international system has had to deal with for a century or two, certainly since the
emergence of Germany. You can add to this India, on a perhaps parallel route. This
is traditional foreign policy.

BEYOND TRADITIONAL FOREIGN POLICY: GLOBAL TERRORISM

But we are in a world beyond traditional foreign policy, which is really what we mean when we talk about terrorism and democracy and other such issues. That is to say, changes that come about through the acts of private groups that are based on sovereign territory but are not defined by the sovereignty of the state, that have their own agenda, that are not amenable to the traditional methods of the diplomacy with which we are familiar, that are not used to compromise or do not even seek compromise, and that cannot be deterred, at least as of now, because they have nothing to defend. Add in the whole world of ideology and conviction. This requires a kind of cooperation for which historic diplomacy gives no precedent but which is essential for our common future if indeed we view it as a common future.

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There's endless talk about democracy, but do we know what we mean by
democracy. What is the operational meaning of a democracy that is benevolent
toward the question of war and peace, because we know early stages of democracy
have not always been. Have we any idea how to promote it? I keep reading that
grave mistakes were made because America did not support democracy in, say, the
Muslim world in the Cold War period. What countries are we talking about? Where
was there such an option and what would we have done? But let's not worry about
the past. What does this mean for the future?

Since this is a transatlantic debate, one of the questions we have to ask ourselves,
and needs to be addressed, goes like this. I am struck by the compulsive anti-
Americanism I see in Europe today and by the concentration of this anti-Americanism
on one person that whatever you think of his policies does not deserve that
particular degree of emphasis. Thus, one has to ask: are we talking about a
judgement or an alibi? Are we talking about disagreements on substance or an

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M

emerging cultural difference in which it is the cooperation itself that is no longer
sought? I think that whatever happens in America in November, this is the question
we have to answer and it is the question Europe has to answer. One could list a
whole series of issues. It does not matter how we got into Iraq. The resolution of the
Iraq problem is either a matter of common concern or it is the beginning of a
bifurcation that will have endless consequences because, whatever we think, the
impact on the Islamic world of the outcome in Iraq will affect every aspect of the
Atlantic community, the Palestinian issue -- it just doesn't do to deal with it as a
purely American effort in Israel and a purely European effort among the Arabs. I
could go through a whole catalogue of almost any problem you discuss, the
necessary changes of the international system and the Security Council, and so forth.

Do we need new institutions to discuss this? What we surely need is something that
raises the debate from the current emphasis on placating various domestic pressure
groups to the question of where are we trying to go and to attempt a common

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[Y]

analysis of where the world is going. What interventions are legitimate, whether human rights or strategic? What do we mean by strategic?

I believe that the American administration was right when it pointed out that pre-emption has to be an aspect of current foreign policy because there are dangers in the world that cannot be encompassed by the traditional system. I think the administration was too much dominated by its necessary immediate actions in implying that one nation alone could define the legitimacy of pre-emption. Under what rules can pre-emptive and preventive action be taken is a subject that should be discussed. Again, it matters whether it is discussed by Europe and America in a common or a competitive framework.

The Americans on the Trilateral Commission congratulate Europe on achieving what it has, and wish it well, but cannot consider that part of an American problem. The American problem is what happens now, and whether we can achieve, as we did in

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the 1940s, a sense of common destiny and operate the new institutions in Europe
and supplement them with an Atlantic framework for a common future.

Henry Kissinger is Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., New York; former U.S. Secretary of State; former U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

[Y]

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