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'[O]ur strategy is not defined by preemption. Above all, the
president's strategy is one of partnerships', US Secretary of State
Colin Powell, December 2003
'Secretary of State Powell on Broad U.S. Strategy of
Partnerships', Article from Foreign Affairs Magazine
January/February 2004.
(This byliner by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell first
appeared in Foreign Affairs Magazine, January/February 2004, and is
in the public domain. No republication restrictions.)
(begin byliner)
A Strategy of Partnerships
By Colin L. Powell
Broad and Deep
When most people think about U.S. foreign policy these days,
they think first and sometimes only about aspects of the war on
terrorism: the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, the troubles
of the Middle East, and the terror cells lurking in Southeast Asia,
Europe, and even the United States. This preoccupation is natural.
International terrorism literally hit home on September 11, 2001,
and, for understandable reasons, an outraged American public wants
those responsible brought to justice. The American people also want
to understand why the attacks happened -- and demand a foreign
policy that makes sure such events will never happen again.
It is also natural that the war on terrorism has become the
United States' number one foreign policy priority. It will remain
so for as long as necessary, because terrorism -- potentially
linked to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) --
now represents the greatest threat to American lives. Defeating
terrorism is a priority that drives not only military action to
subdue individual terrorists and deter their state supporters but
also multilateral cooperation in law enforcement and intelligence
sharing. It encompasses efforts both to stigmatize terrorism as a
political instrument and to reduce the underlying sources of
terrorist motivation and recruitment.
But the breadth of U.S. strategy transcends the war on
terrorism. Indeed, a strategy limited to dealing with immediate
threats would in the end fail to defeat them -- just as bailing
water out of a boat would not fix a leak. The sharp focus on the
front lines of the war against terrorism, however, has made it
harder than usual for people to grasp what American strategy is
really all about. We all know the old aphorism that you can lead a
horse to water but you can't make it drink. These days, it seems
that an administration can develop a sound foreign policy strategy,
but it can't get people to acknowledge or understand it.
President Bush's Vision
It is an unfailingly effective applause line for critics of any
U.S. administration to charge that the president has no vision for
the world, that he has no strategy. Every trouble is attributed to
this failing, as though the world would otherwise be perfectly
accommodating to U.S. purposes. Unfortunately, this criticism has
come close to being true in some administrations. But it is not
true in the present one. President George W. Bush does have a
vision of a better world. And he also has a strategy for
translating that vision into reality. I know -- I was present at
its creation.
The president's strategy was first laid out publicly in
September 2002, in the National Security Strategy of the United
States (NSS). A succinct document of fewer than 40 pages, the NSS
defines U.S. policy priorities in eight substantive sections.
Together, these parts add up to an integrated strategy that is
broad and deep, far ranging and forward looking, attuned as much to
opportunities for the United States as to the dangers it faces.
Of course, a public strategy document cannot be entirely frank
about all the choices that U.S. leaders make; we do ourselves and
our allies no favors by telling our adversaries everything that we
think and plan. Nonetheless, this administration's public
pronouncements have been remarkably candid. They reflect the
personality of the president himself, a man who, with great
consistency, says what he means and means what he says.
It is somewhat odd, therefore, to discover that our foreign
policy strategy is so often misunderstood by both domestic and
foreign observers. U.S. strategy is widely accused of being
unilateralist by design. It isn't. It is often accused of being
imbalanced in favor of military methods. It isn't. It is frequently
described as being obsessed with terrorism and hence biased toward
preemptive war on a global scale. It most certainly is not.
These distortions are partly explained by context. The NSS made
the concept of preemption explicit in the heady aftermath of
September 11, and it did so for obvious reasons. One reason was to
reassure the American people that the government possessed common
sense. As President Bush has said -- and as any sensible person
understands -- if you recognize a clear and present threat that is
undeterrable by the means you have at hand, then you must deal with
it. You do not wait for it to strike; you do not allow future
attacks to happen before you take action.
A second reason for including the notion of preemption in the
NSS was to convey to our adversaries that they were in big trouble.
Instilling a certain amount of anxiety in terrorist groups
increases the likelihood they will cease activity or make mistakes
and be caught. Moreover, some states have been complicit in
terrorism not for ideological reasons but for opportunistic ones.
It was worth putting the leaders of such countries on notice that
the potential costs of their opportunism had just gone way up.
Sensible as these reasons are, some observers have exaggerated
both the scope of preemption in foreign policy and the centrality
of preemption in U.S. strategy as a whole. As to preemption's
scope, it applies only to the undeterrable threats that come from
nonstate actors such as terrorist groups. It was never meant to
displace deterrence, only to supplement it. As to its being
central, it isn't. The discussion of preemption in the NSS takes up
just two sentences in one of the document's eight sections.
Some at home have distorted the NSS for partisan reasons,
attempting to make the Bush administration look bad by turning fear
of preemption into an early twenty-first-century equivalent of the
Cold War era's "rocket rattle." Some abroad, meanwhile, have
distorted U.S. intentions through an apparent exercise in mirror
imaging. Using their own mottled political histories as a reference
point, they have asked what they would do with the power that the
United States possesses and have mistakenly projected their own
Hobbesian intentions onto our rather more Lockean
sensibilities.
But however it has happened, the distortion of U.S. foreign
policy strategy requires repair. This distortion does a disservice
to honest observers trying to understand U.S. policy, and it
contributes to irrational partisanship.
The Primacy of Partnerships
The United States' National Security Strategy does commit us to
preemption under certain limited circumstances. We stand by that
judgment, the novelty of which lies less in its substance than in
its explicitness. But our strategy is not defined by preemption.
Above all, the president's strategy is one of partnerships that
strongly affirms the vital role of NATO and other U.S. alliances --
including the U.N.
Don't believe it? Perhaps this is because the commentariat
widely claimed that the president's recent decision to seek a new
U.N. Security Council resolution on the postwar reconstruction of
Iraq was a sharp break with policy. To think this, one would have
to ignore the fact that President Bush went before the U.N. on
September 12, 2002, to make his case for the U.N.'s enforcing its
own resolutions (16 of them in total); that Security Council
Resolution 1441 -- which warned the Iraqi regime to comply with its
own obligations under previous U.N. resolutions -- passed
unanimously in November 2002; that we tried for a further
resolution to unite the international community in the months
before Operation Iraqi Freedom began; that we went to the U.N. in
May 2003 after Operation Iraqi Freedom to secure Resolution 1483,
lifting sanctions against Iraq that had become obsolete; and that
we sought and secured Resolution 1500 in August, recognizing the
Iraqi Governing Council.
Had we not done all of these things, month after month, the
president's decision to go to the U.N. Security Council in
September 2003 -- and to persevere in his efforts until Resolution
1511 was approved by a 15-0 vote on October 16 -- would have been a
significant departure from policy. But the administration did do
all of these things. Indeed, it would have been a departure from
policy not to go to the U.N. when, in our judgment, the next phase
of Iraqi reconstruction was at hand. If there has been any
departure here, it is the commentariat's departure from the basic
rules of logic.
Partnership is the watchword of U.S. strategy in this
administration. Partnership is not about deferring to others; it is
about working with them. Beyond upholding the partnerships we have
inherited, the president seeks new ones to deal with new
challenges. Some are global in scope, such as the Global Fund for
HIV/AIDS. Others are regional, such as the Middle East Partnership
Initiative, which provides assistance for educational, economic,
and political reform throughout the Arab world.
Beyond partnership comes principle. The president's strategy is
rooted, above all, in the promotion of freedom and dignity
worldwide. "America must stand firmly," the president wrote, "for
the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law;
limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of
worship; equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic
tolerance; and respect for private property." We stand by these
values now and always. They are the values served by the
partnerships that we build and nurture.
Free trade and new American initiatives for economic development
also figure prominently in the president's strategy. The Free Trade
Area of the Americas, the expanded Africa Growth and Opportunity
Act, and especially the Millennium Challenge Account are our policy
vanguards in this area. Our efforts to control the proliferation of
WMD also form part of the president's strategy. These efforts led
to the Proliferation Security Initiative in May 2003, an 11-nation
effort to seize materials related to WMD in transit to countries of
concern. In September 2003, signatories were able to agree on basic
implementation guidelines, and in the president's address to the
U.N. General Assembly on September 24, he called other nations to
join. I hope they will heed his invitation.
President Bush's strategy also demands that we play a role in
helping to solve regional conflicts. Not only do such conflicts
cause much suffering, but they can also spread to envelop societies
now at peace and can stoke the fires of terrorism. Nowhere is the
U.S. role in helping to resolve regional conflicts more important
than in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to a stable peace
settlement. We are obviously not there yet, but this
administration's policies have brought peace closer.
The Bush administration was widely criticized during its first
two years in office for not being more active in solving the
Arab-Israeli conflict. To many, "more active" meant spending
presidential and secretarial capital on state visits and photo
opportunities, as if nearly a decade of such activity had not
already been tried without managing to resolve the conflict. But
diplomacy can take other, more appropriate forms. In reality, we
have worked hard on advancing peace, if often quietly, making the
proper analysis of the situation and determining our tactics
accordingly.
As a result, we created the Quartet -- another partnership --
made up of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the
U.N. We developed the "road map" out of this partnership, and the
president went to Aqaba, Jordan, in June 2003 to commit the parties
to it.
Most important, we recognized that there needed to be
fundamental reform inside the Palestinian Authority if the forces
for peace among Palestinians were to prevail. After it became clear
that the United States would not obstruct Israel's efforts to
defend itself from Palestinian terrorism, pressures for genuine
reform grew within the Palestinian community. This convergence
produced the hopeful premiership of Mahmoud Abbas.
Unfortunately, Abbas' efforts were aborted by Chairman Yasir
Arafat, and Abbas' successor, Ahmed Qurei, has been obstructed as
well. Chairman Arafat has not been a genuine interlocutor for
peace, but he has been an obstacle to it. Although our hopes for
progress have been temporarily disappointed, it is now clear to all
where the real problem lies. One way or another, we are bound
eventually to get past this problem. Moreover, there is now a solid
and growing constituency in Israel that supports prominent
Palestinian leaders who genuinely seek an honorable and stable
peace. Bleak as things often seem in this conflict, this does
represent progress.
Conflicts in other regions have also demanded our attention --
and our compassion. The United States has not turned away from the
suffering of the Liberian people, and we have been actively trying
to end strife in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Nor have we forgotten the need for continued progress in the
Balkans, in Northern Ireland, and in East Timor. We are making
progress in most if not all of these areas, and we are often doing
so by supporting other governments that are taking the lead. In
other words, we are working as a partner.
An Age of Cooperation
Not least among the policy priorities laid out in the NSS is our
determination to develop cooperative relations among the world's
major powers. It is here, above all, that the key to a successful
conclusion to the war against terrorism lies.
To say that the world has changed is a truism: the world, after
all, is always changing. It is not so trivial, however, to specify
just how it has changed. As I see it, the critical tipping point of
recent years was the evening of November 9, 1989. That date is when
the Berlin Wall was first breached, never to be repaired, marking
the end of the Cold War and, before long, of the Soviet Union
itself. These events, in turn, ended the epoch of intense struggle
between liberty and totalitarianism that had shaped most of the
twentieth century.
The president grasps the importance of these momentous events.
As he wrote in the NSS, "today, the international community has the
best chance since the rise of the nation-state in the seventeenth
century to build a world where great powers compete in peace
instead of continually prepare for war. Today, the world's great
powers find ourselves on the same side."
This development is not just good news; it is revolutionary
news. For too many years -- too many centuries -- the imperial
habits of great powers squandered untold resources and talent by
jousting for land, glory, and gold. The futility of such habits has
become evident in the twenty-first century. The possession of vast
territory, raw physical resources, and brute power guarantees
neither prosperity nor peace. Investment in human capital, social
trust, trade, and cooperation within and among nations does.
The sources of national strength and security for one nation
thus need no longer threaten the security of others. An insight of
the Enlightenment and a deep belief of the American founders --
that politics need not always be a zero-sum competition -- has at
last been adopted by enough people worldwide to promise a
qualitative difference in the character of international relations.
If, instead of wasting lives and treasure by opposing each other as
in the past, today's powers can pull in the same direction to solve
problems common to all, we will begin to redeem history from much
human folly.
One of these common problems is, of course, terrorism, and
American strategy endeavors to solve it by integrating it into the
management of our key international relationships. We do not see
the war against terrorism and the nurturing of constructive
relationships among the major powers as mutually exclusive tasks.
We conduct the war on terrorism with an eye toward great-power
cooperation, and we seek enhanced great-power cooperation with an
eye toward success in the war on terrorism.
The logic of this dual approach rests on the fact that terrorism
threatens the world order itself -- and thus creates a common
interest among all powers that value peace, prosperity, and the
rule of law. The civilized world has spent more than a thousand
years trying to limit the destructiveness of war. Drawing a
distinction between civilians and combatants has been an essential
part of this process. But terrorism aims to erase that distinction.
We cannot allow this to happen, not because we want to "make the
world safe" again for major conventional war, but because we must
reassure people everywhere that the world has not just traded one
kind of danger for another with the end of the Cold War. The
victory of freedom will turn hollow if new fears replace old
ones.
The common interest of all major powers in defeating terrorism
is one source of a rare and remarkable opportunity: the United
States' chance to enjoy excellent relations with all the world's
major powers simultaneously. Of course, we have a head start in
this, because we are blessed with many enduring friendships. None
is more important than those enshrined in NATO.
Some observers predicted that NATO would wither away after the
Cold War, others that the United States and the European Union
would even end up on a collision course. Neither prediction has, or
will, come true. Not only has NATO survived, but both its
membership and its mission have expanded. As for our relations with
the EU, never has our common agenda been so large and mutually
significant -- from advancing free trade to joint efforts in
counter-proliferation.
It is true that we have had differences with some of our oldest
and most valued NATO allies. But these are differences among
friends. The transatlantic partnership is based so firmly on common
interests and values that neither feuding personalities nor
occasional divergent perceptions can derail it. We have new friends
and old friends alike in Europe. They are all, in the end, best
friends, which is why the president continues to talk about
partnerships, not polarities, when he speaks about Europe. Some
authorities say that we must move to a multi-polar world. We do not
agree -- not because we do not value competition and diversity, but
because there need be no poles among a family of nations that
shares basic values. We believe that it is wiser to work at
overcoming differences than to polarize them further.
Embracing Major Powers
We work hard to have the best relations we can with nations
large and small, old and new. But for practical purposes we
concentrate on relations with major powers, especially those with
whom we have had difficult relationships in the past, notably
Russia, India, and China.
Our relationship with Russia has been dramatically transformed
since that November evening in 1989. Americans and Russians no
longer point growing arsenals of missiles at each other. Thanks to
the leadership of President Bush and President Vladimir Putin, we
are now radically reducing our strategic weapons arsenals. Moscow
is also a committed partner in fighting terrorism and in combating
the global spread of WMD.
U.S.-Russia commercial relations have also expanded and will
expand further to mutual benefit -- not least, we trust, in the
energy sector. The new relationship that is developing between
Russia and NATO has real substance as well. From sharing
intelligence on terrorism to working together to deal with
humanitarian crises and peacekeeping, the NATO-Russia Council is
operational. That relationship can expand as far as our creativity
and mutual effort will let it. We are closer than ever to a Europe
whole, free, and at peace. Such a Europe definitely includes
Russia, as well as the other new and reborn republics that emerged
from the Soviet Union.
Perhaps most important, U.S. and Russian political and economic
philosophies are converging. Today, Russia is more democratic than
not. It is also more of a market economy than not. We should be
patient as Russia develops its democratic institutions and as the
remnants of Soviet-era corruption is rooted out and the rule of law
firmly established.
We do not agree on everything, of course. We had hoped for more
Russian support for our Iraq policy, and we still hope Russia will
change its attitude toward the Iranian nuclear program. We also
differ over aspects of Russian policy in Chechnya. But the
relationship as a whole is no longer locked in knee-jerk
antagonism. We now have the necessary level of trust to resolve
even the most difficult issues between us.
Whereas Russia is still developing its democracy, India's
democracy dates from its independence in 1947. With recent economic
reforms setting institutional roots, India is developing into a
mature market economy. As Indians themselves are the first to
admit, however, their country still faces many challenges.
Illiteracy, poverty, environmental degradation, and inadequate
infrastructure all hamper progress. We want to help India overcome
these challenges, and we want to help ourselves through a closer
association with one of the world's venerable cultures. We have
therefore worked to deepen our relationship with India. The two
largest democracies on earth are no longer estranged. At the same
time, we have also been able to advance our relations with Pakistan
-- a country with domestic challenges of its own.
India and Pakistan still dispute who should control Kashmir.
During 2002, a major war between them -- perhaps involving nuclear
weapons -- seemed distinctly possible. So, working with partners in
Europe and Asia, we mobilized to help end the crisis. We have since
been trying to turn our parallel improvement of relations with
India and Pakistan into a triangle of conflict resolution. We do
not impose ourselves as a mediator. But we do try to use the trust
we have established with both sides to urge them toward
conciliation by peaceful means.
What the United States has done in South Asia is an example of
"turning adversity into opportunity," to quote President Bush. In a
different way, we have done the same with China.
Sino-American relations got off to a bad start in this
administration when a certain American airplane made an unscheduled
visit to Hainan Island in April 2001. Today, however, U.S.
relations with China are the best they have been since President
Richard Nixon first visited Beijing more than 30 years ago. This is
not just because the September 11 attacks led us to shuffle
priorities, nor only because we championed Chinese accession to the
World Trade Organization; nor is it the result of the accession of
a new generation of Chinese leaders. It is certainly not because we
have ignored Chinese human rights abuses, China's still
unacceptable weapons proliferation activities, or the reluctance of
China's leadership to match political to economic reform. We have
never downplayed these difficulties.
The Sino-American relationship has nonetheless improved for a
reason that transcends all these particulars: neither we nor the
Chinese believe that there is anything inevitable about our
relationship any longer -- either inevitably bad or inevitably
good. Instead, we now believe that it is up to us, together, to
take responsibility for our common future. The NSS put it directly:
"We welcome the emergence of a strong, peaceful, and prosperous
China." We also seek a constructive relationship. Indeed, we
welcome a global role for China, so long as China assumes
responsibilities commensurate with that role. China's leaders know
all this. Neither false fear about the future nor the overhang of
Cold War enmity prevents us from cooperating where our interests
coincide.
A case in point is North Korea. American and Chinese interests
on the Korean Peninsula may not overlap completely, but they do so
considerably. Neither side wishes to see nuclear weapons developed
and deployed there. Neither side enjoys the spectacle of the
dilapidated North Korean economy. Neither side wants the refugee
crisis on China's border to worsen nor relishes a North Korean
regime that smuggles drugs and weapons, counterfeits currencies,
and engages in the periodic extortion of its neighbors through
brinkmanship. And neither side, to be sure, has any interest in
another Korean war.
Thus we have worked to transform our common interests with China
into solid and productive cooperation over the challenges posed by
Pyongyang. We are also cooperating with Japan, Russia, and South
Korea on the issue. Our agenda is ambitious, but it is succeeding,
as attested to by the six-party framework for talks over North
Korea's nuclear program. We employed this framework in September
2003, and we will do so again soon. Beijing, as well as Washington,
deserves credit for this achievement.
We still have a long way to go in dealing with North Korea's
dangerous nuclear weapons program. As we have told the North
Koreans, we have no intention of invading or attacking North Korea.
During his trip to Asia in October 2003, President Bush suggested
that he was even open to putting this intention in writing. We have
stated our policy openly and honestly: we want peace, not war, and
we want security, not fear, to envelop the Korean Peninsula and its
neighbors. But we will not yield to threats and blackmail; if we
did, we would only guarantee more threats and more attempts at
blackmail. Nor will we take any options off the table.
It is now well past time for North Korea to alter its behavior,
cease its threats, and end its nuclear weapons program in a
verifiable manner. That is what all of North Korea's neighbors
desire, which is why, in the end, a diplomatic solution to the
problem can be achieved. When this happens, we will have
demonstrated that American diplomacy is designed to satisfy not
only our own national interests, but also those of international
security as a whole. We will show that the equities of other powers
can be best advanced along with American ones, not in opposition to
them.
Interests and Responsibilities
We must not take the present peace among the world's nations for
granted. Today's peace will not just take care of itself. We have
to work at it with patience, mindful that major war has broken out
in the past despite a widespread conviction that it simply could
not happen again.
Of course, we want to promote human dignity and democracy in the
world, to help people raise themselves from poverty, and to
transform the inadequate system of global public health. We are
pursuing these goals right now. But only if the deep peace of our
era can be "preserved, defended, and expanded" -- to use the
president's words -- can we pursue these goals for as long as it
will take to achieve them.
And make no mistake, these are the central goals of American
policy in the twenty-first century. We fight terrorism because we
must, but we seek a better world because we can -- because it is
our desire, and our destiny, to do so. This is why we commit
ourselves to democracy, development, global public health, and
human rights, as well as to the prerequisite of a solid structure
for global peace. These are not high-sounding decorations for our
interests. They are our interests, the purposes our power
serves.
Because this is so, the United States' reputation for honesty
and compassion will endure. Today, U.S. motives are impugned in
some lands. But as we preserve, defend, and expand the peace that
free peoples won in the twentieth century, we will see the United
States vindicated in the eyes of the world in the twenty-first.
It would be churlish to claim that the Bush administration's
foreign policy has been error-free from the start. We are human
beings; we all make mistakes. But we have always pursued the
enlightened self-interest of the American people, and in our
purposes and our principles there are no mistakes.
Our enlightened self-interest puts us at odds with terrorists,
tyrants, and others who wish us ill. From them we seek no advice or
comity, and to them we will give no quarter. But our enlightened
self-interest makes us partners with all those who cherish freedom,
human dignity, and peace. We know the side on which the human
spirit truly abides, and we take encouragement from this as our
strategy unfolds. In the end, it is the only encouragement we
really need.
Source: US State Department, Washington File, http://usinfo.state.gov.
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