Transatlantic Politics

This week, Bob Gates was in Munich at the Security Conference, where he hold a pretty tough speech on NATO unity and strength. Here some excerpts:

“The distinction I would draw is a very practical one - a “realistà€™s” view perhaps: It is between Alliance members who do all they can to fulfill collective commitments, and those who do not.
NATO is not a à€œpaper membership,à€œ or a à€œsocial club,à€œ or a à€œtalk shop.à€œ It is a military alliance - one with very serious real world obligations.”

There cannot be any doubt: The world needs a vibrant and muscular transatlantic alliance. The cooperation between our countries must continue and it must deepen. We will need to work hard at it. And we are working hard together in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, and, many of us, in Iraq.

As we face these challenges as rich and powerful democracies, it is worth recalling the words of a leader of a fledgling and weak alliance of disparate provinces with:

• Disrupted economies;
• Differing issues and goals;
• Diverse allegiances;
• Mutual suspicion;
• An army comprised of soldiers often with parochial loyalties, and lacking in equipment and training; and
• With but one strong ally.

George Washington reminded his countrymen - and us - that à€œPerseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.à€œ These should be our watchwords going forward: à€œPerseveranceà€œ and à€œspirit.à€œ And, I should add - à€œunity.à€œ

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If only the EU finally woke up. But no, one small step at the time. Meanwhile, Russia is moving much quicker in getting back the Soviet-style influence and domination upon countries like Ukraine.

During his visit to Berlin, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that he has no doubts that one day his country will join the EU. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the EU’s rotating Presidency, said she endorses a close cooperation agreement with Ukraine and when this will be implemented “we’ll see how we will go further”.
Is it so hard to say “yes, one day you will join, but you first have to meet all the criteria”?
At least NATO should move faster. On Saturday,Yushchenko is to attend the Conference on Security Policy in Munich. He is expected to meet with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. And to be given a perspective for his country to join NATO.

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French Interior Minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy defended “Charlie Hebdo”, a French weekly sued for publishing the (in)famous Mohammad cartoons. “I prefer too many caricatures to an absence of caricature” said Sarkozy in a letter read out by “Charlie Hebdo’s” lawyer in the Paris court where the case is being heard.

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When even the NATO Secretary General admits it publicly, why further pretend that the Alliance is working properly? With countries like France or Belgium who fear the “American influence” more than the Muslim terrorists or the energy and political dependency on Russia - where is the EU heading?

“Some deliberately want to keep NATO and the EU at a distance from one another. For this school of thought, a closer relationship between NATO and the EU means excessive influence for the USA. I do not share European instinctive fears about undue influence of the USA in European affairs anyhow. Europe is sufficiently self-aware à€“ and they know it in Washington too,” Jaap De Hoop Scheffer.

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Hmm…remember France? and all the jokes about their consistency and courage during wartime? This is not a joke. This is for real.

Speaking to the New York Times, IHT and Nouvel Observateur journalists, monsieur Chirac said this: “Having one [atomic bomb], maybe a second one a little later, well, that’s not very dangerous. Where will [Iran] drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground.” His aides quickly realized their man had committed the gaffe of saying what everyone thought he really believed, and so left out those passages from an official interview transcript. The journalists also got a return call from the president on Tuesday, in which he noted that “I should have paid better attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 2, 2007, page A18.

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