THE BUCHAREST CONFERENCE - OPENING SESSION
(Check against delivery)
APRIL 1, 2008
SPEAKERS: CRAIG KENNEDY,
PRESIDENT,
GERMAN MARSHALL FUND
TRAIAN BASESCU,
PRESIDENT,
ROMANIA
REP. ELLEN TAUSCHER (D-CA),
CHAIRWOMAN,
HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC RESOURCES
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KENNEDY: I think we're ready to get underway.
President Basescu, Congressman Tauscher, excellencies, great friends, welcome to the Bucharest Conference. I'm Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund. We at GMF and our partners at Chatham House and the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are honored to host you for the next three days.
While the leaders of NATO and its partner countries meet for three days across the street from here, this Bucharest Conference brings together the policymakers with the intellectual leaders to create what some could call the idea summit.
The Bucharest Conference and the summit itself will both look at issues that are vital to NATO's future. The first is NATO's capabilities and capacity. The second, the tension in the NATO-Russia relationship. Included in these topics are everything from cybersecurity, E.U.-NATO partnership, energy security, and the stability of the western Balkans.
And, of course, it includes Afghanistan. This mission in Afghanistan is under pressure, but has to succeed. And our centerpiece panel highlights the major actors who will discuss frankly what is needed to make it a successful mission.
Here at GMF, we try very hard to make sure that we never talk about U.S.-European relations, or rather North American-European relations, and we're very pleased to have the prime minister of Canada as one of the participants in that discussion.
And, of course, our discussion today and tomorrow and the next day will also touch on NATO enlargement. Up for consideration at the summit is the membership for Croatia, Albania, and the Republic of Macedonia. Up for membership action plan is Georgia and Ukraine.
We'll hear from leaders and experts about these issues in detail and how NATO's decision here at Bucharest will impact the future map of Europe.
I'd also urge you to take a look at the Bucharest papers that have been prepared for this conference. They are all excellent summaries and analyses of these pertinent issues.
We at GMF are proud to put this conference together. Our participants include eight heads of state, 38 ministers and parliamentarians, 41 heads of NGOs and businesses, and over 250 opinion-makers. Indeed, it is the place in Bucharest where these ideas will be explored fully and concretely.
Now it's my pleasure to introduce a man who needs no introduction. President Traian Basescu is a great friend to GMF.
Thank you, Mr. President, for everything you've done.
(APPLAUSE)
He's been a tireless supporter of GMF, our work on the Black Sea, and our creation of the Black Sea Trust. Indeed, it was his vision and partnership that helped make the Black Sea Trust a reality. And we also very much appreciate his tremendous support for this conference.
We are very pleased to have you here once again to mark a truly important moment for us here in Bucharest, President Basescu.
He is going to speak in Romanian, and there are headphones for everybody.
BASESCU: I hope we will have excellent translation.
(speaking Romanian - Translation unavailable)
KENNEDY: Now it's my pleasure to introduce Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher. She asked beforehand to explain to all of you why she's here, and there could be a lot of explanations. Congress is actually in session, and she decided that this event was important enough that she needed to be here.
She joked around a little bit that she drew the short straw and was the person sent here, but I don't think that's true. And I think you'll discover as you hear her speak that we're having a rare opportunity tonight to hear one of the rising stars in American politics.
Congresswoman Tauscher is currently serving her sixth term representing California's 10th Congressional District, which includes the San Francisco suburbs. In Congress, she is a leader on defense and homeland security and is one of Congress's leading experts on nuclear proliferation.
She chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, which has jurisdiction over missile defense, certainly one of the more controversial topics right now in the transatlantic community.
She is currently serving her second term as chairman of the House New Democrat Coalition, a 60-member organization that ranks as the largest centrist caucus in the House of Representatives.
Before coming to Capitol Hill, Representative Tauscher worked in the private sector for 20 years, 14 of them on Wall Street. In fact, at the age of 25, she became one of the first women and the youngest at the time to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
It is a great honor to have Congresswoman Tauscher with us tonight and to share her thoughts on this summit and the key issues facing the transatlantic community.
Congresswoman Tauscher?
TAUSCHER: Good evening. Let me begin by thanking the German Marshall Fund, and Craig Kennedy, and Chapman House, and the government and the people of Romania for inviting me here tonight. And it certainly an honor for me to be here tonight and follow the president of Romania.
Thank you, sir. It was during your time as mayor that your efforts to modernize this great city have brought great returns. And we are very honored to be here. And I know for your people it is a great honor to host this NATO summit.
To be here for this meeting is an accomplishment no one could have imagined at the end of the Cold War. Romania was a country forbidden to look beyond the Iron Curtain. Bucharest was a city under lock and key. Romanians were a people living under brutal oppression, but their desire for freedom never diminished. And, thanks to the grace and bravery and the will of the people, we are able to gather here tonight.
This is an important moment. It is a first on many levels. And it is a chance for NATO members to strengthen this alliance and defuse the threats of the 21st century together.
And so, in the words of Elie Wiesel, born in this country and who went on to inspire the world, "Peace is our gift to each other." Pacea este cadoul nostru pentru fiecare. A little Romanian with a Californian accent.
Nearly 60 years ago at the wake of the Second World War, a handful of world leaders gathered with President Harry Truman to sign the Washington Treaty establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. These men sought to build an alliance that would safeguard future generations from the injustices suffered at the hands of dictators and oppressors.
Soon after the signing, President Truman issued a statement that resonates today. He said, "This treaty is only one step, although a long one, on the road to peace."
Tonight, we gather in the same spirit in which the alliance began. We are, of course, a much larger group. But we are just as determined as that group of 10 to accomplish our shared goals of peace and security for our people. That is the wisdom all of us here tonight can recommit to.
As the chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Subcommittee on Future Security and Defense Capabilities, I believe that parliamentarian dialogue and cooperation is an overlooked companion to the statecraft practiced by our respective executive branch colleagues and heads of state.
What our alliance needs is a broader dialogue between the publics and the parliaments of the alliance about NATO's need for robust military capabilities and common investment.
We ask our citizenry to buy into the alliance both financially and by sending their sons and daughters to war zones. And what we owe them is an open and transparent debate about NATO's role in a world threatened in new and unconventional ways.
In the past, we have done just that. This alliance has often been steady on Truman's high road.
During the height of the Cold War, our mission was as clear as the horizon. Some of the stakes have pushed -- I'm sorry. In the 1990s, the alliance traveled down a just road to stop the genocide and conflict in the Balkans. And in many other smaller missions, this alliance has made the world safer and more just for our people.
However, as an American, I will say candidly that mistakes have been made in recent years. Some of those mistakes have pushed members of the alliance to the edge; some relations are struggling. Not all of these mistakes can be fixed in one meeting, on one night, or in one year, but we can begin, because Truman's high road is beckoning. And it is going to take each NATO member working together to make our alliance stronger and get our shared goals back on track.
Together, we can turn toward building stronger alliances. We can turn together toward policies that condemn torture and, for our part in the United States, we must close Guantanamo Bay. We can turn together towards stopping the threat of global warming. And we can turn together toward a stronger commitment to winning the war in Afghanistan.
This is what the United States and NATO can do together when we turn toward Truman's high road and the core beliefs of this alliance. I believe that the alliance can turn toward these critical challenges of our times because there already is a strong partner in the United States.
As a member of the majority in the United States Congress, I am here to say that we know that there are no shortcuts. There is only the hard work of building alliances.
There are no shortcuts to modernizing and building new capabilities. There is only the commitment of allies to common defense and shared burden.
There are no shortcuts to confronting terrorist threats and rebuilding countries like Afghanistan. There is only the steadfast work of men and women, fighting to bring security to a country that no longer wishes to be manipulated by terrorists.
There are no go-it-alone strategies in this alliance. There is only the unalterable commitment to multilateralism in a multipolar world.
And my colleagues and I in the Congress, as the elected representatives of the people of the United States, stand ready to meet these challenges by renewing relationships and doing the hard work that is ahead.
With this renewed effort, we also mean to demand a shared responsibility by our allies. Whether the issue is Afghanistan or spreading peace and prosperity in a volatile world, the United States will continue to depend on our European allies to shoulder their share of the investment for our collective defense.
While progress has been made in improving the capabilities of the European pillar of the alliance, I believe that there is a strong feeling in the United States among Democrats and Republicans that our European allies can do more to modernize and improve their defenses. This change must happen, too, if our alliance is to grow stronger.
But the time to begin taking long steps on Truman's high road begins tonight, for this summit is about the future.
To begin, NATO must take three major steps: help successfully stabilize Afghanistan; clearly emphasize its role as a primarily warfighting organization; and generate a new strategic vision that unifies its membership.
Our first step begins in Afghanistan. NATO has started to marshal the collective strength of free people in the face of a dangerous enemy. The will of free men and women to resist tyranny won the Cold War two decades ago. Our will must be as firm and resilient to prevail against radical fundamentalism in Afghanistan today.
This mission must succeed; Afghanistan must prevail. It is that simple, and that is NATO's goal. But every time another ally issues a caveat about deployments or sets mission limits on their troops, it undercuts NATO's ability to act decisively.
We need to remember that, 10 years ago, a critical question about NATO's post-Cold War role was asked and answered: Out of area or out of business? We have no choice but success in Afghanistan, and that's why I've called for additional NATO troops to be committed to Afghanistan.
While the U.S. is committing an additional 3,200 Marines, NATO allies must commit at least 7,000 more combat troops to secure east and south Afghanistan.
Many people here tonight and the people back in your countries are frustrated by the Bush administration's intentional conflation of the conflict in Iraq with the mission in Afghanistan. It was wrong to do, but that does not excuse alliance hesitancy in Afghanistan.
Security is the key to our success. Without it, we cannot start the reconstruction effort or stabilize Afghanistan. It is our responsibility to provide an adequate number of assets, troops and funding to stabilize all of Afghanistan.
The other week, the United Nations took an important step by naming Ambassador Kai Eide of Norway as the new special representative in Afghanistan. Our next step is encouraging the appointment of an Afghan leader to coordinate the development inside the country.
The alternative to success could not be more dire. Imagine if we fail in Afghanistan. Imagine the poppy fields cover the land; the Taliban returns; Osama bin Laden remains a threat to the world and unpunished.
How will the world look at NATO? Will they see us as an anchor in chaos? Or will they see the alliance as a group that faded because it failed to modernize and meet the threats of these new and challenging times?
In this 21st century and in conflicts to come, NATO needs to assert itself as a defense alliance, as a force willing to take action against threats to our collective security.
In Afghanistan, we are not there as peacekeepers. We are there to defeat Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the efforts to destabilize a fledgling sovereign government in a very dangerous neighborhood. With leadership from the United States and with shared responsibilities from allies in Europe, this alliance will bring stability to Afghanistan and security to its people and our own.
The second step on the long road to peace involves NATO clearly defining its role as a security alliance, a security alliance that uses force only when diplomacy has failed. And, again, NATO must assert its role as the premiere defense alliance that will use force if needed against 21st-century threats.
NATO was started as a defense force. It is filled with warriors ready to fight for the security of our people. Their sacrifice deserves clear missions from all of us as members of this alliance.
To start strengthening our collective defense, NATO needs to clarify its relationship with other organizations like the European Union. As missions and pressures for action in new parts of the world proliferate, NATO needs to decide what is a mission for us versus a mission for the E.U. So while the E.U. develops its common defense identity, it is important to decide how to allocate scarce resources.
Then the Alliance must also work together to build a 21st-century force for deterrence. With advances in technology, NATO has the potential to deter weapons of mass destruction from ever destroying a city or holding a capital hostage.
This is a welcome achievement, but there is a right way to deploy this advancement and a wrong way.
There has been a great deal of discussion this past year about the Bush administration's proposal to deploy 10 long-range missile defense interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic. The way the Bush administration rolled out its proposal last year was the wrong way.
I have been to both countries. I have met with the leaders of the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, Deputy Prime Minister Sasa Vondra, and Deputy Foreign Minister Tomas Pojar. And I met with the leaders in Poland, Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and Defense Minister Bogdan Klich.
These discussions are essential. They ensure an open and honest dialogue. They ensure that a clear mission is established. And when we don't engage this way, progress stalls.
But just talking to governments is not sufficient. In my work so far specific to missile defense, I have found that if a government cannot explain its policies to its people its proposals will fail.
But at my urging, the Bush administration has begun to engage the entire alliance and "NATO-ize" the ballistic missile defense system proposal. The Bush administration has also begun promoting ways to work with NATO to provide protection against current and short-range missile threats to southern Europe, areas that would not be protected by the proposed Polish interceptor site. Such efforts are critical to maintain security and deal with rogue nations like Iran.
Perhaps most importantly, NATO-izing the missile defense system proposal will advance the most important pillar in NATO, the indivisibility of the alliance.
But in this process the United States cannot tolerate Russian saber-rattling. Senior Russian officials have been fully briefed on the defensive nature of the long-range system and have finally acknowledged that the third site is not a threat to Russian security. That is a welcome step.
The United States ballistic missile defense system is truly that: a defensive system against current and future threats from rogue nations and terrorists. And I believe that, as NATO moves forward, it is important to note that Russia, nor any country, cannot have a veto over alliance security.
In addition to paying attention to deterrence, NATO must devote more attention to the development of its conventional forces, including advanced conventional strike and other systems. In doing so, the alliance will increase our ability to respond to new threats.
And as NATO modernizes our collective defense, we need to renew our efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
The protection, dismantlement and disposition of Russian WMD has been an area where the United States has found some support, though it has not always been easy. As our nonproliferation focus broadens beyond the former Soviet Union, the alliance will have opportunities to partner with the international community in global efforts to reduce proliferation risks.
As a first step, NATO and the United States can work together on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2010. NATO should support U.S. efforts to negotiate with Russia and create a legally binding replacement to the START Treaty scheduled to expire at the end of 2009. This could help further allay Russian concerns that the United States is seeking a strategic advantage over Russia.
By showing that this alliance is an anchor, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to push our strategic and nuclear weapons policies out of the Cold War paradigms and into the new century. And with a strengthened and purposeful and bolstered NATO, our collective defense will be able to provide more security for all of our people.
And the final step we can take to get back on Truman's high road starts with developing a new shared vision. NATO must achieve a new strategic purpose that unifies its membership and sends a strong signal to the rest of the international community. And I would argue that its immediate political goal should be to broaden its engagement from the Balkans through Eurasia to Azerbaijan.
NATO should use this opportunity in Bucharest to invite Croatia, Albania and Macedonia to join as full members of NATO and to encourage them to keep up the political, military and economic progress they have made in the Membership Action Plan process.
I also believe that we should send a strong signal that NATO believes that Georgia and Ukraine are orienting themselves toward the West and should be included in the MAP process.
Looking eastward, NATO should work with the European Union to reach out to the nations of Eurasia. The investment will be worth it to give that part of the world a stake in the global community, committed to peace and prosperity.
Stability in this new frontier of the Euro-Atlantic community is in all of our interests. If NATO is seen as an alliance with a collective defense, indispensable to the security of its allies in the changing world, then NATO will be seen as a strong alternative to instability, ethnic conflict, and fundamentalism for countries that are struggling in more volatile parts of the world.
The three steps I addressed tonight can help guide the United States, NATO, and the international community back to Truman's high road to peace and security. It is a road that runs from Bucharest to our countries, and to your country and to my community in the Bay Area of California.
It runs through towns and cities I know well and that I represent in Congress. It runs by the two national defense laboratories in my district, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia, California, where innovation is advancing technology to make us safer.
And it runs through Travis Air Force Base in my district, the strategic airlift gateway to the Pacific. This is where brave men and women say goodbye to their families before some fly off to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is also where tons of relief supplies, medicine and food are airlifted to tens of thousands of people in desperate need after tsunamis or earthquakes.
There is a connection between my home district, your country, and the work to be done at this summit. There is a common determination to get back on the high road to progress and to succeed in our efforts in the true can-do tradition of the American people.
And this connection often strikes when you least expect it. It was something I experienced during my first trip to Afghanistan. In 2003, I was part of the first United States Senate delegation to head to Afghanistan after the Taliban had been defeated. It was a delegation led by Senator Tom Daschle, who was then the majority leader.
We had flown over and spent the evening in Uzbekistan and left at 4 a.m. on a C-130 to fly down to a base just below Kabul. We landed safely and were met by a large gathering of military officials and about 50 members of our U.S. Special Forces, who were still on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Many of the U.S. military men were in full Afghan dress. The only thing you could see were their eyes.
As I greeted them and went through the crowd, I noticed one of the first men that I shook hands and looked in his eyes seemed very familiar to me. I immediately flashed to my then 12-year-old daughter who played soccer and didn't understand the connection and thought that I knew I was tired, but perhaps I should go back and see who this person was.
And as I turned to look at this man again and as he took his lungee off his head, I saw that it was the father of one of my daughter's soccer classmates who was in Afghanistan looking for Osama bin Laden, had been there about three months, and it was a very emotional moment for both us.
That is the moment I think we all understand. Our alliance is the premiere defense alliance in the world. Our people make tremendous financial investments. Our men and women in our military make tremendous sacrifices to complete our missions.
What they are, are our friends and neighbors, the sons and daughters of our people, people with jobs and lives that they'd like to get back to. Peace and prosperity is really their mission, but they are in harm's way and they would like to come home.
The good news is that the father did come home. He missed most of that spring soccer season, but he returned to his family safely.
But as I travel as a member of the Armed Services Committee and as I see people around the world put themselves forward, take great risk to themselves, as we take mounting casualties both in Afghanistan and Iraq and around the world, as we see the turbulence that this 21st century unexpectedly has, what we know is that we want our people to be able to come home to peace and prosperity.
And through this alliance, we have, with Truman's high road, the opportunity to recommit to move forward together and to become, I think, what the people in all of our countries want us to be, people that are showing an opportunity for freedom, people that only use diplomacy first, but force if needed, but when we use force we do so in a way that will bring our men and women home sooner and safer and complete those missions.
I'm deeply honored to have the opportunity to talk to you today. I hope that you all enjoy the conference. I'm going to go back to Washington tomorrow. I'm going to have to do some voting. But it is, once again, an honor to be here, and I'm happy to take any questions that you have. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
KENNEDY: OK, one of the things that we try to do at all of our conferences is make them as interactive as possible. And I think we have time for a couple of questions, two questions, I'm told.
Who's going to ask the first one? Right down here in the front row.
QUESTION: A very short question. I may have misheard. Did you quote Armenia as a candidate for NATO?
TAUSCHER: No.
KENNEDY: No.
Second question, right up here.
QUESTION: You talked a lot about our collective defense. NATO was founded to deal with a collective threat. You didn't talk about how you envisage what our collective threat for which we have the common defense is.
TAUSCHER: Well, I think that radical fundamentalism clearly is the collective threat. And what is disturbing for me is that I find that many of my colleagues -- I see a number of my colleagues from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in the audience. And I tell them hello.
I see a very widening gap between the sense of threat among my European colleagues versus what we feel in the United States and what we know to be true for the emerging threats specific to short- and medium-range missiles, for example.
So my concern is that, while we have had a rough patch over the last five or six years, that what is clear is that we have to recommit to understanding threat, to having a common sense of purpose. And since we apparently don't agree on the threat, I think that it's very important that we find a way to once again to begin to understand and trust each other.
And perhaps that will come when a new administration comes to Washington, but I think that it is very clear that radical fundamentalism is a common threat that we share, that it is an unconventional, asymmetrical threat, that we are not necessarily any of us, including the United States, prepared and oriented to defeat that threat. And it's going to take a lot of energy and a new commitment for all of us -- through NATO, I believe -- to deal with that threat.
KENNEDY: Thank you so much, Congresswoman Tauscher.
Thank you, President Basescu.
I promised the president's staff that he was actually going to get to the dinner that he's hosting tonight, so we're going to wrap it up now. You're going to go back out down there, and we're going to head over to dinner.
Night Owl sessions tonight, they're really great. You can go and argue about the Balkans if you're not tired of arguing about the Balkans or you can go to "Guns and Gas," which will be pretty good, as well. And we'll see you in a few minutes in the dining room.
But thank you all for this opening session and thank our two speakers.
END