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European Affairs
Special Report: The Rift in Transatlantic Relations
Personal View: The Bush Message Has Ominous Undertones in Central Europe
Pavel Cÿernoch
For somebody from a relatively small European country like the Czech Republic,taking part in world politics is like playing major league basketball when youare only five feet six inches tall. It would be cocky to pretend to be a top player,but by developing special skills like speed and tricky tackling, you might becomea valuable addition to the team. In the Czech case, former President Vaclav Havel,who left office in February, has managed to become a respected authority on theinternational stage. Mr. Havel, who first won fame as a playwright, has consistentlyargued that politics and good morals are not necessarily incompatible.
Such an attitude might be useful these days. Coming from a Czech, it reflects lessonslearned from our recent history. We have traditionally been sandwiched betweengreat powers such as Germany and Russia, and looked for help and protection toBritain and France. In 1938 both countries traded us in with Mr. Hitler for animaginary promise of peace. As Winston Churchill put it: “In 1938 we hadthe choice between war and shame. We chose shame and we got war.”
After six long years of Nazi occupation, we were rescued by the United Statesand the Soviet Union in 1945. We greeted both as liberators, but we trusted onlythe Americans. We were right to do so – unfortunately the fate of our countryhad been decided long before. Instead of taking part in building a united Europeand a Transatlantic partnership with the United States, we spent four decadeson a painful experiment of building a “communist paradise.” It nevermaterialized, but instead depleted our human, material and natural resources.
With such an experience, and without the toolbox of a superpower, it is only naturalto look for ways to resolve conflicts by compromise instead of coercion. One tendsto think about the hidden cost of the use of hard power. An example of this mightbe the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, which was dubbed the “VelvetDivorce” – a reference to the peaceful fall of communism in the “VelvetRevolution” of 1989.
The fact that one does not have the option of relying on one’s own superiormilitary or economic strength provides the opportunity to explore alternative,less costly ways to achieve one’s objectives. It also serves as a lessonon how to practice passive resistance when mighty forces are at work. But in atime of crisis it also allows one to take a step back and think about right andwrong in a broader context.
All of this will be part of the historical experience that the Czech Republicwill contribute, as a new member, to the debate about common policy-making inthe enlarged European Union. Apart from its relevance in EU “domestic”politics, the Czech experience may prove useful in the Transatlantic dialoguewith the United States, our “favorite” superpower. Our admirationfor a decisive United States stems, among many other reasons, from the fact thatit understood more than others our desire to become members of NATO once we wereable to make the choice of our own free will.
Shortly before leaving office, in the hope that our American allies might be interestedin listening to Czech views, Mr. Havel signaled to the Bush administration thatwe supported the decision to disarm a dictator who developed chemical and biologicalweapons in secret. Having recently emerged from a totalitarian communist dictatorshipourselves, we find it emotionally very difficult to oppose an effort to take actionagainst a totalitarian regime. This gave rise to the new label for us: “NewEurope.” Even though it is, of course, an overstatement, many people inthis part of the world embrace such a label joyfully – after all, “NewEurope” has a much better sound to it than “Eastern Europe.”
Nevertheless, despite a generally favorable attitude toward the United States,this “New Europe” will be neither a simple-minded American groupie,nor an easy bedfellow. This is largely because, with its go-it-alone decisionto attack Iraq, the U.S. administration is sending messages that sound to manyof us “New Europeans” much like the attitudes of the former SovietUnion, which understood its superpower status as a free ticket to use militaryforce as it liked. Moscow coerced smaller countries into line, on the groundsthat “he who is not with us is against us” – a doctrine similarto that espoused by President George Bush after the terrorist attacks of September11.
The Czechoslovak experience of the Prague Spring of 1968 showed us that, whilewe thought that we had held genuine consultations with the Soviets about our ideasof “socialism with a human face,” in reality the power-conscious Sovietscame only to talk, not to listen. The lesson learned then was that Czechoslovakopposition was theoretically possible, but at the cost of our supposedly friendly“brother nation” sending tanks to bring our country back in line withthe will of the masters in Moscow. In order to cope with such realities, Centraland Eastern Europeans developed a special sort of humor. But there is little humoraround today about Iraq.
The prevailing impression is that there was a lack of consultation and consensusabout the objectives of war in Iraq, or about the need for military action. Thatmakes Iraq quite unlike such previous examples of joint military action as theGulf War, the NATO air war against the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic orthe attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The decision to go to war against Iraq seems to have been made long before anysubstantive debate took place with friends and allies. Once the superpower madeup its mind, it could not be stopped by any means, not even by an appeal to internationallaw. For many Czechs and other citizens of Central Europe, it is difficult to followsuch logic.
After all it was the efforts of the international community at the Helsinki Conferencein 1975 that made the Soviet Union sign an accord obliging it to respect basiccivil rights. This document of international law gave legitimacy to civil rightsmovements such as Charter 77 and Solidarity, which allowed the rise of moral leaderslike Lech Walesa and Mr. Havel, who eventually became presidents of their newlydemocratic countries. Emotionally, it is difficult to discard the belief in thevalue of international consensus on fundamental civic values.
Moreover, when considering the Bush administration’s justification of OperationIraqi Freedom, we are reminded of our mood back in the 1980s. Living under anoppressive communist regime, we felt that the West could and should be doing moreto help us get rid of totalitarian autocracy.
Nevertheless, with the benefit of hindsight, one wonders what kind of society wewould be living in today if the United States had launched a military operationto free us. It is painful to imagine the United States invading our country, bombingour cities and defeating our army in battle as a precondition for the removalof the communist regime, let alone reinstalling democracy by appointing some Americanof Czech origin, like, say, Madeleine Albright, as our president.
The likely response to such a hypothetical supposition in the Czech Republic thesedays is that actually we were probably better off waiting for the time when thehistorical opportunity arose to get rid of our communist regime ourselves. Forthe time being, however, it seems that in the case of Iraq we have to live witha U.S. government that claims its own right of sovereign action.
As Czechs who recently joined NATO, we tend to picture ourselves as a pretty girlwho married a multimillionaire and was led to believe that he would invest hiswealth to make the marriage work and take time for a beautiful vacation. Instead,he drives off with his friends in his new luxurious convertible roadster withoutleaving a note as to when he might be back. Of course, once he pulls up the drivewayagain, he expects to be loved and served dinner.
What will we do? Most likely play his game for the time being, but also join apowerful girls’ club called the European Union and share our frustrationswith the other members. As real life shows, even the toughest guy has a hard timewhen faced with a determined group of self-confident women. Maybe the Americanpolicy analyst Robert Kagan is right when he claims that Americans are from Marsand Europeans from Venus, but he might have underestimated the powers that enragedVenuses can potentially unleash.
Pavel Cÿernoch teaches at the Jean Monnet Centre for European Studies at Charles University in Prague, and is a lecturer on European integration and EU enlargement at the Diplomatic Academy of Prague. He is a founding member of the Czech think tank, European Policy Forum. He was a policy fellow at the Open Society Institute in Budapest in 2001-02. www.policy.hu/cernoch