A European View of American Leadership

But let me also join in the comments that have already been expressed about David Rockefeller before I start. He does epitomize to me the very best of the United States. But more than that, the very best of humanity, because he is an idealist and an optimist. I think it is important to join both characteristics together. A French philosopher once made the comment that to be a prophet it is necessary to be a pessimist. But David has never believed that. I don't believe that the Trilateral Commission believes that to be true either. We have to look for the good in humanity. We have to look to the good that we can envisage coming in the future in order to help it to happen. And David has demonstrated throughout his life both the intellectual and practical contributions that can be made by people of good will with a view of humanity which is positive and constructive. History may sometimes allocate credit for events to those who do not deserve that credit. I certainly am a beneficiary of that. But there are too many witnesses, many of them present here today, who can testify to David's personal contribution to permit any denial of it.

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Europe’s views on the United States can be described as somewhat ambivalent. They’ve always been ambivalent, not merely because of American contradictions in policy and the implementation of policy. There is also, in some instances, an element of European pique at the diminished status of once great powers in their relationship with a somewhat turbulent offspring, as Europeans like, occasionally, to look on the United States as being.

Let me say a word about American contradictions. The undeniable contribution of the United States to the post-World War II international order is not merely a historic memory. This contribution continues; the positive and constructive role of the United States in the ordering of global affairs has not ended. For example, we would have no World Trade Organization today (an advance on the failed ITO which had perished on the rocks of Congress at an earlier time) without U.S. leadership—and courageous leadership at that. In the time leading up to the ultimate adoption of the text of the Uruguay Round there were considerable doubts about how the United States Congress would vote. The Administration drove not merely NAFTA, but also GATT through Congress, and did so with fortitude. That seemed to demonstrate a position in regard to international affairs which was consistent with the leadership role played during the period since the last war. One need hardly mention in the political sphere the role that the United States has played in contributing to peace in the Middle East, in the former Yugoslavia, and Northern Ireland, to name but a few cases.

So, we Europeans don’t believe that the United States is essentially isolationist. We believe that the basic thrust of U.S. policy, and the basic feelings of the United States’ people, are positive and internationalist. Robert Keohane’s “autonomy illusion” remains prevalent in the United States (as Fred Bergsten has pointed out in his Trilateral essay on America’s unilateralism), but it is a myth. The United States is more and more engaged, in the economic area in particular, in an international society. In the end of the day, positive engagement by the United States is demanded by the realities of the current global economy. And most of us feel that positive engagement is ultimately there and will be sustained.

Of course, there are contradictions—and legitimate concerns. U.S. internationalism is denied by attitudes to a whole range of subjects. We are concerned by the failure to extend fast-track trade negotiating authority in the area of trade. We are concerned by a certain isolationism in regard to the United Nations and international organizations. We are concerned that internationalism is denied in the area of official development assistance, where the United States position is lamentable, particularly as a society which should be providing leadership.

We all live in a world where the gap between the rich and the poor is expanding rather than contracting. Since 1960, for example, real per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa has fallen. The UNDP reported a couple of months ago that the world’s richest 20 percent account for 86 percent of total private consumption, and the poorest 20 percent consume only 1.3 percent. This is, I think, the major moral challenge of our time. And it is the major moral challenge for the United States. If United States leadership is demanded, as clearly is the case in the global economy, the first focus of that leadership has to be on the growing divide between rich and poor in the world.

There is a problem here. The arguments for markets (which we all believe lead to growth and added prosperity) seem to have totally submerged, particularly in areas of U.S. society, the commitment to positive help for global society. It’s a problem, of course, which we in Europe share. There is a lack of clear strategy in regard to this moral commitment, which is deeply worrying and ultimately will be the cause of great difficulty in the early part of the coming millennium.

With real political leadership, U.S. domestic constituencies and the community of rich nations surely can be led to a more positive engagement in the global economy, and particularly in the difficulties of the poorer parts of the world. There is a lack of balance in the policies of the United States and the European Union countries in terms of their commitment to this issue of marginalization, marginalization in particular in Africa. Not only is it being ignored, but the limited levels of support that have been available in the past are being reduced.

In the area of foreign policy, security, and defense, let me make one or two comments about Europe. Europe has made, as we all know, enormous strides in economic integration. The forthcoming single currency is something which even ten years ago would have been considered inconceivable by many observers. In the United States even two years ago, it was not believed generally that it would happen. But it is happening. We have had an incremental integration in Europe which is the most noble political process which has happened anywhere in the world, I believe, ever. It is ultimately a willingness on the part of old nations to share sovereignty, and that sharing of sovereignty has been promoted consistently by the United States from the earliest days. The United States stood by the development of a more integrated and therefore more competitive Europe at a time when others would have been less far-sighted. Its consistent support for the development of an integrated Europe is something for which we must be enormously grateful.

We now need the added stimulus of the United States’ support for the development of a separate pillar in foreign policy and defense. It is vitally important for Europe, and for the United States, that the current situation of total dependence on the United States should not persist. It cannot be good for the world that it should persist. It will ultimately lead to arguments of a very serious kind between Europe and the United States. Even friends like the United States need those who can enter into dialogue with them as equals, rather than as supplicants or dependents, and who can forcefully argue the merits of alternative approaches to vital issues. Zbig Brzezinski’s point about a coalition has to be meaningful in the sense of requiring the United States to take into account the views of Europe before taking decisions on foreign policy and defense issues. The reality is that in international trouble spots, only the United States, as we have heard, has the capacity to lead. When it wishes to exercise its capacity to the full, it is able to dictate the terms on which solutions can be found. An enlightened U.S. policy will be to push the Europeans to get their house in order, something which Dick Holbrooke has underlined in To End a War. This should be a fundamental part of U.S. strategy with no concern for the fact that it will ultimately lead to an independent approach on foreign policy and defense issues by Europe. That should be seen as a positive and good thing. Obviously, the umbrella of NATO will remain.

So the development of a U.S. global strategy, rather than piecemeal responses, is the key to the future. And the key to that, in turn, is a more developed response in the United States to this issue of national sovereignty. The bugbear of diminished national sovereignty in the United States is really a serious difficulty in creating an international order. We must recognize the fact that sovereignty anxieties in these days of interdependence have to be treated in a different context, compared to the historic view of sovereignty.

One of the great lessons of the European Union for Europeans has been the fact that sharing sovereignty, paradoxically, enhances your capacity to influence events. Absolute sovereignty is not a viable option into the future, even for the most powerful state in the world. Going it alone will ultimately create conflict, not prevent or resolve it. The United States is going to have to have an informed debate about the importance of accepting, for example, adjudicating panels which can make objective decisions about disputes, whether they be in the area of criminal law or in the area of disputes relating to trade. It will be a slow process, but it’s a necessary process. If the United States isn’t in there supporting the rule of law at an international level, then it has no chance of developing as it surely must.