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Wheatley Papers on International Affairs

Foreign Policy Challenges Facing the Obama Administration the wheatley institution and Brent Scowcroft the david m. kennedy center for President and Founder, Scowcroft Group; Former National Security Advisor international studies September 29, 2009 © Brent Scowcroft Brent Scowcroft

As president and founder of and one of the country’s leading experts on international policy, Brent Scowcroft provides unparalleled strategic advice and assistance in dealing in the international arena. Scowcroft has served as the national security advisor to presidents Ford and Bush. From 1982 to 1989 he was vice chair of , Inc., an international consulting firm. In this capacity he advised and assisted a wide range of U.S. and foreign corporate leaders on global joint venture opportunities, strategic planning, and risk assessment. Scowcroft’s extraordinary 29-year military career began with graduation from West Point and concluded with his achieving the rank of lieutenant general following service as the deputy national security advisor. His air force service includes being a Russian history assistant professor at West Point; assistant air attaché in , ; head of the political science department at the Air Force Academy; involvement in air force long-range plans; working in international security assistance for the Office of the Secretary of Defense; serving as special assistant to the director of the ; and serving as military assistant to President Nixon. Out of uniform Scowcroft has continued in a public policy capacity by serving on the president’s advisory committee on arms control, the commission on strategic forces, and the president’s special review board, also known as the . Scowcroft currently serves on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. He earned his master’s degree and PhD in from . Foreign Policy Challenges Facing the Obama Administration

’m going to talk to you tonight about The new administration, the new I ­foreign policy challenges facing the ­president, came into this world facing, new administration. That, of course, could I think, three general tasks. The first task was keep us here all night, but my goal is mod- to change the mood: the mood in the coun- est. It’s not to solve all of the country’s try and the mood toward the . ­problems for it but hopefully to shed some Polling at the International Pew Institute light on some of the more important and around the world on attitudes toward the some of the more complex and intractable United States shows that almost never problems we face, as well as the environ - before has the United States been in such ment in which these problems are embed- disfavor around the world. That’s a huge ded. This is a complicated and confusing burden because we’ve never been renowned world we live in. It reminds me of the story for skillful foreign policy, but everybody of the woman who went to her lawyer to get thought we were trying to do our best, so we a divorce. got the benefit of the doubt. That’s a big help The lawyer said, “Well, all right. Do you when you’re trying to get things done. At the have grounds?” time of Obama’s inauguration, we were no And she said, “Oh, yes, about an acre.” longer getting the benefit of the doubt; we The lawyer said, “No, no. I mean do you were considered just like everybody else, have a grudge?” pursuing our own narrow self-interests. So She said, “No, we park on the street.” that’s the first task he had. The second task And he said, “Well, for example, does was to come to grips with a very complicated your husband beat you up?” and rapidly changing world, the environ - She said, “No, I get up at 4:30 every ment in which we live and in which decisions morning.” have to be made. And the third task was deal- The lawyer threw up his hands and said, ing with specific problems themselves. “Well, what is your problem?” President Obama has, I think, wisely And she said, “We just don’t seem to be spent his time on the first of those tasks in able to communicate.” his early days in office, and I think he’s done So that’s partly the world in which we a good job. He is a gifted speaker. He speaks live. It’s hard to communicate, and some- from the heart, and I think he has done times it’s hard to receive. more than I would have imagined possible

the wheatley institution | 1 Brent Scowcroft to change the mood, especially the mood problems which we had just brushed aside toward the United States. He has given in the heat of the . It was like look- important speeches in Prague, in Istanbul, ing through different ends of the telescope. in Cairo, and at the United Nations. In each But that change in itself, dramatic though it of those speeches he has set a tone for the was, is only part of what is going on, because way the United States intends to deal with there is a historic process of transformation the world that I think has done much toward going on in the world today. giving us the kind of receptive environment That transformation comes under the which we always used to enjoy as we tried to heading of that much overused word global- make our way. ization—globalization not as a policy but as Task number two is much more amor- a pervasive force in the world. Issues and phous, and it’s a task which can’t really be forces like flows of capital, health issues, cli- solved, but it surrounds every problem we mate change, and information technology face and the means we seek to deal with are defying national borders and can be con- those problems, and that is the environment trolled only through international coopera- in which we operate. Right now the world tion. States can no longer provide unilater- is about to celebrate the anniversary of the ally for their citizens in the manner to which Berlin Wall coming down, of the unification they have become accustomed. of Germany. That is the mark of a world in Some of these forces, such as infor - historical discontinuity. The end of the Cold mation technology, have specific impacts. War marked a dramatic change (though not Information technology has politicized the for young people, because that’s ancient his- world’s people. For most of mankind, most tory). Seldom has the world been so trans- people knew what was going on in their formed in its outlook. The world of the Cold own village or city and maybe the neighbor- War was a desperately dangerous world. We hood, but not much else, and they didn’t were living in an existential threat; that is, a care much. The big issues of empire and so serious mistake by either the Warsaw Pact or on just flowed right on by them; they were NATO could have blown up both sides and not engaged. Now almost everyone in the perhaps the world. But within that frame- world is within earshot of a radio or in eye- work, it was a very structured world, and we sight of a television. They see it, they hear it, had a single enemy. We knew a lot about it, we and it energizes them. They look at a screen focused on it, our institutions were designed and they say, “I’m living in this squalor? Why to deal with it, and in that way it was a fairly am I not living like those people there?” regular world. Then historically, in the blink Or, “These people say this about me? They of an eye, that world disappeared. The threat must be bad people.” All of these things are of nuclear war vanished, and instead there creating a world of instant knowledge—not was a world without any great threat but understanding, but instant information with a number of little irritating problems— about what is going on. It is not an accident

2 | the wheatley institution Foreign Policy Challenges Facing the Obama Administration that we are preoccupied by terrorism in a way state—to deal with these forces of global- the world never has been before, because ization that keep washing over national that is part of this phenomenon brought borders. about by the information revolution. So this is the kind of world that we live In addition, globalization is resulting in, and we need to try to figure out how to in an assault on the whole nation-state sys- deal with these new forces in a world which tem. That system was set up in the Treaty of is still governed by the old forces. That’s Westphalia in 1648, and it reached its zenith not an easy problem. The president and in the 19th and 20th centuries. The state was everyone involved have to deal with issues the political instrument through which peo- using institutions that were designed for an ple managed themselves and struggled with earlier age. others. Industrialization, which began about The financial crisis is a good demon - 250 years ago, is what made the nation-state stration of what I’m talking about. It has powerful. Before that it wasn’t very strong, shown us that there is a single economic but the forces of industrialization—the need world structure. What happens economi- to regulate and so on—brought about the cally in one place immediately travels modern nation-state with its intrusiveness. around and affects everybody else. We do Globalization is a force akin to that of indus- not have a political structure to deal with trialization 200 years ago, but it’s operat- a single economic structure. We faced this ing in the opposite direction. It’s eroding first with the Breton Woods Treaties, but national boundaries. It’s breaking down the they were put together in 1944 for a world nation-state. And what we’re seeing now, and problems which have long since passed. I think, is the Westphalian system and this We then tried the G8; it’s not working. Now globalization in uneasy relationship with the G20 says, “We are the ones who are going each other, with the nation-state system to handle it.” We’re trying to come to grips gradually losing its cohesiveness and global- with the world, but the institutions that we ization still a force, having an impact but not have are intended to deal with a world that is controlling things. long gone. Globalization also tends, I think, to lead This is true almost everywhere you to the breakup of states into ever smaller and look. Our own institutions of national secu- more homogenous political units with peo- rity were set up in 1947 at the outset of the ple who think alike. One of the best exam- Cold War. The Defense Department is now ples of that is Yugoslavia. It was set up, really a cohesive entity, and previous secretaries by Woodrow Wilson, after World War I, and have built it into a great military machine, it was a small state in Europe. The same ter- but one that was basically designed to affect ritory is now seven micro states, and each World War II. Are we going to fight a World one of those is less able than a nation like War II again? Secretary Gates, for example, the United States—or even a normal-size recently said to his military leaders that we

the wheatley institution | 3 Brent Scowcroft have to begin to prepare for the wars we’re says, “Nothing in this charter shall give this likely to have to fight, not the ones we would institution [the UN] the right to intervene in like to fight. The military is struggling with matters essentially within the jurisdiction of that right now. its members.” In other words, stay out of the Our intelligence community was put internal affairs of states. And yet the Security together in 1947, designed to understand the Council has passed several resolutions —a single target—and they did about the responsibility to protect, saying a good job. They focused on that single tar- that when a state cannot or does not pro - get, and now that target is gone—and instead tect major elements of its population, it is of a single one, there are hundreds of them. the duty of the United Nations to intervene. The institution is having trouble setting its Now, those two positions are in direct con- priorities, finding areas that are threats—or flict, and we see it every day in Sudan. Sudan not—and frequently we don’t even know says, “We don’t want you in here.” And the threats exist until something pops up. So it’s UN is paralyzed with some members saying, an entirely different world. “Yes, it’s our duty to intervene,” and others At the international level NATO is a saying, “No, Sudan doesn’t want us there, marvelous military alliance, but what is it and the UN charter says we can’t go there.” for? The original reason for NATO is virtu- These are the things that surround the ally nonexistent. Is there some way we can president as he deals with the specific prob- take this wonderful military alliance and use lems that face him. I can’t remember a time it for problems in the 21st century? We’re in when a president has faced such a multiplic- right now (I’ll touch on that a ity of serious and very, very difficult and com- little later), but is NATO going to succeed or plicated problems as our current president fail, continue to exist, or disappear because does. And he faces them with instruments of Afghanistan? That’s not a product of our and in an environment which complicates rational thinking. them all because it is a new environment. It’s The last example, of course, is the not one that we’re used to, one that we read United Nations. If you look at this globalized in our history books; it is a rapidly changing world, you’d think that international orga- environment. nization is the way we’ve got to go. And yet I’m going to turn now to President the UN, again, was built for the world in 1945, Obama’s third task, dealing with specific sit- and it doesn’t function very well now. But if uations. I will focus on just a few of the spe- we didn’t have it, I would suggest that right cific problems facing the president. If I don’t now we couldn’t build a UN with the world hit your favorite crisis, I apologize. in the state that it’s in. What I’d like to talk about fundamen- One of the most dramatic illustrations tally is what I would call the arc of instability of the problem facing the UN is a contra - that goes from the Balkans into the Middle diction it faces concerning Article II, which East into Central Asia and around up to the

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Korean Peninsula. For most of that ­territory, the Palestinian problem is fundamentally it’s interesting that it is the area that used what needs to be done. to be occupied by the last of the three But why now? We’ve been trying to great empires: in the Balkans, the Austro- solve this problem for 50 years. I think a new Hungarian Empire; in the Middle East, the effort is probably the only way to deal with Ottoman Empire; and in Central Asia, the it. The United States traditionally tries to Russian Empire. In the wake of the collapse get the Arabs and the Palestinians to just sit of those empires, these people are still try- down together and to arrive at an agreement ing to figure out who they are, where they with whatever help we can provide them. I belong, and how they want to be governed. It think that will not work now. Both sides are is thus an arc of great instability. too weak and too dug in, and making com- In a press conference this afternoon, promises is very difficult. I think the United they asked me essentially, “What’s the big- States needs to play a different role now. gest crisis we face?” I said, “I’m not going The outlines of a Palestinian settle - to attempt to answer that.” But in terms of ment have been fairly clear since the end efficiency of response, I would point to the of the Clinton administration with the Palestinian peace process, because in the Taba Accords, which were agreed to by region that I just described, it could have a both sides—but for a variety of reasons more sweeping effect on the future and on those accords collapsed. I think the United other problems in that difficult region than States should come out and say, “We advo- almost anything else I can think of. People cate those accords, which are basically 1967 say, “No, it shouldn’t be first. We’re in a war borders (with changes agreed to by both in Iraq, we’re in a war in Afghanistan, and sides and only limited right of return yet Iran is facing us.” But here’s why: There is a to be agreed upon) with Jerusalem as the historic sense of injustice that permeates the capital of both states and some kind of non­ region. For example, it feeds radical organi- militarization of a Palestinian state.” Then zations like Hezbollah and Hamas, who feed the two sides can say, “Well, we didn’t want on the sense of injustice about what has hap- to make these compromises. We didn’t want pened to the Palestinian people. I think that to do this, but the United States did it.” It if we could turn that around, we would liber- gives them some cover, and I think it would ate a lot of forces to deal with other problems go a long way toward helping to deal with the we face—Iraq, for example. In the First Gulf issue of Iraq. It would put Iran (which feeds War we had Arab armies fighting with us. In off this injustice and talks about it every day) this war and its aftermath, the Arab world is back on the defensive and give the Obama nowhere to be seen. Why? Because it’s too administration a victory of historic propor- dangerous now for Arab governments to be tions, providing momentum to deal with seen supporting the United States. Solving some of the other intractable problems.

the wheatley institution | 5 Brent Scowcroft

Let me offer just a couple of words on ­emotional relationship ever since the fall of Iraq. I think Iraq is going reasonably well the shah. The searing picture in American now. The security situation is improving. eyes is that of the members of the American The Iraqi army is gaining increased ability Embassy being held hostage; and for the to deal with it. The political situation, how- Iranians, the searing picture is that of us ever, is not making much progress—some, shooting down an Iranian airliner filled with but not much. We can’t solve the Iraqis’ passengers. That is the emotion that suf - political problem for them; they have to do it fuses it all. It’s a problem where complica- themselves. But I think it makes a big differ- tions have been exacerbated by the recent ence whether they do it in the presence—in Iranian elections and charges of fraud, by a the cocoon, really—of the United States or splintering of the consensus in Iran about if they do it on their own. If they do it while its governance, and by the latest revelations we’re still there, they’re likely to arrive at about nuclear enrichment plans. their compromises through a political pro- We have two problems with Iran. One cess of debate and sharing the burdens and is Iran in its region. Iran borders both Iraq, the rewards. If we have left, then they are in which we have troops, and Afghanistan, in more likely to arrive at their conclusion which we have troops. So Iran is naturally a through the use of force than through dis- part of how we resolve those issues because course, and that is not a better solution for Iran lives there and will be there forever. To us. So while I think the drawdown has been try to solve problems with the neighbors okay so far, I would hope we would be careful while ignoring Iran is not likely to produce a to try to gauge the psychological presence of stable result. the United States—which has to be, in part, The second problem is Iran with physical—with the progress that the Iraqis nuclear weapons. I think there are two have made in solving some of their biggest problems. And there are some big ones. aspects. We don’t want Iran to have nuclear There is still a Sunni-Shia problem. The weapons, but Iran, because of its position Shias are still split in at least two different and the region it is in, is a kind of a linch - parts. But the biggest problem is with the pin of another great surge of nuclear prolif- Kurds in the northwest. That is the most eration if they continue developing nuclear intractable, both because the Kurds have weapons. If they continue, you can be almost their own army and because one of the prizes certain that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, , and there is a lot of oil. There, I think, is where we maybe others will feel they have to do the need the incentive for them to make com- same thing for their own protection. That is promises while we’re still there. But overall not a world that we would like to see, with I think things are going reasonably well. perhaps 30 or 40 new countries only a couple Iran is a very difficult problem. The of months away from a nuclear weapon. So United States and Iran have had a very Iran is extremely important for us.

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I think this administration has the right Afghanistan is perhaps the most com- approach to Iran, and that is to be prepared plicated problem we face. We’ve gone to discuss all of the issues we face because through several stages in our hostilities Iran does live in a dangerous neighborhood. inside Afghanistan, and several different It’s a Shia-Muslim country in what is gener- strategies—or lack of strategies—as we have ally a Sunni-Muslim world. It is a Persian cul- been involved there. We are now facing a ture in what is generally an Arab world. How conference of our leaders with a strategy do we do it? I think the goal is to try to con- that has been outlined by the new military vince Iran that pursuing their course of an leadership in Afghanistan to deal with the independent enrichment of uranium—one problem. We’ve had mixed notions about of the ways to a nuclear weapon—will not Afghanistan. Are we fighting a counter ­ increase their security because of the conse- terrorism war or are we fighting a guerilla quences within the region. We do not object war? They are different. If you’re fighting terrorists, then if you find a terrorist, you go to them having nuclear power; indeed, we’re after him. If you kill a number of civilians, it’s prepared to facilitate it. And the Russians too bad, but it’s collateral damage. If you’re and other nuclear powers are prepared to fighting a counterinsurgency war—that is, a make enriched fuel available at costs below war of hearts and minds—then in the same what Iran can produce on its own and take circumstances you don’t go after the bad it away and store it or reprocess it at our guy, because you do more damage to what own expense. you’re trying to accomplish by killing the Will they agree? I don’t know. But I civilians than any good you do by capturing think it cannot happen without Russian sup- the bad guy. We have to resolve that within port, and the Russians, I think, do not want our military. Afghanistan is also next door Iran to have nuclear weapons. However, to and conjoined at the hip with Pakistan— they have other things going with Iran that and Pakistan is a very troubled state. It is make them reluctant to antagonize Iran. If a complicated state; it has more than 100 Russia, China, the United States, Germany, nuclear weapons, and it is right next door to France, and Britain—who are the negotiat- India, with whom it has a historically hostile ing group—all agree, I think Iran will think relationship. This is a very volatile region, twice before it stands up to everybody. It’s and there are no easy answers. The spec - going to be very difficult now because the ter of Vietnam surrounds the discussion of discovery of this second enrichment plant whether we should send more troops. It is a has made people angry, but I think if we can very, very difficult problem. sit down and convince the Iranians that this I think the most successful foreign is not the course of action they should take, ­policy the United States has had over the we have a chance of succeeding. In any case, last 35 years or so has been with China. Every we lose very little by trying. president since —Democrat

the wheatley institution | 7 Brent Scowcroft or Republican, some of them coming into status to nothingness in military, political, office with very, very strong views about and economic matters. When you hear Putin China—has come to the same conclusion: rant and rave, he is expressing the frustra- broadening and deepening our relation - tion the Russians feel, I think, that when ship with China is in the best interest of they were down, we walked all over them. the United States and the world. And we’ve We pushed the borders of NATO right up been consistent about it and have produced to the borders of Russia; we denounced the a relationship which 30 years ago was only a ABM Treaty. We did these things because we dream. However, it is still a difficult relation- could, and they were powerless. ship. We and the Chinese have very different Now they’ve recovered their strength, views about a lot of things. We have very dif- and they’re not going to put up with it any- ferent histories and traditions. But it’s not more. That’s the Putin line. Putin is an clear that we are fated to be antagonists. I extreme kind of person, but I think that reso- think the Obama administration has made nates in Russia, and it’s a psychology that we a good start with China. Unfortunately, sev- can do a lot about. We can do it through the eral of our previous administrations have realm of arms control, for example, because started out under pretty difficult circum- the one place the Russians are still a super- stances—Tiananmen Square, which hap- power is in their nuclear weapons. We and pened six months after the first President the Russians have 95 percent of the world’s Bush was in office, and the shooting down of nuclear weapons. So we can take them seri- the P3, which happened a couple of months ously and negotiate with them, asking, after George W. Bush was in office—but “What can we do in a world of nuclear weap- I think things now look fundamentally ons to construct a posture between us that favorable. will do the best we can to ensure nuclear As for the Russians, we have not had a weapons are never used? How can we coop- felicitous relationship since the end of the erate on nuclear proliferation? How can we Cold War. President George H. W. Bush tried cooperate together to provide nuclear power hard to say that nobody lost the Cold War; to a world hungry for electricity?” It will be we all won the Cold War by its end. We tried a long, slow struggle, but given the key role to welcome the new Russia into the ranks of that the Russians play—for example, in Iran democracies, but it was a difficult period. We and perhaps even in Afghanistan and in the took a number of steps which we thought whole terrorism problem—it certainly is were in the interest of building a Europe worth trying. whole and free, but the Russians saw us as Let me say just one word about North taking advantage of their weakness. We also Korea. North Korea is another of those vex- overlooked the sense of humiliation that the ing problems. In 15 years they have gone from average Russian had to feel at the end of the withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Cold War when they went from superpower Treaty to having enough material for ­several

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nuclear weapons to a semi-successful I guess my basic message is that we need nuclear explosion. That’s fairly dramatic. to help our president now. He has an over- They have now said the Six-Party Talks are whelming situation facing him; each one of over, and it’s not clear which way to go. It these problems that I’ve described could seems to me that we and the Chinese need capture the complete attention of a govern- to work very closely together and that the ment by itself. He’s got to deal with all of ­possibility still exists that if we see eye to eye them, and we haven’t even talked about the on what the future of the Korean Peninsula domestic agenda. There are huge problems is—and I see no reason why we have to facing us, but what I’m saying is that, with ­differ—the two of us can succeed in turning the mood that the president has established North Korea back toward denuclearization. and the receptiveness of that mood by the It won’t be easy. It will take some conces - rest of the world, these problems are all sions on the part of the United States down solvable—difficult, but solvable. And if we the line, but it’s difficult to see how North can continue to execute the vision that our Korea can survive without Chinese support. president has, I think we can make the 21st I’ve only touched the surface of a lot century the best that the miserable history of the problems we have in this world, and of mankind has seen yet. 5-10 10-038 500 P000987

the wheatley institution | 9 Wheatley Papers on International Affairs

Islam and Western Peacemaking: Partnerships for a Better World the wheatley institution and Abdul Aziz Said the david m. kennedy center for Mohammed Said Farsi Professor of Islamic Peace international studies American University School of International Service

Distinguished Lecture in International Affairs Brigham Young University February 8, 2011 © Abdul Aziz Said