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President Obama's global agenda, part one: Europe and Russia
By Hannes Artens
The goodwill for a fresh start is there (Source: Der Standard)
Notwithstanding the volatile prehistory of ups and downs in what is often invoked "the indispensable partnership," the unprecedented hubris of the neocons unbound, as in so many other corners of the world, has to solely account for EU-US relations having reached their absolute nadir and for having brought us close to a second Cold War this summer. As in the Middle East, the legacy of the Bush administration with Europe and Russia could not be more devastating. A majority of Europeans perceive America as a greater threat to world peace than Iran, and instead of winning Russia as an equal partner on issues from nuclear non-proliferation to fighting Islamist fundamentalism, Russian and American warships faced each other off in the Black Sea just weeks ago. This rock bottom of the "the indispensable partnership" comes at a time when unrestricted transatlantic cooperation would be the need of the hour more than ever before. With NATO about to suffer a ruinous defeat in Afghanistan, Russia re-emerging as a regional power, Iran soon to go nuclear if not shown its limits, a lasting peace in Israel/Palestine, as usual, on life-support, global warming so real that even Republicans have taken up the cause of fighting it, China already dictating the terms of trade and financing our decadent extravaganzas, our economies hit by the worst crisis since the Great Depression, in fact our whole economic and social order put to the test of survival, the West as a whole is threatened by collective downfall. It's five minutes to midnight. We either get our act together now or the EU will brake apart, the lights in the shining city upon a hill will go out forever, and Paul Kennedy will have to write a new epilog to his The Rise and the Fall of the Great Powers.
November 4, 2008 has the potential to go down in history as either: the day our last hopes for a better world were dashed by hot air without substance or the true birth hour of the twenty-first century, of a post-modern age being heralded. For the latter to materialize at least to some extent it requires two fundamental cognitions: for America to recognize the limits of her power in a 19th century world system, and for the other major powers - the EU at the forefront - the willingness to raise it from the 19th to 21st and to shoulder the burdens and responsibilities that come with such a feat.
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The concept of "the West" is an as often evoked formula in alleys of power from Brussels to Washington as it has been thoroughly washed out. In truth, today we have no idea what we actually stand for, what defines us in a globalized world, what we fight for in Afghanistan, what we defend against the challenge of Islamist fundamentalism. Is it Montesquieu and Erasmus of Rotterdam or Michael Ledeen and Francis Fukuyama? If it is the idea that on the long run capitalism, competition and free trade will benefit all mankind, why is it that we can easily muster trillions of dollars to bail out our banks, but not the mere pittance of $35 billion to erase global hunger for good? If it is democracy, why is it that Osama bin Laden's hate-preaching fell on such fertile ground because we tend to beef up dictatorships in Pakistan and Egypt instead of reaching out a helping hand to struggling civil society in these countries? If it is human rights, how could we allow Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to happen?
This insufferable hypocrisy, more than anything else, has caused our decline and will constitute the final nail to our coffin if not discarded. The global financial crisis and the threatening ecological collapse provides us with a unique opportunity to redefine our values. We can start from scratch to re-introduce the West to the world: what constitutes us ought to be the pursuit of happiness of every individual paired with the respect for human dignity, responsibility to future generations, and one guiding maxim of the Enlightenment, "I may not share your opinion, but I will die fighting in defense for your right to have and state it." Like the European Union through "ever closer union" the West will have to define itself by re-calibrating every day anew the balance between individualism and communitarianism, between personal financial security and satisfying the basic needs of global society, and between economic progress and a responsible dealing with the ecologic treasures we inherited and will pass on. At the same time we must never again allow the pendulum to excess to the savagery of golden parachutes for those responsible for killing tens of thousands of jobs, scrupulous robber barons speculating against the currency of a small country and forcing it into bankruptcy, the practices of extraordinary rendition, and fighting imperialistic wars of aggression.
When in five days global leaders will convene in Washington - and hopefully most of them will have a private, first encounter with the president-elect - these considerations and values should rank higher on their agenda than petty details of their individual bail out programs. They ought to craft nothing less than a new form of capitalism, a capitalism with a human face. The current financial crisis and the coming recession also provide opportunity for the greatest investment program into alternative energy in the history of mankind. Over the coming years hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost. Jobs we need to re-create in niches we're still competitive in. Alternative energies, nano- and bio-technology, and an innovative quantum leap in transportation have the potential to become the digital revolution of tomorrow. We need to grasp this opportunity with both hands. It is not enough for America to sign the successor of the Kyoto-Protocol and implement it through a carbon cap-and-trade system, but President Obama ought to launch a "Tennessee Valley Project" in alternative energies, a New Green Deal with no venue, from the Pickens Plan to the solar energy model I introduced two months ago, left untried. With Europe failing to show the same muscle in its ecological commitments as in its will for reform of the financial arena, America will have to take leadership here.
Yes, American leadership is required more now than ever. But neither "who's not with us, is against us"-unilateralism, nor "Yo, Blair!"-camaraderie, nor Fareed Zakaria's "chairman of the board gently guiding a group of independent directors" but rather tjfxh's "facilitator-in-chief of the world," who promotes dialogue, persuades dissenters through positive example (if, for example, the EU has set itself the goal to cut greenhouse gasses by 20% till 2020, why isn't America even more ambitious and tops that with 30% and invests $150 billion towards that goal? - that would force others to follow suit or at least live up to their own commitments), and fostering mutual respect. I believe such a leadership style to strongly correspond with Barack Obama's character.
Likewise, mutual burden sharing has to go in hand with respect for your partners. How can America expect Europe to play a greater military role in Afghanistan, if US generals consider their French or Dutch counterparts incapable of commanding American troops in battle? At present, the US contributes 17,800 men to ISAF, the EU 22,000. If President Obama wants European countries to draw level with American troops in Afghanistan (35,000 in all) he should place all of them under NATO command and put an end to the counterproductive duality of ISAF and "Enduring Freedom." This has to go in hand with for every dollar spend on the military in Afghanistan, two dollars being assigned for civilian reconstruction - as of now, seven years later, we're still falling short of the Bonn Commitments of 2001. Verily, an intolerable status.
Mutual respect also ought to guide Washington's relations with Moscow. The days of pushing Russia around, ridiculing it as a bumptious bugbear, and seeing three letters in its eyes - a K, a B, and a G - have to end once and for all. President Obama has to recognize Russia as an indispensable partner in creating a 21st century world, whose cooperation is pivotal on issues ranging from energy security, to nuclear non-proliferation, to Iran. John McCain's idiotic "League of Democracies" best demonstrated how out of touch with his times the man is. How does he expect to reach a peaceful solution to the Iranian quagmire, if he refuses to include Russia and China, Iran's number one technology supplier and energy consumer, in his plans? This scheme is just as ridiculous as it is dangerous and thankfully ended in the dustbin of history.
President Obama will have to strike a different path. In his announced meeting with President Medvedev, Obama should display respect for Russia's position as a Euroasian regional power while pointing out the limits to the West's tolerance, too. Understandably, he can't respond to Russia's threat to deploy missiles to Kaliningrad by trashing the asinine missile defense shield his predecessor has negotiated, but he could hint that its installment might be indefinitely postponed due to wanting technical accuracy - something Obama aide Denis McDonough alluded to when correcting Polish President Kaczynski. A similar strategy could be pursued with regard to NATO enlargement. President Obama could state off-the-record that he does not intend to enlarge NATO during his tenure, while at the same time demanding Russia to respect the territorial integrity of the successor states to the USSR. A quasi-security guarantee for the Ukraine could be given by granting the country the status of an official EU aspirant (the EU is seen less hostile and militaristic in Moscow than NATO, and yet it would not dare to attack an EU member-in waiting). Thus two red lines would be drawn: Russia would make it clear that NATO has to end its provocative "Go East" strategy, while the West would have made it understood that it won't tolerate a repetition of this August on the Crimean Peninsula.
As with Asia, the Middle East, and other parts of the globe, America's future relations with the EU and Russia have to be guided by mutual respect, the willingness to listen and consider your partners' advice, understanding, prudence, and shared responsibility to succeed and herald a new era of pragmatism paired with ethical humanism. True, the tone of the voice alone won't get us there, but a change in tone together with a new way of thinking and a realistic assessment of America's strengths and weaknesses in today's world will get us much further than some of the pessimists I linked to last week may believe. Such a new approach is even more pivotal for transatlantic relations as Europe and America share a common culture, history, set of values, and interests second to none in today's world. We either weather the current storm together or will founder in it and pass on the torch of global leadership to Beijing. After eight years of being on the wrong track on every single issue of international relations, the idea of the West, as defined above, was given a second chance on November 4. We have to seize the hour and translate the excitement beyond example and unique momentum of Barack Obama's election into collective action. He has made the first giant step towards a new beginning, now we all are called upon to follow hm.
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Hannes Artens is the author of The Writing on the Wall, the first anti-Iran-war novel.
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