No. 9/2014

Looking Forward: U.S.-Czech Relations

Cameron Munter

Americans and Czechs can work the opportunity to build a greater together on global issues, and I’ll sense of purpose in the relationship Cameron Munter suggest later how we can best use by renewing our efforts to define our interests and talents to do so. common tasks and a common (PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, IN But first, I want to address the basis vision—and not allowing ourselves CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA) of our relationship, since our simply to coast on the self- cooperation needs a strong and congratulation of our achievements Mr. Munter is an American diplomat self-conscious basis: how do we deal of past years and the establishment and career foreign service officer. with one another as we purport of institutions to channel our work Prior to his current post he served as to deal with the rest of the world? together. the Ambassador to Pakistan. He had As we reflect on the events of the Part of the reason for this vague also served as the Ambassador in Belgrade from 2007 to 2009. In 2006, last 25 years, we can justifiably be disquiet—this sense that the he had led the first Provincial proud of what we have seen in U.S.- relationship needs a bit of a push to Reconstruction Team in Mosul, Iraq. Czech relations. An extraordinary move forward—is, I believe, that He had been the Deputy Chief of Czech contribution to the end of the both countries have rather quietly Mission in from 2005 to 2007 Communist dictatorship. An out backed into believing that they do and in Warsaw from 2002 to 2005. pouring of goodwill from the U.S. not need a policy for each another. government and people in the 1990s, The Czechs, and especially those Mr. Munter had held senior positions resulting in assistance programs Czechs in positions of political at the National Security Council ranging from the Peace Corps to authority, spend a lot of their time in (1999–2001), Department of State stipends for top students. Coopera- their roles as members in good (1998–1999), Northern European tion in the military field leading to standing in the European Union, and Initiative (1998) and NATO membership in NATO and our sol- their immediate tasks are defined by Enlargement Ratification Office diers standing shoulder to shoulder that institutional affiliation. Europe is (1997–1998). in peacekeeping commitments close, Brussels is demanding and if around the world. And greater con- there is a policy toward the United

tacts between our peoples from all States, well, it will most likely be walks of life. a pan-European project. Yet rather than delve into these The Americans, for their part, look at achievements, I choose to focus on the world in 2014 somewhat differ- what we do next: how we conceive ently than they did in 1989, and of our task, and where we need to according to which pundit you listen go. In fact, there is a sense that we to, they think about the rise of China, need to renew the relationship, that the terrorist threat, nuclear prolifera- the expectations of friendship that tion or even questions of inequality both countries have for one another at home and abroad. Today’s date— are somehow unmet, and even that, 9/11, the anniversary of the attacks in some ways, we have grown apart. in 2001 in New York—reminds us Symbolically, it didn’t help that that the attitudes and priorities of the position of ambassador from the American policy have indeed United States to the undergone extraordinary changes in went unfilled for nearly two years the last ten years. In that sense, even recently. I believe that we now have though Europe is close, Europe is not

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No. 9/2014

the Europe of yesteryear, and those the United States and Europe on the hard to define but which is probably larger, intractable problems mean promotion of free trade, or on cli- the most important. That’s the that there is not a lot of extra mate change or on counterterrorism. cultural dimension. Those of us who capacity to understand the details The European component states spent time as diplomats in what was of the lives of friends, even good would not be the object of U.S. policy then before the end friends like the Czechs. but rather, participants in a process of communism recall that America by which we tried to take was as much a concept as it was In this sense, then, we are the victims on problems around the world, a country, a symbol to many of what of our own success. In the last 25 global challenges we agreed on. their own life was not (unreasonable years, the underlying policy guiding as such expectations might be) and diplomats from Washington and This called for the integration of such the yardstick by which a kind of Prague, myself included, was erasing countries as the Czech Republic into normality might be measured. For the line that Stalin had drawn across the structures of common action, those few Americans who spent time Europe and integrating the countries first into NATO (because that was the here during those years, there was, once behind the Iron Curtain into the institution that the United States in certain circles, an intensity that broader world, most notably through belonged to, after all) and then the seemed lacking back in the States, accession to institutions like NATO EU (which was, in a more a series of debates, in kitchens or and the EU. What would naturally fundamental sense, a true goal of the country homes, about ethics, politics, follow, we believed, was a kind of post-1989 reforms). At the time, meaning in the broadest sense. magical deepening of affinities, cul- in the 1990s, when we debated these Philip Roth summed it up for many tural identification, civic virtue and changes we considered the first when he said the difference between rule of law and democratic depth. step—NATO enlargement—to be East and West was that in the East, For Americans, this meant there the creation of an incubator, the nothing was possible but everything would be a new Europe, and the idea secure surroundings in which mattered; in the West, everything of Europe—articulated in a famous European identity could first be was possible but nothing mattered. article in the New York Review defined as a commitment to the In other words, there were of Books by Milan Kundera in 1985— defense of all, or in a way expectations visited upon Americans would come into alignment with its an expression of solidarity and and Czechs by each other, in which reality. Kundera’s notion was that sacrifice as well as protection; and Americans wanted to believe that there was a cultural space to which then the next step, accession a bold experiment at the end civilized people in Central Europe to the EU, which could have an of communism might bring a civic aspired (perhaps overly sentimental- impact on the daily life of citizens, movement that renewed democratic ly, since Western Europeans were no meaning not only free travel and ideals; and of course, one in which longer the Europeans of pre-war a higher living standard but, we Czechs wanted to believe that they memory). The point was that ideals hoped, a common effort to define would again be part of the greater and institutions would be one. citizenship, to build institutions world that had been taken from fostering attitudes toward justice and For American policymakers, the new them decades ago, and would rebuild rule of law, and to do nothing less post-1989 idea behind a new Europe a public sphere worthy of respect than create a bold experiment in was that there would not be around the globe. which Western values, in their most a “Czech” policy any more than there basic sense, were not simply layered This psychological dimension is would be a “Swedish” policy or onto the former communist states the one that has, inevitably, changed a “Portuguese” policy; Europe was but took root in such a way that both the most in the last 25 years. increasingly a unit, and while parts of Europe, old and new, would Not that it was flawed or wrong; peripheral issues remained synthesize a new way of living and indeed, it drew young Americans to (the future of Ukraine, progress attitude toward public life. Prague in droves in the first years among the Balkan States), the goal of the 1990s, and inspired a steady was to find a way to work with There was another dimension to the stream of Czech students in Europe on global issues. For example, relationship, of course, one that is

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No. 9/2014

the United States to this day. But it It is reasonable, then, that here, it must be on mutually agreed has matured, and the expectations the outgoing American ambassador terms: what do Czechs think they are, with the passage of time, some- to the Czech Republic has listed want from the United States? what less. For many Americans, the achievements of his time here Have the Czechs simply concluded the passing of Václav Havel (and his modestly and straightforwardly: that that the relationship with America colleagues like Rita Klimová, Zdeněk in the realm of security ties, we work will be one of a smaller member Urbánek or Jiří Dienstbier) illustrates together against Russian aggression of a European unit with a large and this change. And, I imagine, for many in Ukraine and have cooperated, overwhelmingly militarily powerful Czechs, the realization that American through NATO, on multilateral country, one whose relative power in politicians like George W. Bush programs based here; and that in the world is perhaps declining, even or are perhaps not the the realm of commerce and business, as the relative impact of Europe itself towering figures that previous we have six billion dollars a year in declines? And what is it that generations considered the likes bilateral trade, up 100 percent over the Americans can define as they of Ronald Reagan to be was also part the last four years (admittedly, from look at the role the Czechs play of a maturing process, a process the bottom of an economic trough). in Europe and the world? of gaining insights into the real These are not the sweeping changes We should start with an honest elements of the way politics works we remember from 25 years ago assessment: that Americans in both countries. when, a year after the events recognize that politics in the Czech of November 17, George H. W. Bush So in that, when we reflect on Republic are hindered by cynicism stood in Wenceslas Square and spoke the last 25 years, we can say, rather and inward-lookingness, by of the New Europe and its wistfully, that much of the passion corruption and a persistent lack of possibilities. But perhaps it’s fitting has left the relationship, self-confidence, even fatalism. For that the love once new has now passion based on rather romantic a time, after 1989, the Americans grown old, and that our expectations expectations that could only be kept imbued in the Czechs superhuman of one another are modest, when we didn’t know one another as powers; there was a period when we achievable and (one would like to well as we do now. Czechs can look said, “Yes, Czechs are not Švejk!” think) honest in their understanding at the 2003 Iraq War and wonder But an honest appraisal of these of what’s possible. what the Americans were thinking, domestic issues is due in America, or perhaps reflect on the zigzag If that is true—if we have come to not to make Americans respect of American policy toward missile the end of the beginning of the post- the Czechs less but to gain defense or the “reset” with Russia 1989 era, symbolized by the concept an appreciation of the domestic and find it difficult to comprehend of a generation that has passed social issues still unsolved here. That, how American friendship and respect through those days of wonder— in turn, could lead to a better under- for the Czech Republic fit in. After all, should we aspire to reforge standing of what those American America is the land of Wilsonian the relationship in new ways that friends of the Czech Republic must ideals! For their part, Americans can reflect not only the immediate ques- do to engage to help their Czech look at the persistence of corruption tions of how our two countries have friends. The United States has in the Czech Republic and wonder, worked together since the fall of essentially pocketed the these many years after communism, but what has happened developments of the last 25 years the exuberance of the masses of elsewhere in the world during this and has largely turned its sights away key-jinglers in Wenceslas Square, time? from the region. That is a mistake. why such puzzling remnants of History has indeed not ended, and it There needs to be an agreement, a nontransparent system should is incumbent on us to maintain the among leaders in both countries, that prevail in a country that, after all, is effort to understand politics, we will do our best to escape the the land of the philosopher-king economics and, above all, tropes of the speeches and policies Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk! the cultural basis on which decisions we have relied on in recent decades. are made here. Nothing less than If America is to mean something

PCTR / CEVRO INSTITUT Jungmannova 17 / 110 00 Praha 1 / Czech Republic tel. /+ 420 221 506 737 // fax /+ 420 221 506 709 email / [email protected] // www.cevroinstitut.cz

No. 9/2014

that will work if we want to maintain another way: just as war is too and other institutions of higher a level of trust that will allow us to important to leave to the generals, learning from taking their places as cooperate on issues we both care international relations are too creators of the ideas and, more about. important to be left to the diplomats. important, the graduates who will The new players will be, in addition, create a world Americans and Czechs At the same time, we need to make business leaders from both want to see? Just this example leads sure that Czechs remain engaged in countries. Directors of institutions us to ask, “What do we know?” And American culture beyond what of higher learning. Leaders of when we find out, how do we Hollywood produces. Enormous nongovernmental organizations and institutionalize the way in which changes are taking place other institutions of philanthropic American institutions can reasonably in the United States, in part as giving and foundations. Civic leaders, expect to partner with Czech a result of demographics and mayors, others whose international counterparts for the benefit of both? migration, in part as the world role has often been limited to sister- economic order reshapes itself, in And if that basic work is under way, city formalities but whose potential is part as a result of how the United what then about those graduates, now much greater. States copes with the post-9/11 era should they not understand and the winding down of the wars Here are the links that need the business world of both countries, that have defined its world role for investment and work. Let us go the links that innovative business the last 15 years even as beyond the institutional means of leaders have with one another, the challenges that brought about important groups like the Chamber the global opportunities of changing those wars have not yet been solved. of Commerce and realize that there economies? Who can foster that, and It would be wise for Czechs are ways to bring businesses increase the chances that the best to embark on this reevaluation together that can be narrowed from Czech students and the best of the United States with the help the broad area of trade and invest- American professors—or the of their neighbors, both the smaller ment to the concerns of specific best American students and the best countries once referred to in sectors. What, for example, are the Czech professors—are working the United States as “the bloc” but advantages that the Czech Republic together to create those minds who also , Austria and others. offers in partnerships with other will build the culture and prosperity It will require nothing less than firms? We can talk about talented we both believe in? Who will be part the leveling of long-held assumptions young people in the Czech Republic, of that debate on what we have in about what the United States stands but we should dig a little deeper. common and, even more for, what it can do and how it can In which ways are the famous Czech importantly, where our cultures play a reasonable role in Czech life in universities reforming to meet differ on key elements of the vision the future. the challenges of the future? Do we of society, civic responsibility and need to take a closer look at whether lifestyle? Look to NGOs and civic How is this to happen? The means by Charles University, that fabled organizations on both sides of which we can reforge our under- institution with such a fine historical the Atlantic to do this, because if we standing of our friendship is pedigree, is adjusting to the needs wait for government-sponsored to recognize, in the first place, that of the revolution in information, efforts to do so, we may wait a long the state-state relationship is knowledge and wisdom that is time. an artifact of the past and that we sweeping the world? Does the Czech are playing to a stronger At the same time, let us take Technical University in Prague (that constituency (in both countries) an honest look at the way our is, ČVUT) have the facilities, the throughout society. In the 21st economies are structured. business links, the faculty and century, we need to remember that When Americans look at the Czech the vision to keep itself on the price we must pay for all Republic, they look with admiration the cutting edge of research in the the democratizing we have engaged at how companies like Škoda or coming century? Is there a stubborn in is that we have to look to many Pilsner Urquell have prospered in conservatism that prevents these places to find the road ahead. Or put partnership with foreign firms, and

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No. 9/2014

how Prague has become a major a lasting sense of security in that last an integrated member of European tourist destination. They don’t look area of Europe from which so many institutions. There is room for as closely at the Penta Group or problems have come, the Balkans; optimism about developments in Omnipol, and perhaps do not know to grapple with the cultural challenge , and many in the region the role of rich business leaders that the unsettled world of Islam believe they can work together (whether you call them entrepre- presents to those of us who treasure in a “Yugosphere” if fairness and neurs or oligarchs) in Czech life. order, tolerance and security; and prosperity are offered. But Bosnia In other words, now that we have to address the challenges remains a challenge, and come to the point where we can the migration from the poorer parts the historical resentments of that accurately assess each other— of the world, primarily from Africa, region have not simply evaporated. beyond the wild romance mean for us. In such a situation, the Czechs retain of pre-1989, through the changes a remarkably high reputation as Our responses to these challenges that have inevitably led to some a friend and honest broker, going will be clearer, gain more public questions and even disillusionment— back many years, but also based on support and have more sustained we need to take accurate and rather straightforward understanding and impact if we make those efforts cold-blooded looks at each other, continued contact. The United States to renew our understanding of one seeing not only the great possibilities and the Czech Republic can bring another, to come to common for a constructive set of renewed different strengths to the table there, positions on the vision we see for our friendships but an understanding and it may be in our grasp to encour- common cultural future. All the more of some of the less pleasant sides age others to come to a durable reason to work on that long-term that both countries can show. peace in the years to come. plane, to develop businesses and At the end of the day, however, even social ties and cultural affinities; but Similarly, one of the great weakness- if the essence of the relationship at the same time, to not neglect the es of the United States in the Islamic between the Czechs and institutions we have fortunately built world has been its propensity to see the Americans thrives if the social for ourselves to tackle these issues problems there strictly through and cultural links are renewed when we face them immediately. a lens of counterterrorism. Important through honest appraisal and as that is, it leaves us vulnerable to We should work closely on our creative partnerships, some of misunderstandings of these countries responses to the crude Russian the broader international issues will where disorder is rampant, and once nationalism that threatens not go away overnight. There were again there is much that our Czech the stability of Ukraine: the Czech those who wanted to believe in friends can teach us as we pool our Republic has much to teach 2004, when most of the countries of knowledge about the cultural and the United States about the problem the former bloc acceded to the EU, historical basis of what is happening in general and the Eastern European that there would be no more crises in in the Middle East. region in particular. And if, in Europe and that history would the long run, this becomes a question It will be only with the understanding indeed come to an end of sorts. And of resources, including a question of societies about what is happening that has not happened. The point is of whether natural gas will be on their borders (whether to build the fundamental links of our available at a reasonable price, then the Mexican border in the U.S. case, societies so as to strengthen our the United States needs to talk with or the Mediterranean Sea bonds, but it is decidedly not to allow the Czech Republic about in Europe’s) that we’ll gain state functions to atrophy. the revolution in technology that is an understanding of how we can be In classical security policy, in classical rapidly changing the balance secure in an era of mass migration. diplomacy, we need to work togeth- of energy holdings. This will be the work not only er, primarily but not exclusively of governments, of diplomats and through NATO, to face the very real In the Balkans, we stand on the brink police and militaries, but of those challenge that Vladimir Putin’s Russia of seeing a region that has suffered organizations, in development now presents us; to contribute to greatly in this last 25 years become and human rights, that have

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No. 9/2014

an understanding of what this The more we do this together, then as impressive as that which we have challenge will do to us. Again: the more we’ll build the sense just witnessed. Americans and Czechs know many of social solidarity, a shared sense things, and if we know them of the logic of the efforts we make in common, we are both stronger. with one another to address the real difficulties of our age. So let us try to do a few things together in the years to come, Third, let us be resolute and honest building on the past but not being in admitting what we can and cannot a slave to its habits. First, let us try do in international cooperation, in to avoid sentimentality and those areas that are of great concern romanticizing the past. By this I do to us all. I’ve mentioned relations not mean that we should ignore with Russia and the Ukraine crisis, the past or the achievements we contributions to Balkan stability and should rightfully treasure or prosperity, relations with the Islamic the historical tides that have linked world and coping with international our two countries. America is proud terrorism, and the challenge posed of its Czech-American citizens and by economic inequality that leads to their contribution to its mass migration that will change the development, just as Czechs are nature of our societies. There are probably the greatest preservers of more issues, some scientific, some a vision of the American West cultural, and these too should be the anywhere in the world. Rather, what topic of discussion wherever citizens I hope we can do is rid ourselves come together. of the predictive stereotyping that We need, then, to be honest in our has often taken place in these last assessments. We need to be modest eight years of great change, in our expectations. We need and acknowledge the maturity of our to admit that, in some cases, we each friendship, and that it can move see the world differently. And most ahead on a reasoned basis. of all, we need to make Second, let us focus on defining the commitment to pay attention, those social elements that we not sliding away from our interest understand about one another and in one another simply because of our can serve as the underlying basis for common success in integrating our relationship. By this I mean the Czech Republic into European deciding what our economic institutions since 1989. I believe that priorities are and building links with that set of guidelines, we can among our business leaders; take a fresh look at who the actors expanding the reach of education to are in our relationship and look include partnerships in institutions beyond limitations of state-to-state that allow the young talent in both links, important as those may be. countries to have opportunities that Because coming to a broad know fewer boundaries; and pulling consensus that, indeed, Americans together those who work and Czechs have a fair amount in voluntary association with one in common and, even more another to address the key issues of important, face common challenges our societies in ways that is the basis for another generation governments will not or cannot.

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