Address given by Henry Kissinger on 6 December 1997 in Warsaw during the  
Polish-German-American Forum for Security on "NATO's future after enlargement"

Let me first of all make a few remarks on the actual, political and strategic points. I agree
with the really remarkable presentations we have had from Brzeziński, Minister Ruhe, and Minister
Geremek. And I have nothing to add to those. I do want to underline the point on the immediate
necessities with respect to the Ukraine that Zbig made. I think it is very important that all of us who
can do so reach our governments or bring it to their attention. When the Ukrainian president was in
Washington, they cut off IMF funds for Ukraine on the basis of some technical analysis of the
suitability of the economic program, surely one of the less wise decisions, that has been taken.

I would like to make one set of observations. My Polish friends have honored me by
thanking me on a number of occasions for having supported the admission of Poland to NATO.
They have made it sound as if I were doing them a special kindness. Yet, I am a great believer in
pursuing the national interest of the United States. I admire Poland greatly, and Polish history
greatly, but the reason I have supported this is because I believe it is also in the interest of the West,
and especially in the interest of the United States, not just in the interest of Poland. And the
necessity in the next phase of NATO policy is to embed the need for an Atlantic structure into the
thinking of this generation. More than a legal obligation, it is a necessity of our policies.

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[LC]

Let me now explain why I believe this to be the case. I shall start by saying something that, in American academic circles, would be very unpopular, namely that I believe there is such a thing as Western civilization. And I agree with Geremek when he talks about the tradition of human dignity, of a concept of justice independent of the state, of limitations to state power that originated in the West even in the period when governments were absolute, and in the existence of a church which insisted on autonomous jurisdiction. These belong to the glories of Western civilization and they must be preserved and made relevant to the period. There is another aspect of Western civilization that is less attractive - a propensity toward civil war that has exhausted the West, especially in this century. We have to keep both of these aspects very much in mind.

When one looks at the world, and at the North Atlantic area (and someone has said, to a lesser extent at the Western Hemisphere in the North Atlantic area) in the region I am not embarrassed to say from Dubuque to Vancouver, inter-state wars are practically inconceivable. In those regions therefore we can develop habits of cooperation based on compatible domestic institutions and market economics that have been the great achievements of the post-war period. Beyond these borders, for a variety of reasons, this is not necessarily the case. In Asia, the nations look at each other as strategic opponents. And while I am not saying they will go to war, they do not exclude war among each other.

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Thus the relationships between China, Japan, Russia, India, and South-east Asia have more
of the character of XIX century European politics than of what I described in the Atlantic area. I
totally disagree, incidentally, with the view that it is America which must be the balancer of power
against China. This is a reflection of the Conservative nostalgia in America that is desperately
looking for a new enemy. The counterbalance to China in Asia are Japan, Russia, and India, and we
do not have to pay them for this, they do it because it is in their own interest. We can be the
ultimate balancer if it should become necessary, but I do not take it for granted that it is necessary.
Whether we appear as the balancer against China or against some other group of countries will
depend on the circumstances. But this is not a role with which America is even remotely
comfortable,

I mention the case of China only as an illustration of the kind of problems which ought to be
discussed in the North Atlantic area. One could make a comparable analysis in the Middle East.
Everybody is focused on Arafat and Netanyahu, but the real Middle East goes from Kazakhstan
through Iran into the Gulf in Saudi Arabia. And a system has to be constructed there that has a
plausible capacity of being sustained. This is another question we must discuss among ourselves, but
first of all we have to discuss it in America. For in all of our countries right now, a change in the
generations is occurring.

[L.C]

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In America, my generation and Zbig's generation remembers the great achievements of the post-World War II reconstruction period. It would not be a problem for Zbig to write a book on global construction, because that is how we were brought up. The Vietnam generation was brought up in a period of seeking limitations on American power. And it is not at all sure that our power is necessarily beneficial. I was at Yale a few weeks ago and, to my amazement, some of the Yale students had no clear distinction between the Vietnam war and the Spanish-American war. But the post-Vietnam generation does have the sense that we were in the "cold war", and that a president came along and said the words "evil empire", and the next thing you knew it collapsed.

We are now torn in America between, on the one hand, not exactly the isolationists but what I would call the unilateral patrimonialists who think America can do everything by itself and who are anti-Alliance because they think it is nonsense - as if all we need to do is to make some grand moral affirmation and the walls of Jericho will collapse automatically. And on the left we have the moralist Uic isolationists who say "we have no right to do any of these things because we are not yet good enough for this world, so we have to engage in a strenuous exercise of domestic improvement," This group likes to address such issues as drugs, the environment, all the issues that require no use of power.

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So this is the framework of our domestic American debates. And if I express some disagreements with our administration it is that, while I generally support its policies, it has not yet put forward a philosophy for dealing with the fundamental issue of what America should do. Now, within this Atlantic area we are replaying some of the old domestic and historic civil wars. One reason why I think Poland's membership in NATO is so beneficial is that Poland wants to be a part of Europe, to which it has historically belonged. But Poland will never risk its security on some abstract point or on excluding America. So I think that maximum participation by Poland in European deliberations would be very beneficial for the purposes I have described.

I also consider it unwise and dangerous to define European issues in terms of weakening America. Whenever I talk to Frenchmen about the Euro, they say: this gives us a chance to weaken the Dollar. What the Euro will do will depend on its intrinsic strength. It has nothing to do with what is being declared by the various finance ministers. But I would like to make one suggestion.

I believe that the internationaal financial system as it is now constituted is about to lead us into disaster because the IMF only interferes when a calamity has already occurred. And then it makes the political problem worse even as it improves the economic problem, because it puts a huge burden on governments that are already weakened. Now if there were a strong Europe and a strong Dollar, and the two sides were to agree on an international financial management whereby

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IMF solutions would be advanced three years before a crisis occurs rather than two years after there has been a crisis, it would make for an honorable role for Europe, an honorable role for America, and a great contribution to international stability.

Everybody is now giving analyses of what happened in Korea and South-east Asia. I sit on a lot of boards and I never heard any of these analyses being made by bankers or finance people *before* the crisis occurred. So we should set up some kind of system. Many of you know I have advocated a North Atlantic Free Trade Area. Now what is the role of NATO in this? I think of NATO as a political institution that ties America to Europe. And instead of talking about weapon systems, which is also important, we should deal conceptually with the political evolution of the world as foreseen and which our political systems do not encourage us to discuss. The types of people coming into office now are less conceptual and more "TV and computer oriented" than previous groups, have been partly because there is no reward for dealing with middle-term problems, except at the end of the middle term.

In those terms, it would be enormously beneficial to have a significant European voice. I am not worried about the European defense system but I am worried about these maneuvers in which Yeltsin is meeting first with the Germans then, the French, and then everybody is speaking out against American hegemony. Somebody sent me a sheaf of articles from Iranian newspapers the

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other day in which it is being spoken with approval of the Teheran - Moscow - Paris Axis versus
American global arrogance. It is a basic theme in the Iranian press, incidentally directed against
their president with the argument that it is not necessary to modify their behavior since it is
happening anyway. So these are the necessities regarding the future of NATO.

I would add one more thing about American "hegemony". America has never had to
conduct a foreign policy with no terminal point. Every major initiative has been geared to a big
challenge presented to our public as one that could be overcome with sheer effort. Even in NATO
we have had to educate our public that this is now going to be a permanent system. In relation to
Asia it becomes even more complicated because there is no terminal point, there is no clear-cut
enemy. In fact, if we declare somebody to be the enemy and we try to reconstruct NATO in Asia,
we are going to drive the Asians into neutralistic nationalism, achieving the exact opposite of what
we want. Similarly, we have the necessity of coming up with a coherent Middle East policy. So, to
sum up:

- My view is that the Atlantic Alliance faces a fundamental, philosophical and conceptual
challenge. If the West is to preserve its integrity and its history, this is the forum within which to
operate.

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[LC]

- What to do about Russia? The dilemma of Russian history is that while it has been a part of this civilization, it has so many other interests: it is engaged in Asia and in the Middle East, and it has not yet really defined its full identity. I would agree with those here who have said that, the biggest contribution would be to reconcile Russia to being a non-imperial state. With its eleven time zones, it should not feel claustrophobic - eleven time zones within which to regulate its relations with other countries as a major power.

In my experience, which may no longer be relevant, I have always found that it is easier to deal with Russian leaders on the basis of national interest and when treating them as equals, not condescendingly by lecturing them about how they might be restored to the international system or telling them that: if you only become democratic and more like us... If one says to them: your domestic institutions are more or less your problem, our problem is your foreign conduct and your foreign conduct we will regulate together with you on the basis of a clear definition of mutual interests - then, gradually, relations between Russia and the West are bound to improve. Whether or not Russia participates in the Asian game will be determined by what happens in Japan and China, not by specific measures on our part.

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This then is my basic view of the Atlantic relationship, and why I genuinely believe (and not simply because we are here in Warsaw) that Poland can make a very significant contribution.

Poland will not be torn by its belonging to Europe or to the Atlantic area. Among Poles, I do not think there is any such opposition. This is the dialogue I believe should be taking place and I hope that the leaders on both sides of the Atlantic will find occasions to discuss the long-range problems and not just the tactics of managing the next three months. Thank you very much.