Summit of Editors of Foreign Policy Journals

Fourth Transatlantic Editors' Roundtable in cooperation with Foreign Affairs, April 22/23, 2004, New York City

23.04.2004 · Improving Responsiveness

Just on time with the redefinition of U.S. American foreign policy towards international partners as a consequence of the negative developments in Iraq, the Center for Applied Policy Research (C·A·P) organized a summit meeting for the editors of the leading trans-Atlantic foreign policy journals. Hosted in cooperation with America's leading foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs, C·A·P assembled the editors and editors-in-chief of fourteen journals at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on April 22/23, 2004. This summit meeting has already been the fourth Trans-Atlantic Editors' Roundtable within the context of C·A·P's trans-Atlantic program "Improving Responsiveness" - and it is still the only of its kind in the world.

Among the participating journals besides Foreign Affairs were Foreign Policy, The National Interest, The Washington Quarterly, The Journal of Democracy, Current History, Commentary and The World Policy Journal from the United States, as well as Internationale Politik, Transatlantic Internationale Politik from Germany, International Affairs, Survival, and The World Today from Great Britain, The International Spectator from Italy, and Foreign Policy Edicion Española from Spain.

The hosts of this year's Trans-Atlantic Editors' Roundtable, James Hoge (left) and Werner Weidenfeld (center), and the former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department and current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass.

Under the guidance of James Hoge, editor of Foreign Affairs, and Werner Weidenfeld, director of the Center for Applied Policy Research and editor of Internationale Politik and Transatlantic Internationale Politik, the journals' editors not only engaged in a substantial dialogue on possible means of cooperation among the journals, but also discussed urgent political topics in trans-Atlantic relations: the recent developments in Iraq and their impact on the U.S. general elections, changes in trans-Atlantic security policy, economic development and the future role of the European Union, as well as different approaches to multilateralism, international law and the United Nations. This in-depth dialogue was facilitated by an extraordinary set of speakers including academics and political decision-makers and ranging from Richard Haass, the former director of policy planning at the State Department under the Bush-Administration and current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, to Gunter Pleuger, current president of the United Nations' Security Council and Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations.

Special session for editors "Experiences and Perspectives of Foreign Policy Journals"

As a brief introduction, every participant representing a journal gave a brief statement on the experiences, perspectives, history and current state of his or her respective journal. Several issues were raised, such as the apparent lack of interest in Germany regarding foreign policy discussions in a journal forum setting. However the need for such a debate on foreign policy in Germany is great and should happen in the near future.

Additional problems and questions discussed included the development of a journals' online business: How much content should be put online and what good is it to publish a weekly "express" version of the journal online, for example, what The National Interest does in its online weekly In the National Interest. The increased competition from weekly newspapers, which could lead to an information overflow for the consumer, was an important point brought up, as well as the broadened topical horizon of foreign policy journals which nowadays also have to cover issues such as the business, economics, and domestic influences on foreign policy. Another problem discussed was that of obtaining good and "readable" authors, especially in the German speaking community where authors tend to be too scientific and abstract, which in turn decreases the audience for such articles.

Considering the tremendous appetite for foreign policy journals in countries outside the trans-Atlantic region (for example, journals are set to launch Turkish and Arabic editions with approximately 50% of the content stemming from the original issue and 50% written with more of a local focus), the participants discussed the possibility of exchanging articles and/or authors among journals.

However it was pointed out that the original articles would not be published in the same language in order to reduce competition, but that the author would be granted double rights after the translation.

Please follow this link to read Nikolas Gvosdev's
input paper on trans-Atlantic relations in The National Interest.

View of the roundtable setting in the Council on Foreign Relations building.

Dinner speech Leslie Gelb

Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, launched the speakers program with a new approach to the current Iraq crisis, namely, that in order to be politically effective, one must define a problem in such a way that it can be solved. One of the big mistakes of the current U.S.-Administration is that they defined Iraq as a difficult problem without knowing how to solve it. The lesson learned here is to reduce the aspects of a problem that are to be tackled at a time.

One important factor which the U.S. neglected in its current approach and which should be focused on in order to obtain at least a partial success is that of minority rights. Minority rights are the key to any political solution in Iraq and the Iraqi government set to transition into power at the end of June must pay respect to minority rights: Kurds and Shiites will never accept any proposal that either takes away autonomy from the Kurds or does not put the Shiites in the most important position equal to their population quota. Here is where the UN enters the stage because no other institution can as effectively guarantee minority rights and have that enshrined into legal solutions.

The U.S. therefore must change its approach to Iraq by redefining the problem. Although withdrawal would lead most assuredly to a catastrophe, failure - in terms of acknowledging that one had the wrong approach and will now pursue a better one - may still be an option.

Panel I: "Changes in U.S. and EU foreign and security policy in the aftermath of the Iraq War" – Richard Haass and Yves Boyer

After scratching the surface of security policy the previous night, this panel elaborated and further deepened the discussion. Richard Haass, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, stressed that the real danger in trans-Atlantic relations was not the split over Iraq but rather the irrelevance of trans-Atlantic relations in the security field. The problems in trans-Atlantic security relations continue to stem from the Cold War. However, the danger of disaggregation in security issues should not prevent cooperation in other fields – i.e. the trans-Atlantic partners do not have to overcome the Iraq issue first in order to cooperate. Stressed here was the point that being a good European does not preclude being a good trans-Atlanticist; one can easily be both, but above all a trans-Atlantic commitment is necessary. Therefore, however, U.S. "cherry picking" should only occur in cases where the EU as a whole does not get involved in an issue - and even then, as many European member states as possible should be gathered. If the general direction of the EU in terms of security policy is made clear, then the U.S. can maximize its partnership with the willing.

With respect to specific foreign policy issues, Haass mentioned that the EU made a big mistake in Cyprus by self-removing any leverage from the Greek-Cypriots, a hint on tactical weakness in the EU's foreign and security policy. Turning to Iraq, Haass stated that the Iraq war was a preventive and not a preemptive war since there was no imminent threat to the U.S. by Iraq. However, that being said, he also stressed that the U.S. will always consider military force as one of many options in foreign policy.

In response, Yves Boyer, deputy director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, demanded that the EU be given more attention as a growing global player. More important than the recent EU security strategy would be the foundation of an EU strategic headquarters; the creation of a common EU security structure is more important than its funding problems he stated. However, European strategic and military capabilities were not in any way to be seen as anti-American. The Military Interoperability Council would serve rather, as a background link for trans-Atlantic relations. On the same token, the slow development of the EU's military and strategic capabilities was not to be seen as a sign of weakness. Because terrorism as a political problem was not a matter for general military affairs but instead for the police, intelligence, and special forces, the EU faced no immediate need for military and strategic capabilities. Rather, it saw an immediate need for police and intelligence capabilities. At the same time, the EU in her ESDP would never copy the U.S. as the EU finds itself in a completely different geo-strategic landscape; ESDP would therefore not threaten the U.S. in its global projection of power. But does that make the EU weak? The answer was no because the Iraq case showed that there was not only no real war, but that the U.S. showed some lifestyle warfare against Saddam’s troops. It was stressed that the real problems in Iraq started after the main combat action, so in the end, it was the U.S. which appeared weak.

Although admitting that the French vision of ESDP may not be representative of the entire EU, Boyer remained convinced that this French vision may be picked up by other EU member states in the future.

In the discussion that followed, U.S. supporters claimed that the general tendency for U.S. speakers is to promote NATO and the trans-Atlantic relationship, whereas European speakers, and in particular, the French, appear to continually support an independent Europe without including a trans-Atlantic perspective. This not only leads the current U.S.-Administration to seek a Europe that is weak in terms of foreign and security policy, but also to question the sustainability of a genuine trans-Atlantic partnership. In response it was emphasized that there are more than two European views (the British special relationship and the French/German promotion of ESDP) in terms of trans-Atlantic relations. In reality, Britain has remained committed to ESDP, so the European split is less between Europeanists and trans-Atlanticists, but rather between ESDP free riders and activists. The EU did not seek to be a counterweight to the U.S., but simply wanted to gain more autonomy in security affairs, especially now that the strategic protection of old and new EU member states has become obsolete. Moreover, continued the argument, the EU and the U.S. have a lot of common ground for cooperation in the Middle East, especially as the EU has already launched a cooperative dialogue in the Barcelona process, however, this will be undermined if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not given more attention by the U.S.

Panel II: "Economic and societal aspects of trans-Atlantic relations"

Brookings Institution's fellow and former Vice President of the Europe and Central Asia Region at the World Bank Johannes Linn explained to the audience that based on recent statistical records, EU-US commercial relations were still dominant in the world. Although the 1990 Trans-Atlantic Declaration and the 1995 New Trans-Atlantic Agenda had only limited success and indeed ended in what may be called a pitiful failure, there is currently no real conflict in trans-Atlantic economic relations looming. In the future, however, commercial multipolarity will increase with Japan, China, and India being new economic poles. Whereas the EU and Japan have declining populations, the U.S., China, and India show a constant growth in populations. By 2050 however, only 50% of the U.S. population will consist of European descent, due to increasing numbers of U.S. Americans of Hispanic and Asian descent. Already now, there is a shift in U.S. demographics towards the West and South-West, i.e. away from Europe. Germany, on contrast, will by 2050 have a 15% Muslim population.

Although many countries on both sides of the Atlantic currently face domestic economic challenges and want to tackle these problems domestically, the economic ties between the EU and the U.S. are the glue and not the divergent of trans-Atlantic relations.

In the future there are three possible scenarios for trans-Atlantic economic governance structures: the G 7/8 concept, which however does not function well any more, and is not inclusive (i.e. it does not include the newly emerging economic powers); the G 2 concept which seemed to be favored by the Europeans, but which again is not inclusive; or the G 20 concept which does in fact include actors such as Brazil, Turkey and India. The last option would be a useful opportunity to take the trans-Atlantic interests into a global arena.

Please follow this link to read Linn's paper for this conference.

In his introductory response, Adam Posen, senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, focused more on the effects of economics rather than on trans-Atlantic relations. Reiterating the fact that economic integration does not always prevent conflict and that economic size was not the main determinant in world affairs (as the Brazil case exhibits), Posen asserted that state actors tend to constrain each other and that it made sense for the EU in her current situation to come from Venus – picking up on Bob Kagan's analogy of U.S.-Americans and Europeans as Marsians and Venusians. He also denied that there was currently an economic crisis in Europe; problems yes, but not a crisis. Britain, for example, has shown that in spite of reform needs, the economy can last very long before anything happens. And Germany, although having a growth problem, does not have a financial problem: A cut of only 5 % of welfare expenses could actually triple its military expenses; money, therefore, cannot be the issue. Nor did Posen foresee demographics having a major changing impact on trans-Atlantic relations. With respect to the EU's enlargement, Posen admitted that the EU was very attractive to the accession countries for economic reasons (especially due to the Common Agricultural Policy) and that the U.S. had nothing similar to offer.

Following a question and answer period, Linn and Posen emphasized the need for trans-Atlantic economic action, notwithstanding usually well-working economic cooperation between the EU and U.S. in the realm of anti-trust legislation. If nothing is done now, both Linn and Posen fear that the EU could become the next Argentina by 2015, even though there is currently no imminent crisis. The German Agenda 2010 proves that it has set out on the right path, especially as the costs to social welfare are much too high and the fact that the unions are too powerful. The flipside of the coin however is that U.S., workers have to work longer hours and be more productive because they do not have social security options which are available in Europe. The "Finlandization" of Europe may lead to success though, that is, opening up to grow economically instead of isolating like Switzerland.

With the foreign economic impact not translating sufficiently into the political agenda, the big challenge on a global scale for the future remains the integration of China, India and other emerging economic actors into the global economic network.

Panel III: "The EU as an emerging global actor"

Council on Foreign Relations fellow Charles Kupchan from Georgetown University explained in his introductory remarks that the development of the European Union and its European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) reminded him somehow of the development of the U.S. In the first decades of the newborn United States, there was no common army either. Instead, it took several decades to form a common army as the development of common forces simply takes time. Kupchan sees Europe on the right path, and many obstacles will be overcome in the near future. The long criticized gap between economic and military development in the EU is already decreasing due to the Franco-German-British initiative for enhanced ESDP and the German Bundeswehr reform.

But aside from the military realm, Kupchan believes the future of Europe on all levels looks bright. From an economic standpoint, the EU has already emerged as a global actor and as a partner and competitor of the U.S. With the GDP of the EU growing up to the GDP of the US, the Euro will become and nearly already is the second global reserve currency.

Even though the future and form of the EU's political entity may be uncertain and the horizon may be covered in dust, the political path of the EU is determined. The EU's constitution will be made law as the opposition from both Poland and Spain is gone. But even with a clear constitutional perspective and the enlargement as of May 1, the EU's center of gravity in terms of population, GDP, and political influence will still be in Western Europe. Therefore, the EU's enlargement should not be exaggerated with respect to a growing importance of Eastern Europe. The EU's enlargement will also not change the general attitude of the EU towards the U.S. In Poland for example, typically a close ally of the U.S., public opinion towards the U.S. has dropped due to the visa issue, that is, of denying Poland access to the visa waiver program.

Josef Janning, deputy director of the Center for Applied Policy Research, focused his statement on the military emergence of the EU. He clearly sees not only a common security and defense policy, but a real European Defense Union (EDU) on its way. Located along a neighboring 'zone of threat and risk' stretching from the Caucasus through the Near and Middle East to North Africa, the EU has to develop better military capabilities and will, thus, create a new Balance of Power on a global scale. But even today, the EU is already a global actor by actually NOT acting and by NOT exercising its power. In other words, the EU is not a soft-power, it has soft-power. However, in order to become a global actor on the same level as the United States, the EU needs to make its soft-power more effective. The EU finds itself currently within a learning process. Instead of aiming at counter weighing NATO, the EU needs to pool its resources in order to become more effective and to modernize the forces.

Throughout the history of the EU, WEU and NATO, there has always been a huge degree of institutional free-riding. Additionally, the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy has failed to deliver on security such as in the Balkans. In its current form, CFSP is largely declaratory politics and lines up the member states, that is, it is largely a coordination mechanism. The failure to deliver on security is primarily due to the fact that very few foreign policy aspects are going on between the EU and its member states; foreign policy by far has remained a national sphere, whereas the EU has turned rather into domestic affairs.

Simply redefining the problem according to Leslie Gelb would not work for the European CFSP; CFSP would rather continue to work on endless resolutions without showing real teeth. This is the point where a European Defense Union as the new rationale enters the play. Even though the EU's future constitution doesn't provide an ideal framework for an EDU due to the too weak entailed solidarity clause, it nevertheless contains the European Defense Union as an option, especially as an area of enhanced cooperation. The major difference between such a future EDU and NATO would be that the European Defense Union would require full commitment by all its members which is to be guaranteed in a solidarity clause, whereas NATO, on the other hand, would continue as an organization of half-commitment.

In the discussion that followed, topics such as constitution, power and migration were touched upon. It was pointed out that it had been a strength of European integration to leave much open space in terms of power distribution. Is the diplomatic lesson learned from Iraq, therefore, that Europe plainly needs to have more military capabilities? Is the lesson for the U.S. that even the best military capabilities cannot solve the problem? For the EU, the real question of power will not be defined and answered by military capabilities – which would already give the most power to France and Britain –, but the answer lies in the still debated decision-making process and the enshrined questions of democracy and sovereignty. Currently, even though the EU is not a democratic institution, but an institution of democracies, there is already more "state" in the EU than has usually been seen. The EU's constitution does not have the big volonté général momentum since the former EU treaties already had a constitutional character. The question emerges then: what will the driving force behind European integration be in the future? Terrorism? Technology?

With respect to migration issues, it went largely undoubted that the EU had in integration problem with its Muslim minorities and methods of solving it. Compared to the U.S., Europe will never be a "melting pot", but rather always a "salad bowl" for several different cultural reasons. In addition, most European countries lack a specific "integration culture" which enables a swift and lasting integration of immigrants into a nation. Therefore, external immigration and inter-EU migration will remain a big challenge for the EU.

Panel IV: "The United Nations in trans-Atlantic relations"

Regarding the events leading to the US-led invasion in Iraq, Ambassador William Luers, President and CEO of the United Nations Association of the USA, told the audience that in spite of the Iraq war and against many expectations, not only is the U.S. still highly appreciated in the UN, but also that still approximately 70% of the US-Americans have a positive approach to the UN. Even NATO has less popularity in the U.S. The reason is that the UN is considered to be more important for a global burden-sharing in military and financial terms. With this support in the US-American population, the UN will not be permanently undermined by the failure to reach an Iraq resolution prior to the invasion. In contrast, the U.S. has lost importance in the UN’s norm-setting role by evading the rocky path through the UN Security Council.

The failure to deliver on Iraq has made one thing about the UN more obvious than ever before: The United Nations and especially the Security Council need to be reformed. However, it is also crystal clear, that any reform of the UN without the support by the U.S. will not happen. Without the support of the U.S., the UN will die. At the same time, marginal reforms will not change the US’ approach to the UN. The member states and organs of the UN need to show that they can deal with security challenges such as terrorism and WMD including a related global burden-sharing. Therefore a combination of reform ideas is needed.

Germany’s Permanent Representative to the UN and President of the Security Council at the time, Gunter Pleuger, responded that the recent facts and developments in Iraq have turned the "irrelevance" of the UN into the opposite. Instead of being irrelevant, the UN proved irreplaceable in Afghanistan, in Africa and elsewhere. But Pleuger was also very aware that the role of the UN had a huge impact on trans-Atlantic relations. The rule of law with respect to the use of force is highly debated among the Atlantic partners. For example, whereas it is broadly supported by the U.S., humanitarian intervention is still a difficult issue to discuss with the German population. The same holds even more so when dealing with a preemptive strike. The reason is that both are not part of the UN charter. At the same time WMD as a threat go largely undoubted in Germany, but the question is how to deal with WMD under Chapter 7 of the UN charter. As a result, trans-Atlantic relations were strained largely because of a lack of strategic dialogue inside and outside the UN.

From left to right: Jim Hoge, Gunter Pleuger, William Luers, Werner Weidenfeld.

The question of how to deal with WMD and whether preventive strikes may in this case be legitimate is a question that the Security Council will have to answer in a resolution in the near future. The problem that may emerge however is that the Security Council will thus set international legislation which itself is - strictly seen - against the UN Charter as no imminent threat is given. Unlike in an international convention, in this case the 15 Security Council members would make and shape international law with all other 176 member states of the UN being excluded from the legislation procedure. The procedural result would be a doubling of UN structure and the Security Council would become even more powerful with its own administrative structure while the UN as a whole may, thus, loose legitimacy. From a very different angle, this again calls for the Security Council to be reformed and restructured, because resolutions by the Security Council have to be borne by all countries.

With respect to the use of force it was pointed out in the discussion that unlike Europe, the U.S. feels less constrained by international law. For the U.S., international law is more a devolution from national sovereignty to international organizations, whereas for Europeans, international law is above national law and national sovereignty. Much of the European support for international organizations stems from the experiences of World War II, but also from the Europeans' positive experience with multilateralism from the EU integration. Nevertheless the United Nations plays an immense role in this context, because military force is no means to sustain order in the long-run. The increasing UN relevance lies, thus, in the fact that it is a global organization and can effectively carry out nation-building and peace-building. There are currently fifteen UN peacekeeping missions (seven major ones) on the ground, and five more are in the making. The costs of these missions will double in the future. One result of this development is that more regional organizations will be included in peacekeeping missions in the future due to the increase of missions to come. Therefore the means for the EU to take over the Kosovo UN protectorate need to be created. The planned twelve EU battle groups are one good option of what efficient support of UN peacekeeping missions can look like.

With respect to Iraq, no answer as to whether the UN could be successful on the ground was made. The UN secretariat wants to withdraw from Iraq, and the UN Secretary General put up five preconditions for a return to Iraq which can hardly be met.