20 December 2002
"International Cooperation in U.S. Security," by Richard Armitage
(International cooperation is an indispensable ingredient) (2170)
(The following article by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
appears in the International Information Program electronic journal
"U.S. National Security Strategy: A New Era" issued in December 2002.
This article and the rest of the journal may be viewed on the Internet
at: http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/1202/ijpe/ijpe1202.htm. No
republication restrictions.)
(begin byliner)
ALLIES, FRIENDS, AND PARTNERS ON EVERY PAGE: INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
IN THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
By Richard L. Armitage
["September 11th was a devastating day in American and world history,
but perhaps some good has come out of those terrible events," says
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. "In a sense, the
National Security Strategy reflects a grand global realignment in
which all nations have an opportunity to redefine their priorities. In
redefining our priorities, we also have an opportunity to focus
international partnerships not just on winning the war against
terrorism, but on meeting all transnational challenges to states."]
Late last month, as Americans prepared to celebrate Thanksgiving, the
people of Sri Lanka also had much to be grateful for. On November
25th, the representatives of 22 nations -- including the United States
-- came together in Oslo, Norway, to pledge political and financial
support for Sri Lanka's peace process, the best hope in many years of
bringing an end to two decades of violence and terror.
That day was a clear reminder that even for a small nation such as Sri
Lanka, resolving conflict takes the support of a coalition of
international partners. That day also served as a reminder that no
country can expect to deal effectively with the challenge of
terrorism, as well as the conditions that can nurture such violence,
without help from other nations and institutions.
Today, at the dawn of the 21st century, the United States stands alone
as a nation of unmatched diplomatic, economic, military, and cultural
might. As a people, we have greater capacity and capability to protect
and advance our interests in the world than at any other time in our
history. As a nation, we have greater responsibility to exercise
leadership than at any other time in our history.
Nonetheless, for all of our clout and influence, the United States
faces some of the same security challenges that countries such as Sri
Lanka face. Indeed, no nation can hope to tackle successfully the
decisive challenges of this age alone.
This is a fundamental, underlying principle of President Bush's
National Security Strategy. Beyond devoting a chapter to the strategic
importance of alliances and partnerships, the document underscores on
nearly every page the necessity of cooperating with other nations,
institutions, and organizations. International cooperation is an
indispensable ingredient, whether the strategy is focused on fighting
the war against terrorism, sustaining regional stability, expanding
trade and development, maintaining friendly ties to global powers, or
dealing with transnational challenges such as weapons of mass
destruction, infectious disease, and international crime.
The U.S. commitment to international cooperation reflects not only
pragmatism, but also a principle, one that runs through our history
and our vision of the future. As the President's National Security
Strategy makes clear, U.S. foreign policy will serve not just the
American people, but "the cause of human dignity" on every continent.
This is an ambitious agenda, one that will require us not only to
prevail in the war against terrorism, but also to apply the lessons we
learn and relationships we build in this war to every other challenge
we will face in the 21st century. As the lead agency in developing and
maintaining international relations now and for the future, the
Department of State, in particular, is playing a key role in
implementing this vision. And as the President's representative in
this effort, Secretary of State Colin Powell is taking his
responsibility for building these relationships and orchestrating the
efforts of the Department with the utmost gravity and industry.
A basic responsibility for any government is to protect the governed.
President Bush's top strategic priority, therefore, is to protect the
American people from another terrorist attack. As the recent bombings
in Bali and Kenya illustrate, however, terrorism is a grim reality
around the world, and a threat to all nations and peoples. Therefore,
our response -- and the effect of our policies -- must be global.
While the United States will always reserve the right to act alone in
its own interests, our national security is enhanced when other
countries choose to play a constructive, proactive role in helping the
United States protect itself. Given the global ambitions of
terrorists, national security today is a function of how well all
countries protect each other, not just how well one country protects
itself.
And while coalition warfare is as old as war itself, today's coalition
against terrorism is unprecedented in scale and in scope. In a
monumental diplomatic undertaking, the United States has joined with
some 180 other nations to counter the threat of terrorism using all of
the tools available to us -- intelligence, finance, law enforcement,
and military operations. The United Nations set the stage for such a
comprehensive coalition by passing Security Council Resolution 1373,
which obligated all nations to actively combat financing, recruitment,
transit, safe haven, and other forms of support to terrorists and
their backers, as well as to cooperate with other nations'
counterterrorism efforts.
America's global network of alliances and partnerships, many
configured for Cold War challenges, quickly adapted to this
post-September 11th security environment. In the immediate aftermath,
for example, NATO, ANZUS [Australia, New Zealand, and the United
States] and the Organization of American States for the first time
invoked 50-year-old self-defense mechanisms. Indeed, NATO forces drawn
from European nations flew patrols over American skies in the days and
months following the attacks. Other multilateral institutions changed
course to meet pressing needs. The Financial Action Task Force,
originally constituted to track funds fueling the international
narcotics trade, took the lead in the hunt for the money trails that
lead to terrorists. The G-8 [Group of Eight industrialized nations]
nations moved to secure global networks of commerce and communication,
including by stationing customs inspectors in each others' ports
through the Container Security Initiative. New relationships also came
into play. For example, U.S. diplomats for the first time negotiated
with the states of Central Asia for access and overflight rights to
American and coalition forces.
This mutually reinforcing mix of ad hoc alliances and more formal
arrangements has led to a sustained and successful campaign over the
past 14 months. Coalition military operations have excised al-Qaeda
from Afghanistan, destroying its infrastructure and killing or
capturing many of its operatives. The rest remain in hiding and on the
run. Intelligence-sharing and law enforcement cooperation have led to
the arrest or detention of nearly 2,300 suspected terrorists in 99
nations, and have prevented many, though unfortunately not all,
attacks on civilian targets around the world. More than 160 countries
have frozen more than $100 million in assets belonging to terrorists
and their supporters. In each of these efforts, foreign policy
professionals have played a key role in securing the necessary
agreements and actions.
Beyond waging war and building the long-term capacity to fight
terrorism, the current international coalition also has been essential
to the liberation of Afghanistan. Although this effort is partly
humanitarian, it is also an important security measure. For too long,
Afghanistan served as both the proving grounds and the launching pad
for terrorists. Peace and stability for Afghanistan is in the direct
interests not only of the 23 million inhabitants of that country, but
also the neighboring nations who suffered from destabilizing waves of
drugs, criminals, and refugees from that territory, and all of the
nations of the world whose investment in the rule of law has been put
at risk by al-Qaeda's activities.
Decades of war have taken an extreme toll on Afghanistan. The country
lacks everything from basic infrastructure to civil society
institutions, all of which will take considerable resources to
restore. Consider that rebuilding a paved road from Kabul to Herat
will cost an estimated $260 million -- at least -- and that one
project alone will take the concerted resources of Japan, Saudi
Arabia, and the United States. Today, it will take a sustained
international political and financial commitment from the community of
nations, and the hard diplomatic work to get and sustain this
commitment, to keep Afghanistan from chaos.
The twin campaigns to defeat terrorism and reconstruct Afghanistan are
stretching global resources and testing international resolve. U.S.
leadership -- and especially the diplomatic leadership of the
Department of State -- has been essential to mobilizing both the
resources and the resolve, with far-reaching results. As the National
Security Strategy notes, "in leading the campaign against terrorism,
we are forging new, productive international relationships and
redefining existing ones in ways that meet the challenges of the 21st
century."
Like terrorism, many of the challenges of the 21st century will be
transnational in nature, from proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, to the need to ensure that all nations can benefit from a
globalized economy, to the spread of infectious diseases. Even
internal unrest will continue to have regional consequences. These
transnational problems will require transnational solutions, and the
current war is helping the United States to develop the requisite
patterns and habits of cooperation.
Cold War alliances and rivalries, reinterpreted for the age of
terrorism, are showing promising signs of flexibility. In particular,
as the National Security Strategy notes, the United States may have a
new opportunity for a future where "main centers of global power"
cooperate more and compete less. From Russian President [Vladimir]
Putin's immediate offer of condolences and support after the 9/11
[September 11, 2001] attacks, U.S.-Russian cooperation in the war on
terrorism has been pathbreaking in its breadth, depth, and openness.
The United States has also forged new relationships with China, which
has provided valuable assistance in tracking terrorist finances. In
both cases, the overlap in our current efforts is opening new
possibilities for dialogue in areas that have traditionally been
difficult, including regional security issues, proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, human rights concerns, and key trade
issues, such as accession to the World Trade Organization.
Multilateral institutions also are showing signs of new growth.
Following extensive U.S. diplomatic efforts, the United Nations passed
Resolution 1441, for example, taking a tough new stand against the
threat posed by Iraqi possession of chemical, biological, and
potentially nuclear weapons. NATO, too, has retooled to meet today's
needs. At the recent summit in Prague, NATO invited seven European
nations to join as new members, reaffirmed its commitment to
developing updated military capabilities, and emphasized its new and
deepening relationships with Russia, Central Asia, and other regions
beyond Europe.
The international recognition that underlying corrosive conditions --
such as repression, poverty, and disease -- present a threat to
international stability is also spurring the growth of new cooperative
mechanisms. U.S. leadership is key to these efforts, as well, but will
only truly be effective insofar as it leverages commitments from other
nations. HIV/AIDS, for example, presents a staggering public health
crisis and ultimately a risk to the stability of many regions. The
United States made the initial and single largest donation to a new
Global Fund, kicked off by the G-8 and endorsed by the United Nations,
to prevent the spread and deal with the effects of the disease. That
fund has now reached a total of $2.1 billion [$2,100 million]. At the
United Nations Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey
[Mexico] and other such venues, the United States has helped to forge
new approaches to international aid, based on principles of
accountability, fiscal responsibility, and good governance. Indeed,
the U.S. has established the $5,000 million Millennium Challenge
Account -- a 50 percent increase in the U.S. commitment to foreign
assistance -- which will be dispensed according to these basic tenets.
Ultimately, these habits and patterns of cooperation will persist
because of the dual imperatives of pragmatism and principle. First,
cooperation in dealing with transnational challenges is in the
self-interest of so many nations; and second, nations have a
dedication to certain shared values. Terrorists, for example, present
a clear and direct threat to the rule of law, to international norms
and standards for human dignity, and in the end, to the international
system of states itself.
September 11th was a devastating day in American and world history,
but perhaps some good has come out of those terrible events. In a
sense, the National Security Strategy reflects a grand global
realignment in which all nations have an opportunity to redefine their
priorities. In redefining our priorities, we also have an opportunity
to focus international partnerships not just on winning the war
against terrorism, but on meeting all transnational challenges to
states. Every nation in the world -- from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan to
America -- stands to benefit.
(end byliner)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
