comment on the draft, then meet with your group, then if
it wished, prepare a statement to accompany your task
force report.

a. Two meetings.

b. Three or more meetings.

3. A single Council-sponsored task force to include ten American and ten European participants, co-chaired by you and a European.

a. Two joint meetings, one in New York, one in Europe.

b. Two or more separate meetings (attended by you and Kupchan) and one joint meeting.

4. A Council-sponsored group of ten Americans, chaired by you, and a separate but related European group of ten, organized by a European partner institution. The groups would meet separately, with several members of each group attending the other's meetings. The groups would eventually meet jointly.

a. Two separate meetings, one or two joint meetings.

b. Three or more separate meetings, one or two joint meetings.

Possible European Co-chairs:

Giuliano Amato

Carl Bildt

Felipe Gonzalez

Michel Rocard

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Horst Teltschik

Hubert Vedrine

Richard von Weizsäcker

Prospective Transatlantic Relations Task Force Members

American Members:

* Reginald Bartholomew, Merrill Lynch Europe*

* S. Lael Brainard, The Brookings Institution*

* Ivo H. Daalder, The Brookings Institution

* Francis Fukuyama, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University*

* John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University

* Philip H. Gordon, The Brookings Institution

* G. John Ikenberry, Georgetown University

* Tony R. Judt, New York University

* William J. McDonough, Federal Reserve Bank of NY*

* Rozanne L. Ridgway, Baltic-American Enterprise Fund*

* Simon Serfaty, Center for Strategic & International Studies

* Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University

* Daniel K. Tarullo, Georgetown University Law Center*

* Laura D'Andrea Tyson, London Business School*

European Members:

* Giuliano Amato, European Convention*

* Alyson J.K. Bailes, Stockholm Int'l Peace Research Inst.

* Christoph Bertram, Deutsches Institut für Internationale Politik und Sicherheit*

* Gro Brundtland, World Health Oganization

* Timothy Garton Ash, Oxford University

* Nicole Gnesotto, The European Union Institute for Security Studies

* Charles Grant, Centre for European Reform

* Istvan Gyarmati, East-West Institute

* François Heisbourg, Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique

* Hans-Ulrich Klose, German Bundestag

* Peter Mandelson, British Parliament

* Dominique Moisi, Institut Francais des Relations Internationales

* Klaus Naumann

* Thomas Risse, Freie Universität Berlin

* Rudolf Scharping, German Bundestag

* Dieter Spoeri, Daimler Chrysler*

* Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French National Assembly*

* Walter Stuetzle

* Norbert Walter, Deutsche Bank*

* Thierry de Montbrial, IFRI

*Economics Background

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The future of the trans-Atlantic relationship is more uncertain today than it has been at any point in the last half century. While there have been previous moments when American and European leaders disagreed on key issues, and where public opinions diverged sharply across the Atlantic, the current situation is, in important respects, unique. Disagreements go not just to means towards shared ends but also to questions of ultimate purposes in a world where defense against the Soviet Union is no longer an imperative and where peaceful coexistence within Europe been achieved. The events of the last year surrounding the Iraq War have demonstrated dramatically the difficulty in finding common ground on matters of fundamental importance. Indeed, there is an increasing tendency in Europe to see containing American power as a primary objective of policy, and an increasing tendency in the United States to regard Europe as an irrelevance at best and an impediment at worst in the achievement of key national security objectives.

Given these circumstances, the Task Force believes that a fundamental reconsideration of the trans-Atlantic relationship is necessary. It will not be sufficient to acknowledge historic ties, note the enormity of global problems, highlight common democratic values, and commit to more conciliatory diplomacy in the future. Without a clear and newly grounded commitment to the relationship on the parts of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, and without a compelling shared vision for the alliance, we believe that current cleavages between the United States and Europe are only likely to increase.

Establishing a compelling vision for the trans-Atlantic relationship and sustaining a commitment to it will be a great challenge for leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. The Soviet threat that acted as glue, holding the alliance together in the face of subsidiary disagreements, is no longer a factor, and there is an increasing tendency for the United States and Europe to compete for influence with Russia and the nations of the former Soviet Union. Substantial progress with respect to European integration reduces dependence on the United States and absorbs large amounts of political energy inward, at the same time encouraging the formation of a distinctively European identity. Inevitably, that European identity is defined in part in contrast to the United States positions on cultural, political, and

security issues. An ironic consequence of the increased integration of ordinary life across the Atlantic is intensification of commercial rivalries and increased salience of cultural differences. Elites today are much less likely to look naturally and favorably across the Atlantic than was the case in the previous generation.

Despite these difficulties, the Task Force is convinced that the renewal of the trans-Atlantic relationship is essential. We categorically reject the idea put forth by some that with the Cold War won and European integration well advanced the alliance is no longer necessary nor sustainable. Failure to renew the relationship effectively in the years ahead carries with it a number of major risks:

* The United States will find itself alone or nearly alone as it confronts major security challenges. Without partners, American legitimacy will be reduced and its necessary resource commitments will be increased.

* European integration will inevitably suffer as some in Europe seek to make common cause with the United States while others do not.

* Over time there will be a tendency towards a return to great power politics reminiscent of the pre-World War I period, this time on a global scale as the United States and Europe seek separately to form alliances with other major powers.

* The opportunity for nations with half the world's wealth to cooperate in addressing global problems ranging from nuclear proliferation to global warming to achieving stability in the Muslim world will be put at risk.

* Without effective cooperation between the United States and Europe, the ability of international institutions ranging from the United Nations to the international financial institutions to the World Trade Organization to advance their objectives will be imperiled.

It is noteworthy that all of these risks have been illustrated by events of the last year. The international legitimacy of the Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation has surely been diminished and its cost to the United States increased by the lack of full cooperation with Europe. Important fissures have emerged within Europe over the Iraq War. France and Germany have joined with Russia and China in seeking to use the United Nations to contain American power. And confidence in the United Nations and other international institutions has not been enhanced.

## Reestablishing the Relationship

One important part of the foundation for the trans-Atlantic alliance must be a common awareness of the costs of its dissolution. But this is surely insufficient as a basis for its continuing strength. The Task Force believes that the transatlantic relationship should be renewed on the basis of mutual respect for global agendas. The United States after, and even before, September 11 sees major global challenges as coming from terrorism, rogue states, and nuclear proliferation and sees the promotion of democracy and the market system as global priorities. For reasons that largely relate to historical experience, most European nations place much greater emphasis on a different set of problems—strengthening international law and institutions, meeting human needs, and building an integrated Europe.

In reality, both agendas will be fundamentally important for the United States and Europe over the next several decades. It would be tragic if cooperation were only possible in areas of highest priority on both sides of the Atlantic. Far better would be an approach in which there was mutual respect of others' priorities. This does not mean that nations would ever commit to do what they judged not in their interest. But it does mean that as a consequence of their common commitment to the Atlantic Alliance, the United States and Europe would commit to cooperating as much as possible on matters of priority to each other and would commit to not making common cause with adversaries of each other, and to not seeking to thwart others in achieving their primary objectives.

*(Contrast this approach with recent experience—European efforts to thwart US on Iraq, US disdain for treaty efforts on environment, criminal court....) Then move to policy agenda.*

[LC]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

[LC]

*****

(Contrast this approach with recent experience—European efforts to thwart US on Iraq, US disdain for treaty efforts on environment, criminal court...) Then move to policy agenda.

SEP 26 2003

Jessee Incao

**From:** JFly@cfr.org
**Sent:** Friday, September 26, 2003 12:31 AM
**To:** jincao@kmaglobal.com; tcimino@kmaglobal.com; julia_topalian@harvard.edu; beverly_sullivan@harvard.edu
**Subject:** CFR Task Force -- Draft September 30 Agenda

Dear Dr. Kissinger and President Summers:

As you may know, Charlie is in Germany. He asked me to send you the attached draft agenda for
Tuesday's meeting. If you would like any changes made, please let us know by Monday.

As I mentioned to your offices on Wednesday, Charlie is willing to discuss the agenda and any
other issues with both of you during a short conference call on Monday. If you would like to
schedule such a call, please let us know.

Jamie M. Fly
Research Associate, Europe and National Security
Council on Foreign Relations
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 518-3404
Fax: (202) 986-2984
http://www.cfr.org

9/26/2003

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

58 EAST 68TH STREET • NEW YORK • NEW YORK 10021

Tel 212 434 9400 Fax 212 434 9880 www.cfr.org

September 30 Agenda

1:00-2:00 Working Lunch
Opening Remarks by Kissinger and Summers
Discussion of Structure, Thrust, and Tone of the Report
Chaired by Kissinger and Summers

2:00-3:00 Discussion of "Diagnosis" and "Implications" (pp. 1-10)
Chaired by Kissinger

3:00-4:00 Discussion of "Terms of a New Atlantic Partnership" (pp. 10-17)
Chaired by Summers

4:00-5:00 Discussion of "New Rules of the Road" (pp. 17-23)
Chaired by Kissinger

5:00-6:00 Discussion of "Common Tasks and the New Agenda for Cooperation" (pp. 23-31)
Chaired by Summers
Concluding Remarks by Kissinger and Summers

Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Transatlantic Relations

Rebuilding Transatlantic Cooperation: The Policy Agenda

June 16, 2003

Conceptual Foundations

I. From Diagnosis to Prescription (Kissinger and Summers)

* As the task force develops a strategy for shoring up the foundations of transatlantic cooperation, what are the relative weights it should assign to structural conditions, the substance of policy, and the tone of policy?

* Where should Europe fit within the evolving context of U.S. policy? What should America expect for and from Europe?

* Where should the United States fit within the evolving context of European policy? What should Europe expect for and from America?

II. Guiding Principles (Donilon and Olechowski)

* Does the changing geopolitical environment necessitate a fundamental rethinking of the Atlantic link and, if so, what type of new relationship between the United States and Europe is both desirable and feasible?

* As America's strategic priorities shift away from Europe and the European Union becomes less dependent upon the United States for its security, what common interests and purposes remain the foundation of transatlantic cooperation?

* Should the United States encourage a stronger and more unified Europe or a more divided EU? Is it in America's interests to distinguish between "old" and "new" Europe and to tilt the Atlantic Alliance away from the Franco-German coalition toward the coalition that backed Washington during the Iraq war?

* Is further European integration in America's interests? What forms of integration should the U.S. welcome? What forms should it resist?

* In what ways can the United States alter its policies to ensure that Europeans do not develop the EU as a counterweight to the United States?

* What steps can Europe take to ameliorate growing anti-American sentiment and to ensure that growing unity on questions of foreign and defense policy, if it is forthcoming, does not come at the expense of transatlantic cooperation?

* Can transatlantic relations be improved by altering formal institutional linkages? Does the current system of U.S.-EU summits need to be revised?

The Policy Agenda

III. The Future of NATO (Brown)

* How should NATO define its core missions? Should they be redefined to include non-European contingencies – such as Afghanistan and Iraq?

* What steps can the United States and Europe take to increase the likelihood that NATO retains its relevance and effectiveness?

* What can be done to bring U.S. and European threat perceptions into closer alignment?

* In what additional ways can NATO be reformed to address the new threats of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction?

* Should a new transatlantic bargain entail a geographic division of labor – Europe takes care of Europe while the United States focuses its attention elsewhere?

* Should a new transatlantic bargain entail a functional division of labor – the United States fights wars while Europe takes care of peacekeeping and nation-building?

* Should the U.S. proceed with emerging plans to draw down troop levels in Germany in favor of smaller and lighter deployments further east? If U.S. force posture changes in this manner, what will be the implications for NATO?

* What can be done to improve inter-operability between U.S. and European forces?

* What can be done to decrease the chances that the EU's evolving defense arm comes at the expense of NATO?

IV. International Institutions, Multilateralism, and Societal Tensions (Slaughter)

* The United States has been distancing itself from multilateralism while the EU prefers to address virtually all issues through international institutions. What can be done to close this gap?

* Should the United States pursue reform of the UN?

  * Change in the composition of the Security Council?

  * Change in Article 51 (or other initiatives) to address preventive war?

* Europeans have been particularly upset by U.S. opposition to the Kyoto Protocol and the ICC. Should the United States take steps to address Europeans concerns about climate change and international justice?

* Are European and American conceptions of sovereignty on divergent paths? If so, what can be done to encourage greater convergence?

* To what degree should U.S. policy makers be concerned about societal tensions across the Atlantic – on issues such as the death penalty, religion, consumerism, immigration and multiethnicity, and state-society relations?

* What steps can be taken to moderate such tensions and to enhance social contacts across the Atlantic?

V. Trade and Finance (Feldstein)

* What steps should the United States pursue with Europe on the trade front?
What can be done to facilitate a successful conclusion to the current Doha round of global trade talks?

* What steps should be pursued on the monetary front?

* What can be done to prevent political tensions from spilling into the economic realm, and vice versa. How should the disputes over U.S. tax subsidies for exporters and European bans on imports of U.S. genetically modified foods be resolved?

* What can both sides of the Atlantic do to help stimulate the global economy?

* How can the private sector help consolidate transatlantic cooperation?

* Are transatlantic efforts needed to refashion international economic institutions?

VI. Policies toward Russia, Turkey, the Middle East, Asia, and the Developing World (Joffe and Mathews)

* Do U.S. and EU policies toward Russia need to be more closely aligned?
Should the U.S. encourage Russia's integration into NATO and/or the EU?

* Do U.S. and EU policies toward Turkey need to be more closely aligned?
Should the U.S. continue to press the EU to expedite Turkish accession?

* What can be done to close the gap between the United States and Europe on the Middle East peace process? On Iran? Should the Quartet formula be continued?

* Should more be done to involve NATO, the UN, or the EU in the reconstruction and governance of Iraq?

* What common tasks can the United States and Europe address together in East Asia? Can they develop a common approach toward North Korea?

* What new forms of transatlantic cooperation can be pursued to promote economic growth, improved health, and political stability in the developing world?

Published in *Le Monde*, 29 May 2003

The following text was written by the Board of Directors of Notre Europe, a Paris-based European Affairs think-tank founded by former EU Commission Chairman Jacques Delors, in response to the May 14, 2003 Joint Declaration titled "Renewing the Transatlantic Partnership," endorsed by a bi-partisan group of former senior U.S. foreign policy and defense officials under the umbrella of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.

Defining Together a New World Order

We have read with great interest the call for a renewal of the Atlantic partnership published by an eminent group of former U.S. foreign policy and defense officials. We would like to echo this call from our side of the Atlantic, principally to welcome this initiative toward Europe made at a difficult moment in the transatlantic relationship where invective has too often replaced rational argument. We also wish to express our convergence of view over the essentials, and finally, to add the nuances and complements of a European point of view, in order to establish a dialogue that has been too long delayed.

We share, first of all, the diagnosis of the American signatories on the present state of the transatlantic relationship and the fact that its future has become both crucial and uncertain. We believe that the current transatlantic divide predates the events of September 11, 2001 and the crisis in Iraq, which served as both revealing and exacerbating factors. This rift results from structural evolutions occurring on both sides of the Atlantic that require the attention of American and European political leaders at the highest level. In this context, we regret that the Atlantic partnership, as well as European unity, were not better protected from the impact of legitimate differences among allies raised by the conflict in Iraq.

Similarly, we share the concern expressed by the authors of the Joint Declaration with regard to the tendency at work in the United States, and to a lesser degree in Europe, to relegate the Atlantic Alliance to the attic of history. The issue is whether the United States and Europe, tied for more than fifty years within the Alliance, will remain united in a post-September 11 world. This question is put forward explicitly in the United States, where some have stated their indifference to a Europe that no longer represents a strategic stake and others, their exasperation with the European Union, a military non-power that pretends to teach meddlesome morality lessons to a historic protector engaged throughout the world. Dependent, yet unsubmissive, does America's European partner deserve a privileged relationship?

For our part, we are convinced that the partnership between the United States and Europe not only remains relevant, but, subject to revisiting its terms, is more necessary than ever in a world as uncertain as ours is today. Europe's security and prosperity are indivisible from those of the United States. However powerful the United States may be militarily, it will sooner or later face the financial, political and diplomatic limits of its role as the world's only planetary policeman, already manifest in rising anti-Americanism throughout the world and the erosion of American "soft power." Above all, the common values and interests that unite Europe and the United States are infinitely deeper than the differences and rivalries that separate them, and their cooperation is infinitely more beneficial

[Paris #357552 v1]

to the international system than their division. The United States and Europe have the same democratic aspirations for their own societies and for others. They require access to energy sources and seek an international system that favors trade. Economically, financially, culturally, they are interdependent. Seen from the point of view of the rest of the world, they form a homogeneous ensemble characterized by its democratic values and its high standard of living. And the prosperity from which they benefit creates, similarly, global responsibilities that are already being carried out in the fight against terrorism, peacekeeping operations and sometimes, but insufficiently, in the three vital areas of economic, commercial and financial regulation. This cooperation should intensify and extend to numerous other matters of worldwide concern, in particular with regard to development-related issues.

Because it relates to a subject that is particularly dear to us—namely, the political future of our continent—we welcome the renewed commitment of our American counterparts in favor of a united Europe. This commitment is true to that of former American leaders who, after World War II, lent their farsighted support to the process of European unification in the same manner that they constructed, through NATO, a transatlantic community and built an international society organized within the framework of the United Nations. We question, however, the degree of the current American administration's commitment to this objective, even before the Iraqi crisis. The tendency, perceptible in Washington, to be content with divergent points of view among E.U. members, or, indeed, to encourage them, is damaging not only to European unity, but also to a true strategic partnership across the Atlantic. Piecemeal coalitions with certain European states based on broader division, following the pattern of the Iraqi crisis, will eventually mean the end of the transatlantic alliance as well as of European unification. No American or European leader should ever hope for that.

In this respect, we willingly admit that European progress has not come quickly enough, whether with regard to the indispensable reinforcement of our own military capability, or to the search for a new strategic vision for a post-September 11 world and to an appropriate positioning vis-à-vis our American ally. Europeans must move forward as quickly as possible on all these issues and, at the same time, prepare themselves to engage in the necessary dialogue with the United States that will define our renewed alliance.

More than ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War has produced a chaotic and dangerous world characterized by numerous threats, unequal distribution of wealth, and confrontation supplanting cooperation. September 11 tragically revealed the vulnerability of even the most powerful country on the planet. The world has changed profoundly, and America has evolved as a consequence, while Europe has continued its slow but sure progress toward unification. In this context, we reaffirm our commitment to NATO and applaud the transformations that this organization underwent in Prague in November 2002 in order to adapt to new security challenges. But we believe that the new strategic partnership between the United States and Europe should be founded not only on the bases of the Cold War: it should be broader, more political, and more balanced.

Yet, the suggestions made in this respect by the Joint Declaration—American participation in the institutional debate over the future of Europe, exchanges between American and European legislatures—do not seem adequate, whether in terms of schedule or reciprocity. The European Union, as we all know, faces a double challenge: improving its internal efficiency and cohesion while at the same time succeeding in its expansion toward Central and Eastern Europe. This is the mission of the Convention on the Future of Europe

[Paris #357552 v1]

2

and the intergovernmental conference that will follow. While it is legitimate that our
American ally remain apprised of our progress, it is inconceivable that the United States
participate, even as an observer, in the complex process of reforming domestic EU
institutions. When the European Union has achieved a degree of internal cohesion necessary
to conduct a more balanced dialogue with the United States, such a dialogue must take place
within the framework of specific transatlantic institutions. It would indeed be paradoxical if
the European Union, tied by way of cooperation agreements with most countries in the world,
did not organize this dialogue with the United States within the context of a treaty identifying
common objectives and institutionalizing cooperation.

This dialogue should, first of all, aim at defining the principles and operating
rules of the new alliance, including ways to manage the differences that will inevitably be a
part of the new state of the world and of the internal evolution of each of the two partners. It
should seek to elaborate a shared strategic doctrine in order to respond to the challenges of
the twenty-first century. This presupposes a concordant world vision from both sides of the
Atlantic as well as international agreement over the new rules of the system, especially with
regard to the legitimate use of force and the relationships between power and law and
national sovereignty and international solidarity. In contrast to Europe, the United States
adapted its own strategic doctrine after September 11, but it did so without engaging in
dialogue with Europe and the international community. Europeans must buckle down to the
task of translating their multilateral creed into operational contributions to the definition of a
shared strategic vision and a consensual international system for the new century.

In close proximity to other cultures and enriched by its experience with
multilateral negotiation, crisis management and development aid, Europe can help the United
States in reviving the internationalist spirit of the post-war era, by complementing the
excessively security-oriented approach of its diplomacy with a renewed attention to the
economic, social, legal and cultural dimensions of the challenges that face the international
community today. The major problems of the twenty-first century are, by nature, global, and
cannot be cured by any single state, even the most powerful in the world. The threat
represented not only by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the spread of
terrorism, but also by growing poverty, problems related to the environment, arms control,
bioethics and international justice, to name but a few, requires treatment in a multilateral
context. To those who view the current international system as too inefficient, we
acknowledge the necessity to rebuild a credible international order that accounts for new
realities without abandoning the gains of the previous century to which the United States
greatly contributed. The transatlantic partnership should help us propose to the world a
redefinition of its rules.

Europe should also contribute to the great strategic design of durably
anchoring a pacified Middle East in economic and democratic modernity. As do the
signatories of the Joint Declaration, we believe that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, where a lack of perspectives feeds international terrorism, must be sought without
delay, especially now that the conflict in Iraq has ended. Europeans must cooperate with the
United States in the context of the Quartet that includes Russia and the United Nations: it is
the United States alone, however, that has the capacity to impose peace on both sides.

Yes, the task is urgent, for the rift between peoples on both sides of the
Atlantic is growing, as it is between the civilizations of which they are a part, contrary to the
spirit that presided over the unification of Europe during the past fifty years. For these

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reasons, we appeal to the political leaders of our two continents to pursue the constructive
dialogue thus established without further delay.

The initial signatories of the foregoing document include Jacques
DELORS, Chairman of Notre Europe and former Chairman of the European
Commission, and the members of the Board of Directors of Notre Europe: Joachim
BITTERLICH, Jean-Louis BOURLANGES, Fernand BRAUN, Laurent COHEN-
TANUGI, Renaud DEHOUSSE, Charles FITERMAN, Jean FRANCOIS-PONCET,
Nicole GNESOTTO, Klaus HÄNSCH, François LAMOUREUX, Eneko LANDABURU,
Françoise de LA SERRE, Sophie-Caroline de MARGERIE, Jean NESTOR, Riccardo
PERISSICH, Jean PISANI-FERRY, Jean-Louis QUERMONNE, Maria João
RODRIGUES, Philippe de SCHOUTHEETE, Christine VERGER.

[Paris #357552 v1]

5 June 2003

# Unipolarity, Unilateralism, and World Order:

## *Four Narratives about What is Going On*

G. John Ikenberry

## INTRODUCTION

The United States is the world's preeminent global power. This post-Cold War rise of American unipolar power has unsettled world politics. Governments everywhere are worried about the uncertainties and insecurities that appear to flow from such extreme and unprecedented disparities in power. The question being asked in most capitals today is: how will the United States exercise its unipolar power? Will the United States use its unipolar power to unilaterally dominate world order or will it use its power to maintain stable and mutually acceptable institutions and political partnerships? This global worry about how a unipolar world will operate -- in which the most basic questions about the character of world politics are at stake, namely, who benefits and who commands -- is the not-so-hidden subtext of all the recent controversies in U.S.-European relations. The United States and its partners are struggling over difficult policy questions but at a deeper level they are also struggling over the new rules of the game in an era of American unipolarity.

Lurking in the background of these world order controversies is a core question: is unipolarity generating structural pressures and incentives for U.S. unilateralism? That is, is a unipolar distribution of power inconsistent with international order organized around multilateralism and rule-based agreements? The answer will tell us a lot about the likely character of world politics in the 21st century. It will also tell us a lot about the depth of the current crisis in

[lc]

America's relations with Western Europe and other close allies.

It is not clear, however, how to characterize recent foreign policy as it relates to unilateralism and rule-based order. Is the Bush administration more unilateral than past administrations or not? Many people would say yes but others would say perhaps not, at least on critical issues of security. It depends on how you define multilateralism (form versus content, consultations versus formal rules, etc.), whether specific instances (ICC, Kyoto, etc.) are rejections of multilateralism as a general orientation or just rejections of bad agreements, and whether unilateralism leads to new multilateralism.¹

There appear to be at least four narratives about the relationship between American unipolarity and unilateralism. Each narrative is plausible yet they differ radically about what is driving today's discontent with American unipolarity and foreign policy – and they differ on what the international order will look like in the years ahead. Governments are also basing their strategies for dealing with the United States on assumptions about the character of unipolarity and its impact on American policy. It is useful to sketch these four narratives.

# 1- CONTINUITY OF POLICY DESPITE UNIPOLARITY

Despite the rise of unipolar power, American policy has not become more unilateral. Unipolarity provides the United States with more opportunities to act unilaterally; after all, the bigger and more capable a state, the easier it is to say no to international agreements. But unipolarity does not compel the United States to reject agreements or act alone. If you look closely, the United States is not really different from previous administrations in acting unilaterally.

But if this is true, the question is: why do governments around the world think the U.S. has departed from its postwar path? There are at least three answers. One is that unipolarity generates more free riding by other states that makes the U.S. look more unilateral even though it is still

¹ For a discussion of these complexities, see G. John Ikenberry, "Is American Multilateralism in Decline?" *Perspectives on Politics*, forthcoming.

doing the same old things. Another is that America has always been selectively unilateral in the past but now – even though it is no more unilateral today – other countries under conditions of unipolarity find that the stakes or vulnerabilities associated with selective unilateralism are greater now. A third possibility is that other countries are interested in intensifying multilateralism – that is they are pushing for “new multilateralism” which is more legal-binding and universal – and the U.S. wants to stay with the “old multilateralism, which entails weighted voting, veto rights, escape clauses, opt outs, etc. So there is a growing clash even though the U.S. is not “less multilateral.” All these explanations point to the same conclusion: that the U.S. has not changed its general policy orientation under conditions of unipolarity but other countries see the U.S. differently – experience its power differently – and want different things from it. Unipolarity has changed other states not the United States.

## 2- UNIPOLARITY INDUCES UNILATERAL BREAKOUT

This is the view that the U.S. is taking advantage of its unipolar position to pull back from entangling relations. The assumption is that if states can, they will try to reduce their obligations and commitments and reclaim “external” or Westphalian sovereignty. The United States is now powerful enough to act on this basic national impulse. As such, John Bolton and other conservatives speak for America in voicing skepticism about a global order built around an expanding web of treaties and multilateral commitments. Other states are resisting America’s turn away from multilateralism because they realize all too well that an expanding web of international agreements provides useful constraints on America power. By disentangling itself from the accumulation of postwar rules and agreements the United States will regain its freedom of action to deploy its vast powers in the pursuit of self-defined global goals.

In this view, we should expect a continuing effort by the U.S. to pull back from its historic commitment to multilateralism. The U.S. will become both less international and less multilateral. Both internationalism and multilateralism – as Charles Kupchan and others argue – were artifacts of the Cold War. The United States. is finally able to return to its pre-1945 inward-looking and

nationalist orientation.² Multilateralism – as Robert Kagan argues -- is a weapon of the weak, not a tool of the powerful.³ The implication is that regardless of what personality or party occupies the White House, the United States will increasingly resist multilateral commitments and rule-based order.

## 3- UNIPOLAIRTY INDUCES NEW INSTITUTIONAL BARGAINS

This is the view that the rise of American unipolar power is leading the United States to seek new deals with Europe and others – but not to abandon multilateral rules/institutions altogether. The United States is more powerful, so it wants a better deal. It also faces a transformed international environment, so it wants a different deal. But at the end of this sequence of crisis and institutional bargaining, the resulting international order will still be organized around agreed upon rules and institutions – but adjusted to the new realities. The United States is not abandoning its commitment to multilateral and rule-based relations and the Atlantic order is not falling apart. The postwar order is going through a crisis of renegotiation.

This process of shifting power, social change, political crisis, and the redrawing of basic rules is captured by Bruce Ackerman in his notion of “higher rule making” in domestic constitutional polities.⁴ After all there are crises and power shifts within domestic constitutional polities and many of these shifts culminate in tense conflict and, in the aftermath, a reformulation of political rules. Ackerman thinks of the Civil War and Great Depression as higher rule making junctures in the United States. In the case of the postwar order, the U.S. now has incentives and opportunities to get a better deal on various relationships – to change the rules and institutions, particularly in areas such as the use of force and arms control. Other states may resist this but the struggle will eventually result in some new set of bargains between the United States and the

² Charles Kupchan, *The End of the American Era* (Knopf, 2002).

³ Robert Kagan, *Of Power and Weakness* (Knopf, 2003).

⁴ Bruce Akerman, *We the People: Foundations* (Harvard, 1991), p. 6.

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outside world.⁵ This view should not be so odd. After all, the rise of the rule of law and governance institutions in the West was fundamentally driven by security competition and political conflict. Conflict may destroy rules and institutions but it also creates them. Samuel Hungtington's classic statement on the rise of mature political orders — measured in terms of institutionalization — builds on this simple insight.⁶

In the past, this process tended to involve a newly rising state challenging and reorganizing the international order created by the older — but now declining — dominant state.⁷ What makes the current version of this process unusual is that, in effect, the United States is trying to renegotiate its own postwar order. It is replacing itself as the new rising state. After World War II, the U.S. used its power advantages to lead in the creation of a wide array of rules and institutions — multilateral, bilateral, global, regional, security, economic, and political. Fifty-five years later, the U.S. is again a rising global power and opportunities emerge to adjust that order to new American preferences.

## 4- UNIPOLARITY GENERATES NEW CONTESTED ISSUES BUT CONFLICT IS WORKED OUT WITHIN EXISTING INSTITUTIONS

This is a variation on the last narrative, but even more benign. The argument here is that the conflicts — Iraq, use of force, global warming, transnational justice, etc. — may be generated in part by the widening disparities in power but they are not fundamentally new issues. Moreover, the conflicts between the major powers are not that new either. What we are witnessing is good old fashion “institutional politics.” The conflicts between the U.S. and the other major states look new and ominous but historians will look back and see the existing U.S.-centered order working through these conflicts via the institutions that already exist. This view is rendered more plausible by the observation that it is precisely the deep stability of the U.S.-centered postwar order that allows state leaders to be so hard-hitting. Germany and France can oppose the United States in Iraq

⁵ See discussion in Ikenberry, *After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars* (Princeton, 2001).

⁶ Samuel Huntington, *Political Order in Changing Societies* (Yale, 1968).

⁷ See Robert Gilpin, *War and Change in World Politics* (Cambridge, 1981).

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precisely because they know that there is a sturdy foundation upon which these momentary
disagreements play out. If NATO or the Atlantic order were really at risk, states might in fact be
more inclined to pull their punches. But the issues that divide the United States and the other
democratic states are not first-order issues. They know that ultimately the stakes are very low.

CONCLUSION

These narratives provide strikingly different accounts of what is going on. Much of European opinion reflects the second narrative – that the United States is attempting to use its rising power advantages to break out of a multilateral, rule-based international order. If countries are making this judgment, it helps explain the rhetoric and tactics that are being employed. French officials, apparently, do feel that the United States is making a fundamental turn away from its older approach to global leadership – and because they fear the worst they are willing to send strong signals and act provocatively.

But they may be wrong. The other narratives suggest a more benign process of adjustment going on. The first narrative suggests that the United States actually is behaving much as it has over the decades. Unipolarity alters the way other states respond to America's traditional brand of selective unilateralism. The third narrative suggests that a great deal of diplomatic works lies ahead. The United States and its partners are going to need to hammer out a host of new understandings and fashion new rules to accommodate America's changing interests and power position. But this narrative also suggests that the United States wants – at the end of this bargaining process – to inhabit an international order that is organized around agreed-upon rules and institutions. The fourth narrative suggests that the United States and its allies do not really need to engage in “higher rule making.” What is needed is simply for the major states to use existing institutions to engage each other, resolve disputes, and move on.

The upshot of these narratives is this: it is not necessary to assume that the rise of American power is leading to a radical overturning of the existing international order. The United States is not destined to abandon its long-standing commitment to operating within a loose multilateral

6

order. At the very least, there are three alternative ways of looking at today's crisis. Our judgments
about what is going on will determine what we think needs to be done to reduce tensions and
reestablish good working relationships.

If the United States indeed remains committed to a multilateral, rule-based order, it would
be wise to emphasize this in its foreign policy dealings. Rather than allow the worst fears of other
states to generate unnecessarily antagonistic attitudes and policies, a rededication by the United
States to its historic commitment to rule-oriented leadership would draw these states into more
focused and practical discussions about new rules and bargains. Javier Solana ended his recent
Albert H. Gordon lecture at Harvard by appealing to his American audience to redouble the
country's commitment to "sustain and strengthen a world based on rules. . . . A rules-based
approach is not a ploy to constrain the U.S. Americans wrote much of the great body of
international law that has served us so well in the post-war period. Upholding and strengthening
the rule of law is the best means for America to preserve her position as the benign world power
and to continue to project her values." This is smart thinking.

# Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Transatlantic Relations

## Rebuilding Transatlantic Cooperation: The Policy Agenda

### June 16, 2003

## Conceptual Foundations

### I. From Diagnosis to Prescription (Kissinger and Summers)

### II. Guiding Principles

The Policy Agenda
=========

III. The Future of NATO

2

V. Trade and Finance

4 June 2003

# Task force on Transatlantic relations

To Charles A. Kupchan – Project Director

Unfortunately, as you know, I won't be able to attend our June 16 meeting. However, I will definitely be there on July 22. I hope that the following remarks will be useful to our Task force.

## 1) Does "the West" still exist ? (G. Amato's question)

- in terms of *values*, the answer is clearly yes at a philosophical level, but our concrete *societal values* are significantly different. However, we are closer in cultural terms than with any other cultural area in the world.

- in *geoeconomic* terms, our interests are closely intertwined.
The question is : would that nexus survive if our security perceptions and interests were diverging – more than for a short period of time – and if it were to be dismantled, what would be the economic / political consequences on both sides of the Atlantic ?

My own prediction is that it might then bring the end of globalization, and a return to world regional fragmentation and rivalries, with all related uncertainties.

## 2) In broad security terms, the basic question is : in spite of its unprecedented economic and military power, does the US feel strong enough to achieve its major objectives on a *sustainable basis*, without active and protracted cooperation with a well-organized Europe ? I would say : probably not. Thus, the annual oil resources

[LC]

of Iraq will be at the best around 20 bn $ in the next few years. This is not enough to cover even the cost of occupation. From a political viewpoint, would the American public opinion accept the likely consequences of a permanent (i.e. several years) military occupation of Iraq ?

Great Britain, Germany and France altogether represent roughly 75% of the total defence spending of the European Union. Who else could contribute more than symbolically to the effort, if it had to be shared ? What if there were more or less 2.

simultaneously other major crises in the world, requesting efforts of the same magnitude ?

3) A major question - raised by Burt and others : what kind of European Union does the US want ?

- "Divide and rule" is clearly an option, but is it compatible with item 2 hereabove ?

- On the European side, most (if not all!) countries do not want to be forced to choose between the EU and the US. They want both. To achieve that, there must be some basic agreement on the "rules of the game".

4) To my mind, the core of the Transatlantic crisis over Iraq dwells in the "rules of the game" issue.

- Since September 11 the US feels internationally unbound to make war decisions. Legitimacy is considered to proceed from the American Constitution only.

- The Europeans, including those who supported G.W. Bush during the crisis, reject such unilateralism on two grounds : (a) we may have legitimate analytical disagreement that need to be resolved through genuine concertation (e.g. Israeli – palestinian issue) ; (b) if the UN Security Council is downplayed, all the countries in a position to do so might follow the American example, with unforseeable

consequences.

5) It follows from the previous items that the Transatlantic partnership could be rebuilt if we were able to find a common approach on three-related issues :

- How the existing "rules of the game" should be amended / modified (e.g. the preemption-prevention debate) to become acceptable on both sides ?

- How could the EU develop a CFSP within a framework of real and well-balanced partnership with the US ?

- Should the future Atlantic Alliance not be thought as basically a renewed alliance between the US and *the EU as an entity* ?

Thierry de Montbrial

[LC]

# A TRANSATLANTIC AGENDA FOR REFORMING THE UNITED NATIONS

## ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER

DEAN, WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

The U.S. and the EU should work together to achieve a common vision of political order throughout the world. The United Nations should be a principal forum for this joint effort. But that will require that the U.S. and the EU work together to reform the United Nations itself.

What is this vision of political order? It is a vision of a spreading community of liberal democracies. The EU has pioneered this vision in international law, requiring that all new members of the EU meet criteria of liberal democracy. The European Convention on Human Rights has similar requirements. And NATO has now followed suit, explicitly redefining itself not only as an organization devoted not only to collective security but also to collective liberty and prosperity through democracy. Finally, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is devoted to advancing democracy and human rights from the Atlantic to the Urals.

The EU has also developed a distinctive form of collective governance that requires a minimum convergence among domestic political systems. The governance of the EU depends on networks of national officials as much as it does on supranational institutions such as the Commission, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. These networks, in turn – of national regulators, judges, and parliamentarians – operate as transmission belts for the values of liberal democracy to new members. Consider, for instance, the European Commission on Democracy through Law – the Venice Commission. It operates a website and a bulletin that collects the decisions of constitutional courts throughout Europe, America, and the rest of the world. Its explicit aim is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information “among old and new democracies in the field of judge-made law,” to help the “newly established constitutional jurisdictions of Central and Eastern Europe.”

This vision is our best hope for global peace and prosperity. It springs from the core of our common transatlantic heritage: a conception of the proper relationship between individuals and their governments. Citizens of a territory or a polity must govern themselves, through some form of representative democracy. At the same time, having constituted a government, citizens must nevertheless hold inviolable rights against it – rights to life, liberty, equality, property. The relative valuation of these rights and hence the degree of protection accorded them varies considerably from country to country, but the foundation is the same.

That foundation is now the foundation of international law as much as it is of our respective domestic constitutions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the Conventions on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights constitute a collective commitment not only to the specific rights enumerated, but also to

a larger right of democratic governance. Distinguished law professor Thomas Franck elaborated this right in the early 1990s; Boutros Boutros Ghali and later Kofi Annan explicitly endorsed it as part of the UN corpus.

Working together, the U.S. and the EU have all the necessary tools to promote and implement this vision. As Andrew Moravcsik writes in the forthcoming issue of *Foreign Affairs*, the marriage of U.S. military power with EU civilian power – peacekeeping, democracy building, trade promoting – is an unbeatable combination. In some instances, as in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the U.S. and some or all of its allies must actually use military force to compel a government to live up to international law. In the aftermath of actual conflict, with the inevitable and horrible toll of death and destruction, civilian power is all the more important. Over the longer term, as it becomes clearer and clearer that force is an option against governments that threaten both their own citizens and other states, the principal use of military power should be to back coercive diplomacy.

Such a U.S.-EU partnership can only work, however, if it is pursued principally through the United Nations, as the preeminent global organization dedicated to assuring international peace and security. The U.S. and the EU may be the core of a liberal democratic coalition, but the coalition itself is a global enterprise. EU countries, NATO countries, and NAFTA countries are already joined by many other nations in the existing Community of Democracies, a “coalition of democratic countries” launched at a conference in Warsaw in 1999. The declared aim of the Community is “to advance democracy by providing a forum for the sharing of experiences, identification of best practices and formulation of an agenda for international cooperation. The “Convening Group” of the Community of Democracies includes the Republic of Korea, India, the USA, Mexico, Chile, Poland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Mali and South Africa.

The U.S. and the EU should work to bring this coalition within the UN itself – to create a caucus of liberal democracies open to all UN members meeting specified criteria and willing to work toward a set of common goals. Those goals, in turn, should include making it possible to use force collectively to defend the rights of individuals against their governments as well as the rights of governments against one another. It must become possible, in the words of former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, to “mainstream” human rights throughout the business of the U.N., including the Security Council. It must become possible to integrate the human rights side of the U.N. with the security side; to link formally the moral arguments against Saddam Hussein that the U.S. made regarding Iraq outside the Security Council with the arguments for disarmament that it made inside the Council.

Put another way, liberal democracies must work together to unite the concepts of human security and state security. The Canadian government has worked hard to elaborate a definition of human security that can operate alongside traditional understandings of state security. Human security means “freedom from pervasive threats to people's rights, their safety or even their lives.” At some point, a government that fails to protect the minimum human security of its own citizens is a government that has either

relinquished the monopoly on power that defines it as a government or that has turned its power on its own people, unchecked by internal institutions or domestic opposition. It is hard to say exactly when that point has been reached. But when it has, that government becomes a threat not only to its people, but also to its fellow states.

This sounds like a recipe for U.N.-sponsored "regime change," a frightening phrase in an organization that is also founded on principles of sovereign equality and non-interference in the domestic jurisdiction of its members (however much those principles have already been undermined by the rise of human rights law). That may be the effect, but it need not be the aim. Better to focus U.N. action not on removing governments *per se*, but on targeting individual government officials who have committed grave and systematic human rights abuses, crimes against humanity, grave war crimes, or genocide. Let the Security Council turn to an international criminal process as the first line of defense against threats to international security, recognizing, as international criminal law now does so clearly, that it is *individuals* who give the orders to murder, torture, deport and destroy. Individuals who have violated the trust of their citizens and the provisions of both their own law and international law.

Ideally, Slobodan Milosevic would be indicted as a perpetrator of crimes against humanity after giving his first order for ethnic cleansing; Saddam Hussein after using chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers, or certainly against the Kurds; Kim Jong-Il after starving hundreds of thousands of his people to death. Such an indictment would strengthen domestic opposition; make it possible for individuals within a country to render indicted officials to an international tribunal; or at the very least brand such officials as international pariahs. If such measures failed to help a country liberate itself from oppression and establish a rights-regarding, effective, and reasonably transparent government, the international community could consider next steps, such as targeted sanctions. In the gravest cases, in which ongoing evidence of an absence of internal checks on brute power is combined with evidence of intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to support aggression, either directly or indirectly, the Security Council could consider the ultimate sanction of using force targeted specifically at such individuals.

Who would issue such an indictment? The International Criminal Court is the obvious candidate, but not the only one. Ad hoc tribunals; national courts authorized by the Security Council; standing regional tribunals such as the European, Inter-American, or African Courts of Human Rights are all possibilities, depending on the political landscape. What is important is to understand and implement the critical link between individual criminal behavior on a mass scale and the circumstances that give rise to the use of military force between nations. International police work cannot be a full substitute for military action. But in the future, military action must be aimed at deterring, coercing, or punishing the group of individuals who constitute a government, rather than the mass of citizens who constitute their people.

The point here is not to make it easier to use force. War of any kind, in any cause, is a frightful thing. We may live in a world of precision weapons, but even precision

weapons kill innocents – including conscripted soldiers. Moreover, in a world of weapons of mass destruction, the use of weapons of any kind risks a terrifying escalation – by states themselves or by aggrieved fanatics within them. The basic principle of international order, then, must remain one of strict limitations on the use of force. Any military action must be multilaterally authorized by a recognized body within a standing international institution.

This brings us back to the UN – to the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the proposed caucus of democracies. If the Security Council were unable to act, a country or group of countries seeking to use force could seek approval from this caucus. Such approval, of course, could be even harder to obtain. After all, the fights over the use of force in Iraq were among liberal democracies as much as between democracies and non-democracies. But it would be much harder, at least in terms of U.S. public opinion, to justify acting in the face of disapproval from a group of nations committed to the same values and political principles as the U.S. itself.

Such a caucus could also follow the EU lead and convene groups of different national officials – above all legislators – under UN auspices. It could create channels for supplementing the diplomacy of the permanent representatives who have been working the UN system for years. In other words, the caucus of democracies within the UN could become a forum for democratizing the voices heard in the UN decision-making process. Within the U.S., at least, this idea of a coalition of democracies within the U.N. is gaining currency. A recent task force co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and Freedom House task force on U.N. reform explicitly called on the U.S. “to work with other democracies to institutionalize a ‘democracy caucus’ at the U.N. as a forum for building cooperation on issues of human rights and democracy.”

The US and the EU should come together to rebuild Iraq, but preferably as the foundation for a larger and more enduring project. Many countries around the world would be only too happy to watch the EU assume the role of the old SU – the power that thwarts US ambitions in the UN and in bilateral and other multilateral fora. Power politics as usual, offering multiple opportunities for weaker countries to divide and disrupt. It is up to the US and the EU together to demonstrate that all great powers do not follow the laws of power politics; that liberal democracy at home can translate into lasting cooperation and promotion of a common purpose abroad. Cooperation and common purpose certainly does not mean automatic harmony. But it does mean that even lasting conflicts will not become enduring enmity.

The global stakes are too high for the U.S. and the EU to waste their energy and effort on quarreling with one another. A terrorist could kill millions of people; HIV-AIDS already has. New threats require new strategies and new institutions, or at least updated old ones. The U.S. and the EU should lead the way, by reforming the UN and spreading the community of democracies throughout the world.