Transcript
Ronald Nessen: Good afternoon. Welcome to Brookings. I am Ron Nessen with Brookings. And I want to welcome you to this press briefing providing information, background, on President Clinton's trip to Europe and to Russia, beginning right after Memorial Day.
He will visit Portugal, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. And of course, the centerpiece of the trip is a visit and stop in Moscow, where he will meet with the new Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The format today is that our panelists will each speak to you briefly on one aspect of the trip, and then the floor will be open for questions. We do have people here with wireless microphones so that everyone can hear and so that we'll have an accurate transcript of the event for the website.
Also on the website, you'll find additional background material on the trip and the individual stops. If you haven't already, you should get a packet outside, which contains "completer" biographies of the panel, as well as some of their writings on this topic.
The speakers today, going first will be Philip Gordon. He is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program here. He is director of the relatively new Center on the United States in France here at the Brookings Institution. He'll talk about the European stops on President Clinton's trip.
Next you'll hear from Fiona Hill. She is director of Strategic Planning at the Eurasia Foundation. She'll talk about internal Russian politics as well as relations between Russia and other of the former Soviet states. Next--she's also the author of a number of books on the topic of internal Russian politics.
Cliff Gaddy will talk to you next. He is an expert on the Russian economy. He's a fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program here at Brookings and co-author of the forthcoming book "Russia's Virtual Economy", an expression that he originated, I believe, and which is now widely accepted as a description of the Russian economy. Cliff Gaddy.
And batting clean-up, as always, Richard Haass, the vice president and director of Foreign Policies Studies here at Brookings. He is going to talk about a number of topics that will come up during the trip, including arms control, U.S. politics as they affect the president's trip, and the summit from the American point of view.
So that's our briefing today. There'll be plenty of time for you to ask your questions. And I will then turn over the program first of all to Philip Gordon.
Philip Gordon: Thanks, Ron.
I'll be brief so that we can spend our time with questions. I just want to make two types of points about the European leg of this trip, one broad one about the transatlantic relationship and what I think the president will try to do on it, and secondly about the U.S.-EU summit in Portugal and the more specific issues that I think will be addressed there.
On the broad point of this trip, I think we should remember that this could well be, and indeed probably is, this president's last trip to Europe. Something else could come up that could bring him back to Europe, but I think they're looking at it as the final swing after a full presidency of European issues. And I think they'll--let me say what I think they--the way we want to portray this final trip and the way we should think about it.
It seems to me that the message from the president about this trip will be the culmination of a successful strategy in Europe. If you remember, after a lot of indecision in the administration's first year or so about what type of strategy to have in Europe in terms of what NATO's role would be, whether it would be involved in the Balkans, whether NATO would enlarge, indeed, whether NATO would be relevant, here we are some six years after they finally made these decisions. And I think they'll be pretty proud of the fact that, indeed, NATO kept its role, intervened in the Balkans, it enlarged and the process is underway.
So it seems to me the message and, as I think you all know, President Clinton is getting an award in Germany for his contributions to European unification. That's an award that has gone to so many of the most eminent statesmen in Europe and a few in the United States, and I think that will be a theme to sort of stand on, to say, "Look," you know, "we actually have a pretty successful strategy in Europe."
What do we think about that message that we'll hear from the White House about the president's success in Europe? I think it's largely right. I want to discuss two possible clouds on that horizon, but largely, I think one does have to give the administration credit for, after a very rocky start, putting together a coherent strategy of what they're trying to get done in Europe. And, again, if you look at this process of European integration, NATO enlargement, and then NATO's expanding roles in the Balkans, it's not a bad record, overall.
The clouds on that horizon seem to me to be two, and this will no doubt be an element of the discussions, both in Portugal with the EU and in Germany with German leaders. Two clouds seem to me to be there. One is--and I don't mean on specific issues, but on the broad relationship, one is European resentment or, I think, growing resentment of American domination and unilateralism; this feeling in America, driven largely by Congress but, therefore, reflected by the administration, that we need to have it our way and we need to do the things that we need to do and European views are only marginally taken into account.
I think--you know, a lot of Europeans come up with a long list of things, from the national missile defense program to the rejection of the CTBT, to Helms-Burton, ILSA, all sorts of examples of the United States--rejection of the international criminal court and so on--having to have it its way. And I think that cloud will be above this otherwise very positive theme of the very strong transatlantic relationship and the successful strategy in Europe.
The other one is the other side of the coin, which is U.S. constraints and resentment about the burdens of this European strategy. So, on one hand, you have the Europeans complaining a little bit about the American need to have it its own way. On this side, it's Americans--and again, I have to refer to Congress--being reluctant to really pay the price of this deep engagement. And maybe the best example of that recently--well, one example is the unilateralism that I gave examples of, but the other, of course, is, you know, the recent amendment that barely failed, about, you know, taking our troops out of the Balkans if the Europeans didn't pay their fair share and carry their fair share of the burden, the Byrd-Warner amendment, a sign of America not really being willing to bear these costs.
So these seem to me to be the broad clouds over an otherwise fairly successful strategy over this administration's entire time in Europe, and will be the basis, I think, for some of the discussions with the leaders.
That's my point about the broad message of this trip and the broad aspect of the relationship.
Let me just very briefly say something about the specifics, and that is to say the U.S.-EU summit, which is the first leg of the trip. An interesting thing about this U.S.-EU summit is that it raises the issue of who our partner in Europe is. Is it the European Union, or is it the countries and the leaders of the countries? Obviously, it's a bit of both.
This U.S.-EU summit is a step in the direction towards the EU itself being a partner. And I say that in the wake of increasing step towards to European unification and especially the evolving European Security Initiative, ESDP, European Security and Defense Policy. More than ever--and one should say that's not saying much, because the U.S.-EU summits in the past, in foreign policy terms, have not done particularly much. On economic things, it's a little bit different. But more than ever, with the qualification that "ever" isn't very much, this actually will be a somewhat strategic meeting, because they will talk about our collective engagement in the Balkans, and on that, the EU really does per se, as the EU, have a role.
They'll talk about Russia, setting up what we're going to do--and you'll hear from the others about the specific issues the