In the second part of this exclusive web video, Nicholas Burns, Harvard Kennedy School Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics and former under secretary of State for Political Affairs (2005 to 2008), outlines steps the Obama administration should take to improve U.S. diplomacy and discusses the diplomatic successes of the outgoing Bush administration.
TRANSCRIPT
What are some of the examples of effective diplomacy of the current administration from which President-elect Obama can learn?
Well I guess I'd say if I had to look at the successes of the Bush Administration's foreign policy, I'd start with the fact that the Bush Administration was able to build good relations with nearly all of the other great powers of the world. And that is not a normal state of affairs if you look at the history of the world over that last several hundred years. But President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Bob Gates were able to build good, effective working relations with the Chinese government, and of course that relationship has a multitude of problems and divisive issues, but by and large the United States and China have worked fairly well together. Second, the United States and India, of course, have achieved a new strategic partnership. There's been a substantial acceleration in the rate of, in the relations between the two countries and an improvement in those relations. And third, U.S. relations with Brazil have become very positive, as well. So I think in terms of those rising powers in the world – China, India, and Brazil – the administration did well. I also think that the United States is also highly regarded in Africa, for a couple of reasons. First was President Bush's championing of the $30 billion, ten-year HIV/AIDS program, primarily to suffering people in southern Africa and the malaria program. And the fact that we've been able to develop, I think, good working relations with both Nigeria and South Africa, the two dominant countries in the region. I also think after a very difficult first term of President Bush, our relations with the European countries were at a low ebb. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was able to lead the way to rebuild most of those relations in the second term, 2005-2008. So I would rank those as among the positive aspects, the most successful aspects of the Bush Administration's foreign policy. Where President-elect Obama doesn't feel, in my judgement, he doesn't need to recreate the wheel or fundamentally change the policy, but can build on some of the very good work that was done by President Bush and his administration.
One challenge President-elect Obama faces is rebuilding alliances and friendships with countries unhappy with the policies enacted in the last decade. What are some immediate actions the next president can take to start regaining the respect of the world?
I think that it's important that the United States and the American people understand that while the world is not awash in anti-Americanism – we're very well thought of in Africa, we're very well thought of in India and China and parts of Asia – but there is a problem, a major problem in the Muslim and Arab worlds, specifically in two regions: the Middle East and South Asia. You can make a case that the place where America's vital interests are most at stake are now in the Middle East and South Asia. Because in the Middle East we're dealing with, of course, the war in Iraq; the challenge to American power, and to stability, and to peace by Iran; and, of course, the continuing divisions and disaffections between Israelis and Palestinians. In South Asia, we're dealing with an increasingly bitter and increasingly bitter war in Afghanistan; the enormous problems associated with the Pakistani government, from al Qaeda and the Taliban having safe havens on Pakistani territory to the fact that Pakistan is an inherently unstable and rather weak state, at the present time, but strategically situated. So I think that the next administration of President Barack Obama will need to focus on these two parts of the world to ensure that America's vital interests are being met. Part of that, of course, will be trying to convince people that America is on their side, that our agenda incorporates some of the issues that they care most deeply about. And obviously because of what's happened with Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the Iraq War and extraordinary renditions, the feelings of many Muslim and Arab people toward the United States are quite bitter and negative. We can turn that around. We have to turn that around. And I think given the unique status of Barack Obama, the kind of campaign he ran, but also the kind of person he is – the fact that he spent time as a young kid in the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia; the fact that he has family in Kenya; the fact that he campaigned as someone who would rebuild the bridges that America needs to have with the Muslim and Arab worlds – gives him a unique opportunity to put America's best foot forward and to try to reverse some of the very negative trends we've seen develop of the last several years.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18748/
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Memo to the Next President: Restoring Diplomacy (Part 1 of 2)
In this exclusive web video, Nicholas Burns, Harvard Kennedy School Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics and former under secretary of State for Political Affairs (2005 to 2008), outlines steps the Obama administration should take to improve U.S. diplomacy.
TRANSCRIPT
In a recent op-ed in Newsweek (Oct. 25, 2008), you wrote the U.S. must talk to our enemies, like Iran and Venezuela. Yet you also wrote that this is not a sure prescription for success in every crisis. When is talking to our enemies in our best interest and when should President-elect Obama pursue other options?
Well first I think it's important that American recognize that we are still the dominant world power. We play a decisive role in world affairs. We have a major impact in our military, our political, and our economic policy around the world. And because we're a global power, we need to smart about understanding what's going on in the rest of the world. And understanding, even what's going on especially in countries with which we have difficulties, such as North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. So I think the Hallmark of a strong, self-confident country is that we're willing to sit down and talk to governments with which we might disagree, not out of weakness, not out of kindness, because it's in our national interest to understand them, to understand what motivates them, and to understand what lies behind the policies with which we disagree. We'll choose the time and place, as President-elect Obama has said, as to when we sit down with them and where. We'll choose the opportunity. But to give you some examples, when we began to talk to North Korea, it was then we began to make progress in the Six-Party Talks. When we began to have a bilateral relationship with them, we made the most progress. We had frozen our relations with Libya for quite a number of years. When we opened up to Libya, we were able to convince the Libyans to essentially to dismantle their nuclear apparatus and the illegal activities in which they had been engaged. The problem with Iran policy is that we haven't had for essentially three decades now, since the Ayatollah Khomenei's revolution of 1978, any meaningful and sustained contacts with the Iranian government. You can make the argument that Iran is the biggest problem that we have in the Middle East as a state trying to become a nuclear weapons power, that is funding most of the terrorist groups, and that is essentially a state that has lead to instability in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think it makes sense to sit down with them – not at the presidential level, but certainly at a level one or two below that – to get a sense of what's motivating them, to see if there's a bottom line with which we can work. We always have the option of walking away. We always have the option in Iran of sanctioning them. We always have the option of using any of the means at our disposal to achieve a national purpose that we have in mind. But talking to other countries makes sense as a way to understand their motivations and to best represent the interests of our own country.
In your op-ed you also discuss the need for the U.S. to revalidate diplomacy. What steps should President-elect Obama take to do that?
Well I think that it's important to understand that the United States has many strengths in the world. We have a very powerful and high-quality military. We have a very capable intelligence community. And we have our diplomacy. There are three legs to the national security strength of the United States. We have consistently funded and supported, as we should have, the intelligence and military arms of the government since the end of the Cold War. But we have not done so with diplomacy. Diplomacy has been underfunded in terms of the money going to the State Department and certainly to USAID for foreign assistance around the world. We also don't have the capacity in terms of the people and the trained people in the State Department that we need. It's a curious fact that we have just about 6,500 American diplomats worldwide, but that's exceeded by the number of lawyers in the Defense Department and by the number of musicians in the Armed Forces bands of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Not a good standard if you're trying to become the strongest diplomatic country in the world, which we should want to be. So I do think President-elect Obama has an opportunity in front of him to ask the Congress to significantly expand the number of diplomats in the American foreign service, the number of people working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, to think about further increases in our international humanitarian and economic assistance as a country so that we can project more powerfully the so called smart power or soft power of the United States. So that we can be as strong on the diplomatic side as we are on the military and intelligence side. If you think about our foreign policy and think about the day-to-day activities that we conduct on the part of our government with governments all over the world, the vast majority of the activities, the vast majority of the conversations are diplomatic in nature. And so we need to have a better platform for that. We need to give the people in the State Department the tools with which they need to do their job. And I think given what President-elect Obama said on the campaign trail, hopefully he will undertake this sort of aggressive rebuilding of our diplomatic apparatus in the year ahead.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18737/
TRANSCRIPT
In a recent op-ed in Newsweek (Oct. 25, 2008), you wrote the U.S. must talk to our enemies, like Iran and Venezuela. Yet you also wrote that this is not a sure prescription for success in every crisis. When is talking to our enemies in our best interest and when should President-elect Obama pursue other options?
Well first I think it's important that American recognize that we are still the dominant world power. We play a decisive role in world affairs. We have a major impact in our military, our political, and our economic policy around the world. And because we're a global power, we need to smart about understanding what's going on in the rest of the world. And understanding, even what's going on especially in countries with which we have difficulties, such as North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. So I think the Hallmark of a strong, self-confident country is that we're willing to sit down and talk to governments with which we might disagree, not out of weakness, not out of kindness, because it's in our national interest to understand them, to understand what motivates them, and to understand what lies behind the policies with which we disagree. We'll choose the time and place, as President-elect Obama has said, as to when we sit down with them and where. We'll choose the opportunity. But to give you some examples, when we began to talk to North Korea, it was then we began to make progress in the Six-Party Talks. When we began to have a bilateral relationship with them, we made the most progress. We had frozen our relations with Libya for quite a number of years. When we opened up to Libya, we were able to convince the Libyans to essentially to dismantle their nuclear apparatus and the illegal activities in which they had been engaged. The problem with Iran policy is that we haven't had for essentially three decades now, since the Ayatollah Khomenei's revolution of 1978, any meaningful and sustained contacts with the Iranian government. You can make the argument that Iran is the biggest problem that we have in the Middle East as a state trying to become a nuclear weapons power, that is funding most of the terrorist groups, and that is essentially a state that has lead to instability in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think it makes sense to sit down with them – not at the presidential level, but certainly at a level one or two below that – to get a sense of what's motivating them, to see if there's a bottom line with which we can work. We always have the option of walking away. We always have the option in Iran of sanctioning them. We always have the option of using any of the means at our disposal to achieve a national purpose that we have in mind. But talking to other countries makes sense as a way to understand their motivations and to best represent the interests of our own country.
In your op-ed you also discuss the need for the U.S. to revalidate diplomacy. What steps should President-elect Obama take to do that?
Well I think that it's important to understand that the United States has many strengths in the world. We have a very powerful and high-quality military. We have a very capable intelligence community. And we have our diplomacy. There are three legs to the national security strength of the United States. We have consistently funded and supported, as we should have, the intelligence and military arms of the government since the end of the Cold War. But we have not done so with diplomacy. Diplomacy has been underfunded in terms of the money going to the State Department and certainly to USAID for foreign assistance around the world. We also don't have the capacity in terms of the people and the trained people in the State Department that we need. It's a curious fact that we have just about 6,500 American diplomats worldwide, but that's exceeded by the number of lawyers in the Defense Department and by the number of musicians in the Armed Forces bands of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Not a good standard if you're trying to become the strongest diplomatic country in the world, which we should want to be. So I do think President-elect Obama has an opportunity in front of him to ask the Congress to significantly expand the number of diplomats in the American foreign service, the number of people working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, to think about further increases in our international humanitarian and economic assistance as a country so that we can project more powerfully the so called smart power or soft power of the United States. So that we can be as strong on the diplomatic side as we are on the military and intelligence side. If you think about our foreign policy and think about the day-to-day activities that we conduct on the part of our government with governments all over the world, the vast majority of the activities, the vast majority of the conversations are diplomatic in nature. And so we need to have a better platform for that. We need to give the people in the State Department the tools with which they need to do their job. And I think given what President-elect Obama said on the campaign trail, hopefully he will undertake this sort of aggressive rebuilding of our diplomatic apparatus in the year ahead.
This was originally published here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18737/
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