Europe will remain Washington’s “partner of first resort,” but much else has changed – By Theo Sommer
Sixty years ago, the Munich Security Conference first brought together defense experts from all over the world to discuss questions of war and peace, confrontation and accommodation, tension and détente. This year’s meeting, once again held in the Bavarian capital over the first weekend of February, was unusual in several regards.
For the first time in six decades, the US administration was represented by two cabinet members, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Obviously they thought that it took two to placate the Europeans, many of them deeply disturbed by the defense guidelines recently proclaimed by President Obama. The new doctrine signaled a “strategic shift” (Clinton), a “broader shift” of American foreign policy (Obama) to the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. The way it was presented seemed to suggest that the United States, focusing on rising China and nuclearizing Iran, is about to “pivot” and turn its back on Europe.
Both Clinton and Panetta, supported by Senator John McCain, did their best to correct this impression. Yes, after a decade of war and in the midst of a grave budget crisis, the US is at a strategic turning point, they argued, and it will enhance its presence in Asia and the Middle East. But it won’t “pivot”. It will maintain a robust presence in Europe, although henceforth on a rotational basis. Europe, both secretaries underlined, is America’s “security partner of choice,” its “partner of first resort… the cornerstone of our engagements with the world.”
Yet they also made clear that they expect the Europeans to step up more determinedly to the common defense plate. German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière agreed: Europe had to pull its weight and assume responsibility for its own security and that of its neighborhood. It need not worry, however, about Washington’s new strategic orientation, which was also a reflection of the fact that Europe is at peace today and not exposed to any existential threats.
Then, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the “German Question” figured again on the Munich agenda. It was not the old German Question, the deep concern about Germany’s military menace and its hegemonial ambitions, not the worry about too much Germany, rather the complaint about too little.
In the current economic crisis, Germany – “Europe’s insdispensable nation,” as Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski put it – is seen as a far too reluctant leader. To which Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, replied: “As soon as we lead, we hear: Not in this direction, and not in this style.” Minister de Maizière added, tongue in cheek: “Those who demand leadership most often only want money.”
Oxford’s Timothy Garton Ash concurred. Recalling Thomas Mann’s appeal almost a century ago for a European Germany, not a German Europe, he observed that we now have a “European Germany in a German Europe”, with Berlin exerting quasi-hegemony in the realm of political economy.
“The Germans did not want this position in the first place – pay, pay and pay,” he elaborated. “They would have been satisfied with the role of a greater Switzerland.” Today their economic success is also their Achilles heel. The German representatives hastened to assure the international audience that they will requite solidity with solidarity.
The third “first” was the amount of time dedicated to economic issues. A strong dose of Davos flavored this year’s Munich Security Conference. The financial crisis was on everybody’s mind, and an entire session dealt with its implications for international security. Echoing US Admiral Michael Mullen’s dictum that the single biggest threat to America’s security was its national debt, Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, the organizer of the conference, quipped: “It’s banks, not tanks.”
The upshot of the discussion was the truism that in a time of tight budgets, “smart defense” is an absolute necessity. Doing more by doing it together is the recipe propagated by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. But several defense ministers pointed out the limits of pooling and sharing, arguing that Smart Defense does not save any money; at best it helps to keep down future defense expenditures.
The old conundrum – how to get more bang for your buck, or delivering higher output with less input – will be with us for quite some time. Shaping strategic doctrine around the assets we have, as proposed by the British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, may be the best policy until better times are here again. Burden-shedding could become just as important as burden-sharing.
Another “first” was the focus on the rise of Asia, especially the re-emergence of China as a global power – economically to begin with, but more and more also strategically and geopolitically. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun called the rise of Asia a blessing for the world, as it provided job opportunities and huge markets. He demanded respect for the region’s peoples, their norms and values, stressing that development and stability were their top priorities. China would remain committed to peace and prosperity and the goal of harmony, he said. Rather than seeking a sphere of influence, it wants to build friendship and partnership. By contrast, Senator McCain pointed to China’s territorial conflicts, its naval expansion, its suppression of Tibetans and Uighurs and its ambiguous commitment to humans rights.
The senator was impressively backed by Australia’s Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking sinologist. Within the next ten years, Rudd pointed out, China‘s economy is likely to be bigger than America’s, while its military expenditure might surpass that of the United States by 2025.
This means that for the first time a non-democratic, non-Western country will be the world’s largest economy – a fact Rudd says will have profound effects, as the Chinese do not necessarily share our values and their compounding growth takes place in an area replete with contentious strategic issues. American military presence had provided the strategic underfelt of the Asian-Pacific security balance during the past fifty years. It would remain the indispensable balancer throughout the region.
There was another, most regrettable “first”: a serious diplomatic clash between Russia and the western powers. Seasoned conference participants remember Vladimir Putin inveighing against NATO in Munich five years ago, but his incendiary speech did not prevent the exchange in Munich last year of the ratification instruments bringing the historical new Start treaty between Moscow and Washington into force.
This time the rift is deeper. Despite frantic efforts, US Secretary Hillary Clinton, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and a slew of others were unable to get Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to back the UN Security Council resolution condemning the brutal suppression of the Syrian opposition by President Bashar al-Assad. Russia – like China – vetoed the resolution, which was sought by the Arab League and supported by 13 of the 15 Members of the Security Council, thereby blocking a peaceful solution to the country’s bloody crisis. In Munich’s Bayerischer Hof, an icy gust of wind reminiscent of the Cold War wafted through the conference hall when the news spread. Disgust was the dominant sentiment.
Thus, in 2012 the Munich Security Conference could not serve as a catalyst for conflict resolution. The meeting did not lead to a meeting of minds. However, as Ambassador Ischinger emphasized, this is not the end of diplomacy – it is just the beginning of the next round. And next year’s security get-together might yet witness another agreement of historical import.