Iraq, diplomacy, EU, Europe, United States, Bosnia, Kosovo

The Chilcot Report saga prompts me into reposting a speech I gave in Germany in 2004 about Iraq, diplomacy and pretty much everything.

Here it is in full.

Looking back on it now I conclude that it’s too long, repetitive/involved and lacks ‘Structure’. Not clear what two or three key questions it’s addressing and answering.

Yet there are lots of good lines and ideas for anyone interested in diplomacy, and how issues wax and wane with time. It was delivered when the Iraq invasion had toppled Saddam and huge efforts were being made to launch Iraq on a new, peaceful path. It therefore comes across as (absurdly?) optimistic now?

Thus:

Kagan argues that because the US and Europe have different options, they think differently.

“A man armed only with a knife may decide that a bear left prowling the forest is a tolerable danger … hunting the bear with a knife is riskier than lying low and hoping the bear never attacks. The same man armed with a rifle will make a different calculation of a tolerable risk.”

He’s right. Washington has different practical options for addressing global issues. It shows in their confidence. If they see a problem they want to fix it. They think they can fix it. They deploy money and people fast to do it.

In late 1995 the Clinton Administration decided to ram through a Bosnia peace settlement. I attended the last Contact Group meeting in Moscow before the Dayton Peace Conference for Bosnia. The US delegation led by Holbrooke and future Democratic Presidential runner Gen Clark seemed bigger than us. We were given the US position on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. We took it.

Going back to Kagan’s bear, the metaphor like the bear can run in different directions. A man with a rifle is well armed. But that does not make him any smarter. Hunters with only a knife creeping through the forest see things from closer range. They may notice that shooting the bear from a distance will stir up the nearby hornets nests.

Europeans live closer to the Middle East hornets nest than the Americans. We say we have special insights. We argue the need to proceed carefully. We may even be right. But being right is not the same as being effective. Plus sometimes bears eat hunters …

Diplomats focus on three questions:

What is Legal? What is Achievable? What is Wise? They do not focus enough on a fourth: What is Done Well?

Even if our policies are Legal and Achievable, they may not be Wise. And even if our policies are Legal and Achievable and Wise – what if they are just not Done Well? The public can live with disagreements on policy. That’s democracy. What the public really likes is success. A tough job done well. And what it really dislikes is incompetence. Things not Done Well.

After years in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina and post-conflict Serbia and Montenegro, I have bad news. Democracies and international organisations, European and American, EU and UN alike, are not good at interventions. Nor are they good at learning lessons from their failures and successes. There are dozens of things I could say on why this is the case. But let me mention just two.

First, a core problem after you intervene successfully to topple dictators is what you do with all the nasty people who did well from the previous regime. If you marginalize them they sabotage reform. If you incorporate them they get rich at our expense and frustrate change; you seem to be rewarding bad behaviour, which dismays moderates.

There is no principled answer to this. Each case is different. But it needs to be thought through and prepared and explained in advance. The neighbours you are liberating know that their oppressors are dangerous people. They want to know if you really mean it, or whether those oppressors will be coming back in smarter suits we have paid for.

Second, we bang on about a market economy but our interventions are strikingly ‘socialist’. They are driven by governments and bureaucrats, paternalistic, top-down, all about rules, about “we know best”.

I have attended many conferences and senior seminars about bringing peace to the Balkans. I almost never see a single business person there. People at these events say: “Oh, it would be nice to hear what a businessman thinks” as if it was some kind of exotic optional extra.

* * * * *

In short, many of our problems in Bosnia, Kosovo and now Iraq are all about our failure to have a clear plan for Doing the Job Well.

The Americans do have one clear advantage over us in Doing Things Well. They offer deals.

US diplomats constantly try to move things forward by offering packages of positive/negative incentives. It works. Not perfectly. But it works.

There is no comparable EU mechanism for this. EU positions are hard to agree in the first place and thereafter even harder to change. We are simply not effective at promoting real-life changes in this way, especially with fast-moving difficult targets. Instead we sit and watch, usually complaining about something …

After WW2 America made a strategic investment in European democracy. We have used this investment well. We have invented unique new mechanisms for intelligent cooperation. This is a huge success for us. The world can breathe a sigh of relief. The crazy Europeans are not on the rampage again.

So under the shade of American power a pleasant, European micro-climate has grown up. This success is making us think that we have invented the answer to the world’s ills: ‘Post-Modern Europe’.

But what signal does it convey? A tough, determined, businesslike Europe? Or a self-absorbed, whimsical Europe bent on ‘deconstructing’ national pride? As the British Minister of Europe Dr MacShane put it recently, “The US symbol is the Eagle. Russia’s symbol is the Bear. What is the EU’s symbol? The Ostrich?”

A real technical problem the EU faces is that what makes us strong internally – methodical, polite consensus-building – is no help against fast, dangerous pre-Modern Extremists …

Well, that problem is now worse than back in 2004.

Concluding:

Our policies need to be Wise.

A few people armed with AK 47s or a hijacked jumbo jet can murder hundreds of people or cause incredibly costly disruption and panic. We need to mobilise moderate people round the planet against these extremists. But moderates are not going to be stronger or more intelligent than we are.

The planet’s masses are not stupid. They know that the West means democracy, cool gadgets and higher living standards. They may well accept Western and US leadership if it is explained in a fair-minded way. But they can’t be pushed around any more. Policies which are contradictory or unfair or done badly aren’t convincing.

Wisdom is all about keeping perspective. Policies which are unpopular today may be wise and far-sighted when seen over a ten or twenty year period.

Millions of Europeans and Americans alike thought that President Reagan’s call for Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall’ was a dangerous provocation. But his firmness of purpose matched by a readiness to talk helped bring about extraordinary things. Such as the unification of your country.

And our policies must be Done Well. No scandals. No abuses. Careful planning.

But let’s also remember that even a policy which in important respects is not Done Well may well be better than doing nothing at all, saying that it is all too complicated, leaving problems to get worse and worse – but complaining when someone else does try to do something.

If you want a stereotype, here is mine tonight. Americans are strong but too short-term. Europeans are long-term but too weak. Neither is good enough.

Europeans’ patient inclusive methods have a lot to offer. But so has US capability to move fast and hard against criminal extremists attacking democratic life all round the planet.

In Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo we are trying to replace repressive leaderships and build a decent society. I have lived in countries devastated by Communism and Apartheid. Promoting a decent society is a cause worth supporting. A decent society is not new laws and new rules, although they help. It means mobilising energy and creativity. It means letting markets – not bureaucrats – take decisions. Here US instincts are better than ours.

It means patiently building a new consensus between people who may hate each other. Having sympathy with history. Listening as well as doing. Here European instincts are better than American.

My message to Mars: Being strong is not the same as being right. My message to Venus: Being right is not much use if you can’t do anything.

I think the word is teamwork.

Some of the time we live on Mars, some of the time on Venus. Most of the time we live between Mars and Venus, namely here on Earth.

A planet where things are getting complicated but have to be explained in 18 second sound-bites. Where free societies which depend on each other need to work together on what really matters.