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hello
good afternoon my name is christine
oakland i'm a journalist based in paris
and i have the privilege
to moderate this discussion about
the new transatlantic order
with a great panel starting
of course with general john allen who's
currently
the president of the brookings
institute uh and the latest recipient of
the vaslas
havel award in washington dc i'm
happy to see john
lindsay who is the senior vice president
of the council on foreign relations
in washington dc thank you for being
with us
in berlin dr thomas bagger who is the
diplomatic
adviser to president steinmeier
in berlin and with us here in
uh bratislava bruto matrese who is
senior research
associate with the wilfrid mountains
center
but before we engage into exploring
the new transatlantic agenda with of
course perfect timing
given president biden's
tour in brussels earlier this week and
we all know that he's currently in
geneva meeting with president
putin before we engage into this
discussion
uh let's hear from richard weick
with a pew research center
who will give us the latest results
about
the international image of the biden
administration
richard
great thank you so much uh christine yes
thank you christine and uh
thanks to globesick for including me uh
as part of this event
really happy to have a chance to talk
with all of you about some recent
survey research that we've done at the
pew research center
looking at transatlantic relations and
in particular
looking at views in europe and elsewhere
towards the united states and now that
we've had this transition
from the trump to the bond
administration so what i'm going to talk
with you about a little bit
uh is a survey we conducted in 16
publics uh nine in europe uh six in the
asia pacific region plus
canada and we've been doing this kind of
work now for
two decades at pew and we see some of
the biggest
changes we've ever seen in this survey
with some
very large improvements in overall
ratings
for the united states so if you uh for
instance
look at 12 countries that we surveyed
both
last year and this year
last year across those 12 countries a
median of just
17 percent said they had confidence
in president trump to do the right thing
in world affairs
it's up to 75 percent for president
biden
this year in terms of overall attitudes
towards the united states
just 34 had a favorable view
of the us and those 12 countries last
year it's up to 62 percent
this time around so uh very big changes
in terms of how people feel about who's
in the white house and that's had a big
impact on what they think of the united
states overall
and you see some remarkably large
differences
when you ask people about the sort of
personal characteristics
and leadership traits of biden versus
trump
very few said president trump was well
qualified
most think that president biden is most
said that president trump was dangerous
that he was arrogant
very few say this about biden
by uh trump's strongest characteristic
when he was in office
tended to be that many solemn is a
strong leader
but even on that measure biden does
better than trump did
um so part of it's about personality but
a lot of it is also about
policy we saw a lot of opposition
over the years to president trump's uh
withdrawing the united states from
international
commitments uh to his putting up
barriers between the u.s
and the rest of the world in contrast
people welcome
the more multilateralist approach of
the biden administration so you can see
that for example when it comes to
climate
you know a lot of support for the biden
administration
re-entering the paris climate accords
i'll give you one example of that
back in 2019 when we last asked about
trump's climate policies in france
just nine percent supported the us
withdrawing
from the paris agreement 91 percent in
france this year support the us
rejoining that agreement there's also a
lot of support for the u.s rejoining the
who
for the u.s accepting more refugees into
the country
and from biden's idea of hosting a
summit of democratic nations although
there are concerns about u.s democracy
and i'll talk briefly about those in
just a moment
so people do think the us is acting more
multilaterally
but even uh with biden in the white
house there are still concerns
about uh how america conducts itself in
world affairs
so majorities in most of the countries
where we did the survey
say that they believe the u.s doesn't
take into account the interest of other
countries
when it's making foreign policy
decisions and that's a complaint we've
heard about the us
going back two decades now whether it's
a democrat
or a republican in the white house
there's still this sense that
the u.s doesn't really listen to other
countries doesn't really take into
account
their interest when it's making foreign
policy decisions so
there are still concerns about how the
u.s operates in international affairs
and there are also as we see in the
survey strong concerns about the health
of domestic politics in the united
states
there's a question where we ask people
do you think the us is
currently a good example of a democracy
that it was never a good example of a
democracy or that it used to be a good
example
but has it been in recent years and what
we find is that
majorities and almost all the places
where we did the survey
say that the us used to be a good
example but it isn't any longer
fewer than one in five say the us
is currently a good example of a
democracy
so i think that finding is something
that you know is very relevant uh
as president biden seeks to restore
confidence
in american leadership as he and others
uh
seek to restore confidence and some form
of a liberal international order
they're also going to have to restore
confidence in the liberal
component of that order and you know
restore
confidence that the american political
system
can function better than it has over the
last few
years so overall this this study finds a
big improvement
in terms of how people think about the
united states among a number of key
allies and partners
but they're also lingering concerns
about how the us
acts on the world stage and lingering
concerns in particular
about the health of its democracy so
i'll stop there and i look forward to
hearing the panelists thank you
uh thank you richard that's a very good
introduction to our discussion
uh of course i may i remind the audience
that
you are welcome to send questions
which i will discover on this uh magical
tablet uh but
let's get started with you uh general
allen
the transatlantic alliance is an old
lady 72 years old it
has had its ups and downs and mostly
downs for the past
four years the the french president
emmanuel macron even
that say it was in a state of cerebral
collapse
that was in december 19 in an interview
to the economist
would you say that the last summit
monday
uh has indeed introduced a new
cycle in the history of the alliance
with the
agenda 2020 and of course the
the insistence on the the threat that
russia
represents that also china which is now
characterized
as a systemic challenge
well it's a great question first it's
wonderful to be back at globe sec as i
always do
in the panels that i have i ask everyone
if you have a chance
to look at the colors of the lanyards
around people's necks and if you see
someone wearing a green lanyard
they are the ones who made this
conference happen so don't hesitate to
thank those
young slovaks and the central europeans
who came to staff this effort they're
the future of this region
um i think that the the moment on the
14th of the
nato summit was really historic in many
ways and and often that term
is really historic has become a bit
trite but in this case i believe it is
true
president biden brought to the continent
in many respects a
reinvigorated america
and he was very clear about the u.s
commitment to the transatlantic
relationship
writ large what we're also hearing
called the
euro-atlantic relationship he was very
clear about the
u.s commitment to nato as an alliance
very clear on u.s commitment to the
article 5
of the nato charter um
we should not be surprised that the
conversation uh about
uh nato would ultimately come
come around to the issue of what are the
great challenges and what are the great
threats
that we face and of course russia was
singled out in the communique as
as a threat the chinese which
has have typically been devoid from
conversation or mention
by nato as a body now have the attention
of the alliance and it should
uh given the enormity of chinese
influence in europe but the
the enormity of chinese influence on the
world stage
and so there were there were many
developments i think that were very
positive
that reaffirmed the united states
commitment to the transatlantic
entity if you will to nato in general
but i think
also very importantly that emanated from
from this event
uh was the determination as you said to
embrace
nato 2030 but to get on aggressively
with the issue of a new strategic
concept
the last one was 2010 the world has
moved on from 2010
we have got to have a strategic concept
that takes into account
not just the threats but the strategic
environment in which we now live
one dominated by cyber issues one
dominated by
issues associated with climate etc here
is our chance a new bide administration
a robust nato let's get on with it
let's go to berlin uh dr bagger thank
you for being with us
we've learned that chancellor merkel
is invited to the white house on july 15
the first
european leader to be invited
is that a tribute to her
leadership before she actually leaves
the political scene or
is it time for a very tense negotiations
on china which is a major trading
partner for germany and one could see
some degree of
relic reluctance on the chancellor's
part
about the the nato summit
uh declaration but also on russia
with the issue of the north stream to
gaza duke so
more political pressure when the
chancellor is actually
meeting with president biden in in
washington d.c
well uh thank you christine and first of
all congratulations to john
for the to the havel prize i i envy
everyone who can be in bratislava today
um i'm tied to my desk in berlin but
uh on your question christine i think
first of all
you can there is a palpable sense of
relief
in berlin and across germany uh at
uh the message of this u.s
administration that america is back
um the return to multilateral action um
to the renewal of the us's alliances
uh namely nato all of that comes um
uh with to to with great relief
here and and certainly uh in the way
the former president had singled out
germany for assire
uh i would consider germany one of the
great uh
winners of uh of the of the policy
changes
that have uh come from from washington
and that are expressed in the in the
most recent series of summits
at the same time we um we've all noticed
in these first five months um that the
center of gravity of u.s foreign policy
has has changed and is changing
is the there is a change underway and uh
and the centrality of the rise of china
to future u.s strategy and foreign
policy will have profound consequences
for europe and for germany as well and
that's not to be resolved today but it
was just sort of
an opening discussion at the nato summit
and the g7 summit that will continue in
the years to come
and i think it will be one of the great
challenges to navigate that for any new
german government that will emerge from
our own september elections
now there's also a protocol side to this
as things are systematic with this u.s
administration and we've seen
the japanese prime minister and the
south korean president being the first
guests in
the white house now mackel uh the
chancellor will be the first european to
go there
and also there i think it's a mix of
both of what you mentioned
it's a recognition of her outstanding uh
role as a leader of germany and of
europe
um she will leave office at the end of
september or
sort of once a new government is is
formed
so the president will receive her in the
white house before that's a measure of
recognition
but there is plenty of stuff to talk
about and and i think
you've mentioned china indeed where she
has
somewhat different nuances in also in
her public appearances after the nato
summit and
said you know let us let us focus
on what makes on what the west has to
offer
as a positive vision and let us not
define
what the west is and should be simply by
who we are against
um and and the second thing is
with respect to russia it is good that
there are no
direct conversations and negotiations
between berlin and washington
also uh on the issue of the gazoo duke
as i learned
of the pipeline that you mentioned we
all know about
the the different positions uh that do
exist
not just across the atlantic but also
within europe on this project
but i think both sides the u.s president
and the german government have made it
clear that this
project however controversial should not
be the one to define our relationship
as we go forward john litzy
uh you you're the vice president for the
council
on foreign relations in washington dc
we know that china is indeed uh
the very rare uh topic where there is a
strong political consensus in in
washington
uh is the the nato uh summit declaration
considered a victory for the biden
administration
even by its republican
opponents
well thank you very much for the
question christine now before i answer
it let me uh
join with thomas and send my regrets
that i'm not able to be in bratislava
uh but i'm very fortunate that the
conference organizers have invited me
and i'm glad to join you here
today i would say that
the answer your question depends upon
who you ask
number one i do think it is true as you
pointed out
that when it comes to china there is
broad and i think relatively deep
bipartisan agreement that china is
in essence job one or challenge number
one
for american foreign policy but also i
think there's a fair amount of consensus
across the aisle among democrats
and republicans about the challenge
painted by
russia and these are two issues that
really stand out against a lot of other
issues
in foreign policy that divide the two
parties and also create
divisions within the two parties having
said that
i don't think it's the case that there
has been
agreement on what president biden
has accomplished in his trip so far
again politics in the united states are
very polarized
they increasingly infect foreign policy
as well as domestic policy
and there has been criticism that the
president
while he has gotten words from
the european he hasn't gotten deeds and
again i agree with john
that what happened at nato in the recent
discussions about
settling some trade issues with the
european union are significant
they are a very good start but in this
as in much in life
it's not so much how you start but how
you finish
and i think the really interesting
question in the months and years to come
is the degree to which we're able to
translate
the agreements and sentiments expressed
in the communiques
into actual common policy and i think
that is going to prove to be exceedingly
difficult
obviously there are differences within
europe
on these questions if you go from lisbon
to vilnius you can get a variety of
perspectives on where china rates as a
challenge to europe
and also how to deal with it and there
are also divisions between
europe and the united states over how to
proceed
overshadowing this is something that
thomas pointed out
germany has elections in september which
could potentially
add a whole new dynamic here likewise
next year we're going to have the french
presidential elections
so a big question for many americans is
what kind of europe are we going to be
dealing with
a year from now and are we going to be
able to in fact
take our commitment to general
principles and values
and translate them into coordinated
policy
and i think it's going to be a big
challenge but i would note that's what
diplomats are for
of course beijing has reacted
with a great deal of
aggressive vocabulary as usual telling
that you know nato members are
hypocrites and that
the u.s are developing a cold war
mentality and
indeed beijing has increased for the
last two days the military
pressure upon taiwan uh with some 28
fighter jets i believe circling around
the island
do you feel john john lindsay that
indeed
europeans should be more aware
of the stakes in the uh
indian ocean and in the southern
china sea even though i believe
france and the uk have
increased their naval presence in that
part of the world
certainly i would think europeans should
be paying attention to these issues
but it's not a merely a matter of the
military threat that china poses
to countries in east asia
or south asia we shouldn't forget the
clashes that occurred in the himalayas
over the last
year but the broader challenge that
china presents
on the economic front but also to the
liberal rules-based international order
the notion that there's agreed upon
rules
that govern how we interact
china clearly wishes to rewrite the
rules of the game
that poses challenges uh to the west i
think it's
pretty apparent in europe there's
growing concern about
chinese human rights abuses the economic
challenge that
china faces and i will note the reaction
in many european capitals to
the chinese decision to sanction
european officials over
uh their support or their criticism of
china's
treatment of the weaker so this is an
issue that's going to go on
now there's a broader issue about what
kind of military
contribution european countries can make
to any effort to deter chinese
aggression
and i think there is a really good
debate to be had there i know in some
european capitals either discount the
nature of the chinese threat certainly
to europe
but also to others likewise they may
discount
what it is that european countries can
actually
bring to that issue and i think if you
look at american foreign policy while
president biden
clearly is trying to rally the
traditional
european allies rally nato not all the
eggs are being put in the nato or
transatlantic basket
obviously has something called the
indo-pacific as well as
the uh indo-pacific or the quad
operation as well as bilateral relations
with
south korea and china i think also one
of the things that europe is going to
have to struggle with is to what extent
thinking about china at least in
military terms
is going to have consequences for
europe's ability
to deter russia i think that's a big
issue obviously
much more so as you go to central uh
europe or go to
the baltic countries it's going to be
issues are going to have to be debated
obviously one of the big questions again
on the military front is to what extent
we're going to see european countries
uh live up to their 2014 whale summit
pledge
to spend two percent of their gdp on
defense
and most notably the largest economy in
uh nato on that's oversized the united
states
is germany and it's well well below uh
the two percent mark and we'll see what
happens
after the german elections yes but
president biden was so nice to us
europeans that he hardly mentioned
the the sort of burden sharing
issue uh during the summit last monday
uh bruno mache is your former portuguese
secretary for european affairs you've
written
extensively upon european
asian issues uh to what extent in your
view within
the 27 members of the eu
there is a varying degree of discomfort
if not
disagreement with the two paragraphs
regarding china in the final
nato communique last monday
i don't think we should exaggerate that
there's a difference about method and
means as
jim lindsay said about how to proceed
but we should be clear that on the
question of how to regard the chinese
regime
or on the values question there is
really very little disagreement
if you had a two hour seminar with the
top leaders from europe and the us
they would agree on everything of course
in politics often the question is not
about that
it's not a seminar it's about what to do
and i'll get to that but there are
some disagreements there there's also a
difference of style
perhaps europeans don't like to have uh
that blunt direct language in the final
statements but that's to some extent the
question of star remember that
our political legal culture in europe
over the past 70 years is about rules
and rules as you learn in law school are
impartial
and objective they don't talk about
whom they apply to they apply to
everyone so for
for european drafting those statements
it's enough to say that you have to
respect freedom of navigation and you
don't have to add
against china but let's not exaggerate
those elements which are
actually can be productive in the
discussions that thankfully are now
happening instead of the issue
but there are of course trade issues and
in that respect your
interest starting with the german ones
are very well let me be
also very blunt on that uh if you look
at the level of investment that's going
into china
over the past uh two years uh
it's mostly american goldman sachs went
strongly into the chinese market last
year black rock
so i actually object to the idea that
it's europeans that are engaging with
trade with china
uh everyone is the notion of the cup
playing that you sometimes hear from
washington
has remained at the level of rhetoric
and i think it will remain at the level
of rhetoric we're still looking for the
exact approach but it's more about
strategic sectors of the economy rather
than generalized
decoupling final point the u.s and
europe have evolved
along parallel tracks over the past five
years
the change happened around 2015 2016
when both the us and europe realized
that china was not converging to a
western model perhaps they realized a
bit too late but they did realize
and they realized that china had uh bold
ambitions about shaping the global
system
but the change actually happened
simultaneously on both sides of the
atlantic and since then
there's been a an evolution that is
quite similar
it's europe not the us that came up with
the idea of a systemic
rivalry values-based concept which i
noticed the u.s has now recently started
to adapt
in in blink and for example secretary
blink and has adopted that language uh
quite a lot so i don't we'll get to that
when we talk about strategic autonomy
later but
i don't see that there's really quite
unfair to europeans to suggest that they
either less clear on the values question
or that they are
more driven by uh the sort of the vile
metal of trade than americans are uh
we just have different ideas about how
to deal with this
huge challenge that china is and on both
sides of the atlantic there's a
consciousness
that you cannot make mistakes uh and
this is the question that's going to
define the la
the next half a century and so obviously
there are differences of opinion about
what to do and that's why i think
strategic autonomy comes in the
europeans want to have a word
on what to do and how to proceed when it
comes to russia would you would you say
that there is more consensus within
uh the 27 although of course
risk assessment is quite different there
was an interesting
research by the munich security
conference
showing of course that you know from now
north to east
to south the southern part of europe uh
the risks are not the same and the
assessment is not even the same
compared to the us for us in europe the
first
risk is climate and in the us
is china and cyber
uh russia is is a different question
on russia you have people in europe that
actually think this administration is
being too soft
people who are angry about the meeting
that is happening right now
between president biden and putin and
then there are people in europe
that actually have not only trade
connections but long-standing cultural
intellectual links to russia uh russia
of course is part of european history
it's been part of european history for
much longer than than the united states
has been a country
so russia i think europeans do have to
come up with a common position and it's
not going to be easy
but but on china there is a common
position
general allen it is obvious that
president biden is indeed reinforcing
or or restoring
the american leadership uh in in
the western world albeit
in a more polite and even affectionate
manner
than many of his predecessors but there
have been some bruises
about afghanistan and of course
for obvious reasons relating to your
brilliant military career i'm sure this
is an issue that you feel strongly about
european allies felt that they had not
been consulted or even warned
that the u.s would
harvest in its military
retreat from afghanistan
retreat well it's a hard word
it is a hard word and it's it's a
difficult moment for us
and i can understand why the europeans
felt as though they were not properly
consulted
many of us were caught by surprise by
the decision
the decision has been made the troops
are coming down i think the challenge
for us going forward
not just the united states but more
broadly within nato and the
transatlantic relationship but more
broadly the community of nations
is how we can continue to support the
afghan people
there are many people in the world that
are willing to dismiss the 20 years that
we spent in afghanistan as having been
uh an investment that returned nothing
uh and the truth of course is much
different than that
uh the quality of the life of the afghan
people by and large the
the life expectancy that child mortality
the women dying in childbirth the
education levels that have improved
there has been so much
that has been accomplished in
afghanistan that to dismiss it out of
hand
is patently wrong and unfair
but the challenge of course that we face
is what will the taliban
ultimately do because in many respects
uh the trump administration tied the
hands of the biden administration with
respect to
having to honor an agreement with the
taliban
i may be the only person in this
audience who's actually negotiated with
the taliban
and here's what i believe and that it is
not in the dna of the taliban to ever
honor any agreement that they
they have with with apostates or
infidels
and that's who they made this agreement
with uh well 150 000 troops couldn't
separate
the taliban from al qaeda why would we
expect that they would separate
voluntarily now
when al qaeda has been a great ally of
the taliban and it was from the safe
haven provided
by the taliban that al qaeda was able to
attack the west
and why would we believe that the
the taliban would give up its
aspirations for an islamic emirate
and why and this is the heart of my
concern
why would we ever believe that the
rights of women and
minorities in afghanistan will ever be
respected by the taliban who are already
beating women in
town squares and assassinating female
journalists and
and killing many young afghan girls who
were on their way to school recently
so we have we have a lot of work to do
not just as a nation the united states
but
work to do as a transatlantic alliance
and
more broadly the global community of
values
democracies to support afghan women
to support the sanctity of the follow-on
government in afghanistan to do what we
can to strengthen the
economy and i am very cautious of those
who would say
that the taliban with whom we have been
dealing in doha and other places are
some form of a re-warmed modernized
insightful organization they are not
it's not in them to be that way we need
to be very careful
about how the taliban will react after
the departure of the united states and
nato
and we need to do all that we can to
establish mechanisms to support
our afghan allies to support the afghan
women
and ultimately to do what we can to
provide as much stability as we possibly
can for afghanistan in the aftermath of
our departure
general of course we
we know that
president biden's administration and
many
speeches by by tony blinken and also by
jake sullivan the the uh national
security adviser
are turning upon values but there's also
a dimension of continuity with a
previous administration certainly not in
style but
in substance when indeed the doctrine
very much has to do with the idea that
foreign policy is another dimension
of domestic policy and that it should
address the interests of the american
middle class
is that a dimension which we
in europe should be concerned about
wary about well it is certainly going to
be prominent i think in the in the biden
administration and in its policy for the
formulation
it's it's it's process for the
formulation of policy
but one of the one of the reasons uh
that the
we have a trump we had a trump
administration was his capacity
to rally the disaffection of large
segments of the american population that
believed that
their interests as americans had been
mortgaged on behalf of a relationship
and foreign engagement a relationship
overseas and foreign engagement
that globalization hadn't worked that
the fourth industrial revolution had
left them
uh at a disadvantage
and so i think wisely the biden
administration has in fact recognized
that if there will be a foreign policy
that will be effective for the united
states there has to be a relevance of
that foreign policy for the middle class
it can't just
sell in washington or in new york city
or in los angeles
it has to sell in des moines it has to
sell in
in omaha and that's a challenge it's a
challenge
for the reasons that jim lindsey
mentioned which is that
we are terribly polarized right now in
the united states
when the president talked about america
having been played as a sucker by our
allies
uh or when he had depicted the eu as the
number one foe of america
and having seen all of that be so
heavily digested by large segments of
the american electorate that voted for
him
and his ilk turning that around
will be a great challenge for the bide
administration and i'm
none of us could be more pleased than
first of all the people that he chose
to populate his administration because
they not only are
pretty well experienced but they also in
many respects
like no administration in american
history they look like america
the numbers of women in this
administration and people of color
this is a great accomplishment from my
perspective and it gives the
administration the capacity to make the
moral argument
that we have to link our foreign policy
to the future
of our domestic policy and to the
american people otherwise the
irrelevance of the two
or the discontinuity of the two will
defeat both
dr bagger in berlin there have been
many uh interesting research papers by
the german martial fund or the european
council
on foreign relations showing how much
european public opinion from north to
east 2000
has changed towards
the us and it's particularly true in
germany
i've noticed in a gmf paper
that 39 of germans
only 39 consider the us to be the
the necessary partner and the french
43 percent yeah you know something's
changing there how do you explain such
an erosion
of uh the the american
leadership in the minds of the the
german people
well i i think uh uh maybe two things i
i think the first is what i try to
say at the beginning is the the great
sense of relief
uh all across germany with this
administration
and and it resembles really an
experience i had
after being posted in at our embassy in
washington
in the early 2000s and then coming back
to berlin and witnessing
barack obama when he was still candidate
in the summer of 2008
here in in berlin
and the mood was we would love to love
america again
so there's a great reservoir of sympathy
that that biden is
tapping into and that he can tap into
and that he can mobilize
but we should not underestimate that
there is also a lingering doubt that
will not
uh go away quickly you can you can
correct
policies but this this nagging sense
that something like the trump
administration can happen
in america um will not go away easily
if it can happen once why can it never
happen again
so it's it's not is the doubt is not as
easily repaired
or or made to disappear and so i think
among
the great challenges that we have and
the common tasks across the atlantic
is not just um you know the rise of
china
the the the risks emanating from russia
it's not just trade and technology
cooperation or combating climate change
but there's a huge uh task ahead of us
that is really a joint challenge which
is to come to terms with the future of
our democracies and
to twist that a little what does the
democracy of the future
actually look like with a political
discourse
um that is undergoing structural change
through um the change of the media the
emergence of social media
and and other things the all of these
questions are
are on the table we've seen them we've
seen the results not just in the
polarization of the us
we've seen it also in many european
political systems and societies no one
is immune from these
uh changes and and and partly erosions
of our democratic of the workings of our
democratic systems
but i think the um you know it is a
difference
uh whether you have uh someone
um the like of trump elected in
in a european state or whether is
whether he
he is the president of the united states
because that has a global impact that
does not leave
europe untouched and and germany as i
said earlier found itself in the
crosshairs of the previous
president so the sense of relief may be
higher here than elsewhere
but i think the level of doubt that you
point to also from the pew polls
i think that's very real and and if at
all it will recede over time but not
not quickly not overnight but no more
chase
uh there is a
talk within uh european leaders
about the necessity for the eu
proper to increase its defense
capacities
prefers to talk about european
sovereignty
emmanuel macron talks about strategic
autonomy uh the dutch prime minister
mark rutter
is not at all in agreement with with
that very
concept would you say that
this is an issue which we europeans
have to come to terms with to have
a stronger military capacities
within the nato framework is that
in your view one of the major
issues that we have to tackle in the
month or the years to come
yes there's there's some divisions in
europe on this uh
obviously i'm i'm with those who think
that europe needs to develop those
capacities
again as i said before this is not a
question of uh
going in in different directions uh or
having a different
perception of the world or having a
different value perception of the world
it's about having capacities
to make decisions and then we can make
decisions together
i think we're probably moving towards
the framework at least
the way europeans see it where the
transatlantic alliance
perhaps becomes something more similar
to the anton cordia
between france and and britain from it
didn't end
very well well no especially these days
it didn't end very well but it could
have ended worse if it wasn't for
for the the work that had been done in
bringing france and britain together
but what was distinctive about it there
was a lot of uh
shared uh perceptions of the world but
there were capacities on both sides
and europeans dream about having these
capacities and
that dream is not going to die i am told
by the way that yesterday
in the summit uh that both fond du lai
and
and sean michelle tried to explain what
strategic autonomy is to
would they agree together about what it
means because they
they don't always agree on many issues
that's right
that i don't know but uh but i hope so
but but uh
but i don't think on the other side
there was an immediate understanding
of what the issue is uh the issue is the
way i see it
about being able to make decisions
there's skepticism in europe
we have to be honest about this there's
skepticism in europe about the us's
effectiveness
i think we're actually more solid about
the health of american democracy than
about the effectiveness of american
foreign policy
remember iraq um in europe that still
remembered
and so we want to be part of the debate
of how to deal with russia how to deal
with china but
have capacities that allow us to be a
voice that is respected and listened
by washington and i'm part of those
europeans who keep insisting that
washington should be happy about this
because after all the world is becoming
more dangerous and if the europeans have
corresponding capacities it will be
much easier to deal with with the
challenges that we have
john lindsay should the us be happy
about us europeans wanting to be more
assertive in terms of defense or is
there
a high degree of skepticism about
european
effect effectiveness
christine i suspect uh if you ask
most americans the answer is going to
tend toward the skepticism
side of the continuum a great deal of
concern
that in europe there will be talk
about gaining capacity but relatively
little
and i think a lot of that will be
measured again going back to the
standard set by the 2014 whale summit of
a two percent uh of the
gdp going toward defense and while it is
true that
as you remark before christine president
biden
at nato didn't bang the table and the
same way his predecessor did
over the defense commitment
this is still going to be an issue in
american politics
it would not surprise me to see it come
up again
uh if we do not see significant
improvement
in uh european defense but i want to be
clear some european countries have
met the met or exceeded the two percent
threshold others are on the path to it
but obviously i think at this point a
majority of the nato members
haven't so this is going to be an issue
but i do want to go back you know in
this context to sort of a broader issue
that you put in the table
when you ask john about foreign policy
for the middle class and points that
thomas and bruno made and that is i
think
president biden fundamentally
understands
that he has a big challenge as president
of the united states
and that his foreign policy in some
sense has to begin at home
that's why he came into office his focus
has really been on the domestic economy
it has been on particularly getting the
pandemic
under control and getting the american
economy going
and that's really for three reasons
and they play into foreign policy one
isn't necessity to show
that america still works and it has
capacity
and i think if you look at many european
countries look at
public opinion polls across europe and
elsewhere
there's a fair degree of skepticism
about the health
and the future of the united states in
terms of the power it brings to the
world
table that in some ways the united
states is a declining power
contrast to china as a rising power
and i think part of what the biden team
wants to do is to counteract that
i think a real second thing is bruno
alluded to this
is that the united states has really
ruined its reputation
for competence if you go back over the
last
two decades bruno mentioned the iraq war
you can mention abu ghraib
we can talk about the great recession
where
a subprime mortgage crisis in the united
states nearly brought down the global
economy
we get to the mishandling of the
pandemic
and then january 6 i think a lot of
questions
raised about the actual competence of
the united states
whatever capacity it has does it have
the ability
to produce effective policies not
policies that necessarily sound good
but actually accomplish what they set
out to do
and the third challenge is one bruno
alluded to is the issue of consistency
that is can joe biden reassure
people that he can make his policies
stick
now i think in the first two c's of
capability and competence
president biden may be able to make
significant progress
i think on this issue of consistency
it's going to be a harder sell
and be very interesting to see what the
us elections look like
next fall we're going to have midterm
elections and then obviously
who americans chooses their president
come 2024.
so i think we need to look at this issue
of the future of the transatlantic
relationship
not in the context of what happened this
week
or next week but over the next several
years i still think
a lot of issues are in play and we could
end up with a lot of different futures
a decade or so out general alan we have
a few minutes left
to talk about today or to be precise
this very afternoon
as indeed uh president biden is meeting
with president putin
in vila lagrange on overlooking the
lake of geneva
do you believe that in a way we are
getting back to the
soviet era where indeed the u.s
and russia can discuss
engage constructive discussion
on some areas on some topics and of
course continue
to have strong disagreements about about
values
and about you know foreign policy at
large
yeah i don't know whether the brief
answer
yes i don't know whether it would be the
soviet era as an analogy
but wise statesmanship would have you
believe that we have to be able to talk
to our opponents and russia is clearly
an opponent and it is a threat now
and we should be able to talk to the
russians and we should have as many
people said we should have a predictable
relationship with the russians and a
consistent
uh relationship with the russians and it
should be about uh
human rights it should be about russian
interference in our and other
democracies
it should be about areas where we may
have common interests arms control is a
very important
common interest that both our countries
share and then it should be about things
that
we believe we cannot tolerate out of
russia
uh and today is not the end today should
be the beginning
and if we agree that this should be a
beginning and that we should always talk
to our opponents
then i think that this was the right
meeting to have at the right moment
early in this administration and in the
aftermath of the g7 the nato summit and
the eu conversation
so a new a new beginning but it is the
end
unfortunately for our session
you will have refreshments downstairs
and the next session will start at 17
40 sharp the theme
very much alongside many of
the arguments our guests have developed
how to restore
trust in politics thank you very much
general allen mr matrous and of course
our friends
in berlin and in washington dc