European Affairs

Summer 2005

 

UN Reform

The U.S. Should Show More Visible Leadership

By Wolfgang Ischinger

 

There are not so many differences of substance between U.S. and European foreign policies as often suggested. Despite claims to the contrary by the media, there is a great deal in common between the so-called freedom agenda espoused by President George W. Bush and the aims that the European Union has been pursuing, for example, through the Barcelona process that is intended to spread prosperity and political stability around the Mediterranean basin. We may not use the same words, or even the same methods, but we are in general agreement on the essentials of the issues involved and on the goals to be attained.

European objectives may be slightly less ambitious, and less urgently defined, than those of the United States. Now, however, that we have put the dispute over Iraq behind us, there is not really much fundamental difference between declared U.S.
policy goals and declared European policy goals, whether in the world at large, the greater Middle East or in Central and Eastern Europe. The European Union's aim is to create stability by establishing better institutions, supporting civil society and working through democratic procedures.

The speech acknowledging the difficulties of nation-building that President Bush gave to the International Republican Institute in May 2005, for instance, could easily have been delivered by a
European leader. I wish he had made that speech four years ago, but it is still good news.

The less good news is that there is a significant difference over how important a role institutions should play in our efforts to help the world change and help individual nations become more democratic. Countries that want to be democracies need strong institutions, a strong independent judiciary, a valid legislature and an effective government. The general European view is that the same applies at an international level. The international order needs strong and durable institutions if it is to remain
stable and function efficiently.

That view is not shared universally in the United States, and it is not the position of the current administration. One need not bring up the subject of the United Nations to discover this attitude - it is also detectable in the way some Americans talk about the European Union. I believe that a stable European Union progressing toward greater unity is definitely in the strategic interest of the United States. Many Americans agree. But many others disagree, and their position is reflected in the debate on the United Nations.

The United States has not shown the kind of leadership that some of us would have liked to see with respect to international institutions. The United States invented, created and sustained the United Nations, which was established at a conference in San Francisco. So, in a way, it is America's responsibility. It would be good if the United States exercised more visible leadership, not just leadership behind closed doors, and showed greater public recognition of the importance of a strong and effective United Nations for the conduct of foreign policy, and for the pursuit of American international goals in general.

We also need to get rid of misconceptions about the proposed reform of the UN Security Council. Skeptics often argue that the proposal for expanding the Security Council submitted by the so-called G4 countries (Japan, Germany, India and Brazil) would reduce the Council's efficiency. These critics admit that the Council would probably acquire somewhat greater legitimacy from wider global representation, but they maintain that the proposed body of 25 members could not be as effective as the current 15-member grouping.

NATO, however, has been enlarged from 15 to more than two dozen members, and there may be more to come. Yet there was never any word from senior representatives of the Clinton
Administration, nor from senior members of the Bush Administration, that America opposed the enlargement of NATO because of the reduced efficiency that it might entail. So let us be very careful how we use the efficiency argument. I would maintain, for example, that one reason why the European Union was able to assume such a very proactive role in the recent crisis in the Ukraine was precisely because it had a large membership. Poland, a new EU member and a neighbor of Ukraine, played an important part, on behalf not only of the European Union but also of NATO.

"We need to get rid of misconceptions about changes in the Security Council proposed by Japan, Germany, India and Brazil"

Critics of the proposal also ask why Europe deserves another permanent seat on the Council, arguing that it is already over-represented. Under the G4 proposal, however, the relative weight of the Western European countries - the European Union and other countries that are part of its group in the UN system - would actually go down from its current level of 32 percent to a maximum of about 28 percent, and a possible minimum of about 20 percent. In other words, it is just not correct to argue that Europe would be over-represented.

People also ask why Germany and its partners are not proposing a single seat for the European Union. That would be a wonderful achievement, and the German government in the 1990s in fact tried very hard to muster support in the European Union for an EU seat. Unfortunately, however, the fact of the matter is that the European Union is not yet ready to accept the idea. It remains an important long-term goal, which I am sure that Germany and others would be very interested in pursuing further in the future. But it is not currently a plan that could be credibly proposed as a substitute for revising the Council's membership.

Others are unhappy that six of the ten new seats proposed by the G4 countries would go to permanent members and only four to non-permanent members. These critics are proposing, as Italy did recently, that all ten new seats be for non-permanent members, with no change in the Council's permanent membership. One problem with this suggestion is that the United States has already committed itself to supporting Japan's bid to become a permanent member, which could not happen under the Italian proposal.

A more fundamental objection is that it would be a mistake to leave the number of permanent members unchanged. If we were to add no new permanent members to the current five, who were chosen on the basis of the world situation in 1945, we would give the impression that we had completely disregarded the dramatic changes in the world's population, and in the global power balance, that have occurred
during the past 60 years. To ignore those changes, in the view of the German government, would be to miss a great opportunity.

Wolfgang Ischinger is Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States. He was previously State Secretary at the German Foreign Ministry, the highest civil service post in the Ministry, where he has served in various senior positions since 1975. He led the German delegation at numerous international negotiations, including the Bosnia Peace Talks at Dayton, Ohio, the negotiations on the NATO-Russia Founding Act, and the negotiations on NATO enlargement and on the Kosovo crisis. He began his professional career in the UN Secretariat.