Topic: The World of Cooperation and Conflicts (Institutions and Instruments)

Morning Session, Oct. 12

Václav Havel
Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like, after yesterday’s solemn opening of the Forum at the Vladislav Hall, to open the Forum proper; that is, its working sessions.
Those of you who attended this Forum last year will remember that, at the opening, we paid tribute to the memory of the deceased Princess Diana, and to Mother Theresa, who had also just passed away. Now I suggest that we remain seated but remember, again with one minute of silence, Edith Stein who was canonized yesterday. During this one minute, I suggest that we also remember the suffering of all the refugees from Kosovo.
Thank you for sharing this minute of remembrance with me.
Unfortunately, I was very busy during the Forum 2000 last year because I had a lot of duties to attend to and, therefore, I missed a lot of very intelligent discussions and speeches. I had to catch up later by referring to the proceedings and by reading all the papers that were presented here and published later. This year, I have tried to arrange my programme in such a way that would allow me to spend more time with you.
Nevertheless, this year I will have to leave you also. At about lunchtime today, I will be attending a meeting of all the presidents of Central Europe in Vienna. I would like to apologize for this. I will do my utmost to be back with you as early as possible. This an extremely significant meeting; and one I should not miss, because the seven presidents of the Central European countries will be making statements on a topic that is very acute now, a topic that the two main speakers here will also touch upon in their speeches today. In view of this, I think that this is something that is also linked to this Forum.
Once again, I would like to welcome you all, and now I would like to give the floor to the moderator of our morning meeting, Jacques Rupnik.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you, Mr President.
I would like to open our morning discussion with a number of comments or questions in English.
Nearly ten years ago, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended where it had started, here in Central Europe the future seemed full of promise. Soviet totalitarianism had been defeated and Europe could re-unite in democracy. The Asian continent was booming and self-confident. The United States appeared as the sole superpower and the undeniable winner of the Cold War. The “new international order” was in the making, we were told.
Nearly ten years on – and the difference is striking even compared with the situation at the time of our meeting only a year ago – we are witnessing the darker side of our triumph of 1989. Russia, as an economy and as a state, is on the verge of collapse, bringing back old images of a third-world economy with nuclear weapons. Asia’s economic crisis, including Japan’s, is sending shockwaves throughout the world. The United States, the sole superpower, is seeing a presidency weakened for domestic political reasons, raising questions about its international role. The simultaneity, indeed the interaction of these three crises – of a completely different nature – accounts, at least in part, for the current feeling of uncertainty or apprehension, and provides us with an opportunity to reflect today on the interdependence of our world, which we call – for short – “globalization”. There were at least two main theses that summed up the triumph of 1989, and which seem a bit dated today.
One was the thesis of “the end of history,” the idea that we were witnessing the definitive triumph of liberal democracies and free-market economies. We know, particularly in this part of the world, that free elections or free markets without the rule of law can produce “illiberal” democracies – or kleptocracies. From Russia to Albania, not to mention examples in Asia and Latin America, we can see today the consequences of developing the hardware of democratic capitalism without the software. We thought democracy and capitalism were spreading from the centre to the periphery, from the West to the rest. Now we are beginning to wonder what the impact might be of a destabilization spreading from the periphery to the centre.
The second thesis associated with the end of the Cold War was that we were witnessing “the age of peace”, a new international order. Instead of peace and a new international order, we have seen the proliferation of what are euphemistically called “low-intensity conflicts”. Classical wars between states might be receding, but we have simultaneously witnessed the proliferation of internal, transnational violence along ethnic or religious lines.
In short, neither the progress of democracy nor of economic globalization imply that we are closer to peace or something called an international order. To be sure, we have global media and global humanitarian concerns, the so-called “CNN effect”, and what a French Minister has called a devoir d’ingérence, an alleged duty to interfere on humanitarian grounds. There is now even an attempt for an international tribunal to create common legal and ethical ground that transcends national borders. All this can give the somewhat deceptive impression that there is such a thing as an “international community” – a series of inter-locking institutions from the United Nations to the OSCE or the European Union, none of which, incidentally, proved particularly effective during the war in Bosnia. In short, there are global issues, but there is no global community. What would it take to manage the transition from a classic inter-state balance of powers to organized interdependence? First of all, we should answer some of the basic questions raised by globalization.
First, what is the meaning of national interests if human communities become more fluid and if local interests cannot be isolated from more global concerns? What is the meaning of a “balance of powers” if powers are no longer sovereign actors but interdependent players caught in a network of transnational relations? What, indeed, is the meaning of a Germany, of a superpower, albeit a reluctant sheriff, if it is backed by military might, but also, increasingly dependent on soft power and the autonomous decisions of non-state actors?
Finally, between the unbridled process of globalization and the protectionist temptations to cling to closed identities, is there a third missing term, an “international civil society”, an international public space where a search for common solutions could take place?
All these questions are at the heart of our topic this morning, and we are extremely fortunate to have among us a very distinguished panel and, above all, our keynote speaker this morning, Dr Henry Kissinger, who needs little introduction. A former professor of Harvard University, Henry Kissinger served as US National Security Adviser and as Secretary of State. He is the author of many works on international relations, including most recently Diplomacy, and in 1973 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr Kissinger.

Henry A. Kissinger
Mr Chairman, Mr President, friends, it is a great honour for me to be invited to appear here, and no one except the President could have succeeded in this. I have been an extraordinary admirer of the President. I was one of those diplomats who put Basket Three into the European security conference in Helsinki, in which we tried to make human rights some kind of an international concern, but I say that not to take any credit for it because we had no idea what people like Havel would do with it. We thought it would be a defensive mechanism for marginal cases. And, suddenly, there appeared this man of whom none of us had ever heard, who followed no practical principles for international politics and helped free his country. To do great things, you will forgive me Mr President, you have to be a little bit naive. You have to ignore practical obstacles, and you have to remember that every great thing was an idea before it became a reality. The President asked me to come here, although he didn’t exactly tell me what I should talk about. He didn’t give me this awe-inspiring list of questions or I would probably have tried to escape. And so, what I will try to do is to put before you a few reflections, the reflections of somebody who has been a professor and who has been a practising statesman, someone therefore who has seen international affairs both from the halls of academia and from the negotiating room. Before I get to those issues, I would like to make one or two philosophical observations – before my friend, Hans Küng, extracts them from me, painfully.
There is an inevitable difference in perspective between the philosopher and the statesman, between the prophet and the diplomat. The philosopher is concerned with the clarity of ideas, and he is responsible for the most perfect formulation he is capable of achieving. He is responsible, in the first instance, to his conscience, and he has the privilege of changing his mind, or of evolving. The statesman deals with a series of imperfections. He cannot achieve – or only in the rarest cases can he achieve – his objective in one dramatic encounter; he has to operate in stages. Every stage is imperfect in relation to the totality of what can be achieved; and, therefore, every stage provides an alibi for stopping, and for confining yourself to that stage. Great statesmen require moral conviction. The hardest task of any statesman is to take his society from where it is to where it has never been. And he must do that at a time when the consequences of his actions are not clear, and where he can gain the strength for such actions only from some kind of moral compass. Therefore, I don’t accept the division between realism and idealism which is the subject of so much contemporary debate. The statesman, of course, must be a realist; but, a great deal depends on what content he gives to reality and how he perceives it, and how he sees it evolving. It is true that many crimes, and much suffering, have been inflicted in the name of realism. But it is also true that perhaps even more crimes have been committed by prophets who believe in the absoluteness of their idea, the impossibility of good faith on the part of those who oppose them. And, in our time, I would say that it has not necessarily been the case that idealists, or so-called idealists, have contributed to the improvement of humanity. Therefore, I would say that the biggest challenge facing those of us in this room who are concerned with contemporary issues is to understand the goal towards which we are striving. What means are available to achieve the goal – not to be overwhelmed by instruments, but also not to wallow in an orgy of self-righteousness about ultimate goals? This is the basic philosophical framework from which I want to address the topic.
The second point I want to address is a remark made by the chairman. The United States is the only superpower, and much of what I say will be taken from the American point of view – if only because I know it best, but also because it is symptomatic of some of the problems of today. The United States is the only superpower in only one field of activity, and that is the military field. It is true that the United States is the only country that has the military capacity to intervene everywhere in the world. But the issues in the name of which we are supposed to intervene are, on the one hand, shrinking and, on the other hand, becoming extraordinarily esoteric. They are shrinking in the sense that the weapons in which we are most developed – that is the nuclear arsenal – are useless in most of the conflicts we know about, and they are being elaborated for contingencies that no one can describe. It has never happened in history that mankind has based its security on weapons with which there is absolutely no practical experience, and where the relationship between objectives, means and goals is, to put it kindly, so elusive. So, in that category, we are indeed a superpower, but we have no clear-cut objective.
In the other category, the one with which we are concerned, for example, on a day-to-day basis, there is the case of Kosovo. This is not really a question of means; it is a question of ends. Almost every single European power, be it all European powers together, or truly the combined force of NATO, will be able to impose its will. But the question is: to what end? And, what will be the purpose of the exercise? I confess that I don’t see an end, today, in the deployment of B-52s. It is beyond my comprehension what they are supposed to do in an ethnic conflict at the edge of the Balkans; and, while I am not here to discuss contemporary issues, I do want to say this: there is a tendency to say that this situation has been caused by a war criminal called Milosevic. I will express no opinion on that subject. I will express the opinion, however, that no one man can cause the ethnic crisis in the Balkans. It is a crisis of the interaction between Islam and Christianity at the edge of the Balkans, which has been going on for hundreds of years. When it comes to the interaction of societies, one has to be very careful that when the human rights of the suffering are preserved – an objective I strongly support – we do not create new units that will pursue new ethnic conflicts in neighbouring countries. I hope that the Central European presidents who are meeting today will consider the political question as to how the relationship between the Albanian and Christian populations in that region can be regulated. It is important because we can then do more than just talk in platitudes on television, and instead talk in a concrete manner about what happens when everything is over. We need to know who will relate to whom, so that we do not start a whole new cycle of conflicts in which every ethnic group seeks redefinition by means of outside intervention and military conflicts. I strongly support efforts to stop the immediate killing, but the fundamental problem in the world is not Kosovo. The fundamental problem in the world is that almost every society is undergoing huge changes in which the world in which it lives is unrelated to any historical experience. The next speaker will talk about the emergence of a United Europe. It will be one of the extraordinary facts of our period.
But I believe that the technical side of European unification is far ahead of the political side of European unification. I have never been able to imagine that there could be such a thing as a Central Bank unrelated to any political institutions. Therefore, political institutions inevitably have to develop – and, in fact with respect to Europe, as an outsider I view two contradictory propositions. The first is: I don’t see how it can possibly succeed. And the second is: I don’t see how it can possibly fail. So, I am suspended between two equally plausible propositions. I suspect it will succeed, which will be a huge psychic shock to all the people whose political consciousness has been formed around the nation-state for 300 years. It will also be a psychic shock to the United States, which has not yet had to deal with a western partner of such magnitude. And, finally, I would say the most important thing is that if Europe – this is what I hope for a United Europe – succeeds in unifying, it has the chance to overcome the hereditary disaster of Europe, which has been short-term jealousy and competitiveness.
I believe it is important for the societies who practise democracy, and who have been brought up on more or less the same democratic institutions, to co-operate. I believe that if Europe specializes in its historic competitive instincts, vis-à-vis North America, it will contribute to radicalizing the rest of the world, rather than bringing it together. So, I think the next phase on both sides of the Atlantic should be a serious institutional attempt to find co-operative structures. Of course, the European crisis is a relatively benign one. In Russia, we have wasted seven years by not recognizing that we have seen the collapse of a whole way of looking at the world. It was not just that communism collapsed in 1990; Russian Imperialism collapsed, along with the attitude whereby identity was sought in expansion and the domination of neighbouring countries. The most important problem in Russia is to see whether Russians can be made to feel comfortable in a territory that has nine time zones, from St Petersburg to Vladivostok, and to ensure that they do not feel claustrophobic in that territory. The foreign policy problem is not soluble by giving lectures about market economics and abstract liberal democracy at the University of Moscow. The problem is: can Russians feel that the borders they now have are compatible with their security? In which case it will be relatively easy to find not only methods of co-existence, but also methods of co-operation between Russia and the rest of the world?
I have been a strong advocate of Polish, Czech and Hungarian membership in NATO, not primarily from a military point of view, but from the point of view of returning a country to its historical identification with the West, to the values and structures from which a country must derive part of its identity. It is a somewhat different problem in the case of Russia, whose history diverged and has not shared many of these experiences. However, I believe that the question of how to integrate Russia, and how to relate to it, is one which cannot be tackled by endlessly repeating the slogans of market economics and liberal democracy. It is an area where you must have some understanding of the particular problems. I was not a great advocate of the kind of economic assistance program that has been extended to Russia, which was a kind of rip-off, or turned into a kind of rip-off. However, I am in favour of making sure that there is no starvation during this crisis, and that the humane assistance that is needed to get through this immediate period is given. I have been told to talk for only 20 minutes, which is an unlikely demand on me. You know my native language is German, and Anatole France once said he couldn’t really say he read Kant. He read nine volumes, but the word was in the tenth. So it is easy to go on, and I would just like to make two observations:
The first is that I have not discussed Asia, and I would like to make one observation from the American point of view. We are described as the only superpower; but, we are the only superpower in the world that has never had an enemy at its borders. We are the only superpower that could imagine that its involvement in international affairs depended entirely upon us – was entirely up to us. We are the only superpower where you could publish a book, “The End of History”, and it could become very popular because there was a belief that everything was working towards a conclusion. We are the only superpower that presented all its programmes to itself with a terminal date. There is nobody in Prague with any education who could have believed that we could send troops to Bosnia and that they could leave in one year because the problem of Bosnia would be solved. That is an American perspective: that is possible only in America. So, here we have a country with huge responsibilities, and it is a country that believes that everything has a final solution and that crises are not endemic, but are aberrations that you can overcome with programmes. In what other country would it be possible to believe that a society like China, which has a history of 5,000 years and managed to get through 4,800 of them without advice from the United States, would be totally open to how the United States might conceive its domestic structure? I keep telling my friends in Washington, when they keep telling me how foolish the Japanese are, that “the Japanese overcame the Black Ships, unconditional surrender, and the energy crisis. Have they suddenly become stupid?” What, I ask in Washington, do they say to each other, when they don’t take their own advice? Or is it possible that they have a different way of looking at these problems. That they are operating according to a different theory? I am not saying they are right, but I am saying we have to understand it. And this gets me to my absolutely last point, which is this:
I am not an economist. In fact, when I was in government, the Secretary of Treasury said that my knowledge of economics was the best argument against universal suffrage he had ever known. Of course, he then showed his knowledge of politics by calling the Shah of Iran a Nazi in the middle of the energy crisis (which didn’t show great political insight either). For years now, I have been uneasy about this view of a global economy in which the whole world operates as one market, and in which people are asked to accept suffering for the efficacy of an abstract market – without other criteria. In my limited circles, I have predicted that this will lead to some sort of a debacle because societies will not accept unlimited deprivations. Now we have the global economic crisis. In my view, the global economic crisis has become so severe because technical economists have looked upon it without regard for the political and moral capacities of the people involved. They have turned a currency crisis into an economic crisis, and an economic crisis into a political crisis in many countries. Now they find that without a political framework, they can’t even solve their technical problems. So, I would say that it is absolutely imperative to try to come to some understanding of what the structures of the political world should be. We can multiply lending institutions and we can come up with this technical gimmick or that technical gimmick. That does not solve the problem that if the societies that have to implement the solutions are no longer considered to be just societies by their populations, and if the whole system is thrown into question, none of the technical solutions of the IMF and others will work. And so, in the field of economics, we arrive back to where I started about the issue at hand in Kosovo, which is a minor geographic, but a big human problem. What we need is some idea of the structure of the world.
Now I want to say to my philosopher friends here, who are in the majority: it is easy to sneer at the politicians. But the politicians’ problem is that they are always dealing with the urgent matters, and that they do not always have a chance to deal with the important ones. It makes no sense to keep condemning them unless you can raise their sights to something that has a chance of happening. And this brings me to my last point. This last point applies mostly to the United States, but in this I think we are forerunners of all of you.
We are living through a change in human consciousness comparable to none we have seen since the invention of printing. In the medieval period, you had to learn from memory; and when you learn from memory you need sacred texts because people will have to remember more or less the same epic poems; therefore, human consciousness was inevitably geared towards religious experience. Then came printing, which expanded the range of knowledge, which automatically secularized mankind. But the essence of a book is, first of all, that it is difficult; it takes effort to learn from a book. Secondly, you can’t read every book that has ever been written, so you need some sense for relating things to each other. And that has the benefit of forcing you to think about the future. Now we live in a period in which learning is easy: you press a button. Style is unimportant; style helps you get through a book. You don’t need style to read a computer printout. Young people don’t read much – I’m talking about the computer-driven society – but we now have people who have available a range of knowledge that is absolutely unprecedented. Yet they don’t know what it means. They have no past and they have, therefore, great difficulty developing a future. I have a nephew who went to Princeton University. He appeared in my house with a little goatee the other day, and I said: “You know you’re beginning to look like Napoleon the Third.” It would have been a crushing comment if he had ever heard of Napoleon the Third. He had never heard of him. Since then, I’ve been trying nineteenth-century and other figures, and the most educated people don’t know any of them anymore. So my point is that on one level it’s funny, but on the other hand there are people making decisions of huge consequence, who have never heard of the most elementary struggles in Europe, take Kosovo, between the Turks and Western societies, the preludes to various wars.
And so, the unsolved problems to which I don’t have any answer, but which people must address, are these: we don’t have any problem accumulating knowledge; we have an enormous problem understanding its significance; and all of the issues that I have briefly sketched revolve around the question of significance. All the tough political decisions are very close decisions, and if you don’t have a road map through them – the art of politics, of political solution, to understand what is a little problem and what is a big problem, and not to deal with little problems as if they were big problems – if we don’t master them, then we’re not going to master the age of globalization.
So, Mr President, thank you for letting me come here and to pay tribute to one of the great figures of our period.
Thank you very much.

Jacques Rupnik
I think I can thank, on behalf of all the participants, Dr Kissinger for his splendid opening. He didn’t provide the road map for all the problems, but he did provide an excellent road map for our morning’s discussion. And when somebody asks, as Henry Kissinger once did: “European Union, what telephone number?” I am tempted to give the number of Mr Jean-Louis Bourlanges. Not because he is a powerful old Eurocrat sitting in Brussels, but because in France he is probably one of the most knowledgeable and eloquent proponents of European integration. He is, in fact, the author of a book called Le Diable, est-il européen? (Is the Devil European?) He is a well-known member of the European Parliament and the President of the European Movement in France. After hearing an American perspective, we are very fortunate to have him here with us to give us the European perspective on the world today.

Jean-Louis Bourlanges
Thank you, Jacques. If you will allow me, I would like to speak French, mainly because I am a typical Frenchman who speaks French well, which is not true of my English.
I think that an illustration of the difficulties accompanying the emergence of the European Union on the international scene was just given when Jacques Rupnik considered it relevant to jokingly comment that Henry Kissinger’s question, “What is the telephone number of Europe?”, could be answered with the response that it is the number of one modest Member of the European Parliament. Alas, I am afraid that this joke, too, may be perceived as a certain symbol of our cumbersome emergence on the international scene.
Referring to General de Gaulle, King Sihanouk once said that when a Callas appears on the stage, everybody should keep silent. I could say the same. You have just been listening to a Callas in the person of Mr Kissinger and I, the second speaker, am suffering from a cold and have a hoarse voice. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to take up the topic that has been raised, i.e. the understanding of the emergence, or otherwise, of the European Union on the international scene.
I think that in the nineties the European Union faced two great challenges. The first was that of power and the second a Copernicus-kind of revolution of opening oneself to the non-European world. Until the revolutionary events of 1989, the building of Europe collided with a twofold limitation. First, it was limited in the economic dimension, because the political threat faced by Europe, i.e. the Soviet threat, had a global dimension and required, therefore, a global response. It has been repeatedly stated that the Soviet threat was, in actual fact, an integrating factor in Western Europe. And that is true. It should of course be added that there was also the factor of dichotomy, even of schizophrenia, between the economic integration taking place at the European level and the political integration drawing on a broader base. General de Gaulle tried to cast doubt on this dichotomy but did not succeed for structural reasons. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the limitation of Europe merely to the economic sphere started to fade, the threat to the world melted away and we find ourselves in a world of regional, more or less intensively resonating upheavals. The European Union and the Europeans cannot avoid politics, therefore: they must pass through this sacred gate leading to power.
The second feature of European processes was, until 1989, the deeply introvert nature of the building of Europe. The reasons for European integration lie in the internal policy of Europe. The aim was to overcome the incredibly violent struggles which have shaken Europe in the last centuries and especially severely in the 20th century. Here, too, the change at the turn of the nineties was enormous. To put it simply and shortly, it could be said that the European Union and the Europeans are passing from an introvert to an extrovert development of Europe. The moving force of the European Union is no longer the mere reconciliation of nations. That has become an evident reality, no longer just a distant aim – albeit an imperfect reality which can, of course, still be refined and extended further towards central and eastern Europe; nevertheless. We already have the acquis communautaires.
On the other hand, it is now important to tune European values, interests and geopolitical characteristics in the most favourable way into other values, interests and geopolitical characteristics. I shall paraphrase Saint-Exupéry who said the following about love: Since 1989, the Europeans have been finding that to like one another means not only to look at one another, but also to look in the same direction.
How did the Europeans respond to this double challenge, and what is the situation like today? It is interesting that the Europeans have let the challenge of power slip through their fingers. On the other hand, however, they have been relatively successful in meeting the challenge of opening themselves to the outside world. So, the challenge of power has been wasted. This is principally due, in my view, to certain schizophrenia when it comes to power on the part of, on the one hand, the individual European countries and of, on the other hand, the European Union. The countries have maintained what I call the diabolical part of European policy, i.e. violence, intimidation, mobilization of forces, applying more or less limited resources somewhat autonomously of NATO. The European Union, on the other hand, has assumed the angelic part of this policy, i.e. values, humanism, law, co-operation rather than confrontation, multipolarity and international organizations rather than unilateralism and self-promotion. There is no bridge joining these two points. Both in the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, we Europeans have been building a kind of illusory premise. We have declared something that was a utopia: the identity of substance and continuity of method in diplomacy focused on power relations and applied between individual states on the one hand, and European Union diplomacy endorsed, somewhat miraculously, jointly and unanimously, on the other hand. I think that this procedure has resulted, quite unavoidably, in a declarative type of diplomacy, i.e. a diplomacy that does not achieve the stipulated objectives.
We have managed relatively well the global emergence of Europe by basing the international activities of the Community on principles that are considerably different from the European political tradition cited by Mr Kissinger, a tradition which, from Richelieu to Metternich, sanctified power relations, balance, national interests, aims limitation, and the “concert” of European nations. It is a paradox that in contradiction to these principles we were inclined in the nineties to apply a more Wilsonian and Rooseveltian dimension of the American heritage. Speaking about Wilson, I am aware that here, in the Czech Republic, you feel a great gratitude to President Wilson for his great contribution towards the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia. I would be glad, however, if the Wilsonian legacy were not limited merely to the right of nations to self-determination, because it involves also the ideals behind the objectives: a strong endeavour to achieve a certain arrangement of international relations and the prevalence of strategies of co-operation over strategies of confrontation. It is very interesting to note, therefore, that what is going on is a kind of quadrille where the partners are Europeans and Americans. The matter at hand may be the World Trade Organization or a European presence at a conference on sustainable development or global warming. It may be the introduction of the euro or the somewhat ambivalent forms of Europe’s intervention in the latest crisis in Iraq. However, all the main trends have a very clear political aspect. It needs to be pointed out that in all these aspects the European Union reflects the development of an international community based on law, co-operation and multilateralism.
A different choice has been made, on the other hand, by the United States, especially under the influence of Henry Kissinger – and for very serious reasons. After having been bogged down in the drawn-out conflict in Vietnam, after the defeat in Vietnam, and also after the knockout win over the Soviet Union, the US has developed a new synthesis involving all the traditional European values of foreign policy as defined at this venue. I think this quadrille deserves attention.
How to resolve this peculiar quadrille? How can it lead to the birth of something new? I think it is necessary to effect two orders of things. For the Europeans, it is essential to resolve two issues. The first is to deal with their institutional schizophrenia in the field of power. One alternative in this respect is to aim at the establishment of a single European state, but in my view that would be premature. It is not on the agenda and European enlargement to the countries of central and Eastern Europe will not induce such a development. Indeed, it will not be possible to ask the very countries that have suffered from limited sovereignty to give up that sovereignty. A second alternative would be to invent something that was not achieved in Maastricht, i.e. the union of the economic, humanitarian and developmental activities of the European Union with the diplomacy of states in a different way. The two are now separate, and the bridges linking them that were designed in Maastricht and Amsterdam are not enough. Second, it is necessary for Europe to develop much calmer relations with the United States. It is France that I have in mind, but not only France. I think that many of my compatriots are wrong in believing that Europe can achieve superpower status by haughtily and irritably maintaining non-dependent relations with the United States.
On the other hand, it is clear that the United States have a large interest in the matter since they inherently combine a status of hegemony and a status of caution and a certain restraint towards the burden of political and military empire. For the United States, too, it is important to find partners capable of assuming their share of this burden and responsibility, which will lead to the reduction of the asymmetry in European-American relations. Indeed, if we want to lead, on both sides of the Atlantic, a balanced dialogue with the rest of the world, if we want to create a new international order protecting democracy and prosperity and providing space to all the participants, then, on both sides of the Atlantic, we must strive to search for a combination of those two great personalities which, like in a quadrille, we have exchanged: we must search for a synthesis of Metternich and Wilson.
Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
I would like to give the floor to President Havel.

Václav Havel
I would like to use the time that I have with you at this session, because I will have to leave in a few minutes, to ask two questions... one to my dear friend, Henry Kissinger, and the other one to Mr Bourlanges. Perhaps my questions will contribute to our debate.
Is it really true that in Kosovo we see an irreconcilable conflict between the Islamic world, on the one hand, and the Christian world on the other hand? Isn’t it true that – similarly as in Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere in the world – what we are seeing there is simply an encounter of reason, of goodness, of humanity, of mutual respect, of citizenship, of civic principles on the one hand, and fanaticism, a fanatic use and abuse of religious feeling and nationalistic feeling, on the other hand?
My second question is to Mr Bourlanges. As a country that is trying to become a member of the European Union, we are aware of the magnitude of this task. We know that we have to adopt truckloads of laws, regulations and standards. All of this makes us believe that this is a very integrated organization. I would like to ask: why can’t this organization, if it is so integrated, have one single representative among the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations? Why must there be two, an Englishman and a Frenchman, and why should we consider a third, a German? The European Union has, I think, 350 million inhabitants. There are countries, such as India, that have many more inhabitants, many more different nations and ethnic groups, than the whole of Europe, and they are not among the permanent members of the Security Council. Can you explain that to me?
So, these are the two questions for our speakers, one for Henry Kissinger, and one for Mr Bourlanges.

Henry A. Kissinger
I think President Havel has raised the age-old question which is: is man inherently good and only led to evil by misguided leaders; or is it possible that there are convictions, at any one period, that have their own momentum?
In an ultimate sense, it is probably quite true that the people in Kosovo, or in Bosnia, may have been brought to their convictions by misguided leaders. I believe that it is operationally the case, on a day-to-day basis, that the driving force in these conflicts was that they were at an intersection – of strong religious and national feelings that are held by enough of the population to have produced this degree of suffering. We saw the same in India and Pakistan at the partition, and I don’t believe that, in Kosovo today, the solution will be found by hoping that everyone will develop a sense of justice. I think there is a very concrete problem in Kosovo.
Is it possible to develop autonomy for the Albanians, in Kosovo, of such a nature that it does not immediately create a national challenge to all surrounding countries (and open up a whole new series of crises) and to do so in a way that is tolerable for the Serbs? This is why I said to you, Mr. President, that there’s no sense talking in the abstract about autonomy. What is needed is a detailed proposal of how autonomy actually operates, village by village. If this can be achieved, then one can establish enough of a calm period in order to be able to deal with the ultimate question; but, I believe that it is probably the case that the majority of the leaders of all the parties in Serbia, and probably also in Albania, support the present confrontations – and, therefore, one must find a way of disengaging the process and getting some specific proposal on the table before it escalates into NATO participation in a civil war.
I believe the real issue (I know this is an operational answer) is: is it possible to get a definition of autonomy compatible with human dignity and compatible with the self-esteem of the countries there? Otherwise, it will never work. People throw the word autonomy around, which is a matter of life and death – once you are engaged in a semi-religious, semi-ethnic conflict, there isn’t enough time to deal with the ultimate question of whether these people should really, inwardly, reconcile with each other.
Jacques Rupnik
Yes, I am sure we will return to this major issue during our debate. For Europeans, particularly, the question is the one Dr Kissinger raised; but also another one. Can European integration prosper while you have ethnic warfare at its periphery? Can it just look the other way and say: these are ancient conflicts and we can’t do much about them? We should concentrate on the euro and other important duties. Well, I am sure we will return to that...

Henry A. Kissinger
I want Europe to come up with a concrete proposal about what we should all be talking about, and not with slogans.

Jacques Rupnik
Absolutely, that is what we’re here for, looking for answers and certainly not for slogans. Mr Bourlanges.

Jean-Louis Bourlanges
I would like to make a short remark as a basis for my answer to President Havel. President Havel has expressed, legitimately, a very ironic objection to the avalanche of directives and regulations dealing with the most paltry matters. I think you are right, Mr President, and we are truly overwhelmed by such things. All of us remember your address to the European Parliament, how you turned the debate to the right level when you pointed out that what is at stake in European integration is civilization, and not only directives and regulations. We must be aware that we are living in a system which a proponent of European integration called a “federalist system turned inside out.” Indeed, it is not in the habit of governments – who bear the greatest responsibility in this respect – to choose, as the common denominator, that which is essential, as in the case of federalism, but rather what is secondary, and they do not always succeed in avoiding what was called, at the end of the 18th Century, “the Josephine temptation”, i.e. hair-splitting regulations. This brings me to the answer to your question. I think you are right, in principle, when you ask: why not concentrate representation of the European Union in the UN in the person of one representative? The answer, however, draws on the fact that, although Europeans ought to do so, they have not yet managed to pass through the sacred gate of politicking; and, also from the fact that there is no true common diplomacy. There are only individual national diplomacies, often weak and dissonant, occasionally promising and fruitful. The choice today is among a number of national diplomacies or one European non-diplomacy. Neither the Amsterdam nor the Maastricht Treaty enables us to develop a truly common diplomacy that would not only allow the transition to a qualified majority, but also deepen the creation of state, diplomatic, military and decision-making tools, as well as public-opinion tools that would lay the foundations for a true diplomacy.
Meanwhile, countries like Great Britain and France are saying: why do you want us to give up a bird in the hand for two in the bush? Why should we give up our national diplomacy, which occasionally succeeds, like in Bosnia in 1995 when the British and the French managed to arrive at a NATO-facilitated solution? Why should we give this up when nothing reliable is being offered in return? Mr President, I hope that the Czech Republic, which is to become a Member of the European Union within a very short time (although the “short time” still needs to be determined), will – from an institutional point of view – become a motor of, not a brake on, the integration of EU institutions, since it is only at a higher level of integration that we will be able to solve the problem which you so legitimately brought up.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges. Mr Ashis Nandy, an acclaimed Indian political scientist, director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Mr Nandy.

Ashis Nandy
Frankly, I am of two minds as to whether to comment or not. I know very little about European diplomacy or the future of Europe. I do not know whether Europe could or could not prosper if there were ethnic conflicts at its peripheries. I have my questions about how much more Europe needs to prosper, but that’s a different story and I do not want to burden you with a question like that. Nor do I want to speak about India. I do not represent India, I represent only myself and there is a minor error, if I might point it out, in the introduction. I am listed as a political scientist. Actually, I am a psychologist who only studies politicians – and sometimes political scientists. I will not tell you whether I have found prospective candidates to study today; I will keep it to myself.
The best I can do, by way of comment, is to request that you join me in a thought experiment. Imagine what a person from a savage part of the world, like me – if he were standing in the middle of the 21st Century (after all, this is the Forum 2000) – might find distinctive about the century that is now in its dying years. I propose to you that the most clear, unmistakable identifier he or she might find is the sheer volume of violence in this century. But that violence represented a marked change – in the tonal quality of the violence – and I would like to spell that out. During this century, at the most conservative estimate, 110 million people have been killed in man-made, unnecessary, gratuitous violence. Other centuries were violent, but this violence is particularly distinctive.
Most of the people who died went to their graves hearing not so much, or confronting not so much, violence guided by passion, violence that was only flamed by hatred, but violence that was organised, dispassionate and conveyed something of the conveyer-belt technology. It was a kind of “industrialized violence.” I don’t know whether you can call it violence – it’s almost like the way a modern farmer looks at a heap of pests he has to kill as a part of scientific agronomy.
This violence has been justified, in almost every case, by principles that often delight – if I can put it that way – in the enlightenment vision, in the sense that the millions of victims of Josef Stalin were killed in the name of scientific history, or the experience of the European Jewry who were killed in the name of 19th century biology, or eugenics if you like, or in the name of the demons of ‘scientised’ nation-state governments. Now, this particular style of violence has spread all over the world, and it’s coming to the peripheries of the world, too.
Mention was made by Professor Kissinger about the violence between villages and communities in southern Asia. I might point out, in this context, that in the past fifty years (if you accumulate the available data on religious violence in India) only 3.6% of all the people killed have died in the villages of India although, during those fifty years, 80% of Indians have lived in villages. If you go by the origins of communal clashes and riots, more than 97% of the violence has originated in the cities and then spread into villages. Does this have anything to tell us?
I think it’s possible – but I’m not pushing this argument – that the violence might not have been caused by age-old animosities between Hindus and Muslims in India, rather as old animosities may not be the source of the violence that has now engulfed the Balkans or the violence we have seen in Rwanda. People have lived for centuries with reasonable amity and reasonable peace. This violence perhaps has other kinds of sources; it has sources that are not incongruous with the immediate violence that has taken place in this century.
I suspect that one of the causes of conflict in our times are the clear self-definitions and the very well-defined concepts of identities which have been pushed by our education systems, global culture and the global common sense, if I may call it so. To give you just one example, a Japanese census tells us that if you add up all the percentages of Japan’s religious communities, the total invariably adds up to more than 100% because many people who are Shinto are also Buddhist, and they do not see any contradiction in this. In fact, I doubt whether there can ever be a proper ethnic conflict in Japan between the Shinto and the Buddhists. In China, you still find that many people can simultaneously have more than one religion.
If you look at the census of the post-colonialist societies in South Asia, every census accurately adds up all the religious communities to 100%: 82.346% Hindus, 12.08% Muslims, and so on, and so forth. Yet, when a community census was done in 1994 (over five years ago, but for the first time in South Asia), it was found that at least 600 communities had more than one religion. I’m giving you this data to suggest that the source of conflict is no longer in traditional blood feuds between ethnic communities. It perhaps has other sources.
Despite the long history of Hindu-Muslim conflict, in the holiest of holy Islamic shrines in South Asia, on a normal day there are more non-Muslim pilgrims than Muslim pilgrims. In the holiest of holy shrines of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple, despite 12 years of bitter ethnic violence and separatist movements, on a normal day, the number of non-Sikh pilgrims is still larger than the number of Sikh pilgrims. And, in the best known church in Bombay, which is supposed to be the holiest of the holy Christian pilgrimages, fewer than 10% of the pilgrims are Christians. In other words, identities in that part of the world, as in many other parts of the world, are fluid. Their borderlines were not well defined, they were not re-defined to suit modern statecraft, they were not re-defined to suit modern textbooks of sociology, and politics and anthropology.
I would suspect, very modestly, that the situation is not much different in Africa or even parts of Europe. In the 1960s, when we collaborated with some Yugoslavs in a study, we found that nearly 30% of the Bosnian Muslims had Serb relatives through marriage. They had lived with reasonable peacefulness with the Serbs for long stretches of time. A friend of mine tells me that the Hutus and Tutsis are two tribes that are anthropologically very difficult to distinguish. I don’t know about that, but I do know that a Belgium document exists from the 1880s, which tried to classify the Hutus and the Tutsis in terms of the number of cows they possessed. If they had more than five cows, they were Hutus; if they had less than five cows, they were Tutsis.
I am not going into the reasonableness of that argument. I am proposing to you that many proximate communities have been torn asunder in our times, and part of the challenge for us is to discover why. This is, after all, a world of democracy. People not only ask for participation in the political process, but they also bring into the political process their categories, their belief systems, and their traditional myths, allegiances and epics; and if you grant them the right to bring their categories – and not only their votes – into the political process, then perhaps it is possible for us to consider that they also have something to offer to us in terms of their ability to co-operate on grounds that are accessible to them. These may not be grounds on which we would like them to transcend their conflicts, but perhaps we would not be poorer for granting them that right. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. You said you were speaking on your own behalf. May I say that this is true of everybody else here. When I said we had heard “an American view” and “a European view”, I didn’t say “the” American view or “the” European view. Everybody here, around this table, is speaking on his own behalf.
You raised some very important issues, I think, which we shall discuss this morning. The question of how warfare between states is receding, but internal conflicts are proliferating; that globalization goes hand-in-hand with the assertion of ethnic identity, which in itself need not be a problem. It’s only a problem when it’s an assertion at the expense of everything else and, of course, here the example of the European Union and European integration as an attempt to reconcile multiple identities is an important one. The floor is open to other speakers.

Amitai Etzioni
I want to learn from the former Secretary of State, Professor Kissinger, and to argue that any attempt to derive a theory of society, or international relationships, from one principle is dangerous. It follows that the very notion of globalization is, by definition, a danger, and one of the great services this Forum could do is not to declare the end of globalizm but a need for it, like all other good ideas, to be balanced by other considerations, so that the first step should be that of a “good society,” carefully balanced. Globalizm is autonomy, rights with responsibilities, freedom with social order and other considerations of balance.
The second step would be that no society can protect its integrity unless it has some viable capacity to control its borders, and I don’t necessarily mean political geographical borders, but the capacity to function as an autonomous unit. We can argue as to whether the border should be a country, or group of countries, or a region, or a religious group, but no society can protect its values if it’s lost in some kind of global market.
Now, the third principle is that not all societies will construct their “protection of self” mechanism in the same manner. Malaysia may prefer to use currency controls – which doesn’t shock me necessarily – while other countries may try to protect their culture from foreign invasion. Most countries will need to consider a multiple of controls. But, as for the notion that there can be “one principle and all other local values need to be set aside”, I think this would be a good to time to declare it dead and null.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. The next speaker is Mr Hans Küng.

Hans Küng
Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Dr Kissinger was kind enough to address first the philosophers and certainly, together with my friend Amitai Etzioni, I don’t think I would oppose the view of philosophers and of their statements so much. Of course, I know both disciplines – philosophy and statesmanship – very well, and there is a difference. But I am not so sure that philosophers are concerned more with the important than with the urgent and statesmen vice-versa. I certainly do not believe that you have to be a little naive in order to achieve great things. I would rather feel that you were right when you insisted that great statesmen have moral convictions. If we have achieved really great things in the foundation of Europe, as Mr Bourlanges explained, these were achieved because we had European statesmen. In the first phase of Europe, there was De Gaulle, Adenauer, De Gasperi, Schumann, men who really had moral convictions. And you said it is now over – this old play of European power politics in the style of Richelieu, Metternich, Bismarck, Palmerston, and many others – and we should try to do things in a new way. I do not have the impression now, in the present situation, that we have these same kinds of statesmen. We could probably have had a better solution at the beginning of the crisis in Bosnia if there had been more statesmen of moral convictions, rather than this old-fashioned European power politics from every side.
So, my questions really concern the principles. Should ethics always be subordinate to politics, to its effectiveness, its efficiency? I have carefully studied your book on diplomacy and I have a great admiration for all the historical knowledge in your analysis. We would probably agree, as far as I understood you, that the politics of states should not be determined exclusively by power interests. Certainly, the politics of the United States has often been inspired in a good way by ideal goals and by moral claims and, together with Mr Bourlanges, I would also defend President Wilson against what you have often called “Wilsonianism”. I would not like to defend an idealistic, moralistic approach to politics; nevertheless the question remains: “Can good political goals, if need be, also use immoral means?” That is a very clear question, and sometimes a very difficult choice. Can you allow the use of lying, deceit, betrayal, political murder, even war, because your political goals are quite clear and you would like to achieve that?
The second question is related to the first one. Do states have the right to a different morality than ordinary citizens? I know you defended that notion even against very important personalities in American policy such as Jefferson who believed that states – which practically means statesmen – have no right to a different kind of morality than individuals. So I think we really would have to insist on that: We cannot admit that statesmen are above ethical standards; we cannot admit that armies are above ethical standards, or the police or even diplomats.
I think these two questions are quite clear. I have great respect for your scholarly work, for your book on diplomacy; but I think these questions are not mine alone. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
They certainly are not only your own, and I think maybe Dr Kissinger would be kind enough to reply.

Henry A. Kissinger
Let me make two comments. I am not sure, from where I sit, that I understood exactly what you were saying. If you were saying “I do not believe that there is one over-riding global concept that we can apply to all conditions”, I think the paradox of the situation is that technology is global, communications are global, that the interaction of economies are clearly global, but the consciousness with which it is perceived is not global. The economic crisis we now face and the consequences imposed on societies by what I would call “repatriate globalizm” are not acceptable, regardless of what the economists say about it. So, one of the problems of our period is that the political consciousness is at a different level of reality than the economic consciousness. Now, Professor Küng, as somebody who has read your writings with great admiration, I must begin by saying: I am not a philosopher, I am not a practising philosopher. You are raising questions that humanity has wrestled with for millennia, and I cannot pretend to give a clear answer to them. At the margins, I can give an answer...
Is a statesman entitled to order murder? Now, then again, what do you mean by murder? Is it individual murder? Should a statesman order assassinations? This, for a democratic statesman, I think is absolutely unacceptable, and I would consider it an immoral exercise of a statesman’s prerogative. Does a statesman have a right to order wars? This is where we get into an already very complicated issue. After all, we have had theological debate about the “just war” and it is not as if religions have not fought bitter wars in their own name. When a society’s survival is at stake, either physically or in terms of the values that it holds essential, I believe war is justified. But we get into another point when we talk about modern weapons. Can one justify general nuclear war? I was one of those who had, or at least would have had, a voice if it had ever come to that – and it was one of the most tormenting questions one had. Historically, it was often the case that the consequences of defeat reversed the consequences of war and certainly many occupied countries in Eastern Europe experienced that during World War II. With nuclear weapons, the consequences of war are always worse than any conceivable outcome. The question is whether, if you pronounce this, you do not then open the field to those who practice extermination. If one of the parties does, it is not clear-cut. Frivolous wars, wars of conquest – I could give you many examples of wars I would consider immoral – but for a statesman to say absolutely that he will never go to war is, in a way, abdicating one of his responsibilities.
It would be, of course, remarkable and extraordinary if mankind could bring itself to a level where this question would never be asked practically. I think that one of the great achievements of Europe, and maybe of all current western societies except at the margins, is that in the western hemisphere – in the Americas and in Europe, up to the Russian border – war is really inconceivable, and it would be hard to describe a war that would have any moral justification in that region. When you go further east, if you look at the societies in Asia, they are at the stage of conception of 19th century Europe. They look at each other as strategic adversaries and I have an understanding for the Indian nuclear programme from that perspective, even though I do not like nuclear weapons. Then, when you go into the issue of fundamentalism, if there is a comparison in Europe, it would be the 15th and 16th centuries – the period of religious conflicts. For those societies death is, itself, a moral quality, so I find it very hard at our stage of intellectual development. I think the recourse to force is something that should be undertaken very contemplatively, but I feel also one other thing: Our societies are now organized in a way and on a level where demagoguery and the appeal to emotions is produced by new kinds of learning technology. We learn from pictures now rather than from books – and it is an appeal to emotion, so we might see great outbursts of violence supported by public opinion, and that worries me more than statesmen who are actually going to war.
I accept the validity of your questions, and I think meetings like this can contribute. All I ask, from people like you who raise these questions – and this emphatically does not apply to you – is that they should not get self-righteous about their questions and that they should understand that these are painful dilemmas for serious statesmen.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. I now have a whole list of speakers. I have Hazel Henderson, Krishan Kumar, Marek Jacina, Mr Etzioni, Mr Bourlanges and so on. So, Hazel Henderson from the Worldwatch Institute.

Hazel Henderson
Thank you, Mr Chairman. I wanted to return to the subject of the global economy, and I very much agree with Dr Kissinger, Dr Etzioni, and Dr Küng concerning the problem of this particular kind of globalization we face today – the globalization of what I call “economism” and the problem of the globalization also of the mass media, where we are ruled by the new media-cracy, certainly not democracy.
It seems to me, though, that the global economic meltdown of today is a great opportunity to promote exactly the kind of multilateral co-operation and the new agencies, the new financial architecture, which have been talked about since the G7 meeting in Halifax in 1995, where there was a lot of vague discussion about the need for a new financial architecture. But it’s no use to leave this kind of discussion to finance ministers. One didn’t expect the G22 last weekend in Washington to come to any conclusion. They are too worried about the effect whatever they say might have on the financial markets, so we can never get to the root of the problem. We can never get an honest discussion of the cause of the economic meltdown. It seems very obvious to me. If you take down all the fire-walls between all the world’s economies, as has been done by the de-regulation of the capital markets in the 1980s, one expects the enormous flow of hot money all over the world which we now have to deal with.
I have just come back from Japan. As a US citizen, I found myself rather embarrassed by all of the jaw-boning of Japan by officials from my country, when I remember that 18 months ago it was the Japanese who offered leadership, wanting to set up an Asian version of the IMF and it was the United States that squashed that idea. At the moment, we have a huge opportunity here. We do have to deal with the naivety of the financial markets, because the financial markets, where I am involved on a daily basis, basically seem to believe that – just because they operate in nanoseconds with their computerized trading – they can get democratic societies instantly to react or to re-flate their economies just to suit investors.
We have to realize that democratic processes take months and years and, indeed, they should. So, I hope that I will see in the near future the kind of leadership that we need in the world, which really means the calling of a new Bretton Woods conference, where we can bring the political actors together at the top level and really look at how we should flesh out this globalization – so that we have the globalization of standards or the globalization of corporate codes of conduct; the globalization of the kind of Agenda 21 agreements and action plans that came out of Rio de Janeiro, and the globalization of the anti-poverty plans that came out of Copenhagen in 1995. This is the kind of globalization that we need to complete. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. Well, there will be a lot of time to discuss those including a session tomorrow which is devoted specifically to the economic dimensions of globalization. Mr Krishan Kumar.

Krishan Kumar
My comments relate to some of the remarks made early on by Mr Bourlanges. I see he is no longer with us, I hope he may, at least, be listening – it concerns what I see as a kind of polarity, on the one hand, globalization, and, on the other, Europeanization. It strikes me that there will not be many friends of globalization at this meeting. Everybody here, I think, is probably critical of many of the dimensions of globalization, but I hope that we would all agree that there is, at least, an implicit ideal in globalization that is worth keeping in mind.
It’s an ideal of cosmopolitanism, it’s an ideal of conducting our affairs together and understanding each other. In this respect, it seems to me that the move towards an integrated Europe is a backward step rather than a forward step. It strikes me, for instance, that Europe was much more a part of the world in the first half of this century than it seems to be becoming in the second part of the century. Europe, from the time of President Wilson, let’s say, was a part of this loose thing called the West, and the West included North America and Great Britain as well as the continent of Europe. It seems to me that what’s increasingly happening is that Europe is pulling away from even something as loosely organized as the West into something far more insular – Europe, which can’t even agree on its boundaries and, every time it tries to have a debate about what is Europe, finds itself in a terrible mess.
Again, the question was raised this morning: What are the boundaries of Europe? Does it include the Visegrad countries? Yes, it seems to include the Visegrad countries. But Russia? No, it seems, Russia is not part of Europe. It is an endless, definitional debate, and it seems to me that it’s one that highlights the point again and again that the attempts to create a wall, or a boundary, around Europe is really a very, very negative move. A wall to the East against Russia, a wall to the West against North America, walls all around. Wouldn’t it perhaps be better, instead of aiming at some kind of “centralized, institutional, state-like supra-state” definition of Europe, to leave it much, much looser? It is a culture, it is a civilization, and that’s good, but it should remain very porous and very open.
I’d prefer, much more, some idea of regionalization, something that’s sub-national rather than supra-national. But, all the attempts towards defining Europe, and particularly the attempts to give it an institutional expression, seem to me to be pulling Europe away from the world rather than making it part of the world.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. Unfortunately, Mr Bourlanges has just left the room for a second. As a European, I would be tempted to answer you, but as a moderator I would probably have to moderate myself. I would simply say that any political entity must have boundaries and, therefore, to discuss the boundaries of the enlargement of Europe doesn’t mean exclusion by definition, and there does not need to be a wall. To discuss a wall to the East and a wall to the West seems to me slightly overstated; but, as I say, Mr Bourlanges is not here to answer to you.

Coffee break

Jacques Rupnik
The first on my list of speakers is Lord Weidenfeld.

Sir Arthur George Weidenfeld
Mr Chairman, I would like to make two brief comments on two passages in Dr Kissinger’s speech: one dealing with the Balkan crisis; the other one is his more magisterial observations on political philosophy.
As far as the Balkans is concerned, President Havel asked whether it is really Islam versus Christianity at the very root of the conflict. I submit that this is an important ingredient, but by no means the sole or even the most important ingredient. I believe what we are witnessing there is an extraordinary phenomenon of the re-surfacing of old historic ethnic tribal demons in the absence of a major external threat. This is a region that has for centuries been dominated by one or several parts, by Ordnungsmacht and Ordnungsmächte and, in this century alone, has been subjected to several peace treaties – some arbitrary, some logical, some illogical, Potsdam, Yalta, etc. So, this is the re-surfacing of this pent-up passion to make changes. Of course, the cultural dimension of the Huntington thesis of the “clash of civilization” plays a part, but I don’t think it is the most important. When it comes to Slav versus Slav, Croat versus Serb, there is no religion involved there, or not too much of it.
On the other point, of the certain limitations of man’s ability to arrive at perfect solutions, I was privy to a small, informal seminar given by Fernand Braudel – it was really more a “causerie de lundi” than a seminar – shortly before his death, and what he was discussing with his disciples was what people were saying and arguing about in the years 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300 and 1400. Looking back into one century and looking forward into another century. Curiously enough, although there are elitist versions available of what they talked about, they talked about some of the same sort of things we are talking about now. They ranged from “Apocalyptic Pessimism” to “Euphoric Utopianism”, and that was Braudel’s postscript and that’s why it links up with Dr Kissinger. He said it was the Utopians who sometimes caused more evil than those who took very pessimistic views of human nature, and that perfectionism and the ideal, when carried through in the wrong sort of way, can lead to disaster.
What we have to do, and I hope that this conference will show how we can achieve some parts of it, is to improve existing institutions and to recognize that they are wholly inadequate – such as the composition of the Security Council or the various bodies dealing with the world economy. But, there is one positive point that is unique in this century and that is globalization in the sense that never before has there been this instant awareness of all the transgressions of human rights or of the shortcomings of political leadership. And, although we may seem very impotent and unable to do anything about it, the diagnostic stage is soon arrived at. What we have to do is to find tools and instruments for therapy. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much, Lord Weidenfeld. The next speaker is Mr Marek Jacina, who I is a delegate of the Students’ Forum 2000 from Canada.

Marek Jacina
Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I would like to begin my comments by stating that in Canada today we are celebrating Thanksgiving and so, on behalf of the students who are present here today, I would like to give thanks for the privilege of participating in this panel discussion. We look at this as a sincere gesture to establish dialogue with young people. In addition, I would like to thank Dr Kissinger for his comment about naivety: that sometimes one must be naive in order to do great things. As a student sitting on a panel with so many distinguished personalities, one can’t help but feel a little bit naive.
As far as our contributions to this Forum are concerned, we students do not necessarily have the expertise that many, or all, of the prominent personalities have. However, we hope to be able to provide at least an insight into our situation, and specifically the way globalization affects young people. I believe that globalization is one of two forces that concern young people. I would like, in my explanation, to alarm the panel to a potentially disturbing trend.
It is said that our generation is an extremely cynical one. This stems from a number of reasons. However, the point is that we are rapidly losing faith in authorities, whether they are political, religious or professional. This could be due, first of all, to globalization as an economic phenomenon – in the sense that we are, in fact, entering a labour market different to the labour markets of the past, where there was merely a nation, a protected market serving 20 million, 50 million or perhaps slightly more members of the population. In fact, we are now entering a situation where we have to compete on a global level, which means in a market serving 6.2 billion. This is obviously a cause for some concern as there are so many people competing for jobs along with us.
The other force that I would like to bring to the attention of the panel is what Dr Kissinger mentioned as the continuation of the process of secularization. The role that was once filled by the Church in the realm of education, medical care and charity has, over time, been transferred to the nation-state, establishing the social welfare nets with which we are so familiar. As globalization has come to the forefront, nation-states are, in fact, saying that we can no longer afford many of these benefits which could have served to improve the conditions of the population, and so the financial burden is being passed on to the individual. So, what we have here is a situation where my generation not only has to compete in a global labour market, but also has to insure, as individuals, that everything is in place for our own prosperity. It seems as though this is quite a lot of pressure to put on young people today.
This can also be seen in a moral sense – in that morality is also being transferred to the individual. When we have nations, such as Canada, which are very multicultural, each culture has its own morality and it seems as though, in order to achieve some sort of common morality, we have to look for a lowest common denominator. This, of course, raises the question of how we can have a common goal of humanity when the trend is to deal with the forces in existence today as individuals. Essentially, from the perspective of a young person looking at recent developments in the world, there seems to be more and more emphasis on economics, and more and more people are much more interested in the day-to-day results of the stock markets, or quarter-to-quarter results of corporations, and hoping that corporate profits will rise and that hence the economies of these nation-states will provide a base of prosperity.
Unfortunately, as we move towards the individualization of our economies and our morality, we are lacking that sense of community, not only as nation-states but as humanity. In my opinion, the pressing goal for political bodies and political institutions is to provide a balance between not only the logical, individualistic side geared primarily towards economics, but also to provide a balance for the spiritual side and the well-being of the community. Unfortunately, as this trend continues, we realize, or at least many people in my generation realize, that morality is at a competitive disadvantage, and in order to gain a leg up in this every-man-for-himself globalized labour market, morality sometimes has to fall by the wayside.
In conclusion, Mr Speaker, allow me just to say that if we are to reverse this trend we definitely have to look at ways, as Lord Weidenfeld mentioned, of improving these institutions – not only to ensure that we are acceding to a global world, but at least to have globalizm with a human face. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. Mr Bourlanges has asked for a quick right to reply to what Mr Kumar said. He was not here when you said it, but I gave him the gist of your statement. I hope I haven’t misinterpreted it and he will give a brief reply to it.

Jean-Louis Bourlanges
Thank you. Yes, I had to call the Ambassador, and when there is a telephone call between an Ambassador, on one hand, and an MEP, on the other, it is not entirely up to you to wind up the conversation.
As I said, I just got the gist of your contribution, but I believe that you cast a certain doubt on the concept of openness in the European Union and that you also queried the concept of the European Union as a fortress. Of course, I had no intention to refer to the European Union as a fortress, and it would not reflect upon the current situation, anyway. We are currently focusing on the Common Agricultural Policy, and there is a high degree of protectionism, as you said, but this is not particularly true because what we are trying now to promote is slightly different.
We are really trying to open up to the world, and this is something that should be considered rather remarkable. One thing that I would like to point out, also in this context, is that we are, in fact, the first investors in the territory of Palestine, and in the Balkans. I am not saying that we have always used these investments as best as we could. In Russia, we have also invested in the development of new institutions operating, for example, in the field of international trade and so forth.
We have always supported the idea that all environmental standards – the most general among these standards – should be implemented, and this is what we have provided for in Europe. These standards in Europe today are the strictest in the world. I am not saying that we are perfect, far from that, but I do believe that we have been really trying to open up.
However, we do have two problems. One, which I mentioned earlier, is the fact that due to financial reasons we are not successful in taking part in the process of crisis management. Sometimes, one state or another is successful in this, but there really is certain incompetence here. The other problem is that of dynamism. We have a poor demographic development here in Europe. The system of social protection, of social security, is also rather rigid, but our problem is not that of openness, it is a problem of dynamism.
Further, I would like to respond to what Mr Küng was saying, while responding to what Dr Kissinger had said before. First, I do not think we should place Metternich and Bismarck or Richelieu in the same category, because their concepts were not identical. I myself am an admirer of Gentz, who was Metternich’s adviser, and was also the first person in the modern age, who used the expression “European Federation” in a very interesting text on the European balance. In this text, he was differentiating between the European Federation, on the one hand, and the European balance, on the other hand, as it existed at the end of the 18th century. I think that one thing that we should understand properly is that there are certain nuances here.
Now, as to your comments and this discussion between idealism and romanticism, between the general interest of humankind and the national interest. It seems to me that what we are witnessing today is a gradual erosion of this opposition, of this contradiction. For example, Jacques Rupnik referred to this in his introductory remarks. We are seeing more and more dependence or inter-dependence. Our national interests, our particular interests, in fact, are overlapping with the general interests, in fact, the difference between the Fatherland and the Motherland.
I mentioned Metternich a while ago, and now I would like to say that today neither Americans nor Europeans can separate their destiny from the destiny of humankind, that is they cannot separate it from the political and economic order that should be balanced, on the one hand, and just, on the other hand. As Pascal said: “We are all in the same boat.” This is something that I call a general concept that we need to promote. We should have a multinational organization promoting the rights of all men, of all women, of all nations, not because we are idealists, but because this is our common interest and because this is something we all understand in the same way, because our destiny is common.

Jacques Rupnik
Mr Bourlanges. The next speaker will be Mr Osvaldo Sunkel.

Osvaldo Sunkel
I would like to ask Dr Kissinger to elaborate a little bit more on his comments about the role that is being played by technical economists. You mentioned a number of times that you were uneasy about the global economy, that there was a lot of lecturing by economists about liberalization, global markets, etc. We all know how effective and how inexorable the role of technical economists has become – individually or through international financial institutions – and how they have affected the economies of many countries around the world. I was wondering what it is that is so magical about this strange group of people, technical economists, to make them so powerful that they can impose programmes on countries, on societies, on the world as a whole, without any reference or relevance to political society, to society, to governments, and to crises. I would very much like to have his comments about how is it that we have this group of people who are sort of running the world without having to refer to anything or to anybody. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Dr Kissinger. That was directed at you.

Henry A. Kissinger
I don’t believe that economists have always run the world. I think that it is a fairly recent phenomenon, and I do not think they will be running it much longer in their present form. I think that in every period there is a search for some sort of eschatological vision, something that promises people an automatic end to their own exertions. In the 19th century, it was said that if you abolished nationalism, then nations would never quarrel with each other, so if you could only give each nation statehood, war would disappear. That did not happen to be correct. Then Marxism said that if you could abolish property, conflict would disappear. That didn’t happen. So, then came along the free-market economists and they said: if everybody could give free reign to his self-interests, this would guarantee not only the greatest good for the greatest number, but the greatest good for almost everybody. Even at best, this had problems because even in a perfectly run “free market” world, it is the essence of the market that somebody wins and somebody loses. And if the loser is a country, the political process will try to react to this because it is the obligation of political leaders to protect their populations against vagaries.
Now, free-market economists say that “since it is not possible to be good in everything, everywhere, so every nation will find an opportunity to specialize in something”, but the transition process was always problematical. Now, however, two elements have supervened. First, it is possible to argue that if you run a poor economic policy you should be penalized in some way and, therefore, you suffer because of your own misdeeds. But, with modern means of communication, and the inventiveness of the various funds, banks and investment mechanisms, so much money can be made by speculation that this is no longer related to the economic performance of the country concerned, but by the fact that money is turned into a commodity. If you analyze the problems in Southeast Asia, they were, in my view, not caused primarily by the mismanagement of the local economies which were, according to international institutions, fairly well-run; they were caused because the yen was depreciating and the dollar was depreciating. They were tied to the dollar, speculative opportunities opened up, and bubbles – real estate bubbles – were created. So that, in a way, they were victims of a system in which their own performance was really quite adequate. That’s the first problem.
The second problem is that the remedy that was then applied had no necessary relationship to the disease. What, in Thailand and in Indonesia, was primarily an occurrence of a speculative crisis that could have been dealt with by bank reforms to make it difficult to engage in that sort of speculation and protect some of the victims, was used as an occasion to re-vamp the whole economic system on the basis of the so-called free-market economy.
I will just take Indonesia as an example. When you close 15 banks and you end subsidies in oil and fuel you start, first of all, a run on all the other banks. Secondly, you create enormous social and political tensions which, in Indonesia, must be aimed at the Chinese; so then, Chinese private capital left Indonesia. So, more money left Indonesia than the IMF could possibly put in and, therefore, the IMF solution compounded the problem. In fact, there wasn’t such a bad problem. They turned a problem into a crisis.
Then, let’s take Brazil. What is the problem in Brazil? Certainly, there are many things wrong in Brazil, but Brazil has the best president that it is ever going to have. So, you cannot say it is a mismanaged economy, because you can’t do any better in Brazil than what you have now. Part of the reason is that people are trying to save themselves from some of the consequences of Asia by liquidating their investments. So, I believe that there has to be some interference with the market as far as speculation is concerned. I think the Chilean method is, at least, a beginning.
I don’t think Mahathir is so wrong in his analysis. He may be wrong in his solution, but for middle-sized countries to be exposed to these onslaughts, the inevitable results of this present crisis are the return of some political and humanistic limitation to the wild operation of a market. People talk about a market, but what are we talking about? We are talking about people sitting at computer screens who probably do not even know where the country is located, arbitrating little differences in interest rates and creating waves of speculation. One way or another, that has to end. I do not see any point in coming out with all these various new mechanisms for lending money. The first thing we need is an analysis of the world economic situation that people will accept. Therefore, this is not a problem for economists and, if the IMF wants to continue operating, it has to be given a political dimension. I would have probably preferred re-casting it altogether, but I understand there is little time in the middle of the crisis. But, on the whole, I think that the IMF has made matters worse rather than better.
If you take countries like South Korea, they are interested in market share and full employment. They don’t look at the return on investment the way we do – and so we are legislating on the part of economies a total change in social mores, and we have not heard the end of Korea yet. It will be a little bit delayed, but I think there will be a tremendous backlash in Korea in a year or two.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. The next speaker is Mr Jiří Musil.

Jiří Musil
Mr Chairman, can I react to what Ashis Nandy said? It touched, I think, a very important issue. As a sociologist, I fully agree with you that cultures and civilizations differ in the amount and types of violence, but I started to think about your description of the different situations. You ended with cities, but I shall return to cities at the end of my short intervention.
Do we really know enough about the deep links between amounts of violence and types of society? I am mainly referring to our picture of village societies. Are they realistic? Because there are some parallels in social thought in Europe and India, I mean in the approach to villages. There was always a kind of picture – a very friendly, co-operative, non-violent picture – of villages, but I am not quite sure and I would like you to elaborate.
My questions are mainly aimed at a suggestion. Because co-operation and integration are opposites of conflicts and tensions, and we are interested in strengthening co-operation, I think your intervention was important – because you put it on the other side of the table, so to speak. We really need a deeper understanding of violence – and my very concrete proposal for our Forums in the future would be: let us study violence more seriously. We might have a very good and reliable history of violence – anthropological and psychological, of course – but do we know enough about the links between cultures? Of course, you feel it: I am trying to tell you that I am a Westerner. I cannot get rid of it, I was socialized in this type of society. I am sometimes very unhappy with it: I know the story of colonialism. I do understand what you said but, at the same time, I don’t know if the suffering in this simple Gemeinschaft-like type of societies, which you have described as village societies, has been as small as you may have suggested. This is the answer of an understanding Westerner, if I may describe my position.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. I have a whole list of speakers but, for the sake of making things more coherent, does Mr Nandy want to reply? You need not give the whole history of violence, because I do not think we have time for that, but a brief reply.

Ashis Nandy
It will take a minute. I do not want to give a testimonial to village society nor do I want to give a testimonial to Indian civilization and its peaceful mooring, if I may say so.
I am pointing to the fact that, while we still do not know a lot about violence, millions of words, thousands of papers and hundreds of books have been produced on human violence and why violence takes place. I am not giving you some data without indicators, but I think inadequate attention has been paid to those communities, and those times, when violence does not take place.
It is time that we diversify the question and ask: under what conditions can communities live together in reasonable harmony? I am not talking about perfect harmony; I mean, you can have quarrels day in and day out and still not have mass murders and industrialized mega-deaths. I suspect that, though they have quarrelled and fought violently over the centuries, Bosnian Muslims and Serbs have also lived for long stretches of time in tolerable amity.
Let me put it as moderately as this: we have not done our duty as intellectuals, scholars, or activists in identifying the context in which communities have lived together.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. Now I have a request for a quick intervention from Hazel Henderson, but very brief. Otherwise I have to close the speakers’ list. This is not to curtail discussion, but simply to make it more interesting and lively this afternoon.

Hazel Henderson
Surely, if we are going to study violence, we have to look at the gender basis of violence, and it is associated with the male gender. There is no doubt about that in the research. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
That was very brief indeed. Thank you very much. The next speaker is His Eminency Sheikh Fawzy Fadel El Zefzaf.

Fawzy Fadel El Zefzaf
If I may, Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to speak as somebody who is a member of the human society, as somebody who was born of one father and one mother. I don’t want to speak here as a Muslim who has an important position in one of the most important Islamic institutions, and that is Al Azhar University. I would like to respond to the presentation of Dr Kissinger. I want to say that I was very surprised when he said that he does not support military intervention in Kosovo and when he pointed out that military intervention could lead to more trouble. We know that Dr Kissinger is a significant politician who, when asked a question, is capable of speaking for a very long time about the problem, and the President asked Dr Kissinger whether he thought the war in Kosovo was a war between Islam and Christianity. Dr Kissinger did not answer that question.
I would like to say that what is happening in Kosovo is not a war between Islam and Christianity. As a human being, even if I were a Christian I would believe, and as a part of my faith I know, that Christianity forbids killing and the restriction of the freedom of others. So, what is happening in Kosovo is not a war between Christianity and Islam. If Serbs were real Christians, and if they observed the principles of Christianity, then these crimes could not happen. So, I would like to ask Dr Kissinger whether you would have the same opinion if your wife, your sister or your children were refugees, if they were one of those who had to leave their homes. I believe that justice does not allow us to deprive people of what is theirs.
On television screens we see refugees, suffering people, innocent people, suffering due to violence, and I am speaking as a human being, and I am saying these things have to come to an end, and it is not possible to bring religion into this fight. All monotheistic religions reject an attack against the personality of another human being. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. Dr Kissinger wants a brief reply.

Henry A. Kissinger
I did not imply that the war was justified because there are religious differences. I am simply pointing out that there already was a battle in Kosovo 500 years ago between Serbs and Turks; and that, when you have a conflict between ethnic groups to which is added a religious conflict, it becomes a particularly intense problem. There is no justification, whatever the reason is, for the violence and for the abuse that is taking place in Kosovo. But the solution has to take into account these differences and has to come up with a definition of autonomy that does not start the war all over again. But under no circumstances is there any justification for the violence that is being perpetrated on the populations of Kosovo.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. Mr Shariff Abdullah.

Shariff M. Abdullah
I wanted to follow up on Mr Nandy’s eloquence earlier. I agree with you that violence, and how we look at it, is an issue. I would like to mention a very quick piece of research that we used to do in college: you put two rats in a cage, you give them enough food and water and they will figure out how to co-exist with each other; if you send an electric shock through that cage, the two rats will start fighting each other. They have no experience of the electricity, all they know is that they are in pain and they see another rat in the cage. So, what I need to know is: what is the nature of the electric shock that went through Yugoslavia that has these rats fighting each other right now? This is a different twist on President Havel’s question because I don’t think that it is the forces of civility versus the forces of fanaticism; the issue is “what are the pressures?” I think that some of the pressures are going under the label of what we are calling “globalization” but what are the pressures right now that are creating the experiences where people feel the need to attack, they feel the need to defend, they feel the need to do the things that are going on right now?
In my last comment, I want to agree with Dr Kissinger that in some of the areas of the world, state-against- state violence is inconceivable. But I don’t think that’s the direction that conflict is going in the world; I think that what we are seeing are non-state military powers. We euphemistically call them terrorists, but this is how people are expressing themselves right now and we can see, in the recent actions that the United States took in Afghanistan and in the Sudan, how difficult it is to get at that type of violence. So, we may be able to reach a level of peace at this really high level here, but what’s happening on the ground, what’s happening in communities, what’s happening in cities, may be something completely different. Thank you.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much. The next speaker is Mr Robert Bernstein.

Robert L. Bernstein
I would like to ask Secretary Kissinger if I understood him correctly when he was speaking about Bosnia. In talking about the ethnic conflict, he said it could not be all placed on the leaders. Nevertheless I believe, and many believe, that the leadership in the former Yugoslavia bears a great deal of responsibility. I believe there’s an International Criminal Court that has indicted many of them, and the role of leadership has to be questioned in any conflict. I thought that he implied that these were due to age-old ethnic conflicts that went on 500 years ago and passed over that.
I just want to ask whether, while China has gone along for many, many years without our help, he was implying that, in many ways, it is wrong to try to get rights for the Chinese to speak in their own country, which I don’t believe they have. I am an expert on nothing – I am a businessman, if a book publisher can ever be called a businessman – and I come to this just because of my interest in human rights. It seemed to me that human rights and thinking in human rights have become pragmatic, very much more than is thought so in the world in the sense that, first of all, human rights is about trying to bring out the facts. I think this has been done very well in Bosnia, so that, in the words of US Justice Louis Brandeis, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. These facts are now out for everyone to see, so the judgments can be made.
Secondly, I think that in the establishment of the Court – we are trying to establish an International Criminal Court – there is an effort now being made to make it more difficult in the future for these things to occur and to say that punishments should occur.
The last thing I wanted to say was that I had the impression that Secretary Kissinger thought that Americans really believed that the troops would be out of Bosnia in a year. I do not think most Americans thought that at all. I think that was just a way of getting started.

Jacques Rupnik
Another speaker this morning, Mr Serguey Kovalyov.

Serguey Kovalyov
I am not an eloquent speaker. All I would like to do now is to make two or three short comments. Or rather pose short questions that I would like to address to the conference.
Yes, Mr Nandy is right. In the future, the 20th century will be referred to as the century of the most massive and intense violence, but perhaps it will be referred to also as something else. All the bloodshed during the Second World War led to a situation where all the different good intentions of liberal philosophy were capable of being translated into a very precise legal language. In the UN Charter, we said that the only guarantee of security in the world was “human rights”.
My question then is as follows: does the West, including the United States of America and Canada, adhere to the values that it has created and that it has declared? I am courageous enough to proclaim that there can be certain doubts about it. And I would like to show this with an example. The so-called traditional policy, what in German is called Realpolitik (and which I call short-sighted western pragmatism), has in fact resulted in terrible consequences with thousands and thousands of casualties. We could refer to the example of the war in Chechnya. Again, I am courageous enough to state here – and I could prove this to you – that two western leaders, President Clinton and Chancellor Kohl, had a chance to put an end to the Chechen war within the first two months but, unfortunately, they did not do so. Why? The explanation is quite clear. They did not do so because they felt that it was, in a way, beneficial for them to support President Yeltsin. I myself have seen different documents being submitted to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. (I usually go there two or three times every year.) There is a special ad hoc commission dealing with Chechen-related questions. The considerations presented there, in fact, are typical of what we call “modern western policy”. I would like to know what you think about this, because it seems to me that the traditional policy that we have been debating here is becoming a very dangerous anachronism, because all the bloody conflicts of the post-Second World War period bear this out. Whether it be the war in Vietnam, or the peace in Vietnam, all these have been accompanied by hundreds and thousands of casualties and we are now witnessing the same situation in other regions of the world.
The loyalty to this traditional policy is something that was given up long ago by the most brilliant brains of the 20th century. I could cite, for example, names like Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Niels Bohr and my friend Andrei Sakharov, because this traditional policy leads to a lack of principles, or the absence of principles, in the western world and this then leads to bloodshed. Once again, I would like to say that if President Clinton and Chancellor Kohl had said, in each of their statements, that this dirty war must be discontinued, must be stopped, then President Yeltsin would no longer be the president of Russia. And, perhaps, we would have had fewer casualties.

Jacques Rupnik
Human rights and security intervention in the internal affairs of a state in the defence of human rights: these are questions that Dr Kissinger must have heard a number of times. Would you like to reply, I think there was one question concerning Kosovo?

Henry A. Kissinger
You know, it’s like the questions that Hans Küng raised. There is no good absolute answer, at least that I have found. First of all, I want to express my respect for Bob Bernstein and for his activities on behalf of human rights. I have not always been able to live up to his maxims, but I have always believed that the concerns he raised, and the calling of attention to the abuses, was absolutely essential for the conduct of policy. Where I sometimes differ, actually not so much with him personally but with some of the activists, is that they are not always patient with those who have to implement their maxims. Of course, they have to be ahead of politics but in any concrete situation, one wants to improve the situation. (I got involved with the emigration from the Soviet Union and I did it very quietly and, in fact, we did not even say we were doing it. When it had reached a substantial level, suddenly a lot of groups entered it and then the numbers actually went down.) But I still think he is correct in pointing out the need, in democratic societies to call attention to human rights issues, and the pressures of human rights groups are actually helpful if they understand that there are also other priorities that governments have to follow. It is not always easy to strike that balance.
Again, I support the idea of a criminal court. What I objected to, when I looked at CNN last night, was that they were putting the Kosovo issue entirely in terms of Milosevic. I do not believe it is only an issue of Milosevic. I believe that there is a long history associated with Kosovo which is perceived to be a part of Serbia and I believe that if American military force is to be used, it will help the American public more, for a period of time, if it is explained to them what the problem is, why the actions are wrong, and, thirdly, what the solution is. It is necessary to work together with the Europeans and other interested parties to come up with a concrete proposal, in the name of which I would then support military intervention if that was the only way it could be done. But I would rather do it for a cause than for a crusade against one man – because in the end it will come down to that.
Now, on the issue that Professor Kovalyov raised, most Americans have never heard of Chechnya. They couldn’t find it on a map. I am not a defender, necessarily, of President Clinton’s foreign policy. Some of you may know he was my second choice in the last election, but I try to support him on these issues. I do not think foreign policy is a partisan issue, so I often support him. Since I believe that it is important for Russia to learn that it does not need expansion to be secure, I was in favour of a more active American policy at the beginning. However, I do have a lot of sympathy for the President on that issue since he was convinced that Yeltsin was the only hope for democracy. I did not believe that, but since he believed that I could understand why he did not want to undermine what he perceived to be the only hope for democracy. The more fundamental question is: to what extent do countries have an obligation to bring pressure on every human rights problem anywhere in the world, even if nothing else concerns them about that country except the human rights problem? That is a very difficult question to answer and I do not have a good solution to it.
I want to make one personal point about that, if I may. America is always considered to be the key to the solution of all these issues, but the American people have next to no experience with foreign policy. It has never had a major foreign danger, so it has always been free to engage itself or not to engage itself. Now it is, maybe, the key country in the world and it is torn by conflicting emotions. I would say that America is torn between isolationism and hegemonism. Between isolationism, of believing that we can withdraw from the world, and hegemonism, the temptation to believe that we can run the whole world, and there are some of us who believe that we have to avoid both of these extremes, and that is very difficult.
I entered government at the time when we were involved in Vietnam and we had 550,000 troops there – that is what I inherited. I believe these troops were put there in an excess of Wilsonianism, in the belief that we could spread democracy everywhere without understanding all the conditions. But then the extrication? I believed that we needed to extricate ourselves, but I wanted to relate it to America’s political role in the world, but there are others who believed that it was a moral issue and that we had to be almost humiliated on the way out to learn our lesson. So, we had a terrible debate in the United States in the camp of those who really wanted to extricate.
Why do I say this? I want America to play a major role, but I am very worried that if America spreads itself all over the world on ill-defined issues, one of these days we will wake up to a terrible reaction when people will say: “To hell with it, this is not our mission.” And so, this is why I want us to define what we are doing in Kosovo. In the end, I will support action if there is no other means of doing it, but I don’t want to support it on the basis of Sunday talk-shows saying we are dealing with one evil man. And I want to do it in the name of a solution in which we will say that we are doing it because we want the people of Kosovo to be able to vote in their village election. Whatever the solution is, I do not know it. I have not thought it through.
This gets us to the problem we started with. So, Mr Küng and Mr Bernstein. I like to think I agree with many of their values – maybe all of them. But I am also always thinking of how you implement that in Washington, and how to strike a balance, so that you do not go too far on the side of realism, but also not too far on the side of self-righteousness. This was what made Chechnya a tragedy, but it was very difficult in the American context to do much else.

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much, Dr Kissinger, for these words which conclude our morning session. I don’t think we have exhausted the topic, but perhaps we have exhausted the participants. I have to really thank, on behalf of all of you, Dr Kissinger, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, all of those who took part in the discussion.