Speech at the Estonian School of Diplomacy
November 27, 2002

Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to speak today to Estonia's future diplomats.

I entered diplomatic service twenty-five years ago, and I can tell you that it is a career like no other. I have always taken pride in describing myself as a diplomat, but this is not a universally shared assessment of the profession.

Frequently, when I am talking with someone they will say, "Ah, but you are a diplomat." This can almost always be translated to mean, "Ah, you are not telling me the truth." Indeed, a famous American cynic once defined the word diplomat as, "A man paid to lie for his country."

I hope none of you enter into this profession with this being your definition of the word or the work you will do. If you act on the basis of such a definition, you will surely fail in your profession in the long run. Countries that have operated on such an expectation have failed in their objectives and failed their peoples in the bargain.

In fact, I believe you are entering a most honorable profession. You, ladies and gentlemen, will represent a free people. Your work will protect them and help spread freedom and prosperity to a world that thirsts for them.

I say this at least in part, because I have just returned from President Bush's visit to Vilnius, where he met with the presidents of the three Baltic states and participated in a number of public ceremonies. This was an extraordinary moment.

I have not been in many diplomatic ceremonies in which one sees tears in the eyes of grown men. Not all of those men were from the Baltic States. Some of those men were Americans who have worked over many years to achieve this miraculous end to the division of Europe.

After the President's party left Vilnius, many of us gathered at a lunch hosted by President Adamkus. I will admit there was much self-congratulation among all of us from all four countries. But, I believe former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski truly captured the moment and its importance.

Dr. Brzezinski reminded us of the many people who could not be with us: the political victims of the Baltic states captivity, the partisans who fought alone and were abandoned by the world in the 1940's and 1950's, the deportees who prayed to be allowed to come home and who would never have believed it would be a free home.

More importantly, Dr. Brzezinski reminded us that this moment was a significant point in a long process, but not the final stopping point.

The first phase of that process was saving Western Europe from the nightmare that had already engulfed the Baltic States and Eastern Europe.

The second phase, which culminated in Prague last Thursday, was bringing into NATO all those states that had forcibly been enlisted in the Soviet camp.

But, the third phase is yet to be completed. That phase is to bring the freedoms we now enjoy to those to our east, who are waiting for them.

This includes Ukraine, Belarus, and the nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia. He called on those representatives of the Baltic States who had succeeded in freeing their own peoples to participate in this third phase. It is in that spirit that I come to you today.

I will focus my remarks today on several overarching trends in global politics and their implications for the formation of American foreign policy. I will relate them to our vision for Europe as well as Estonia's role in a Europe whole, free, and at peace.

The twentieth century has witnessed a great experiment in systems of governance and economic organization. Countries -- especially here in Europe -- have tested an astonishing array of possibilities. Imperialism, Fascism, Communism, and democracy have all been put through the test.

Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the results of this far-reaching experiment are in, and they are unambiguous. The only system that provides the basis for peace, prosperity and national success is one that provides for free people and free markets. All other approaches are simply recipes for failure.

Let's take a look at the numbers on the economic side.

The 2003 Index of Economic Freedom published by the Heritage Foundation is instructive. The index evaluates countries according to 10 broad categories - from trade policy and monetary policy to regulation and banking and finance - to produce a measure of economic freedom.

Their findings, they declare, are straightforward: "The countries with the most economic freedom also have higher rates of long-term economic growth and are more prosperous than are those with less economic freedom." It is also no coincidence that the countries populating the top of this list are the world's most prosperous democracies, including New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, the United States, Australia, and Great Britain.

(In the 2003 report, by the way, Estonia is ranked sixth - tied with the United States. It is even showcased in the new report, with an entire chapter, written by Mart Laar, detailing Estonia's experiences with instituting free-market policies.)

Those countries with the most closed economic systems and repressive governments - notably North Korea -- are also the poorest states in the world. The North Koreans are joined at the bottom of the list by such states as Belarus, Burma, and Turkmenistan. Surely, the Taliban's Afghanistan would have joined them.

The same chart almost certainly would come out the same way on the political side. Openness to goods, ideas, and ones own people is the model for success.

Michael Mandelbaum recently wrote that systems of free people and free markets no longer have "serious rivals as formats for organizing public life." Perhaps more important, those systems "exert a gravitational pull everywhere."

If you plunk down a democratic, free market system anywhere in the world next to any other kind of system it will serve as a magnet to the people in the other system and will inevitably drive that system either to change, to die, or to seek to eliminate its democratic competition. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the fundamental political, economic and security fact of the 21st century. You will live it every day you serve as a diplomat.

But, why do I dwell on a point that might appear obvious to you? We must recognize that some people do not like the results of this experiment. The existence of the gravitational pull of the free system is a deadly threat to some, an uncomfortable unknown to others, and a humiliation for some.

As a result, we must recognize that new threats to us have and will continue to emerge. Many of these threats, and in my view the most deadly of them, will emerge not because of what we do, but because of who and what we are -- citizens of frees systems.

The challenge of democratic competition for systems that deny choice to their people is obvious and not new. Fortunately, it does not appear likely that the Lukashenkos and Milosevics of the world are going to mount external threats successfully. While we must fear the actions of governments of countries like North Korea, it seems unlikely they have the power to impose non-democratic systems on their neighbors.

I am much more concerned, however, about a new kind of competition. A new century has brought forth a new authoritarian challenge. This is the Bin Ladens of the world. Let us be clear who Osama Bin Laden is.

He is not a religious leader. This is no respected Islamic thinker. He has no such history or credentials. This is a long-standing political insurgent with a political agenda clothed in Islamic rhetoric. His agenda is clear. He wants to overthrow the existing governments in the Middle East and the Gulf and to impose the most extreme authoritarian regimes in their place. He wants to close the region off from any contact with other ideas or cultures. His vehicle to achieve his ends is to create an apocalyptic confrontation between Islam and the West.

This, he believes, will allow him to mobilize Muslims against their own governments and to sweep them away. He is trading on some legitimate political grievances, some cultural fears of contact with Western society, and on the humiliation of young Muslim males who see how badly their societies have fared in the modern world. It is no coincidence that terrorism finds its most fertile breeding ground in so-called "failed states."

Bin Laden knows he cannot succeed as long as the alternative model we represent continues to exist. His program requires that free societies be destroyed. He can only come to power -- he believes -- through a war between civilizations. He and his type can only stay in power if they eliminate the gravitational pull of free societies.

We need to be clear on this point. This is not an opponent who would make peace with us if we changed some aspect of our behavior or policy. As one former leader of Hamas once said, "We do not attack you in order for you to agree to give us something. We attack you to eliminate you."

Another feature of the new reality in global politics is the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists. While neither weapons of mass destruction nor terrorism are new, the increasing risk of terrorists gaining access to such weapons is the new element in the equation.

During the Cold War, the risk of a war fought with weapons of mass destruction was moderated by a policy of deterrence. Over the course of the Cold War, we and the Soviets developed elaborate means to ensure that such weapons would not be the rational alternative to choose. We made many errors and the system was not perfect, but both sides had too much to lose and managed to find a way to compete without creating global destruction.

However, deterrence does not work when one's opponent has no territory or population to lose and when he believes inflicting mass casualties on a democratic society is a good thing in and of itself.

The United States recognizes that with this technology in the hands of terrorists, civilization itself is at risk. A small fraction of the biological weapons arsenal in Saddam Hussein's possession could wipe out Estonia. The delivery could be made with a very small commercial aircraft, or a few dedicated men in delivery vans. No country is invulnerable in this environment.

United States foreign policy, therefore, must take into account the reality that there are forces in the world that oppose our very existence and are prepared to use violence against us. The United States finds itself vulnerable and at war with an authoritarian opponent whose only political program is the destruction of our society and economy at a time when the means are at his disposal to achieve such an end.

This leaves us with two clear bases for U.S. security policy.

First, and most important is the long-term, irresistible growth of freedom in a world increasingly interconnected. It is our job to support this process, to ensure it benefits as many people as possible, and to persuade those who fear it and oppose it of its benefits.

The second task is to protect ourselves and this process from the threat to it posed by global terrorism. I will now elaborate on what these new realities in the international system are producing in terms of U.S. foreign policy.

There is no greater example of the first aspect of U.S. policy than our approach to Europe. First, the United States has learned through bitter experience in the last century that our peace, prosperity, and democracy are dependent on Europe's.

Three times in the twentieth century, my country had to mobilize politically, militarily and economically because of threats to Europe. A Europe whole, free and at peace will be the best possible partner in ensuring peace, security and freedom in the wider world.

A reversal of the great wave of freedom in Europe that we witnessed at the end of the last century would doom the process in the rest of the world. Thus, our support for the enlargement of NATO and the EU should be self-evident.

NATO in particular is relevant to both aspects of this discussion. The core of the NATO enlargement process was to encourage the states of this part of Europe to complete the political and economic reforms necessary to make democracy permanent. The offer of NATO's security guarantee gave the states in question the confidence to proceed on their chosen paths without fear they would be reversed by foreign pressure -- as they had seen too often before in their pasts.

But, NATO's core remains its role as the guarantor of security. As the security environment has altered radically, so must NATO. And, NATO is an institution engaged in radical transformation.

The U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, spoke about this recently in Berlin. He said, "Prague will be a critical turning point for NATO because we will shift the mission and full military might of 19 countries from an inward focus on Europe outward to the new threats that we must all face together."

Those threats were those I discussed above. At Prague, the allies agreed to take the military steps necessary to permit the alliance to respond militarily in the future to new threats far from this continent. NATO approved last week in Prague -- the creation of a new NATO Response Force, which will be, according to Ambassador Burns, a "multinational combat force of approximately 20,000 personnel from air, land, and naval components, able to deploy in- or out-of-area, ready for action within 7 to 30 days, and able to sustain itself in the field for up to a month."

Thus, Estonia is joining an alliance that itself is changing. For you and your colleagues, this implies a very serious challenge. First, as a member of NATO, Estonia will have to deal with issues of a global nature more than ever before. NATO is engaged in providing security in Afghanistan as we speak. There is probably no security issue anywhere in the world that is not discussed within the alliance. The alliance operates by consensus.

Estonia will have just as many votes at the table as the U.S. does. Estonia will have to have views on these issues. It will share responsibility for some of the most serious security decisions on earth.

Your former Defense Minister, former Foreign Minister, and former Ambassador to NATO Jüri Luik, has commented on this topic. "We [Estonians]," he wrote recently, "have to be intellectuals to be part of the world security system...  Are we educated enough to see the connection between Afghanistan or Iraq events and our own security?"

Second, Estonia will need capabilities to participate. Even a small country like Estonia can make a substantial contribution to NATO by specialization - that is, by filling a particular security niche.

Such contributions do not require enormous amounts of ground troops or expensive, sophisticated weaponry. But they will press your defense forces hard to come up with the people and budgets to meet defense needs and it will challenge your employers to field sufficient people with the brains, commitment, and an understanding of the current global security context to serve Estonia's interests in the alliance.

For the U.S., of course, European policy and NATO are only one part of a much broader security response to the new environment. Among the other responses are a revised national security strategy, a revamped domestic security approach, a transformed military, and a commitment to prevent terrorists from acquiring the means to destroy our civilization.

Many critics of U.S. foreign policy have voiced their concern over the idea of preemptive strikes presented in President George W. Bush's new national security strategy.

In fact, the concept of preemption has always played a role in our policy, but in the context of the Cold War the role was certainly smaller. The criticism of this strategy is misplaced. First of all it ignores the vast bulk of the strategy's text in order to focus on a "sexy" point. The overwhelming emphasis of the strategy is on prevention not preemption. The prime tools of U.S. strategy are non-military. But, we should not be naïve. There is now a narrow, discrete case in which preemption is not only an option but a necessity.

Deterrence remains a viable policy for dealing with governments with a rational decision making calculus and with something to lose. The very basis of deterrence is that one must assume one's opponent has something which can be held at risk. Currently, we are combating clandestine, stateless actors. They hold no territory. There is nothing we can hold at risk.

How, for example could we deter the Sept. 11 killers? What is it we could have held at risk that would have deterred men on a suicide mission based in Hamburg and Florida? Such a dramatic change in the way the world works requires us to develop new policy approaches.

Let me provide you with a concrete example.

Suppose you knew that a terrorist group was going to detonate a nuclear device in Tallinn. Suppose they were located in a country that would not cooperate in apprehending them. If you knew that this was their plan, would you wait until the attack had been carried out and then act? Would you hope against hope you could find the particular ship or truck carrying the device and then arrest the terrorists? Would you limit your actions to getting the OSCE to pass a resolution condemning the sheltering government? Would you not consider it negligent if your government did not employ pre-emptive measures to prevent such a disaster from occurring? This is the limited universe of preemption we are talking about.

But, there is another realm for activity that is preventive and not preemptive. The clearest case in point is our effort vis a vis Iraq. President Bush is utterly convinced that someday, somewhere, terrorists will get access to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. We do not know when or where this might happen, but the risk to millions of lives is clear to him. That Saddam Hussein holds these weapons in clear violation of international law and in violation of sixteen separate UN Security Council resolutions would be cold comfort indeed to the survivors of an attack by these weapons.

The President, therefore, challenged the international community to enforce its own laws. He hopes that the force of international opinion and law will prevail. But, if it does not, he believes the safety of his people can only be assured if a broad international coalition acts to disarm Iraq by force if necessary. We all hope the Iraqi governments seizes the opportunity presented by the current UN inspections process to divest itself of these weapons. One way or another, however, this will soon happen.

This, of course opens up the inevitable lament from some about America's so-called unilateralism. Here, I believe, there is room for discussion among friends. It is true that the United States can and does act alone on the world stage. We are the world's biggest target and we have the greatest capabilities to come to others' aid. Inevitably, we will end up acting more than others. But, this is a far cry from the criticisms we face.

I defy anyone who saw the effort we have just put in to the UN process vis a vis Iraq or the years of leadership that were required to bring this country into a healthy NATO alliance to call us unilateral. There is a difference between unilateralism and leadership. But, I must admit leadership frequently disturbs the status quo and can produce resentment.

Moreover, before one criticizes the U.S. for action, one should consider the consequences of American inaction. The great crimes of the last century were not the product of a lawless, aggressive United States. It was American passivity and inaction which frequently made them worse. One does not have to reach back to Munich or the Second World War to make this point. Srebrenica and Rwanda make the case quite nicely.

Some of the criticism about U.S. unilateralism is in fact a cover for a more fundamental criticism. Some of our friends in Europe (and in some circles in the U.S.) actually oppose our approach not because it is unilateral, but because it recognizes that there unfortunately is still a role for the use of force in achieving the ends of democratic states. For some here and in the U.S. there is the belief that the use of force for any purpose is immoral.

Such people believe that all disputes can be resolved through meetings, conferences and resolutions. I wish this were so, but a quarter century of personal experience as a diplomat has taught me the contrary. If the democracies are unwilling to use force, they leave that tool -- and the final decision -- to those who will use it. The Miloseviches and Saddams of the world have shown time and again that they view force as a preferred tool.

Let us look at the case of Iraq.

Does anyone in this room believe Saddam Hussein would be cooperating with the weapons inspectors because the UN passed a new resolution? Does anybody here even believe that the UN would have voted unanimously for such a tough resolution if it had not been clear there was another much worse alternative? It is certainly the hope of every single American in and out of government that the UN process will be enough. Do not forget it is our children who will bear the cost if it does not. But, let us not be naïve about what will induce Saddam Hussein to accept the process.

Ladies and gentlemen, Oliver Cromwell once dismissed the English Parliament by saying, "You have sat too long for any good that you have done. Go! In the name of God go!" I fear many of you have already decided I have spoken far too long for any good that I have done.

Let me leave, therefore, with a few final thoughts about your chosen career. The life of an American diplomat is a dangerous one. The names of far too many of my friends and colleagues are on a stone plaque in the Department of State for those of us who have died in the line of duty.

Although I mourn those who lost their lives in this profession, I save my greater grief for my colleagues who lost themselves to careerism, self-promotion and bureaucratic cynicism. This business requires courage. Sometimes, it requires physical courage. More frequently, it requires intellectual and moral courage.

Do not forget who you are and who you represent. It is a grand thing to be asked to defend your fellow citizens and their way of life. Do not lose sight of it.

Thank you for your attention.