Grossman: foreign policy must be alliance, coalition-based
Regional-USA, Politics, 11/25/2003

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman says 21st century U.S. foreign policy is based on diplomacy, integration, alliances, coalitions, and, "the greatest military force every assembled."

During his November 21 remarks at the U.S. Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, Grossman pointed out that the United States "is more integrated into the global system than at any time" in its history. "Our strength and our openness have allowed the United States to become the engine, the beneficiary and the benefactor of globalization," he said.

Grossman identified four trends shaping today's international political landscape: the global war on terrorism and terrorism's connection to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the process of globalization, free markets and democracy, and, what he described as "American power."

In addressing each of these trends, Grossman said, "[o]ur future depends on the quality and skill of our diplomacy as much as on the talent of our armed forces."

Regarding the third trend, Grossman described the simultaneous spread of free markets and democracy as "[i]rrevocably linked." He said, "[f]ree markets thrive on the best of individuals, nations, and the international community -- harnessing their ambition, innovation, talent and industry. And to be successful, free markets require accountability, rule of law, human rights and democracy." The Middle East Partnership Initiative, launched last year by the Bush administration, promotes just that -- democracy and economic growth -- throughout that region, he said.

Grossman said that studies have found that the "poorest one-sixth of humanity endures four-fifths of the world's civil wars." In response, he said, the president's Millennium Challenge Account initiative seeks "to provide people in developing nations the tools they need to seize the opportunities of the global economy." He also noted that the administration seeks "to increase [its] development assistance by $5 billion per year over the next three budget cycles."

Finally, with regard to the concept of American power, Grossman said, "[w]e believe in living by the rules, but we will seek to change those rules that no longer work." While the United States is proud of and will use the international institutions it helped to create, "[w]e will also seek to adjust them or create new ones where we must," he continued.

Following are excerpts of Grossman's remarks onNovember 21, 2003:

My goal today is to step back from the news about Iraq, Afghanistan and Liberia and talk about the trends that shape our world and what we need to be doing about them.

All of the nations represented in this class face great opportunities around the world today. So let me kick off our discussion and suggest four trends that shape our world and create the opportunities we can pursue together in support of our shared values.

First, the global war against terrorism, and terror's connection to [weapons of mass destruction] WMD.

The attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 changed America and the world. Al-Qaeda's goal that day was to disrupt and then try to end our way of life.

-- This is a war unlike any other. Rather than a nation, or group of nations, we -- all of us in this room -- are fighting a network of terrorists operating in more than 60 countries.

-- To fight this enemy we have built a coalition unlike any other. We should not forget that over 90 countries lost citizens when the World Trade Center was attacked -- including 282 citizens from 33 of the countries represented in this room. And since then, terrorists have struck more innocent lives in Bali, Jakarta, Casablanca, Bombay, Mombassa, Najaf, Jerusalem, Riyadh, Baghdad, Istanbul, and elsewhere.

-- More than 100 nations -- individually and in close cooperation within their regions -- have arrested or detained over 3,400 terrorists or their supporters.

-- Since the deadly Bali bombings last October, Indonesia stepped up its campaign against Jemaah Islamiya (JI), arresting over 120 JI members so far.

-- Thailand worked with the United States to capture alleged JI and al-Qaeda terrorist Hambali in August.

-- APEC nations agreed in October to enhance the security of trade, WMD, MANPADs (Manportable surface-to-air missiles), and air travel.

-- Malaysia opened the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counterterrorism this year, and 15 nations from South and Southeast Asia have already received U.S.-provided training in tracking and blocking terrorist financing.

-- Saudi Arabia continues an aggressive, comprehensive campaign to hunt down terrorists, uncover terrorist plots, and choke off terrorist financing.

-- Colombian President Uribe, with American assistance, has developed a democratic security strategy to aggressively challenge narco-terrorist organizations: the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), ELN (National Liberation Army), and AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia).

-- In June of this year, President Bush announced a $100 million initiative in Eastern Africa to expand and accelerate counterterrorism efforts with Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and others.

-- Countries across Europe have successfully disrupted al-Qaeda cells and continue to pursue other terrorist leads. Spain has indicted Osama bin Laden and 34 others for the 9-11 attacks. Germany just this week extradited to the United States two Yemenis suspected of providing financial support to al-Qaeda. The United Kingdom, of course, is our strong ally in the war against terrorism.

-- Since September 11th, 209 of the 212 countries and jurisdictions in the world have expressed their support for the financial war on terror. Almost $200 million has been frozen or seized in over 1,400 terrorist-related accounts around the globe.

-- And 33 nations, including many of yours, are in Iraq today -- helping the Iraqi people succeed and making sure terrorists fail.

There is one other reason this is a war unlike any other: we must stop the production, distribution and use of weapons of mass destruction that are potential instruments of terror unlike any other. Nuclear weapons, biological weapons, radiological weapons and chemical weapons in the hands of terror groups or rogue states are fundamental challenges to the security of every country represented here today.

As British Prime Minister Tony Blair said with President Bush yesterday after the second bombing in Istanbul: We must affirm that in the face of this terrorism there must be no holding back, no compromise, no hesitation in confronting this menace and attacking it wherever and whenever we can and in defeating it utterly.

Second, Globalization.

...The phenomenon known as globalization has become a fundamental feature of the international security environment... Email, cell phones and satellites have revolutionized our lives.

As (New York Times columnist) Tom Friedman reminds us in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," in 1990 there were 800 computer systems linked on the Internet. And as Friedman wrote in a column this past June, "In the past three years, Google has gone from processing 100 million searches per day to over 200 million searches per day ... only one-third come from inside the United States. The rest are in 88 different languages ... VeriSign, which operates much of the Internet's infrastructure, was processing 600 million domain requests per day in early 2000. It is now processing 9 billion per day."

No change comes without cost. As you have been discussing in this course, globalization has its critics, many making their views known in Miami today.

Some say that global international economic integration -- globalization -- is good just for wealthy countries.

But I say to embrace self-sufficiency or to deride growth, as some protesters do, is to glamorize poverty.

Since the mid-1970s, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and their neighbors have lifted 300 million people out of poverty, chiefly through trade. In South America, Chile has pursued economic reform, opened up its economy and lifted more than a million people out of poverty.

There is a debate about whether globalization is a reality or a reversible trend. What seems to me not debatable is that the way nations and people respond to globalization is a matter of choice and policy; for the same networks that allow the free flow of commerce and communication can be used to facilitate terrorist attacks and proliferation, traffic human beings, and spread HIV/AIDS.

We must use every chance to turn the challenges of globalization into opportunities.

Here are three examples of what we are trying to do:

-- Middle East Free Trade Area. President Bush called last May for the establishment of a U.S.-Middle East free trade area in the next ten years to, as he put it, bring the Middle East into an expanding circle of opportunity, to provide hope for the people who live in that region. This partnership would build upon our free trade agreements with Israel and Jordan and help reforming countries become members of the [World Trade Organization] WTO. It would provide assistance to build trade capacity so countries can benefit from integration into the global trading system. It would promote transparency in public finances and assist countries in fighting corruption.

-- HIV/AIDS. On May 27th, at the State Department, President Bush signed legislation that will provide $15 billion over the next five years to fight AIDS abroad -- the largest single up-front commitment in history for an international public health initiative involving a specific disease. Our effort will address training, medicine, testing, treatment, [and] education. It will help prevent 7 million new infections, treat 2 million HIV-infected people, and care for 10 million infected individuals and AIDS orphans over the next decade.

-- Proliferation Security Initiative. The President's Proliferation Security Initiative is a new, broad international partnership of countries which, using their own laws and resources, will coordinate their actions to halt shipments of dangerous technologies to and from states and non-state actors when there is concern of proliferation -- at sea, in the air, and on land. Eleven nations are currently participating, almost all represented in this room: Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Third, Free Markets and Democracy.

You may have come across a recent book on foreign policy by Walter Russell Meade. It is called "Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World."

Meade argues that the ideas that have shaped American foreign policy throughout our history are influenced by our nation's interest in the international, trading and financial order that over the last few centuries has spread over the earth and integrated the economies of many new nations and continents. The opening of markets has been a central component of American interests since our independence.

Free markets thrive on the best of individuals, nations, and the international community -- harnessing their ambition, innovation, talent and industry. And to be successful, free markets require accountability, rule of law, human rights and democracy. Free markets. Free people. Democracy. One reinforcing the other. Irrevocably linked.

According to a 2003 report by Freedom House, today there are more free countries than at any time in history, and the number is rapidly approaching a majority.

Free countries today account for $26.8 trillion of the world's annual GDP (89 percent), as compared to Partly Free countries at $1.5 trillion (5 percent) and Not Free countries at $1.7 trillion (6 percent).

As President Bush said in a speech at the National Endowment for Democracy on November 6th, "We've witnessed, in little over a generation, the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500 year story of democracy." He went on to note, however, that still, questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free.

As the President did, I reflected on the first Arab Human Development Report, "Creating Opportunities for Future Generations," released in 2002 by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) and the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development. With contributions from dozens of Arab scholars, it concluded, "The wave of democracy that transformed governance in most of (the world) has barely reached the Arab states. The freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development."

Last month, UNDP released its second Arab Human Development Report. And what does this one say? Knowledge is the key to creating those opportunities for future generations -- to helping Arab regions spread the values of freedom, protect those freedoms through good governance, and push economic growth through higher productivity.

Democracy means a commitment to educational, economic, legal and political reform. President Bush announced the Middle East Partnership Initiative last December to support just that throughout the Arab world. And as Secretary Powell noted recently, this new Partnership is already achieving results in its first year.

We must also never forget that roughly half of human kind struggles to live on less than $2 a day. They do not benefit from free markets or democracy.

This poverty breeds conflict, especially civil war. A study by Paul Collier of the World Bank, which was reported in May of this year by "The Economist," examines the world's civil wars since 1960 and concludes that the most striking common factor among war prone countries is their poverty. The poorest one-sixth of humanity endures four-fifths of the world's civil wars.

And this poverty strangles democracy, which is key to long-term prosperity, as Fareed Zakaria argues in his recent book called, "The Future of Freedom."

Part of our response is the President's Millennium Challenge Account initiative, one of the most creative and promising development proposals in a long time. Our goal is to provide this assistance to those who are doing the right things with existing policies and resources, and we will identify agreed objectives and benchmarks to be achieved with the additional aid. We seek to increase our development assistance by $5 billion per year over the next three budget cycles. Our goal is to provide people in developing nations the tools they need to seize the opportunities of the global economy. This might mean expanding the fight against AIDS; bringing computer instruction to young professionals in developing nations; assisting African businesses and their people to sell goods abroad; or providing textbooks and training to students in Islamic and African countries.

As President Bush said this week in London, "It is suggested that the poor, in their daily struggles, care little for self-government. Yet [it is] the poor, especially, [who] need the power of democracy."

Fourth, American Power.

While the first three trends -- the global war against terrorism, globalization, free markets and democracy -- shape today's international political landscape, a dominant trend in today's world is American power.

The challenge for an American foreign policy for the 21st century is to make the most of this chance. Meade writes that we need an approach to foreign policy that highlights issues that were discounted by Cold War-era thinking, but that increasingly preoccupy us today: Economics, the problems of the international order building or globalization, and the relationship of democracy and foreign policy.

Wherever I talk about America's power -- which I believe is a force for great good in this world -- I start by being clear about my core beliefs about America:

-- America has a noble purpose.

-- We believe in the sanctity and the power of individuals. And so we are committed to democracy for ourselves and for others.

-- We are an optimistic people and not a pessimistic people. We believe in hope and not in fear. Osama bin Laden wins if he takes away our optimism.

-- We believe in telling the truth about the threats we face, even if it is not popular.

-- We believe in change. We believe in living by the rules, but we will seek to change those rules that no longer work. And so we are proud of the international institutions we have helped create. We will use them. We will also seek to adjust them or create new ones where we must.

-- We believe in an American foreign policy of opportunity. An American foreign policy based on diplomacy, integration, alliances, coalitions, and backed, as it must be, by the greatest military force ever assembled.

-- We want people to follow us out of respect and not out of fear.

The United States today is more integrated into the global system than at any time in our history. Our strength and our openness have allowed the United States to become the engine, the beneficiary and the benefactor of globalization. Our diversity is a strength, not a weakness.

Our success -- an end to terror, global prosperity, freedom and a world that values pluralism -- is not assured. But as the President's National Security Strategy says, we have the greatest chance to succeed when we match our strength with our principles and our purpose.

Make no mistake: We will act alone if we must.

But we can use our unique position of strength to set an example for the world of freedom, democracy and free markets and encourage others to join us to pursue these magnificent objectives.

We can do more to support the United Nations and to promote human rights even as we oppose Libya chairing the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

We can be among the world's greatest supporters of bringing war criminals and others to justice -- as we have been in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia -- and still protect ourselves against the shortcomings of the International Criminal Court.

With the Treaty of Moscow we can lead the way to a strategically safer world by leaving behind the Cold War notion of mutually assured destruction and move to a system in which defense plays a key role in our strategy.

We can be the leading champion of environmental responsibility at the same time we recognize the flaws of the Kyoto Treaty.

With secure borders and open doors, we can continue to be the world's most welcoming nation even as we better protect our citizens.

We can transform NATO as the great alliance expands and adapts to the security realities of the 21st century. In Istanbul next June NATO will formally welcome seven new members to the Alliance: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia -- and I'm glad to see that there are representatives from some of those nations here today. Seven states whose people once suffered under totalitarian rule, seven states who -- now free -- support our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to help other people be free.

Working together -- every nation represented here -- we can pursue a foreign policy that defeats our enemies, turns the trends that define our world into opportunities for all of us and inspires not only our current allies and friends but those allies and friends yet to be made.

This is what we are trying to do every day at the State Department.

Our future depends on the quality and skill of our diplomacy as much as on the talent of our armed forces. The courage of our diplomats in Liberia, Iraq, Kosovo and Colombia, the determination of our diplomats in the Middle East are testament to the people Americans have working for them abroad and the intense dangers they face.

One of the documents Secretary Powell is most proud of is Joint Pub 1 dated 11 November 1991; Colin Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Pub 1 is the handbook for Joint Warfare of the United States Arms Forces. In his introductory message Powell says, "Joint warfare is team warfare. When a team takes to the field, individual specialists come together to achieve a team win. All players try to do their very best because every other player, the team, and the hometown are counting on them to win. So it is when the Armed Forces of the United States go to war. We must win every time ... this is our history, this is our tradition, this is our future."

If you doubted diplomats, soldiers, sailors, airmen were on the same team before September 11, don't doubt it now. That is what a Joint Pub 1 dated November 21, 2003 would surely say.

Secretary Powell reminded us recently:

"Here are the central goals of American foreign policy in the 21st century: We fight terrorism because we must. We seek a better world because we can, because it is our desire, it is our destiny to do so. That is why we devote ourselves to democracy, development, global public health, human rights -- as well as to the structure of global peace than enables us to pursue our vision for a better world. These are not mere high-sounding decorations for our interests. They are our interests. They are the purposes that our power serves."

(end excerpt)

Previous Stories:
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  Moussa, Armitage hold different views on occupation and resistance   (11/12/2003)
  Arab League chief criticizes US Middle East policy   (11/8/2003)

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