Czech-American Relations: a Roadmap for the Future

CZE CH-AMERIcaN RELATIONS: AM ROAD AP FOR THE FUTURE JOHN K. GLENN | BRUCE P. JACKSON | LUKÁš KOVANDA A. WESS MITCHELL | CaMERON MUNTER | TOMÁš POJAR LEAH SCHEUNEMANN | JiřÍ SCHNEIDER | ALEXANDR VONDra CZE CH-AMERIcaN RELATIONS: A ROM AD AP FOR THE FUTURE JOHN K. GLENN | BRUCE P. JACKSON | LUKÁš KOVANDA A. WESS MITCHELL | CaMERON MUNTER | TOMÁš POJAR LEAH SCHEUNEMANN | JiřÍ SCHNEIDER | ALEXANDR VONDra Czech-American Relations: A Roadmap for the Future John K. Glenn, Bruce P. Jackson, Lukáš Kovanda, A. Wess Mitchell, Cameron Munter, Tomáš Pojar, Leah Scheunemann, Jiří Schneider, Alexandr Vondra CEVRO Institut Academic Press Policy Studies edition, volume 3 Editor: RNDr. Alexandr Vondra Publisher: Prague Centre for Transatlantic Relations (PCTR) CEVRO Institut, o. p. s., Jungmannova 17, 110 00 Praha 1 - Nové Město, phone: 221 506 737, e-mail: [email protected], www.cevroinstitut.cz Production: Nakladatelství Jalna, Mickiewiczova 17, 160 00 Praha 6, phone: 257 533 280, e-mail: [email protected], www.jalna.cz Production: Jiří Sládeček Layout and typesetting: Martin Sládeček Print: MH Tisk s. r. o. First edition Praha, 2015 ISBN 978-80-87125-27-4 CONTENTS Alexandr Vondra Introduction ....................................................... �� 5 Jiří Schneider The U.S.-Czech Strategic Relationship: A Roadmap for the Future in Security and Defense ............................................. �� 9 Bruce P. Jackson Small States and Worthless Allies .................................... �� 18 John K. Glenn Beyond the Hangover: U.S.-Czech Relations in the Obama Administration . 30 A. Wess Mitchell and Leah Scheunemann Small States and Geopolitical Change: The Case of the Czech Republic ..... �� 43 Lukáš Kovanda The Czech-US Economic and Trade Relations after 1989 ................. �� 61 Cameron Munter Looking Forward: U.S.-Czech Relations . �� 71 Tomáš Pojar Czech-American Relations and Support of Liberal Democratic Forces Around the Globe .................................................. �� 80 John K. Glenn, Bruce P. Jackson, Lukáš Kovanda, A. Wess Mitchell, Cameron Munter, Tomáš Pojar, Jiří Schneider and Alexandr Vondra Czech-American Relations: A Roadmap for the Future ................... �� 86 INTRODUCTION The publication that you are holding in your hands is in its own way quite unique. I cannot remember if there has been a book published here, focusing on contemporary Czech-American relations, with Americans, who have been actually involved in developing those relations, as joint authors. It is even more remarkable since the Czech-American relations are far from being in the centre of the Washington establishment attention in these days, nor do they bask in the glory as we remember it from the 1990’s. The impulse to create this publication was a Ministry of Foreign Affair’s grant from 2013 and cooperation with the American think-tank CEPA (Center for European Policy Analysis) that we had arranged in the Prague Centre for Transatlantic Relations at the CEVRO Institute. The goal of the grant was to create a policy paper that will assess the Czech-American relations over the past twenty years, analyze the causes why they are nowadays at a standstill and will try to bring forth suggestions how to proceed. During the ongoing work on the study, seven papers were written, four of them by American authors. When I was asking them to write down a few pages on the given topic in the spring last year, they would look at me as if I was a fool. In the centre of attention was Russian annexation of Crimea, the conflict in Ukraine and the resulting consequences. Nobody wanted to be concerned with the Czech Republic, which was geopolitically well shielded from the crisis and whose political representatives were rather reluctant to join the sanctions and other steps to direct the Putin’s assertive regime into proper limits. However, in the end all the addressed were willing to participate and we felt it would be a pity if their original and very interesting papers didn’t find their readers. Therefore, besides the study itself, we also present this publication. Now just a few words about the American authors. The balanced set – two democrats and two republicans, two of them incline more to realpolitik, whereas the two others more to foreign-policy idealism – has one thing in common. All of them have in fact significantly and actively contributed to creating a tight bond between the Czechs and the Americans. Cameron Munter, graduated from Cornell and John Hopkins University, is nowadays a retired American Diplomat and Professor of International Relations at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He was responsible for Czechoslovakia at the Department of State in the key years 1989–91. Then he served at the embassy in Prague (1992–95, 2005–7), in Warsaw (1986–88, 2002–5) and Bonn (1995–97). He was CEVRO INSTITUT 5 an ambassador to Serbia (2007–9) and Pakistan (2010–12). Through his diplomatic career he was always close to the Wilsonian tradition and Clinton’s democrats, playing a key role in ratification of the first extension of NATO when he co-directed the NATO Enlargement Ratification Office (NERO) at the National Security Council in years 1997–99. Bruce Pitcairn Jackson, a true republican and realist in foreign-policy opinions, served in Reagan’s administrative as a military intelligence officer and later as a high-ranking officer in Pentagon (his father was a co-founder of the Military Intelligence Service in the 1950’s). During the democratic administration he worked in private sector (Lehman Brothers, Lockheed Martin) and later on founded the US Committee on NATO that significantly helped to fulfill the Czech, Polish and Hungarian aspirations. During the Presidential campaign in 2000, he managed George W. Bush’s foreign policy team. However, he did not join the administration afterwards, but founded and has chaired since a non-governmental Project on Transitional Democracies instead, which helps with integration of Central and Eastern European countries into the western structures. John K. Glenn, who holds a PhD Degree from Harvard University and as a young man spent some time in Prague in 1989, is an expert on Czech political facts and understands Czech, too. He taught at the European Policy at NYU and in 2004–8 he worked for The German Marshall Fund of the U.S., where he founded and directed an important project called Transatlantic Trends that has since then been carrying out sociological researches and analysis of the U.S.-European relations every year. Currently he is a director of a non-governmental organization U.S. Coalition for Global Leadership. He is a true democrat and is close to Obama’s team. A. Wess Mitchell is a co-founder and President of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), the only American think-tank today that is systematically dedicated to Central and Eastern Europe. A Georgetown University graduate, he is one of the highly respected specialists in defense, strategy and security. True republican and “hawk” in his opinions, he regularly publishes articles in both scholarly and public magazines (National Interest, Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, etc.). There were also Czech authors who took part in preparing the study:Jiří Schneider, a long-time Czech diplomat (1995–98 Ambassador to Israel, 2010–13 a deputy of MFA), who has now returned to the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI), Lukáš Kovanda, an economist, journalist and teacher at Prague School of Economics, who was the leader of the think-tank Prague Twenty in 2010–13, and Tomáš Pojar, a diplomat (2007–9 first deputy at MFA, 2010–14 Ambassador to Israel), former long-time director of the People in Need foundation, now a vice-chancellor for International Relations of CEVRO Institute. 6 CZECH-AMERICAN RELATIOns: A ROADMAP FOR THE FUTURE Someone may consider the conclusions of the study too cold and realpolitik. It is true that the Czech-US relations bloomed at the time when value-oriented idealists (T. G. Masaryk, Václav Havel) were on the top of the Czech politics. It was them who found their influential audience in American politics, whose Jeffersonian and Wilsonian traditions have their roots in idealism and achieved something that would not be possible in relations based merely on power and influence. I personally think that in the long-term future our return to the sunny place in the eyes of America is possible provided there are again people to come to power in Prague, whose thinking and foremost their political practice are based on certain ethical vertical. However, neither I nor my colleagues can see anybody like that right now. Therefore the conclusions are clear of any building castles in the air; rather they solely focus on the possible and feasible. Last but not least, I would like to take the opportunity to thank to RWE Česká republika, Vaclav Pecha, Lucie Reitinger and to Zaostřeno PBO for financial support of publishing this study. Alexandr Vondra Director Prague Centre for Transatlantic Relations, CEVRO Institute CEVRO INSTITUT 7 THE U.S.-CZECH STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP: A ROADMAp For the FUTURE in SECURITY AND DeFENSE Jiří Schneider ROOTS OF CZ-US RELATIONS On July 4, 1928 a bronze statue of Woodrow Wilson was erected in front of the Prague main rail station. There was not only a foreign policy of Wilson but also a remarkable dose of Jeffersonian inspiration at the cradle of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918. Founder of independent Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk noted: “I devoted much time thinking to the idea that the Czechoslovak state would resemble America in that we too have no dynasty of our own and dislike foreign dynasty.”1 As Czech historian Pavel Kosatík recently pointed out: “President Masaryk has brought a piece of the US to his countrymen.” Therefore, it was quite symbolic that – on the occasion of the first ever visit of the US President to Prague in November 1990 – George H.

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