which Europe, America, and the European-American relationship were constructed have been altered. The ending of the Cold War has been the **capital event of recent years.** When the division of Germany ended, the world in which France enjoyed a certain political leadership on the European continent, with Germany boasting a certain economic leadership, and America linked to both through its security role, could not be maintained in their old form. West Germany, organically linked to NATO and to the European Union by France, became an even more consequential European power after unification. Britain, extremely helpful in establishing the overall framework, remained ambivalent about the European Union.

No I myself do not agree with those who say that America should shift its "special relationship" to Germany. That would not be helpful to Germany and it would not be meaningful for the United States. It is not in the American interest to seek a special continental partner. Nor do I know of a single German leader who aspires to such a relation. What is really needed today is for both the United States and the European Union, together with those democratic states who are not EU members to fashion together a global policy, geared not to enemies—the security danger linked to potential threats—but to global opportunities. These are still insufficiently perceived. We live in a world too dominated by bilateral relations, with many powerful European states having scant interest in the turbulent world outside its pacific frontiers. Provincialism is not an American monopoly.

Historically, there have been two approaches to European-American relations. One was the Gaullist approach for which, in my writings, I have shown sympathy. It reflected the necessities of a country that had passed through tremendous difficulties in the War and in the colonial period, that desperately needed to reaffirm its identity. The second approach was that of Great Britain, a nation more secure in its identity, which sought to establish a pattern of cooperation that would be difficult to challenge. Over time, it came to reflect the convictions of both sides that their common interests transcended all their minor differences. The British approach reflected a historic tradition of global foreign policy; the French approach geared more to calculations of the

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8 Henry A. Kissinger

margins on which stability depended in Central Europe—particularly so long as Germany was divided, had quite other objectives.

During the Cold War, when the United States had the dominant role in security, when there was only one visible international challenge, it made some sense to define European identity by trying to wrest it from the United States. Today, nothing is easier than for America to turn away from Europe; nothing is simpler than to convince Americans that they have no special interest in Europe. The tasks before Europe are now so manifold that they do not have to be granted by the United States. Issues such as participation of the Central European countries in the European Union will be resolved by the Europeans themselves. There is no need for the United States to take a position or to involve itself. Whether Europe follows a multiple geometry or becomes more closely integrated will make a difference in the relations between Europe and the United States, but such matters cannot and should not be affected significantly by American pronouncements.

What is important today is that there not be too rigid separations between areas thought to be exclusively European and others that are deemed exclusively American. What we urgently require is a dialogue between opinion as it has emerged in Europe, and what is beginning to emerge in America. The inventiveness of the immediate post-World War II years needs to be looked for, but in contexts very different from those that existed when Stalin and his Communist successors ruled in the Kremlin. The Western civil war that started in 1914 and ended in 1945 owes much to the fact that the United States and its European allies and friends took counsel together, were prepared to express their differences, but were able in the end to collaborate, to act together.

In the United States, it is imperative that priority be given to European relations. This has been lacking, not only in terms of day-to-day policy, but also in the failure to take longer-range perspectives and to act on them. Thus, for example, the debate about NATO membership ought not to be permitted to fester indefinitely. That issue ought to be resolved one way or the other, everyone realizing that these are no longer the days of the Cold War, it is no longer possible to build an Atlantic relationship exclusively on security issues.

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There was a time when I thought that the next phase of American foreign policy would lead the United States to concentrate on building a Western Hemisphere Community. I still believe that to be an important enterprise, but I believe increasingly that what we now need to do more urgently is create some goals for the North Atlantic nations so that we are able to act again within a common framework. We should seriously begin to examine the proposition that some form of North Atlantic free trade association is necessary, a free trade agreement that goes beyond any that now exists. Whatever America builds in the Western Hemisphere needs to be related to this Atlantic enterprise, enabling us—in the foreseeable turmoil in other parts of the world and in the shifts of emphasis that will inevitably arise as new powers emerge—to act with purpose and direction.

A succession of American leaders of both political parties, many not known for excessive sentimentality (a trait not common to those who rise to the Presidency), have over a period of more than a generation considered it natural that, on major issues, Britain and the United States should cooperate. The level of consultation, though never formalized, was central to the formation of policy in both parties in both countries. Now, the challenge is to see whether this can be done in terms of European-American relations as well, where Britain's experience can make a signal contribution. Europe no longer needs to wrest its identity from the United States. In the world of the 1990s, both know their strengths and their weaknesses. It serves no purpose to dwell endlessly on either. The more imperative issue is whether they appreciate their common interests, and are seeking to foster new forms of cooperation to serve those interests. The nations of the North Atlantic, representing a comparable civilization in a world in which democracy and economic progress remain our hope but not our guarantee, are required to do again, this time on a global basis, what they attempted so successfully to do a generation ago. The task may be even more difficult.

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["I'HY-22-1995", "16:00", "FROM", "DAEDALUS", "TO", "912127590042-210", "P.003/011", "Henry A. Kissinger", "We Live in an Age of Transition", "MANY DECADES AGO, longer than I care to admit, as a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, then recently retired as Prime Minister. He began the presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: \"As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, 'we live in an age of transition.'" That, thirty years later, is also the theme of my remarks.", "I grew up intellectually in the age of the \"special relationship,\" which I believe to have been vital to the creation of the postwar international order. It was not a favor the United States granted to Britain; rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in the form of the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and what generally came to be identified with the Cold War pattern of international relations. Britain brought certain special qualities to that relationship: experience in a multi-polar world, a global character of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas tics of not insignificant proportions, and the English language—which today you hear practiced on American television by those who are genuine and those who engage in wishful thinking.", "All of those were great assets. But we are facing a new environment, and I would argue that the qualities that had made the special relationship work—broadened now to a European-American relationship—may be even more essential than they were before. This is not sufficiently said, and even when the words are uttered, they express little more than respectful deference to", "Henry A. Kissinger is", "1", "MAY-22-1995 15:57", "1 617 576 5088", "98%", "P AR"]

TO

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2 Henry A. Kissinger

yesterday's alliance-liturgy, the acceptance of a new-conventional
ritual that has not been wholly abandoned since the end of the
Cold War. If there is to be a European-American relationship in
the twenty-first century that goes beyond occasional consultation
and a very active commerce, it must be based on something more
than a recollection of times past. It must address the common
interests of the two worlds, interests that were not extinguished
when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The United States faces an unprecedented situation where his-
torical roots need always to be recalled. It is the only major
country in the world whose history can be precisely dated; popu-
lated almost exclusively by immigrants, it has never had a power-
ful neighbor along its borders, and has never had to face the
problems of security confronted by less favored nations. The Ameri-
cans' perception of their foreign policy was always one of nearly
limitless choice and, above all, of having the ability to participate
or to withdraw from international engagements at will. Every
American initiative of the postwar period was presented to the
American public as having a terminal date, after which America
could again withdraw from its commitment to whatever enterprise
had been under discussion, allowing the underlying pattern, as-
sumed to be harmonious throughout the world, to reassert itself.

This explains why almost all of America's foreign policy has
traditionally been presented in alternately psychiatric and theco-
logical terms: either as a means by which relations among nations
could be conducted as they might be if they were relations between
individuals, and when that did not seem possible, as a crusade to
destroy, even better, to convert, antagonists to the uniquely American
perception of international affairs. In that sense, the Cold War and
victory in the Cold War was a culmination of a uniquely American
perception of international affairs.

MAY-22-1995 15:57

1 617 576 5088

98/

TO

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3

The present generation, with no personal experience of World War II, having never established the kinds of European ties that bound an earlier generation to the Old World, accepts the Vietnam War as its Epiphany. Though very few of those who now hold major positions in Washington saw combat in Vietnam—some nor only the President who stayed aloof from that tragic struggle— a whole generation of university students pursued the same course, either openly resisting the war, or taking what they thought to be legitimate exemptions from compulsory military service. The Vietnam War, seen by them and by many others as a terrible mistake—the defining experience of their generation—guides them in all their thinking about war and peace. Whether their experience in respect to Vietnam has incapacitated them for reflecting objectively about the new post-Cold War world, as many who deplored America's role in World War I used its injustices and cruelties as an excuse for the brands of non-intervention common in the 1920s and 1930s, is a proposition rarely considered. American policy, whether in the Balkans or the Caribbean, in Africa or Asia, can only be understood in the context of a generation that views the contemporary world through a lens largely provided by a local conflict, Vietnam.

[Y]

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4 Henry A. Kissinger

It is crucial to understand that we are now living in a world composed of six or seven major global players. It is said that the United States is the only superpower left. That is a simplistic description of the situation. It may be the only military superpower left, but the issues susceptible to solution by military action are in decline. The kind of power in which the United States excels is less and less relevant to most foreseeable international crises. On the other hand, in economics, even in technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced. Even a cursory glance at the condition of the dollar makes it clear that the relative economic position of the United States is not what it was even a few years ago.

In such a world, the United States faces the more or less traditional foreign policy problem of global players of operationally more or less equal strength, where there are only two roads to stability: one is hegemony; the other is equilibrium. Hegemony may not be possible and in any case runs counter to the convictions and public morale of the American people; equilibrium, or the balance of power, is a concept passionately rejected by the American intellectual community as contributing to endless tensions—an attitude Americans have fortunately been able to transcend through much of their history. To say in America that we must define a national interest is considered a revolutionary, if not a reactionary, proposition. And even if one could formulate it as an acceptable formula, the national interest is almost always defined in sweeping, ideological terms. Still, the future of the world will have to be based on some concept of the equilibrium or some balance among its various regions.

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Theoretically, the United States could pursue policy on a global basis in the manner employed by Britain in Europe throughout most of the nineteenth century: adopting a posture of "splendid isolation," maintaining good relations with everybody but throwing its weight to the side that gives certain advantages at a specific moment (which, in the British case, was generally the weaker side). This would be a latter-day version of balance-of-power diplomacy. While that is theoretically possible, I do not believe the United States has the philosophy, the personnel, or the resources to do this on a consistent basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy. Therefore, the more realistic approach to America's foreign policy problem in the post-Cold War world is to recognize that there are fundamental differences in America's relations with Europe, with individual countries in the Old World, and those that exist in Asia.

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6 Henry A. Kissinger

For this and many other reasons, just as at the end of World
War II, the United States and the countries of Europe need to
fashion a special kind of relation with each other. It is not so much
that both have a common enemy, but that each is confronting
comparable problems, both at home and abroad, and these can be
best redressed by parallel approaches. It is not just a matter of
deciding whether NATO ought to be extended into Central and
Eastern Europe, how Russia's legitimate security concerns ought
to be regarded, but how the old alliance, which contributed so
much to the stability and prosperity of the Atlantic world for half
a century, is to be safeguarded, indeed made relevant to the politi-
cal and economic requirements of the new era. Many parts of the
world, which drew relatively few benefits from the Soviet-Ameri-
can "standoff," are legitimately demanding today that their inter-
ests be considered in something other than a purely military di-
mension.

At the end of World War II, Britain was the only major Euro-
pean country to have escaped occupation, that had managed to
preserve its institutions, and was able to make the transition from
power to influence in a relatively easy way. It took exceptional
self-discipline and skill for a nation that had been at the center of
world affairs to shift its emphasis in the way that Britain did in the
decades after 1945. While the Gaullist approach to the United
States was to make disagreements extremely painful, the British
approach was to make differences extremely embarrassing. In the
long run, through a network of institutions and consultations, a
general community of interests was engendered, with enormous
benefit to both the United Kingdom and the United States.

MAY-22-1995 15:58

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CVA

7

Since then, many of the tacit bargains upon which Europe, America, and the European-American relationship were constructed have been altered. The ending of the Cold War has been the capital event of recent years. When the division of Germany ended, the world in which France enjoyed a certain political leadership on the European continent, with Germany boasting a certain economic leadership, and America linked to both through its security role, could not be maintained in their old form. West Germany, organically linked to NATO and to the European Union by France, became an even more consequential European power after unification. Britain, extremely helpful in establishing the overall framework, remained ambivalent about the European Union.

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8 Henry A. Kissinger

margins on which stability depended in Central Europe—particu-
larly so long as Germany was divided, had quite other objectives.

During the Cold War, when the United States had the dominant
role in security, when there was only one visible international
challenge, it made some sense to define European identity by
trying to wrest it from the United States. Today, nothing is easier
than for America to turn away from Europe; nothing is simpler
than to convince Americans that they have no special interest in
Europe. The tasks before Europe are now so manifold that they do
not have to be granted by the United States. Issues such as partici-
pation of the Central European countries in the European Union
will be resolved by the Europeans themselves. There is no need for
the United States to take a position or to involve itself. Whether
Europe follows a multiple geometry, or becomes more closely
integrated will make a difference in the relations between Europe
and the United States, but such matters cannot and should not be
affected significantly by American pronouncements.

What is important today is that there not be too rigid separa-
tions between areas thought to be exclusively European and others
that are deemed exclusively American. What we urgently require is
a dialogue between opinion as it has emerged in Europe, and what
is beginning to emerge in America. The inventiveness of the immac-
diate post-World War II years needs to be looked for, but in
contexts very different from those that existed when Stalin and his
Communist successors ruled in the Kremlin. The Western civil war
that started in 1914 and ended in 1945 owes much to the fact that
the United States and its European allies and friends took counsel
together, were prepared to express their differences, but were able
in the end to collaborate, to act together.

In the United States, it is imperative that priority be given to
European relations. This has been lacking, not only in terms of
day-to-day policy, but also in the failure to take longer-range
perspectives and to act on them. Thus, for example, the debate
about NATO membership ought not to be permitted to fester
indefinitely. That issue ought to be resolved one way or the other,
everyone realizing that these are no longer the days of the Cold
War; it is no longer possible to build an Atlantic relationship
exclusively on security issues.

MAY-22-1995 15:59

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There was a time when I thought that the next phase of Ameri-
can foreign policy would lead the United States to concentrate on
building a Western Hemisphere Community. I still believe that to-
be an important enterprise, but I believe increasingly that what we
now need to do more urgently is create some goals for the North
Atlantic nations so that we are able to act again within a common
framework. We should seriously begin to examine the proposition
that some form of North Atlantic free trade association is neces-
sary, a free trade agreement that goes beyond any that now exists.
Whatever America builds in the Western Hemisphere needs to be
related to this Atlantic enterprise, enabling us—in the foreseeable
turmoil in other parts of the world and in the shifts of emphasis
that will inevitably arise as new powers emerge—to act with
purpose and direction.

A succession of American leaders of both political parties, many
not known for excessive sentimentality (a trait not common to
those who rise to the Presidency), have over a period of more than
a generation considered it natural that, on major issues, Britain
and the United States should cooperate. The level of consultation,
though never formalized, was central to the formation of policy in
both parties in both countries. Now, the challenge is to see whether
this can be done in terms of European-American relations as well,
where Britain's experience can make a signal contribution. Europe
no longer needs to wrest its identity from the United States. In the
world of the 1990s, both know their strengths and their weak-
nesses. It serves no purpose to dwell endlessly on either. The more
imperative issue is whether they appreciate their common inter-
ests, and are seeking to foster new forms of cooperation to serve
those interests. The nations of the North Atlantic, representing a
comparable civilization in a world in which democracy and eco-
nomic progress remain our hope but not our guarantee, are re-
quired to do again, this time on a global basis, what they at-
tempted so successfully to do a generation ago. The task may be
even more difficult.

MAY-22-1995 15:59

1 617 576 5088

97%

TOTAL P.011

["MAY-22-1995 16:00 FROM", "DAEDALUS", "TO", "912127590042-210", "P.003/011", "Henry A. Kissinger", "We Live in an Age of Transition", "MANY DECADES AGO, longer than I care to admit, as a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, then recently retired as Prime Minister. He began the presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: \"As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, 'we live in an age of transition.'" That, thirty years later, is also the theme of my remarks.", "I grew up intellectually in the age of the \"special relationship,\" which I believe to have been vital to the creation of the postwar international order. It was not a favor the United States granted to Britain; rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in the form of the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and what generally came to be identified with the Cold War pattern of international relations. Britain brought certain special qualities to that relationship: experience in a multi-polar world, a global character of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportions, and the English language—which today you hear practiced on American television by those who are genuine and those who engage in wishful thinking.", "All of those were great assets. But we are facing a new environment, and I would argue that the qualities that had made the special relationship work—broadened now to a European-American relationship—may be even more essential than they were before. This is not sufficiently said, and even when the words are uttered, they express little more than respectful deference to", "Henry A. Kissinger is", "1", "MAY-22-1995 15:57", "1 617 576 5088", "98%", "P.03"]

MAY-22-1995

16:00 FROM

DAEDALUS

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[LC]

2 Henry A. Kissinger

yesterday's alliance liturgy, the acceptance of a now-conventional
ritual that has not been wholly abandoned since the end of the
Cold War. If there is to be a European-American relationship in
the twenty-first century that goes beyond occasional consultation
and a very active commerce, it must be based on something more
than a recollection of times past. It must address the common
interests of the two worlds, interests that were not extinguished
when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

MAY-22-1995 15:57

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98%

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We Live in an Age of Transition 3

The present generation, with no personal experience of World War II, having never established the kinds of European ties that bound an earlier generation to the Old World, accepts the Vietnam War as its Epiphany. Though very few of those who now hold major positions in Washington saw combat in Vietnam—it is not only the President who stayed aloof from that tragic struggle—a whole generation of university students pursued the same course, either openly resisting the war, or taking what they thought to be legitimate exemptions from compulsory military service. The Vietnam War, seen by them and by many others as a terrible mistake—the defining experience of their generation—guides them in all their thinking about war and peace. Whether their experience in respect to Vietnam has incapacitated them for reflecting objectively about the new post-Cold War world, as many who deplored America's role in World War I used its injustices and cruelties as an excuse for the brands of non-intervention common in the 1920s and 1930s, is a proposition rarely considered. American policy, whether in the Balkans or the Caribbean, in Africa or Asia, can only be understood in the context of a generation that views the contemporary world through a lens largely provided by a local conflict, Vietnam.

MAY-22-1995 15:58

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98%

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4 Henry A. Kissinger

It is crucial to understand that we are now living in a world composed of six or seven major global players. It is said that the United States is the only superpower left. That is a simplistic description of the situation. It may be the only military super-power left, but the issues susceptible to solution by military action are in decline. The kind of power in which the United States excels is less and less relevant to most foreseeable international crises. On the other hand, in economics, even in technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced. Even a cursory glance at the condition of the dollar makes it clear that the relative economic position of the United States is not what it was even a few years ago.

MAY-22-1995 15:58

1 617 576 5088

98%

P.06

MAY-22-1995

16:01 FROM

DAEDALUS

TO

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1 617 576 5088

98%

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MAY-22-1995 16:01

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[LC]

6 Henry A. Kissinger

MAY-22-1995 15:58

1 617 576 5088

97%

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MAY-22-1995 16:01

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[LC]

Historically, there have been two approaches to European-American relations. One was the Gaullist approach for which, in my writings, I have shown sympathy. It reflected the necessities of a country that had passed through tremendous difficulties in the War and in the colonial period, that desperately needed to reaffirm its identity. The second approach was that of Great Britain, a nation more secure in its identity, which sought to establish a pattern of cooperation that would be difficult to challenge. Over time, it came to reflect the convictions of both sides that their common interests transcended all their minor differences. The British approach reflected a historic tradition of global foreign policy; the French approach, geared more to calculations of the

MAY-22-1995 15:59

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97%

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8 Henry A. Kissinger

margins on which stability depended in Central Europe—particu-
larly so long as Germany was divided—had quite other objectives.

During the Cold War, when the United States had the dominant
role in security, when there was only one visible international
challenge, it made some sense to define European identity by
trying to wrest it from the United States. Today, nothing is easier
than for America to turn away from Europe; nothing is simpler
than to convince Americans that they have no special interest in
Europe. The tasks before Europe are now so manifold that they do
not have to be granted by the United States. Issues such as partici-
pation of the Central European countries in the European Union
will be resolved by the Europeans themselves. There is no need for
the United States to take a position or to involve itself. Whether
Europe follows a multiple geometry or becomes more closely
integrated will make a difference in the relations between Europe
and the United States, but such matters cannot and should not be
affected significantly by American pronouncements.

MAY-22-1995 15:59

1 617 576 5088

98%

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MAY-22-1995 16:02

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There was a time when I thought that the next phase of Ameri-
can foreign policy would lead the United States to concentrate on
building a Western Hemisphere Community. I still believe that to
be an important enterprise, but I believe increasingly that what we
now need to do more urgently is create some goals for the North
Atlantic nations so that we are able to act again within a common
frankwork. We should seriously begin to examine the proposition
that some form of North Atlantic free trade association is neces-
sary, a free trade agreement that goes beyond any that now exists.
Whatever America builds in the Western Hemisphere needs to be
related to this Atlantic enterprise, enabling us—in the foreseeable
turmoil in other parts of the world and in the shifts of emphasis
that will inevitably arise as new powers emerge—to act with
purpose and direction.

MAY-22-1995 15:59

1 617 576 5088

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P.11

DÆDALUS

April 14, 1995

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

APR 20 1995.

Dear Henry,

I so much enjoyed the dinner in New York last Monday. I know that Margaret will be writing separately, but I wanted to say that to you, and to continue the conversation we began that evening.

First, I do think that you said very original things in London, and I would like to publish those remarks in *Dædalus*, indeed in the very next issue. It is a continuation of the volume we have just published on "What Future for the State?" which you have just received, and it would fit in admirably in that issue.

I wanted to see you in New York partly to persuade you that this is a moment when you should be published in places like *Dædalus*. I continue to feel that you are saying things that need to be heard in more channels than you presently reach. It is too many years since you wrote for us, and we need to reestablish good old habits.

Do let me know whether we may have the essay, and do let us talk some more about it. I will phone you in a week or so to see whether we can have some time together in New York. I would like that.

We talked about your London performance, and I am enclosing a copy of the *Guardian* essay that I mentioned. Hugo Young understood you. With warm regards,

SRG/mlr
enclosure

Norton's Woods • 136 Irving Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
(617) 491-2600

TO

912127590042-210

P.002/011

DÆDALUS

Telephone: (617) 491-2600

Facsimile: (617) 576-5088

May 22, 1995

BY FAX: 212-759-0042

Dear Henry,

You may want to add one or two additional paragraphs. Please feel free to do so. However, this is our summer issue, and we are anxious to send the essay to our printer. My colleague, Phyllis Bendell, is always ready to accept revisions or additions. Also, I can be reached after Wednesday in our English barn; the telephone and fax is the same: 44-1832-720-427.

MAY-22-1995 15:57

1 617 576 5088

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P.02

THE ROYAL
INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

1920 1995
75
YEARS

JUN 23 1995

June 5th 1995

Dr Henry Kissinger
Chairman
Kissinger Associates Inc
26th Floor
350 Park Avnue
New York
NY 10022
USA

Dear Dr Kissinger

I have pleasure in enclosing a full copy of the proceedings from the "Britain in the World" conference organized by the Royal Institute of International Affairs on 29 March 1995 in association with Her Majesty's Government. Please note that many parts of the break-out sessions have been transcribed from informal remarks and that it has not been practicable to allow speakers to review the texts. A copy of "British Diplomacy in Action" published by the Foreign Office, is also enclosed for your information.

I hope you share our belief that the conference was valuable and timely. The liveliness of the discussion testified not only to the interest of the formal presentations but also to what seemed a general feeling that the moment has indeed arrived to reflect on Britain's role in the world. Chatham House intends to play its part in sustaining the debate that the Conference stimulated. We hope that may offer further occasion to welcome you again.

Director

CHATHAM HOUSE
10 ST JAMES'S SQUARE LONDON SW1Y 4LE TELEPHONE 0171 957 5700 FAX 0171 957 5710
Patron Her Majesty the Queen Chairman Lord Tugendhat Director Professor Sir Laurence Martin Charity Registration No. 208 223

# HOW DO PEOPLE OUTSIDE BRITAIN VIEW OUR ROLE IN THE WORLD?

## - THE VIEW FROM THE UNITED STATES

### DR HENRY KISSINGER

As a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, recently retired as Prime Minister. And he began his presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: "As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said: We live in an age of transition." That, 30 years later, is also the theme of my remarks.

I grew up intellectually in the age of the special relationship. I believe it was vital for the creation of the post-war international system. It was not a favour that the United States granted to Britain; it was earned first in the conduct during the war and secondly in the enormous contribution in the construction of the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and what generally was identified with the Cold War pattern of international relations. The special qualities that Britain brought to that relationship have been discussed by previous speakers, experience in a multi-polar world, a global character of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportions, and the English language which you can hear today practised on American television by those who are genuine and by those who engage in wishful thinking.

All of those were great assets. But we are now facing a new environment. And I would argue that the qualities

that made the special relationship work, broadened now to a European/American relationship, may be even more essential than before.

The United States, to begin with, faces an unprecedented situation. It is the only major country in the world whose history can be precisely dated. It is the only major country in the world populated largely, almost exclusively, by immigrants. The only major country that has never had a powerful neighbour and that has never had to face the problem of security that less favoured nations have had to confront.

The American perception of its foreign policy has always been as one of almost unlimited choice and above all of the ability to participate or to withdraw at its own discretion. Every American initiative of the post-war period has been presented to the American public as having a terminal date and designed to permit the underlying pattern, which is assumed to be harmonious in the world, to reassert itself, after which America could again withdraw from its commitment to whatever the enterprise was that was under discussion.

This is why almost all American foreign policy has been presented alternately in psychiatric or theological terms, either as a means by which relations among nations could be conducted like relations among people, or as a crusade to destroy or, even better, to convert antagonists to the American perception of international affairs. In that sense the Cold War and the victory in the Cold War was a culmination of the American perception of international affairs.

How many incidents can be recalled, if any, in history where a nation could compare what its leaders and its allies proclaimed 40 years earlier and claim

17

that practically everything they set out
to do had been achieved? And yet that
is the position in which we now find
ourselves. And that is occurring
moreover at the moment when in the
United States the leadership groups
that now dominate are of a different
origin geographically than those who
formed the post-war period. The period
of the Cold War was shaped by the
north-east establishment. The present
foreign policy and the present
leadership is drawn mostly from the
west, the south-west or the south.
Their organic relations with Europe are
much less than those of the generation
of Acheson or all the fathers of the
Cold War period. It does not mean that
they are hostile, but their intellectual
formation is different from that in
which internationalism was identified
with European struggles and when the
lesson of appeasement seemed to be
that the democracies around the
Atlantic had to be unified.

So America is now going through what
I believe is only the beginning of a
national debate. And I really have no
right to speak here of an American
point of view because the American
point of view is still in the process of
being formed. The seminal debates
have not yet taken place. For the first
time in its history America has to
conduct a global foreign policy without
an ideological enemy, without a clear
cut strategic plan in a world which it
can neither dominate nor from which it
can withdraw. And therefore the classic
maxims of American foreign policy are
almost impossible to apply. It is not
impossible to evoke an overwhelming
ideological challenge, it is not feasible
to transmute foreign policy into large
scale enterprises to remedy an
immediate crisis.

What is necessary is to understand that
we are living now in a world of six, or
seven major global players. It is said
that the United States is the only super
power left. That is a simplistic
description of the problem. We may be
the only military super power left, but
the issues susceptible to solution by
military action are declining. The kind
of power in which we excel is less and
less relevant to most of the foreseeable
international crises.

On the other hand, on economics, even
in technology, the world is becoming
much more evenly balanced and a look
at the dollar makes clear that the
relative economic position of the
United States is surely not growing.

In such a world the United States faces
a more or less traditional foreign policy
problem, which is that in a world of
players of operationally more or less
equal strength, there are only two roads
to stability. One is hegemony and the
other is equilibrium. Hegemony may
not be possible and is in any case
against the convictions and the public
morale of the American people, but
equilibrium, or balance of power, is a
concept passionately rejected in the
American intellectual community as a
contribution to endless tensions and is
an attitude that Americans have
fortunately transcended through much
of their history. To say in America what
is the theme of this conference that we
must define a national interest is
considered a revolutionary, if not a
reactionary, proposition. And even if
one can elicit it as an acceptable
proposition, the national interest is
almost always then defined in sweeping
ideological terms.

Nevertheless, the future of the world
will have to be based on some notion of
equilibrium, some balance between the

18

[LC]

various regions in the world which I will define as follows. It cannot be that everybody is perfectly satisfied - that has never been achieved by humanity. But it can perhaps be achieved that the major regions of the world are not so dissatisfied that they will seek to overthrow the international system by violence, by terrorism, by economic warfare or some of the other methods so well elaborated in our century.

In conducting such a policy I would define the American interest both negatively and positively. Negatively it is against the American interest that any major region of the world, any continental region, either Europe or Asia, and surely both of them together, be dominated by a country or a group of countries that can dominate it and then organise it to pursue inimical objectives. And secondly, it is necessary for the United States to participate in a world community that takes into account the global nature of our societies in economics, communications and technology.

Theoretically, the United States could pursue this on a global basis in a manner in which Britain conducted itself towards Europe through most of the 19th century, from a posture of splendid isolation, maintaining good relations with everybody, and throwing its weight to the side that seemed most advantageous at the moment, which in the British case was generally the weaker side in European forums. This is theoretically possible. I do not believe we have the philosophy, the personnel or the resources to do this on any consistent basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy.

I believe that the realistic approach of American foreign policy is to recognise a fundamental difference in the relations

between Europe, within Europe and in the relations in Asia.

Within Europe, there are many conflicts and many rivalries and many historic memories. Nevertheless, a strategic conflict between European powers is out of the question. In that sense, whatever the differences in approach between the core countries of the European Union and the rim countries, this is the dominant factor of Europe.

That is not the case in Asia. We can talk - as we do talk periodically - about a Pacific community but anybody studying the relations of Japan, China, Korea, the Asian part of Russia, even India to each other must come to the view that at this stage their relations to each other are more similar to the relations of 19th century European states to each other than of 20th century European states and if we go to the area south of Europe, the growth of fundamentalism poses not just an indirect but an explicit challenge by linking religion and politics in a missionary concept that purports to be the only valid answer to contemporary issues and is in some respects a reaction to the material philosophies that have been dominant in Western civilisation.

Therefore, I conclude that the United States and Europe at this moment, just as at the end of World War II, have the need for a special kind of relationship with each other. It is not in the sense that we have necessarily a common enemy but that we have comparable problems that need to be dealt with by parallel approaches.

At the end of the World War II, Britain was the only country that had not been occupied at one stage or another, that had preserved its institutions and its inward strength and had therefore made

19

the transition from power to influence
in an extraordinary manner. It took
exceptional self-discipline and skill for a
country that had been at the centre of
world affairs to shift its emphasis in this
manner. And while the Gaullist
approach to America was to make
disagreements extremely painful, the
British approach was to make
disagreements extremely embarrassing.
And in the long run that reflected the
fact that through a network of
institutions and consultations a general
community of interests was generated.

Since then, many of the tacit bargains
by which Europe and America and the
European/American relationship were
constructed have been altered. The
Cold War has obviously ended. The
division of Germany has also ended and
thereby the position in which France
had a certain kind of political leadership
on the continent, and Germany a
certain kind of economic leadership,
and America performed the security
role in which Germany was linked to
America through NATO, through
France to the European Union, and in
which Britain was extremely helpful in
establishing an overall framework. Now
that relationship has to be redefined.

I do not agree with those who believe
that America should now shift this
special relationship to Germany. It is
not helpful to Germany and it is not
meaningful for the United States
because we should not have a special
continental partner and I do not know
any German leader who aspires to such
a position. It is not meaningful either,
because what is needed is help to
America and cooperation with Europe
in the transition that I have described to
the conduct of a global policy without
enemies, without a security danger
geared to potential threats and geared
to global opportunities.

There have been, as I said, two
approaches to European/American
relations. One was the Gaullist
approach for which in my writings I
have had great sympathy because it
reflected the necessities of a country
that had gone through tremendous
difficulties in the war and in the
colonial period and that needed to
reaffirm its identity. The second was
the British approach which, more
secure in its identity, sought to establish
a pattern of cooperation, very difficult
to challenge because it reflected over
time the convictions on both sides of
common interests. The British
approach also reflected a historic
tradition of a global foreign policy
while the French approach was more
nearly geared to the calculations of the
margins on which stability in central
Europe, particularly as long as
Germany was divided, depended.

My basic argument is this. In the
period of the Cold War, when the
United States had the dominant role in
security and when there was only one
visible international challenge, it made
some sense to define European identity
by trying to wrest it from the United
States. In the present period, nothing is
easier to achieve than to have America
turn away from Europe, nothing is
simpler than to convince Americans
that they have no special interest in
Europe. The tasks that Europe has are
now so manifold that they don't have
to be granted by the United States - on
such issues as the participation of each
of the Central European countries in
the European Union. There is no need
for the United States to take a position
or to involve itself. Whether Europe
should follow a multiple geometry or
be more closely integrated makes a
difference in the relations between
Europe and the United States but it

20

cannot be affected significantly and
should not be by American
pronouncements. As Europe expands, I
personally believe that a more flexible
approach is probably the more
effective. But that is my personal
conviction on which I would not insist.

What I would think is important is not
to make rigid separations between
areas that are exclusively European and
areas that are exclusively American.
What we really need is the kind of
dialogue between what emerges in
Europe and what is beginning to
emerge in America that characterised
the post-war period. I think it would be
a continuation of the Western civil war
that started in 1914 if Europe and
America now concern themselves in the
kind of debate which is not at all
impossible.

In America, we need to give priority to
European relations that frankly has
been lacking, not just in day-to-day
policy but in some acts that seem quite
unnecessary. Therefore, I believe that
the debate about NATO membership
ought not to be permitted to fester
indefinitely. It is not the end of foreign
policy, it is just to put this issue out of
the way, but unlike the Cold War, it is
no longer possible to build an Atlantic
relationship exclusively on security
issues.

There was a period in which I thought
that the next phase of American foreign
policy should be to concentrate on
building western hemisphere
community. I still think that that is an
important enterprise but I believe more
and more that what we now need to do
is to create some goal for the North
Atlantic nations so that in the
challenges that I have tried to describe
we can act again in a common
framework. Therefore I believe that we

should seriously begin to examine the
idea of some form of North Atlantic
free trade association, or free trade
agreement, to which whatever America
builds in the western hemisphere could
then be related and which would enable
us - in the foreseeable turmoil in other
parts of the world and in the shifts of
emphasis and in the conflicts that will
inevitably arise as new powers emerge -
to act with some purpose and some
direction.

I am back to where I started. A
succession of American leaders of both
political parties, many of them not
known for excessive sentimentality,
which is anyway not a trait which
enables one to rise easily to the
Presidency, have over a period of more
than a generation considered it natural
that on major issues Britain and the
United States would seek to cooperate.
And would have a level of consultation
that was never formalised but was
central to the formation of policy in
both parties in both countries. Now, the
challenge is whether this can be done
on European/American relations, and
this is where Britain's experience can
make a seminal contribution. Europe
does not need to wrest its identity any
longer from the United States - we are
back to 1947 in that respect.

So my hope is that the nations of the
North Atlantic representing - whether
our intellectual community agrees with
that or not - a comparable civilisation in
a world in which democracy and
progress economically are our hope,
but not our guarantee, can do again,
this time on a global basis, what they
attempted so successfully a generation
ago.

21

# A New Direction for European-American Relations in the Post-Cold War World

By Henry Kissinger

In this speech, Henry Kissinger examines the reorientation of American foreign policy in the emerging post-Cold War world, focusing on possible ways of conducting American foreign policy towards Europe in this context. He advocates the broadening of the UK-US 'special relationship' into one between the United States and Europe, on the one hand encouraging the United States to give greater priority to European relations in its foreign policy, but on the other hand urging Europe to follow its own preferred course of integration and not to be unduly influenced by American pronouncements. Finally, in the long-term, Kissinger raises the possibility of the creation of a North Atlantic free trade association, leading ultimately to the inception of a 'Western Hemisphere Community'.

MANY DECADES AGO, LONGER THAN I CARE TO ADMIT, AS A young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, then recently retired as Prime Minister. And he began the presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: 'As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, "we live in an age of transition".' That, 30 years later, is also the theme of my remarks.

I grew up intellectually in the age of the 'special relationship' which I believe to have been vital to the creation of the post-war international order. It was not a favour the United States granted to Britain; rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in the form of the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and what generally came to be identified with the Cold War pattern of international relations. The special qualities that Britain brought to that relationship have been discussed by previous speakers: experience in a multi-polar world, a global character of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportion, and the English language - which today you hear practised on American television by those who are genuine and those who engage in wishful thinking.

All of those were great assets. But we are facing a new environment, and I would argue that the qualities that had made the special relationship work - broadened by now to a European-American relationship - may be even more essential than they were before.

To begin with, the United States faces an unprecedented situation. It is the only major country in the world whose history can be precisely dated, the only major country to have been populated almost exclusively by immigrants, that has never had a powerful neighbour along its borders, and that has never had to face the problems of security confronted by less favoured nations.

The Americans' perception of their foreign policy has always been one of nearly limitless choice and, above all, of having the ability to participate or to withdraw at will. Every American initiative of the post-war period has been presented to the American public as having a terminal date and as being designed to permit the underlying pattern - which was assumed to be harmonious throughout the world -

THE FOLLOWING IS A transcript of the speech made by Henry Kissinger at the 'Britain in the World' conference held in London on 29 March 1995. Henry Kissinger was formerly Professor of International Relations at Harvard University. He served as National Security Advisor and as Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

4 THE OXFORD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW SUMMER 1995

to reassert itself; after which, America could again withdraw from its commitment to whatever enterprise had been under discussion.

This explains why almost all of America's foreign policy has been presented in alternately psychiatric and theological terms: either as a means by which relations among nations could be conducted like relations among people; or as a crusade to destroy, or even better, to convert, antagonists to the uniquely American perception of international affairs. In that sense, the Cold War and victory in the Cold War was a culmination of the uniquely American perception of international affairs.

How many historical incidents, if any, can be recalled of a nation's leaders and allies making claims which, some 40 years later, were practically all achieved? For that is the position in which we now find ourselves. And it is occurring at the precise moment when, in the United States, the leadership groups which are now dominant have altogether different geographic origins from those which had shaped the post-war period.

For the period of the Cold War was formed by the so-called North-eastern 'establishment'. Present-day leadership and foreign policy direction are drawn mostly from the West, the Southwest or the South. Its relations with Europe are much less organic than were those of the generation of Acheson or McCloy or of all the fathers of Cold War policy. That does not mean that the current group is hostile, rather that internationalism is identified with European struggles; while the previous establishment drew from appeasement the lessons that the democracies around the Atlantic must be unified.

As a result, America is presently going through what I believe to be only the beginning of a national debate. And I really have no right to speak here of an American point of view because the American point of view is still in the process of being formed. The seminal debates have not yet taken place. For the first time in its history, America must conduct a global foreign policy without an overwhelming ideological enemy,

without a clear-cut strategic plan, and in a world which it can neither dominate nor from which it can withdraw. Thus the classic maxims of American foreign policy - the invocation of an overwhelming ideological challenge in the face of which foreign policy can be transmuted into large-scale enterprises to remedy the immediate crisis - do not apply.

IT IS CRUCIAL TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE NOW LIVING in a world composed of six or seven major global players. It is said that the United States is the only superpower left, but that is a simplistic description of the problem. We may be the only military superpower left, but the issues susceptible to solution by military action are declining. The kind of power in which we excel is less and less relevant to most foreseeable international crises. On the other hand, in economics, even in technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced. And even a cursory glance at the dollar makes it clear that the relative economic position of the United States is surely not growing.

In such a world, the United States faces the more or less traditional foreign policy problem of global players of operationally more or less equal strength permitting only two roads to stability: one is hegemony, and the other is equilibrium. Hegemony may not be possible and is in any case against the convictions and public morale of the American people; and equilibrium, or the balance of power, is a concept passionately rejected by the American intellectual community as contributing to endless tensions - an attitude which Americans have fortunately transcended through much of their history. To say in America that we must define a national interest - the theme of this conference - is considered a revolutionary, if not a reactionary, proposition. And even if one could elicit it as an acceptable proposition, the national interest is almost always defined in sweeping ideological terms.

[LC]

SUMMER 1995 THE OXFORD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW 5

[Lc]

Nevertheless, the future of the world will have to be based on some concept of the
equilibrium or some balance among its various regions, which I define as follows.

It cannot be that everybody is always perfectly satisfied, nor has that ever been
achieved by humanity. But it can perhaps be achieved that the major regions of the
world be not so dissatisfied that they seek to overthrow the international system by
violence, by terrorism, by economic warfare or some of the other methods so well
elaborated in our century.

In the conduct of policy, I would define the American interest both negatively and positively. Negatively, it is against the American interest that any major region of the world, including any continental region in either Europe or Asia - and surely both together - be dominated by a country of a group of countries which by doing so can then organize themselves to pursue inimical objectives. Positively, it is necessary for the United States to participate in a world community that takes into account the global nature of our societies in terms of economics, communications and technology.

THEORETICALLY, THE UNITED STATES COULD PURSUE policy on a global basis in the manner by which Britain conducted itself towards Europe through most of the 19th century: from a posture of 'splendid isolation', maintaining good relations with everybody but throwing its weight to the side that seems most advantageous at the moment (which, in the British case, was generally the weaker side in European forums). And while that is theoretically possible, I do not believe we have the philosophy, the personnel or the resources to do it on any consistent basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy. Therefore the most realistic approach to America's foreign policy problem would be to recognise the fundamental differences in our relations with Europe, within Europe, and with Asia.

Now within Europe, there are many conflicts, rivalries and historic memories. Nevertheless, a strategic conflict among the European powers is out of the question. And whatever the differences in approach among the core countries of the European Union and the rim countries, that must remain the dominant consideration.

This is not the case in Asia. We can talk - as we do periodically - about a Pacific Community. But anybody studying the relations of Japan, China, Korea, the Asian part of Russia and even India to each other must come to the view that, at this stage, their relations are more like the relations of 19th century European states. And if we go to the area south of Europe, the growth of fundamentalism poses not just an indirect but an explicit challenge by linking religion and politics in a missionary concept that purports to be the only valid answer to contemporary issues and is in some respects a reaction to the material philosophies which have been dominating Western civilisation.

Therefore, I conclude that, at this moment just as at the end of World War II, the United States and the countries of Europe need a special kind of relationship with each other. Not in the sense that we necessarily have a common enemy but that we have comparable problems in need of being redressed by parallel approaches.

At the end of the Second World War, Britain was the only country not to have been occupied at one stage or another; it had preserved its institutions and inward strength, and had, therefore, made the transition from power to influence in an extraordinary manner. It took exceptional self-discipline and skill for a nation which had been at the centre of world affairs to shift its emphasis in this manner. While the Gaullist approach to America was to make disagreements extremely embarrassing, in the long run, through a network of institutions and consultations, a general community of interests was engendered.

Since then, many of the tacit bargains upon which Europe, America and the European/American relationship were constructed have been altered. The Cold War has obviously ended. And when the division of Germany ended, so too did a world in which France had a certain political leadership on the Continent, Germany a certain economic leadership, and America performed the security role whereby West Germany was organically linked to it via NATO and to the European Union

"At this moment just as at the end of World War II, the United States and the countries of Europe need a special kind of relationship with each other ... we have comparable problems in need of being redressed by parallel approaches.."

via France. Britain was extremely helpful in establishing this overall framework, but that framework has to be redefined.

I do not agree with those who say that America should shift its 'special relationship' to Germany. That would not be helpful to Germany and it would not be meaningful for the United States because we should not have a special Continental partner. Nor do I know of any German leader who aspires to that. What is really needed is to give America help and encourage cooperation with Europe in the transition I have described towards its conduct of a global policy [geared not to enemies or the security danger of potential threats, but to global opportunities].

There have been, as I said, two approaches to European/American relations. One was the Gaullist approach for which, in my writings, I have shown great sympathy

because it reflected the necessities of a country which had gone through tremendous difficulties in the War and in the colonial period and which thus needed to reaffirm its identity. The second approach was the British approach which reflected a nation more secure in its identity and hence sought to establish a pattern of cooperation that was quite difficult to challenge because, over time, it came to reflect the convictions of both sides and was based on common interests. The British approach also reflected a historic tradition of global foreign policy, whereas the French approach was more geared to calculations of the margins on which stability depended in central Europe, particularly as long as Germany was divided.

My basic argument is this: in the period of the Cold War, when the United States had the dominant role in security and when there was only one visible international challenge, it made some sense to define European identity by trying to wrest it from the United States. In the current period, nothing is easier than to have America turn away from Europe; nothing is simpler than to convince Americans that they have no special interest in Europe. The tasks which Europe has before it now are so manifold that they don't have to be granted by the United States - such issues as the participation of the Central European countries in the European Union. There is no

SUMMER 1995 THE OXFORD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW 7

[L]

need for the United States to take a position or to involve itself. Whether Europe should follow a multiple geometry or be more closely integrated makes a difference in the relations between Europe and the United States but it cannot and should not be affected significantly by American pronouncements. As Europe expands, a more flexible approach will probably be the more effective. But that is my personal conviction, on which I would not insist.

What is important is not to make rigid separations between areas that are exclusively European and areas that are exclusively American. What we ultimately need is a dialogue between what has emerged in Europe and what is beginning to emerge in America similar to the one that had characterised the post-War period. I think it would be a continuation of the Western civil war that started in 1914 if Europe and America were not to concern themselves in the kind of debate which is not at all impossible.

In America, we need to give priority to European relations. This has frankly been lacking, not just in terms of day-to-day policy but actions that at times seem quite unnecessary. Thus I believe that the debate about NATO membership ought not to be permitted to fester indefinitely. It does not mean the end of foreign policy, just putting this issue out of the way. Unlike the days of the Cold War, it is no longer possible to build an Atlantic relationship exclusively on security issues.

THERE WAS A PERIOD IN WHICH I THOUGHT THAT THE NEXT phase of American foreign policy should be to concentrate on building a Western Hemisphere Community. I still think that is an important enterprise but I believe more and more that what we now need to do is to create some goal for the North Atlantic nations so that, in the challenges which I have tried to describe, we can again act within a common framework. We should seriously begin to examine the idea of some form of North Atlantic free trade association, or free trade agreement, to which whatever America builds in the Western Hemisphere could be related and which would enable us - in the foreseeable turmoil in other parts of the world and in the shifts of emphasis and conflicts that will inevitably arise as new powers emerge - to act with some purpose and direction.

I am back to where I started. A succession of American leaders of both political parties, many of them not known for excessive sentimentality (which anyway is not a trait that enables one to rise easily to the Presidency), have over a period of more than a generation considered it natural that, on major issues, Britain and the United States would seek to cooperate; and would have a level of consultation which, though never formalised, was central to the formation of policy in both parties in both countries. Now, the challenge is whether this can be done in terms of European/American relations as well, and that is where Britain's experience can make a seminal contribution. Europe no longer needs to wrest its identity from the United States - we are back to 1947 in that respect. Therefore my hope is - whether our intellectual community agrees with it or not - that the nations of the North Atlantic representing a comparable civilisation in a world in which democracy and economic progress are our hope but not our guarantee, can again, this time on a global basis, do what they attempted so successfully a generation ago.

"Unlike the days of the Cold War, it is no longer possible to build an Atlantic relationship exclusively on security issues... We should seriously begin to examine the idea of some form of North Atlantic free trade association."

TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH BY DR. HENRY KISSINGER

AT THE "BRITAIN IN THE WORLD" CONFERENCE

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, 29 MARCH 1995

Many decades ago, longer than I care to admit, as a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, then recently retired as Prime Minister. And he began the presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: "As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, 'we live in an age of transition'". That, 30 years later, is also the theme of my remarks.

I grew up intellectually in the age of the "special relationship", which I believe to have been vital to the creation of the post-war international order. It was not a favour the United States granted to Britain; rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in the form of the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and what generally came to be identified with the

Cold War pattern of international relations. The special qualities that Britain brought to that relationship have been discussed by previous speakers: experience in a multi-polar world, a global character of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportions, and the English language - which today you hear practised on American television by those who are genuine and those who engage in wishful thinking.

To begin with, the United States faces an unprecedented situation. It is the only major country in the world whose history can be precisely dated, the only major country to have been populated almost exclusively by immigrants, that has never had a powerful neighbor along its borders, and that has never had

2

[Y]

to face the problems of security confronted by less favoured
nations.

The Americans' perception of their foreign policy has always
been one of nearly limitless choice and, above all, of having the
ability to participate or to withdraw at will. Every American
initiative of the post-war period has been presented to the
American public as having a terminal date and as being designed
to permit the underlying pattern - which was assumed to be
harmonious throughout the world - to reassert itself; after
which, America could again withdraw from its commitment to
whatever enterprise had been under discussion.

This explains why almost all of America's foreign policy has
been presented in alternately psychiatric and theological terms:
either as a means by which relations among nations could be
conducted like relations among people; or as a crusade to
destroy, even better, to convert, antagonists to the uniquely
American perception of international affairs. In that sense, the
Cold War and victory in the Cold War was a culmination of the

3

[Y]

For the period of the Cold War was formed by the so-called
Northeastern "establishment". Present-day leadership and foreign
policy direction are drawn mostly from the West, the Southwest or
the South. Its relations with Europe are much less organic than
were those of the generation of Acheson or McCloy or of all the
fathers of Cold War policy. That does not mean that the current
group is hostile, rather that internationalism is identified with
European struggles; while the lesson of appeasement suggests that
the democracies around the Atlantic must be unified.¹

¹HK: Please make sure this is what you meant. (GG)

4

CJ

As a result, America is presently going through what I
believe to be only the beginning of a national debate. And I
really have no right to speak here of an American point of view
because the American point of view is still in the process of
being formed. The seminal debates have not yet taken place. For
the first time in its history, America must conduct a global
foreign policy without an overwhelming ideological enemy, without
a clear-cut strategic plan, and in a world which it can neither
dominate nor withdraw from. Thus the classic maxims of American
foreign policy - the invocation of an overwhelming ideological
challenge in the face of which foreign policy can be transmuted
into large-scale enterprises to remedy the immediate crisis -
also do not apply.

It is crucial to understand that we are now living in a
world composed of six or seven major global players. It is said
that the United States is the only superpower left. But that is
a simplistic description of the problem. We may be the only
military superpower left, but the issues susceptible to solution

5

6

[Y]

a reactionary, proposition. And even if one could elicit it as
an acceptable proposition, the national interest is almost always
defined in sweeping ideological terms. Nevertheless, the future
of the world will have to be based on some concept of the
equilibrium or some balance among its various regions, which I
define as follows.

In the conduct of policy, I would define the American
interest both negatively and positively. Negatively, it is
against the American interest that any major region of the world,
including any continental region in either Europe or Asia - and
surely both together - be dominated by a country or a group of
countries which by doing so can then organise themselves to

7

[YJ]

pursue inimical objectives. Secondly, it is necessary for the
United States to participate in a world community that takes into
account the global nature of our societies in terms of economics,
communications and technology.

Theoretically, the United States could pursue policy on a
global basis in the manner by which Britain conducted itself
towards Europe through most of the 19th Century: from a posture
of "splendid isolation", maintaining good relations with
everybody but throwing its weight to the side that seems most
advantageous at the moment (which, in the British case, was
generally the weaker side in European forums). And while that is
theoretically possible, I do not believe we have the philosophy,
the personnel or the resources to do it on any consistent basis,
or even to elaborate it as a philosophy. Therefore the most
realistic approach to America's foreign policy problem would be
to recognise the fundamental differences in our relations with
Europe, within Europe, and with Asia.

8

[Y]

Which is not the case in Asia. We can talk - as we do
periodically - about a Pacific Community. But anybody studying
the relations of Japan, China, Korea, the Asian part of Russia,
and even India to each other must come to the view that, at this
stage, their relations are more like the relations of 19th
century European states to each other than of the 20th century
European states. And if we go to the area south of Europe, the
growth of fundamentalism poses not just an indirect but an
explicit challenge by linking religion and politics in a
missionary concept that purports to be the only valid answer to
contemporary issues and is in some respects a reaction to the
material philosophies which have been dominating Western
civilisation.

9

At the end of the Second World War, Britain was the only country not to have been occupied at one stage or another, that had preserved its institutions and inward strength, and that had, therefore, made the transition from power to influence in an extraordinary manner. It took exceptional self-discipline and skill for a nation which had been at the centre of world affairs to shift its emphasis in this manner. And while the Gaullist approach to America was to make disagreements extremely painful, the British approach was to make disagreements extremely embarrassing. In the long run, through a network of institutions and consultations, a general community of interests was engendered.

10

CJD

Since then, many of the tacit bargains upon which Europe, America and the European/American relationship were constructed have been altered. The Cold War has obviously ended. And when the division of Germany ended, so too did a world in which France had a certain political leadership on the Continent, Germany a certain economic leadership, and America performed the security role whereby West Germany was organically linked to it via NATO and to the European Union via France.² Britain was extremely helpful in establishing this overall framework, but that framework has to be redefined.

I do not agree with those who say that America should shift its "special relationship" to Germany. That would not be helpful to Germany and it would not be meaningful for the United States because we should not have a special Continental partner. Nor do I know of any German leader who aspires to that. It is moreover not meaningful because, what is really needed is to give America help and cooperation with Europe in the transition I have

²HK: Please make sure the last sentence is correct. (GG)

11

described towards its conduct of a global policy [geared not to
enemies or the security danger of potential threats, but to
global opportunities.]³

There have been, as I said, two approaches to
European/American relations. One was the Gaullist approach for
which, in my writings, I have shown great sympathy because it
reflected the necessities of a country which had gone through
tremendous difficulties in the War and in the colonial period and
which thus needed to reaffirm its identity. The second approach
was the British approach which reflected a nation more secure in
its identity and hence sought to establish a pattern of
cooperation that was quite difficult to challenge because, over
time, it came to reflect the convictions of both sides and was
based on common interests. The British approach also reflected a
historic tradition of global foreign policy whereas the French
approach was more geared to calculations of the margins on which
stability depended in central Europe, particularly as long as

³OK? (GG)

Germany was divided.

My basic argument is this:

In the period of the Cold War, when the United States had the dominant role in security and when there was only one visible international challenge, it made some sense to define European identity by trying to wrest it from the United States. In the current period, nothing is easier than to have America turn away from Europe; nothing is simpler than to convince Americans that they have no special interest in Europe. The tasks which Europe has before it now are so manifold that they don't have to be granted by the United States - such issues as the participation of the Central European countries in the European Union. There is no need for the United States to take a position or to involve itself. Whether Europe should follow a multiple geometry or be more closely integrated makes a difference in the relations between Europe and the United States but it cannot and should not be affected significantly by American pronouncements. As Europe expands, a more flexible approach will probably be the more

13

LYJ

What is important is not to make rigid separations between
areas that are exclusively European and areas that are
exclusively American. What we ultimately need is a dialogue
between what has emerged in Europe and what is beginning to
emerge in America similar to the one that had characterised the
post-War period. [I think it would be a continuation of the
Western civil war that started in 1914 if Europe and America were
now to concern themselves in the kind of debate which is not at
all impossible.]⁴

In America, we need to give a priority to European
relations. This has frankly been lacking, not just in terms of
day-to-day policy but actions that at times seem quite
unnecessary. Thus I believe that the debate about NATO
membership ought not to be permitted to fester indefinitely. It
does not mean the end of foreign policy, just putting this issue

⁴This is not at all clear. Need to delete or elaborate. (GG)

14

CYD

There was a period in which I thought that the next phase of
American foreign policy should be to concentrate on building a
Western Hemisphere Community. I still think that is an important
enterprise but I believe more and more that what we now need to
do is to create some goal for the North Atlantic nations so that,
in the challenges which I have tried to describe, we can again
act within a common framework. We should seriously begin to
examine the idea of some form of North Atlantic free trade
association, or free trade agreement, to which whatever America
builds in the Western Hemisphere could be related and which would
enable us - in the foreseeable turmoil in other parts of the
world and in the shifts of emphasis and conflicts that will
inevitably arise as new powers emerge - to act with some purpose
and direction.

15

leaders of both political parties, many of them not known for
excessive sentimentality (which is anyway not a trait that
enables one to rise easily to the Presidency), have over a period
of more than a generation considered it natural that, on major
issues, Britain and the United States would seek to cooperate;
and would have a level of consultation which, though never
formalised, was central to the formation of policy in both
parties in both countries. Now, the challenge is whether this
can be done in terms of European/American relations as well, and
that is where Britain's experience can make a seminal
contribution. Europe no longer needs to wrest its identity from
the United States - we are back to 1947 in that respect.

16

Many decades ago, longer than I care to admit, as a young professor I went to hear a lecture by Harold Macmillan, recently retired as Prime Minister. And he began his presentation of his distilled wisdom by saying: "As they left the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said: We live in an age of transition". That, 30 years later, is also the theme of my remarks.

I grew up intellectually in the age of the "special relationship". I believe it was vital for the creation of the post-war international system. It was not a favour the United States granted to Britain, rather it was earned, first by conduct during the war and later by the enormous contribution in the form of the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and what generally was identified with the Cold War pattern of international relations. The special qualities that Britain

[Y]

brought to that relationship have been discussed by previous speakers: experience in a multi-polar world, a global character of mind, an experienced leadership, a commitment to security, overseas ties of not insignificant proportions, and the English language - which today you can hear practised on American television only by those who are genuine, and by those who engage in wishful thinking.

All of those were great assets. But we are facing a new environment, and I would argue that the qualities that had made the special relationship work - broadened by now to a European-American relationship - may be even more essential than before.

To begin with the United States faces an unprecedented situation. It is the only major country in the world whose history can be precisely dated, the only major country to have been populated almost exclusively by immigrants, that has never had a powerful neighbor along its borders, and that has never had to face the problem of security confronted by less favoured nations.

2

[Y]

The Americans' perception of their foreign policy has always been one of nearly unlimited choices and above all of the ability to participate or to withdraw at will. Every American initiative of the post-war period has been presented to the American public as having a terminal date and as designed to permit the underlying pattern - which was assumed to be harmonious throughout the world - to reassert itself; after which, America could again withdraw from its commitment to whatever enterprise had been under discussion.

This explains why almost all of American foreign policy has been presented in alternately psychiatric or theological terms: either as a means by which relations among nations could be conducted like relations among people; or as a crusade to destroy, even better, to convert antagonists to the uniquely American perception of international affairs. In that sense, the Cold War and victory in the Cold War was a culmination of the American perception of international affairs.

How many incidents, if any, can be recalled in a history

3

[Y]

where a nation could claim that what its leaders and its allies
had proclaimed 40 years earlier practically everything they had
set out to do had actually been achieved? But that is the
position in which we now find ourselves. And it is occurring
moreover at the moment when in the United States the leadership
groups that now dominate are of a different origin geographically
than those which formed the post-war period.

The period of the Cold War was shaped by the Northeastern
"establishment". The present foreign policy and leadership are
drawn mostly from the West, the Southwest or the South. Their
relations with Europe are much organic than those of the
generation of Acheson or McCloy or of all the fathers of Cold War
policy. That does not mean that they are hostile, only that
internationalism was identified with European struggles and the
lesson of appeasement had seemed to be that the democracies
around the Atlantic had to be unified.

Therefore America is now going through what I believe is
only the beginning of a national debate. And I really have no

4

right to speak here of an American point of view because the
American point of view is still in the process of being formed:
the seminal debates have not yet taken place. For the first time
in its history America has to conduct a global foreign policy
without an ideological enemy, without a clear-cut strategic plan
and in a world which it can neither dominate nor from which it
can withdraw. Thus the classic maxims of American foreign policy
are almost impossible to apply: it is neither impossible to
evoke an overwhelming ideological challenge nor is it feasible
to transmute foreign policy into large scale enterprises to
remedy some immediate crisis.

What is crucial to understand that we are now living in a
world of six or seven major global players. It is said that the
United States is the only superpower left. But that is a
simplistic description of the problem. We may be the only
military superpower left, but the issues susceptible to solution
by military action are declining. The kind of power in which we
excel is less and less relevant to most of the foreseeable

5

[Y]

international crisis. On the other hand, in economics, even in
technology, the world is becoming much more evenly balanced and a
look at the dollar makes it clear that the relative economic
position of the United States is surely not growing.

In such a world, the United States favors a more or less
traditional foreign policy problem, namely that, in a world of
players of operationally more or less equal strength there are
only two roads to stability: one is hegemony, and the other is
equilibrium. Hegemony may not be possible and is in any case
against the convictions and public morale of the American people;
and equilibrium, or the balance of power, is a concept
passionately rejected by the American intellectual community as
contributing to endless tensions, an attitude which Americans
have fortunately transcended through much of their history. To
say in America that we must define a national interest - the
theme of this conference - is considered a revolutionary, if not
a reactionary, proposition. And even if one could elicit it as
an acceptable proposition, the national interest is almost always

6

Nevertheless, the future of the world will have to be based
on some notion of equilibrium, some balance among the various
regions of the world, which I will define as follows. It cannot
be that everybody is perfectly satisfied for that has never been
achieved by humanity. But it can perhaps be achieved that the
major regions of the world be not so dissatisfied that they seek
to overthrow the international system by violence, by terrorism,
by economic warfare or some of the other methods so well
elaborated in our century.

In the conduct of policy, I would define the American
interest both negatively and positively. Negatively, it is
against the American interest that any major region of the world,
any continental region, in either Europe or Asia - and surely
both together - be dominated by a country or a group of countries
which by doing so can then organise to pursue inimical
objectives. And secondly, it is necessary for the United States
to participate in a world community that takes into account the

7

[Y]

Theoretically, the United States could pursue policy on a
global basis in the manner in which Britain conducted itself
towards Europe through most of the 19th Century: from a posture
of "splendid isolation", maintaining good relations with
everybody, and throwing its weight to the side that seems most
advantageous at the moment (which, in the British case, was
generally the weaker side in European forums). That is
theoretically possible, but I do not believe we have the
philosophy, the personnel or the resources to do it on any
consistent basis, or even to elaborate it as a philosophy.

I believe that the realistic approach of America's foreign
policy would be to recognise the fundamental differences in its
relations with Europe, within Europe, and with Asia.

Now within Europe, there are many conflicts, rivalries and
historic memories. Nevertheless, a strategic conflict between
the European powers is out of the question. And whatever the

8

differences in approach among the core countries of the European
Union and the rim countries, that remains the dominant factor.

Which is not the case in Asia. We can talk - as we do
periodically - about a Pacific Community, but anybody studying
the relations of Japan, China, Korea, the Asian part of Russia,
and even India to each other must come to the view that, at this
stage, their relations with each other are more like the
relations of 19th century European states to each other than of
20th century European states. And if we go to the area south of
Europe, the growth of fundamentalism poses not just an indirect
but an explicit challenge by linking religion and politics in a
missionary concept that purports to be the only valid answer to
contemporary issues and is in some respects a reaction to the
material philosophies that have been dominating Western
civilisation.

Therefore, I conclude that the United States and Europe have
at this moment, just as at the end of World War II, a need for a
special kind of relationship with each other. Not in the sense

9

[4]

that we necessarily have a common enemy, but that we have a
common enemy, but that we have comparable problems in need of
being dealt with by parallel approaches.

At the end of the Second World War, Britain was the only
country that had not been occupied at one stage or another, that
had preserved its institutions and its inward strength, and had
therefore made the transition from power to influence in an
extraordinary manner. It took exceptional self-discipline and
skill for a nation that had been at the centre of world affairs
to shift its emphasis in this manner. And while the Gaullist
approach to America was to make disagreements extremely painful,
the British approach was to make disagreements extremely
embarrassing. In the long run, through a network of institutions
and consultations, a general community of interests had been
generated.

Since then, many of the tacit bargains on which Europe,
America and the European/American relationship were constructed
have been altered. The Cold War has obviously ended. The

10

[Y]

division of Germany has also ended and thereby too the situation
which France had had a certain political leadership on the
Continent, Germany a certain economic leadership, and America
performed the security role so that West Germany was linked to
America through NATO and through France to the European Union.
Britain was extremely helpful in establishing this overall
framework, but that relationship now has to be redefined.

I do not agree with those who believe that America should
shift the "special relationship" to Germany. It is not helpful
to Germany and it is not meaningful for the United States because
we should not have a special Continental partner. Nor do I know
of any German leader who aspires to that. It is also not
meaningful because what it really needed is giving America help
and cooperation with Europe in the transition I have described
for the conduct of a global policy without enemies and without a
security danger geared to potential threats but to global
opportunities.

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European/American relations. One was the Gaullist approach for which, in my writings, I have had great sympathy because it reflected the necessities of a country that had gone through tremendous difficulties in the War and in the colonial period and that needed to reaffirm its identity. The second was the British approach which, more secure in its identity, sought to establish a pattern of cooperation very difficult to challenge because over time it reflected the convictions on both sides of common interests. The British approach also reflected a historic tradition of global foreign policy while the French approach was more nearly geared to the calculations of the margins on which stability depended in central Europe, particularly as long as Germany was divided.

My basic argument is this:

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current period, nothing is easier than to have America turn away
from Europe; nothing is simpler than to convince Americans that
they have no special interest in Europe. The tasks that Europe
has before it now are so manifold that they don't have to be
granted by the United States - such issues as the participation
of the Central European countries in the European Union. There
is no need for the United States to take a position or to involve
itself. Whether Europe should follow a multiple geometry or be
more closely integrated makes a difference in the relations
between Europe and the United States but it cannot and should not
be affected significantly by American pronouncements. As Europe
expands, I believe that a more flexible approach is probably the
more effective. But that is my personal conviction on which I
would not insist.

What is important is not to make rigid separations between
areas that are exclusively European and areas that are
exclusively American. What we really need is dialogue between
what has emerged in Europe and what is beginning to emerge in

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America as had characterised the post-War period. [I think it
would be a continuation of the Western civil war that started in
1914 if Europe and American were now to concern themselves in the
kind of debate which is not at all impossible.] HAK: need to
explain this further or to drop.

In America, we need to give priority to European relations,
which has frankly been lacking - not just in day-to-day policy
but in terms of some acts that seem quite unnecessary. Thus I
believe that the debate about NATO membership ought not to be
permitted to fester indefinitely. It does not mean the end of
foreign policy, just putting this issue out of the way. Unlike
in the days of the Cold War, it is no longer possible to build an
Atlantic relationship exclusively on security issues.

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in the challenges which I have tried to describe, we can act
again in a common framework. We should seriously begin to
examine the idea of some form of North Atlantic free trade
association, or free trade agreement, to which whatever America
builds in the Western Hemisphere could be related, and which
would enable us - in the foreseeable turmoil in other parts of
the world and in the shifts of emphasis and conflicts that will
inevitably arise as new powers emerge - to act with some purpose
and direction.

I am back to where I started. A succession of American
leaders of both political parties, many of them not known for
excessive sentimentality (which is anyway not a trait that
enables one to rise easily to the Presidency), have over a period
of more than a generation considered it natural that, on major
issues, Britain and the United States would seek to cooperate;
and would have a level of consultation that, while never
formalised, was central to the formation of policy in both
parties in both countries. Now, the challenge is whether this

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[Y]

can be done in terms of European/American relations and this is
where Britain's experience can make a seminal contribution.
Europe no longer needs to wrest its identity from the United
States - we are back to 1947 in that respect. Therefore my hope
is - whether our intellectual community agrees with it or not -
that the nations of the North Atlantic representing a comparable
civilisation in a world in which democracy and progress
economically are our hope, but not our guarantee, can again, this
time on a global basis, do what they attempted so successfully a
generation ago.

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