INTERNATIONAL VISITING PROGRAM 2001
"U.S. – E.U. Security Issues"
Belgium and United States
April 4th to 28th, 2001
1. What International Visiting Programs are
The International Visiting Programs are financed by the U.S. Department of State. Through their Embassies worldwide network, Americans periodically select foreign personalities to invite to their Country, to improve reciprocal knowledge and acquaint their guests with U.S. culture and institutions.
In the last 60 years, several bright personalities have been guested by the American Government through these Programs: among these, more than 200 individuals later Head of State or Premier in their Countries.
Just to quote some of them, Willy Brandt took part to an IVP in 1954, Indira Gandhi in 1961, Francesco Cossiga in 1965 and Margaret Thatcher in 1967.
The Group I was in debated with the American counterparts the present, main, international security problems of reciprocal concern.
We were twenty: 3 Brits, 2 French, 2 Polish, a Norwegian, a Swiss, a Maltese, a Lithuan, a Latvian, a Moldovan, a Rumanian, a Greek Cypriot, a Turkish Cypriot, a Finn, a Svedish, a Czech and me, from Italy.
2. Brussels: James Appathurai and Jamie Shea’s time. Italy "cast away"?
Brussels was the first stop of our journey and among the most important ones. After only a few minutes from the beginning of the first briefing it got clear to me how late was our Italian political agenda in comparison to the current trends in the international arena.
At Nato Headquarters, it emerged very clearly how far the new enlargement process already got. In Rome, leaving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some specialized think-tanks aside, that reality was almost neglected.
That’s the reason why I like so much to describe my Country, Italy, as "cast away" from the main stream, largely due to her own lack of concern….
When I visited the Allied poltical headquarters, the impression I reported was Nato enlargement was already the top priority of the U.S. political agenda, well before the highly controversial Missile Defense issue and the more recent developments made by the European Security and Defence Identity.
Americans – that’s my opinion – will exert pressures to foster the accession of a Baltic State to Nato – possibly Lithuania, which is at the top of the list – regardless of any possible Russian reaction, given Putin "is a pragmatic one and badly needs Western money".
An even broader enlargement is not excluded. American and Nato officials understand the Russian position, but nonetheless no one of them is ready to recognize Moscow a veto power towards the enlargement.
Note that such an enlargement will make the Kaliningrad District a Russian Nato-locked island.
As far as anti-ballistic missile defence is concerned, James Appathurai clearly stated Bush Admistration considers the 1972 Abm Protocol dead. Other remarks addressed the developments of the current European efforts in the defence realm. Appathurai replaced Jamie Shea as official spokesman of Nato Secretary General, Lord Robertson.
It is widely recognized and complained, in Brussels, the actual failure of the Defence Capabilities Initiative, by which Nato planned to increase European capabilities assigned to the Alliance.
About the highly controversal European operational planning issue, which already spoured bitter criticisms in November and December 2000, no one accepted to express openly his position.
As far as the long term defense planning is concerned, by contrast, it was unambiguously told that Nato and European Countries have to mutually support each other. Put in different words, Europeans can and actually have to grow up, but competition with U.S. is not welcome.
Talking about perceptions, I was stroke by the discover that the Alba Mission – the Multinational Protection Force led by Italy and sent to Albania to restore local State authority after the collapse of the financial system and the subsequent riots broken up early in 1997 – which is considered an outstanding political and operational success in Rome is viewed as a totally unsatisfactory peace-keeping operation by Nato officials, at least as far as the quality of the forces gathered by the Italian diplomacy is concerned. So spoke Mr Appathurai…..
Also Jamie Shea told something about Italy, even if only to underline to which an extent Brussels authorities were worried about the doubtful Italian stand during the recent Kosovo war.
These ones seemed to me frankly exaggerated fears: a supplementary evidence of the general lack of understanding by Foreign Countries of the Italian political system and its behavioural rules.
3. At Shape, Mons, the military side. Even more pro-atlantic and less europeanist…
In Mons, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe’s See, we got the military side’s point of view. Most of the briefings held there were aimed at explainig how the Atlantic Alliance works in the military field, mainly to the profit of people coming from non-Nato member Countries.
However, some of the most interesting questions raised by our Group allowed to discover that Italy is not an exception: European Commissioned Officers assigned to Nato Commands are generally much more pro-atlantic and less europeanist than their diplomatic counterparts.
Admiral Ferdinando Sanfelice di Monteforte clearly proved it, when underlining that "Europe doesn’t possess the capabilities she needs to act independently. She lacks the basics of sea power".
I found quite interesting as well some statistics about Nato HQ and Commands distribution of responsabilities by Nation. British and German presence is really strong. Italians follow. All the others, behind …..
4. In Washington, an intensive care: new Administration inner equilibria and attrition with Europe
The stay in Washington was surely the most important part of the International Visiting Program 2001. We spent 9 full days in the wonderful U.S. Federal Capital City, attending to on average 6 briefings a day, leaving of course aside the week-ends.
The plan devised for U.S. foresaw contacts with:
From academics, mostly Democrats, came several relevant insights about inner equilibria in the New Bush Administration. Even if the current Administration should be still considered in a "warming up" phase, given it is composed by around 6.000 top officials in key-positions who just started their job for President Bush only 4 months ago, some situations seem already clear.
Vicepresident Cheney, for instance, is supposed to be stronger and more powerful than his formal responsabilities could led to imagine. People in Washington tell varioU.S. stories about his relationship with Colin Powell, present Secretary of State, which seems to be a troubled one since the Gulf War age, when the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs used to sistematically overtake him, at that time Secretary of Defense, treating even sensitive political issues with President Bush senior.
Today, Dick Cheney, who enjoys the reputation to be a real conservative, should be more influential than Powell. It is commonly told in Washington that Cheney is trying to isolate Powell, who is in turn another top weight, surroinding him by people loyal to the Vicepresident. Among these ones, there is also the present Secretary of Defense, Mr Rumsfeld.
As far as Mrs Condoleeza Rice is concerned, the present National Security Advisor is not yet considered able to exert a dominating influence over the President, given her youth, even if her professional skill is widely recognized, expecially in the European Affairs realm.
However, as a result of the coming of age of this Administration, things could change to her advantage in the future, taking into account Mrs Rice physical proximity to the President. The Executive Building Office is actually just in front to the White House, to which is even linked (Terry L. Deibel).
Moreover, Mrs Rice updates President Bush every morning, 8 a.m., about World latest developments.
Briefings held at the Pentagon, at the State Departement, at the National Security Council, and in the several think-tanks we visited, substantially confirmed the picture made by academics.
Nato enlargement is already given for done, at least at the Department of State. A debate should start at the next Nato Summit in Budapest and the end of the process is scheduled for year 2002.
We heard a different opinion about that issue only in the Pentagon: the U.S. Departement of Defense claims the right to express its own evaluation about the single candidates’ capabilities, before to accept the next enlargement round. Appartently, the Pentagon was negatively influenced by some new members’ recent performances, that proved to be well below the expected level of efficiency.
Several enlighting briefings about NMD, the U.S. National Missile Defense, were held at the Pentagon too. We knew, three weeks before the famous address made by President Bush on May, 1st at the National Defense University, that the present Administration doesn’t accept the guidelines NMD was given by the Clinton team.
According to several Presidential declarations released since last January, the present Republican Administration wishes a system extended to "U.S. allies and friends" . The targets the present American Administration will pursue in the next months should be clear enough.
No one actually cares of Russia, which is supposed to assess the situation as a whole "with realism" and, so they hope in Washington, will agree with U.S. a comprehensive Abm Protocol review.
The system envisaged by the current Administration is deeply different from its ancestor, the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative. It will be built mostly on ground based assets, may be an improved Patriot. These assets will be assisted by space based reconnaissance and command and control elements, but no a single "active" spatial weapon is foreseen, at least for now.
There is nothing, in the system envisaged by the present Bush Administration which could perform the role of the old "brilliant pebbles" of the first Bush Administration Gpals.
Academics fear some negative consequences on the arms control regime stand, but nonetheless most of them retain President Bush under the relevant pressure of the most unilateralist wing of the Republican Party. People that came to power with some simple basic ideas: to cut taxation, to reduce the external exposition of the Country and to hit both the Defense and Public Aid to Russia Budgets.
Republican Unilateralists are supposed to have been decisive in pushing the Congress to sink the Ctbt, which was the first Treaty to be rejected by the U.S. Parliament since the Versailles Treaty age (I’m quoting here Mrs Cécile Maisonneuve).
Unilateralism, however, is a sound political trend which seems to be rooted in the long and extraordinary American economic expansion of the last couple of decades. Such an attitude, moreover, could be well supported also by some Democrats, belonging to the so called "primatist" wing, which advocates a certain sensitiveness of the Administration to financial equilibria constraints (Deibel).
It seems quite difficult Ctbt will be brought before the Congress in the next years, even if the President has the right to do it.
The efforts and supposed progress made by Europeans towards the creation of their own defense institutions and capabilities cause some concerns and bitter remarks. It is openly told that "the Headline Goal express ambitions" (Jeffrey Gedmin). Disappointement is even stronger among Republican components of the Congress, where the current European will to build up effective defense capabilities autonomous by Nato is considered a clear evidence of a growing intolerance towards the American leadership, if not an attempt to marginalize Washington (so told, for instance, Mr Kenneth A. Myers III, Legislative Assistant for Foreign Affairs to Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar).
May we blame such an attitude?
At the National Security Council, a certain uneasy was clearly perceived. President Bush already made severe cuts on the NSC personnel, reducing their role to the one of a transmission chain between himself and the various brenches of the Administration. That course is probably due to the traditional Republican preference for slim Government (Cameron Munter, NSC). But recent cuts may also reflect the present weakness of Mrs Condoleeza Rice, as well as the need to "clean" the NSC from all the people who joined the Council during the Clinton age.
The impression we got is that Pentagon and State Departement recovered most of the powers "de facto" lost under President Clinton, who had the habit to continuosly put the NSC under pressure.
The Presidential sensitiveness to foreign policy is, of course, out of question: George Walker Bush is considered an "internationalist" Republican like his father (Deibel).
NSC is still structured on desks responsible for large geopolitical regions (i.e. Europe and Eurasia) or single issues, like economic security, counterproliferation and the contrast to international terrorism.
China was of course a major source of concerns during the stay in Washington, even if the recent hostages crisis was suddenly put to an end. It is recognized Beeijng may get the new strategic opponent to U.S., even if economic bilateral ties already generated vested interests in the American business community against a possible escalation of the spy-aircraft crisis towards a major political-strategic confrontation.
5. Technicalities: U.S. military perspectives on JSF program, National Missile Defense and the "Strategic Review"
At the Pentagon, we got a couple of interesting briefings about the Joint Strike Fighter program and the technical aspects of the National Missile Defense (NMD).
As far as the JSF is concerned, according to Mr Schereiber, at the moment of the visit, a definitive choice between the Boeing and the Lockheed prototypes wasn’t already done.
X 32 A and X 35 A are very different aircrafts, at least externally. Their first flights were held, respectively, on September and October 2000. The Lockheed prototype is quite similar to the F 22 jU.S.t "sunk" by the DoD. The Boeing opponent is a little bit larger, even if it proved to fly faster (1.1. mach vs 1.05).
The final choice has been not yet made – they told so at the Pentagon – becaU.S.e the relative and absolute performances in taking off and vertical landing are still to be tested. The briefing was clearly a sort of commercial promotion, given the responsabilities of several members of the Group.
According to Pentagon estimates, U.S. and UK will buy not less than 3000 aircfrats, but London actually wants only 150 ones.
As far as the JSF export potential is concerned, a 3000 aircraft market is foreseen for the next 20 years. I consider this an optimistic assessment, given a single JSF aircraft will cost not less than 80 billion lira (around 40 million U.S. Dollars).
About NMD, we got just a few supplementary informations, despite the briefer was Mr Pepe Debiaso, responsible for the project at the Pentagon and later sent by President Bush to Europe to describe how the system will work. As already written, President Bush aims at a defensive system able to cover not only Continental U.S. but as well "allies and friends of U.S.". It will probably be a defence system almost composed by ground based missiles, like the Patriot Pac 3 and the Thaad.
I asked for some supplementary informations about the Meads, and I got an unexpected answer. The present Administration is sensitive to the Meads much more than the previuos one. The exit of Paris from the Program is not considered relevant, also because in the meanwhile a stronger German interest seems to be emerged.
The Meads – they told us at the Pentagon – has an important advantage on the Patriot Pac-3, given the latter may engage targets only on a 180° spectrum, while the Meads can cover the whole range, dealing with any potential air and missile offense on 360°. The final destiny of the Meads, however, will be decided by the "Strategic Review" under way.
Curiosity: if you are a DoD guest, in the Pentagon you need an escort even to go to the bathroom…..
6. Norfolk, Virginia: the meeting with U.S. Sea Power. Saclant and the U.S. Atlantic Fleet
Our journey to Norfolk, Virginia, was extremely charming. Our visit best moments were: the visit to the Naval Base who shelters U.S. Atlantic Fleet and the subsequent briefings held at the Saclant HQ.
The U.S. Atlantic Fleet is the most important operational component of the U.S. Navy. It plays, under many points of views, the same role played by the old Royal Navy Home Fleet. U.S. Atlantic Fleet task was, during the Cold War, to ensure the Atlantic Alliance the ability to exert maritime power, protecting and keeping the sea lanes linking America to Europe open.
That day, not less than 3 nuclear powered aircraft carriers (U.S.S Enterprise, Eisenhower and Roosevelt), not less than 4 "Wasp" class anphibious assault ships - including U.S.S Bataan we visited – as well as several nuclear powered submarines (SSN) and some destroyers embarking the antimissile system Aegis, were there.
On the Bataan, I had a confirmation that Americans do not care about tonnage limits. So, a U.S. anphibiuos assault ship can weight even more than a European nuclear powered aircraft carrier like the French "Charles De Gaulle". More than 40.000 tons! U.S.S Bataan can embark and deploy more than 1.200 Marines, and to serve as operational platform for V/Stol aircrafts, with any "sky-jump": something they consider "European stuff".
Given I noticed the presence of some women in the U.S.S Bataan personnel, I asked them some details about the experiences they made on board. It seems their first years were quite difficult and that it took a very long time to make "coabitation" workable. Something to take into serioU.S. consideration in Italy, whose Navy will start next year to embark women.
At Saclant HQ, the most interesting things were:
Why did I attach such a relevance to these briefings?
As far as the first one is concerned, I found interesting Saclant HQ is quite smaller than its continental counterpart in Europe, Shape. The first one size is around 1/5 as much of the latter one. There are Brits, Canadians, Germans, Portuguese and Spaniards. No one sigle Italian, of course.
I didn’t find totally reliable the wartime theorical responsability-sharing between Shape and Saclant. What do really happen to an Atlantic convoy going to the Mediterranean basin when it reachs the Gibraltar’s Strait? Is it took over by the Italian Navy? Or does some "ad hoc" arrangement exist between Nato and the U.S. VI Fleet, which operates in the Mediterranean but is not assigned to the Atlantic Alliance? No one answered me.
As far as the second briefing is concerned, Cap. Stephen C. Joachim anticipated some trends which will be for sure embodied in the "Strategic Review" under way in Washington. U.S. thinks to a power projection strategy which will allow it to act without the support presently provided by their advanced bases network. That is the "Joint Vision 2020" core message.
I don’t believe U.S. Army welcomes such an hyphotesis, which implies a sort of neoisolationist posture in the military realm.
For a strong criticism, see Breaking the Phalanx, published by CSIS.
7. Into the deepest of Texas: College Station, Bush base and retirement ….
In College Station, in the deepest of Texas, in the middle of nowhere, we were led to be acquainted with the ideological foundation of the new Republican Administration. College Station is a George Bush senior’s kingdom.
We listened there to a formal Bush address, held before an official dinner. Bush senior proved once again to the bright speaker we all know and still remember, but his address lacked a strong message. U.S. policy towards North Korea was the topic to be discussed.
Nonetheless, former President Bush told something interesting about his family and his sons political success. He described their victory day in Texas and Florida as the most beautiful one of all his life.
Jeb, present Governor of Florida, got very warm words of appreciation. About George Walker, by contrast, Bush father simply told: "Give him time to learn his job and be quite: he is surrounded and advised by the best team of people existing in the Country". Nothing more, nothing better …..
College Station, which is a 50,000 people town, possess a George Bush Drive, a George Bush Avenue, the George Bush Presidential Library and the George Bush School of Public Government and Public Service.
Robert Gates, former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), is Interim Dean of the School. He received us after a 5 hours long travel across U.S., sharing with us a sort of "field" meal.
Mr Gates briefed us and expressed his own point of view about current international trends and equilibria: an opinion which doesn’t really differ from the one advocated by Brzezinski in his recent Geostrategic Triad, published (again!) by CSIS.
According to Gates, World is going back to a pre-1914 type multipolar State-system, in which there should be areas suited both for international cooperation and competition.
In dealing with such a change, the U.S. policy pursued during the Clinton age is supposed to have been merely "reactive" and "tactical", when it could have been better to develop a more "active" and "strategic" one. And it finally proved to be ineffective in shaping a new stable World order.
Moreover, despite its "multilateralist" rethorics, the Clinton policy was actually "unilateralist", and the story of the sanctions imposed on Iran is a clear evidence of such an attitude, given U.S. didn’t get any significant foreign support for that initiative.
In Mr Gates opinion, the policy pursued towards Russia was particulrly short-sighted, and founded only on mismanaged financial aid which proved unable to acquaint the Russian people with the benefits of the transition to a market economy.
However, Russia still deserves respect, even if she got too poor to pursue a high profile foreign policy: notice that Moscow cannot afford a Defence Budget larger than its present 7 billion dollars level, against more than 300 billion dollars allocated to the Pentagon. These considerations led Mr Gates to suggest a delay in the Nato enlargement process, which should progress at a slow pace, in order to prevent a further weakening of the pro-western wings of the Russian political system.
Gates assessment of the Clinton Administration policy in the Balkans was negative as well. According to the former DCI, the whole crisis was precipitated at the beginning of the 90s by a premature recongnition of the secessionist Republics by Germany. And despite the large amount of human and financial resources already spent to restore peace in the region, the West failed in setting a definitive and viable solution for the Balkan area. We were successful only in stopping, and only for now, the ethnic cleansing.
In Mr Gates opinion, America made probably a mistake in accepting to be involved in the management of the Balkan crisis. Even if there are challenges that only Washington is able to cope with, it could have been better to let the most concerned European Powers to deal with the Balkan contingencies on their own, may be with a U.S. logistic and intelligence support, when required.
Given these forewords, every European effort aimed at the acquisition of more effective military capabilities should be encouraged by Washington, at least to the extent it won’t endanger Nato modernization.
In Texas, we also attended to a meeting sponsored by the George Bush School of Public Government and the South Korean Embassy to U.S., addressing the very sensitive issue of America’s policy towards North Korea: U.S. should choose between "Engagement and Confrontation" with Pyongyang.
Clinton policy, once again, was severely criticized, but it was nonetheless recognized as "inescapable" a dialogue with North Korea. And that so also because even the Seul diplomacy is advocating the "engagement" option, fearing the devastating consequences of a possible North Korean political and economic collapse.
The Korean lunch was absolutely questionable. Mr Tsokos labelled it delicious.. It made most of us to withdraw from the dining room, towards the very close University bar …..
8. The West Coast: the subtle glamour of Berkeley, Stanford, the Silicon Valley and San Francisco
After the journey to Texas, our Group was split. The first half went to San Diego. My sub-group was sent to San Francisco, where it was possible to appreciate the Californian pride and entrapreneurship.
Several personalities we met there clearly stated it: "California, on her own, is the sixth largest World economy".
From San Francisco, Europe is a far reality and even the U.S. Federal Government seems weaker.
In California, due to some negligible organizational failures, we attended to just a few briefings, most of them addressing a couple of issues:
The dismissal of the Navy bases and their refitting seem to follow a unique principle: "genetrating cash". And the whole conversion operation, managed by the East Bay Conversion and Reinvestment Commission, gave birth to several new entrepreneurial realities, most of them low-tech, especially in the mechanical industry, where a lot of former U.S. Navy "petty officers" took over plants and tools, establishing small but rentable firms. Our case study was Alameda, in the Oakland neighborhood.
In Berkeley, we visited the Nautilus Institute, which is both a Ngo and an University Institute. We were hosted by Tim Savage and Hans Kristensen. They work intensively on Korea, but nothing new emerged from their briefings. At least, nothing not already heard in College Station, Texas. Nonetheless, they know and recognize the Italian bridging policy towards Pyongyang as well as the difficulties experienced in trying to get a North Korean participation to meetings, even purely academic ones, when a sensitive political issues is to be debated.
Off the original plans devised for us, we got an interesting insight into informatic security problems by a Silicon Valley guru: Mr Neumann. He told us informatic security is something we won’t never able to assure.
9. Epilogue: in New York, to discuss UN reform. U.S. support to German and Japanese ambitions in joining the Security Council. An accession with no veto power?
The final stop in New York was dedicated to a couple of issues: the role played by the American media-system in setting the Administration foreign policy agenda, and the U.S. policy in the United Nations.
We got a pair of high level briefings.
The first one was held by Mr Lansner, at the Columbia University. According to Lansner, the role played by the media-system in setting the foreign policy agenda of U.S. Governement has significantly grown since the end of the Cold War. In part, that seems to be the far reaching effect of a new posture of the American establishment. From 1989 onward, the Administration simply stopped to provide the media-system for political guidelines about the most sensitive issues, the American interests at stake, and the identity of the new enemies of U.S.
However, in Mr Lansner opinion, a relative influence exerted by the Government and the lobbies on the media-system could still exist, when considering the economic benefits and the larger audience newspapers and tv can get covering their activities.
According to Lansner, newspapers shouldn’t be considered really relevant in the foreign policy formulation process. Only Tv matters. That is the reason why building a negative image of the enemy is so relevant today. The media-system pursues a truly demonization of the enemy. In 1999, newspapers didn’t write "U.S. attacks Serbia" but "Nato attacks Milosevic", given the former Belgrad leader was already criminalized.
The second briefing was developed by the U.S. Ambassador to U.N., James Callaghan, former Deputy Ambassador to Italy. Aswering a question raised by me, Callaghan clearly confirmed that U.S. will favour an accession of Germany and Japan to U.N. Security Council as permanent members, even if, may be, without a veto power.
In the U.N. Building, we got another interesting briefing, held by Mr. Blix, addressing the sensitive issue of U.N. antiproliferation policy in Irak. Time was scarce and prevented us to exploit to maximum extent the opportunity to put under scrutiny the present sanction system applied against Baghdad.
The briefings held at the Columbia University focusing on European affairs were quite unsatisfaying, even if they gave me the opportunity to criticize the German foreign and security policy incoherences.