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European Security: Does it Matter to the United States?

H.E. Minister Radosław Sikorski

Harvard University, August Zaleski Lecture

28 February 2011

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In 1923 Polish Lieutenant-General Józef Haller visited Boston.

He came here to thank Polish-American volunteers who had fought in the First World War under his command.

Poland, supported by President Woodrow Wilson, had regained its international voice. As August Zaleski wrote in his Landmarks of Polish History, that voice had long been silenced by its neighbours.

It is a great honour to give this lecture here at Harvard in memory of August Zaleski.

Zaleski served twice as Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was President-in-exile when Poland was under Soviet domination.

It was said that “he was one of the most taciturn ministers of foreign affairs that Europe had ever known.”

Inspired by my great predecessor I intend not to be quiet as taciturn as he was.

I want to talk about European security. Why it matters to me. And why it matters to you.

* * * * *

When I was your age, we had a different sort of security in Europe.

The pseudo-security of the Cold War. Of barbed wire fences.

Of people being gunned down for trying to move from one part of Berlin to another.

Of secret police knocking on the door in the night to round up people who wanted to choose their own government.

Humour was a recipe for some comfort: Do you know what was a Soviet Union secure border? Soviet Union’s secure border was Soviet soldiers on both sides of it. 

Today, Poland’s security situation could not be more different. Thanks in good part to the leadership of the United States, Poland is free of those terrors.

Poland has been a member of the North Atlantic Alliance for over a decade. Later this year Poland takes over the EU Presidency for the first time. An amazing transformation, for those of us who have lived through it.

Now others want their freedom too. Events in Egypt and Libya are grabbing the headlines. Quite right too.

But let’s not forget 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell there is still plenty of unfinished democracy business in Europe.

Cyprus; Kosovo; Bosnia; frozen conflicts in Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh; integrating Ukraine, Moldova and the Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community.

Last but not least, the disgraceful Belarusian dictatorship, right on Poland’s own borders. Dictatorship which lets out political prisoners from jail only after having tortured them and extorted a promise to spy on fellow opposition colleagues. That what  happened today to Ales Michalewicz.

Belarus is still an effective dictatorship. It’s a place where they do have elections - but the elections are rigged to get one so-called winner, President Lukashenko, Europe’s famous answer to Colonel Kaddafi!

Belarus is militarily integrated with Russia. Together they count a million troops.

While Belarus is pretending that the Cold War is still alive and well, Poland has moved on.

We take defence seriously, spending 2 percent of our GDP. We have gained important modern warfare experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Within a decade our defence system should deter any conventional adversary, including even scary President Lukashenko.

But what about unconventional adversaries?

These days they pop up as if from nowhere. Pirates on the high seas. Religious fanatics with laptops skulking in faraway caves.

Before doing this job I had the honour to serve as Poland’s Defence Minister. So I know about just how hard it is to plan against these exotic new threats.

They say that the problem with generals is that they always want to fight the last war, not the next one.

But what if you can’t begin to imagine what the next war will look like, or where it will come from?

It may even be invisible. You suddenly realise that your key national infrastructure has been deliberately infected with killer computer viruses, launched at the speed of light from somewhere on the other side of the planet. And everything just … stops.

Dealing with this sort of thing requires fast, clever cutting-edge cooperation round the world between friends you can really trust. And at the heart of making that happen is the US/European relationship.

* * * * *

In this unpredictable world you’re inheriting, there are some core realities.

First and foremost, Europe is at peace.

Let’s remember when it wasn’t. And what that cost your country.

In June 1944 American Rangers – just your age, some maybe grandfathers or great-grandfathers of people at Harvard today - started climbing the cliffs of Normandy under intense fire from the Nazi defenders.

They climbed those cliffs to rescue Europe from its own extremism.

Ronald Reagan’s famous speech on those same cliffs in 1984 described what happened:

They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.

Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top

In seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.

That heroic success laid the foundation for what we have today: the huge power and energy of the US/European relationship.

EU/USTransatlantic flows of trade and investment amount to around $1 billion a day.

That’s a lot of money, even by Harvard standards.

Together we represent over 50% of global GDP.

Whatever China, India and Brazil may do, that massive dynamic relationship is not going to go away any day soon

And it needs protecting.

Not surprisingly the United States is asking Europe to shoulder more of the burden.

As seen from the outside, the European Union spends an inordinate amount of time closely examining its own entrails, and stirring its alphabet soup of institutional acronyms.

In Harvard of all places, there’s no point running away from awkward facts.

Europe’s fine-sounding declarations have not been matched by investments in defence.

The combined military expenditure of EU member states fell from 2.1% of GDP in 1997 to 1.7% in 2007; about 250 bln euros, almost a half of what US spends.

Does that matter?

Yes it does, when an urgent security job arises, and the Europeans struggle to send a few helicopters into battle.

But it is not the only thing that matters. 

The European Union delivers wide-ranging and generous programmes: generous development aid programs of more than 50 billion dollars annual value from EU and member-states budgets.

As Harvard’s Joe Nye emphasises, “soft power” is a precious commodity in today’s world. The EU’s ambitious and effective conflict prevention and state-building programmes are making a major stabilising impact, across the European continent and far beyond.

* * * * *

In that context, a word about Russia. Always a subject dear to any Pole’s heart, the only country which celebrates national day on the anniversary of the expulsion of Polish contingent from Moscow in the beginning of XVII century.

President Obama came to office determined to make a new start with Moscow. To press that “reset” button in US/Russia relations.

That has made a difference.

• A new START treaty has been concluded, paving the way for future arms reductions.
• The UN Security Council has got tougher on Iran
• Logistics lines for Afghanistan have been secured.

However, the “reset” has somehow not yet included a change in Russia’s attitude to the post-Soviet space, including parts of Europe itself.

The Russia and Belarus joint 2009 military exercises on Poland’s borders were held under the provocative and ridiculous scenario of repelling an invasion by NATO.

Russia’s military doctrine released last year describes NATO enlargement as a ‘threat’ – despite 14 years of friendly and mainly constructive NATO/Russia dialogue and cooperation!

Does anybody in this room think that we, as the West, would have the folly, or energy, to attack Russia? Our Russian friends really need to chill out.

Let me be quite clear where we stand.

Planning European and global security without acknowledging Russia’s important and legitimate role in it makes no sense.

Poland is dedicated to good relations with Russia.

Russia is our neighbour. We are working hard together with Russia to resolve some sensitive historical issues.

Poland is at the forefront of easing EU travel restrictions for ordinary Russians.

However, as Harvard professor Karl Deutsch puts it: a security community rests upon shared values.

Democracy, markets, and respect for the rights of the individual – these define relations between Europe and America.

Russia, along with many other former Soviet republics, still does not accept those values. Moscow hankers after something rather different: ‘managed democracy’. Which is fine - if you are one of the managers.

Russia’s attitude to different frozen conflicts in the former Soviet union can politely be described as ‘ambiguous’.

It has not used its huge influence to resolve the tiny Transdnistria problem.

Moldova is just one of several European countries, along with Ukraine and Belarus - the “Lands Between” - that need our coordinated help to keep moving to a full and stable democracy.  

Secretary Clinton made this point strongly at last month’s Munich conference:

Europe – and by extension the United States – cannot be secure if parts of it are insecure.

And some parts of Europe are still insecure.

Which is why Poland and other central and eastern European countries welcome a continuing American political and military presence in Europe.

We do not suffer from a perpetual insecurity complex.

Rather we know that the United States takes democracy seriously, not out of charity but as a key national strategic interest of its own.

And that even in modern Europe there are large areas of unfinished businesses, where democracy still needs nurturing.

The US military presence takes various forms. Missile defence infrastructure, Patriot batteries, joint exercises and the permanent US air detachment on Polish territory.

Strategic reassurance also comes from non-military means. We value US support for the Eastern Partnership, a priority of the Polish EU Presidency.

We also welcome the close attention the US pays to energy security in Europe.

We support the diversification of suppliers and supply routes. The exploration of shale gas with US help creates many opportunities and may end up reducing Poland’s energy dependence.                

* * * * *

As American administration officials have stated many times, the US is looking for partners to share the burden of managing global security.

Poland is one of those partners. Poland is serious about security.

We know what it’s like to be oppressed – to be prisoners in our own land.

We know just how much your country - and this University - did to help us regain our freedom.

Poland brings fresh ideas and energy. Our men and women have joined most of the US’ recent military missions without quibbling.

• We contribute to your security, as you contribute to ours.
• We’ll never be a free rider.

Now, as the stagnant status quo in North Africa unravels, the EU and USA need once again urgently to find ways to work together, to promote peaceful change and a steady transition towards democracy, or at least some sort of honest pluralism.

Dramatic events in Libya are accelerating as I speak.

The US and Europe are putting intense pressure on the Gaddafi regime to stop the violence and step aside.

Libya will need generous help building new democratic institutions. So will all sorts of other countries.

Only European countries working in the closest partnership with the United States and others including Canada can take on this job, and give generous, fair-minded leadership.

NATO is experiencing a new lease of life, having adopted a new strategic concept and missile defence as its core mission in Lisbon. It is there that it was declared that “the EU is a unique and essential partner for NATO.”

We dare not fail.

Because if all these changes go badly wrong and that region slumps into chronic, violent disarray, vital European and US security interests alike will be threatened for far into the future.

Your own lives will be a lot less happy and secure.

Poland has long and hard experience in this sort of transition. We know about dismantling dirty secret police structures and opening the dark archives of repression.

We know about setting up honest banks.

We know about building the rule of law from scratch.

We are ready and willing to share this experience with Belarus, North Africa and anywhere else need it.

* * * * *

I’ll be discussing in Washington tomorrow how best to take all this forward.

There is no time to waste.

With so many dramatic and uncertain changes speedily occurring in the world - and above all across the Middle East and in Asia - no country big or small can afford to abandon its traditional friendships.

Especially when those friendships – like the friendship between the United States and Europe - are founded in shared values and colossal shared interests

Thank you for your attention. I am happy to take a few questions

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