For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 13, 2001
Remarks by Condoleezza Rice Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs at the National Press Club Newsmaker Luncheon
National Press Club
Washington, DC
This is a great opportunity for us to get better acquainted in a
comparatively civilized setting, outside the rush of everyday news events
and crises that sometimes throw us together in unpredictable venues talking
about things we never expected to be talking about when we woke up in the
morning.
When the President came into office, he
and the White House exhorted the press and public not to rush to any
sweeping judgments and evaluations after some arbitrary time period,
such as the first 100 days.
Today, as we approach the six month mark,
that logic still holds -- especially when it comes to foreign policy
and national security. Foreign policy simply cannot be
judged by today's headlines that chalk up victories and defeats like so
many box scores in the sports section. That said, I?ll
accept the proposition that the All-Star break is as good a time as any
to start making some observations on how we are doing.
Turning the tables, let me begin by
offering a couple of observations on how what we are doing has been
covered.
First, I have noticed that there has been
a tenor of surprise to much of the coverage of the Administration's
foreign policy, especially early on. I think it was the
surprise of seeing the President so quickly setting forth some new
directions. But I confess to having been myself surprised by
this sense of surprise. Every new direction that George W.
Bush has set forth as President follows and flows naturally from what
George W. Bush the candidate said during the campaign.
Almost a year a half ago, candidate Bush
stated that the great goal of America's foreign policy must be to 'turn
this time of American influence into generations of democratic
peace.? He emphasized that to achieve this goal, America
must be engaged with the world and we must set clear
priorities. He said that his priorities included working
closely with our friends and allies in Europe and Asia; promoting a
fully democratic, free trading Western Hemisphere as a centerpiece of
our foreign policy; defending our interests in the Persian Gulf;
advancing peace in the Middle East; dealing with new threats, including
weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them; and building
a world that trades in freedom.
Half a year into his term, I?d like to
submit to you that the President has made a good start -- both on the
great goal he has set forth and on his specific
priorities. Those priorities are certainly a pretty accurate
reflection of how he has prioritized his own time and energies in the
foreign policy arena.
This leads me to my second observation,
which is not about the headlines that have been written, but about the
ones that haven't. When I was growing up, MAD magazine used
to run a feature called 'scenes we?d like to see.? I think
every policy maker plays a game of ?headlines I?d like to see.?
I won't be so indulgent as to play that
game today, but with you as my captive audience, I would like to turn
your attention to a few areas where I think there are stories that have
not been written.
I'll confess at the outset that I should
know better. In college, I worked as a news editor at the
Denver University Clarion. It only took a semester for me to
realize that it was not my calling. But in a triumph of hope
over experience, I?m going to try anyway.
A good place to start is Europe -? where
the President visited last month and where he's headed next week.
A backdrop to the President's two trips
has been a focus -? in the conversations and coverage -? on an alleged
?values gap? between America and Europe, centered around the death
penalty, gun control, biotechnology, and climate change.
Less noticed is the fact that the
President's first trip cut through a lot of that conversation by
focusing the Atlantic community on a larger picture.
In his Warsaw speech, the President set
forth a clear, ambitious vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace
-? and all that entails: a NATO -? and an EU -? that
embraces all of Europe's democracies that want to join and are ready to
contribute.
He did not shy away from any of the issues
driving the so-called ?values gap,? but he refocused the discussion on
the values that unite us, rather than those that divide
us. He emphasized that those who have benefited most from
freedom's triumph, have an obligation to help others who are seeking
their way along that path -? from the Baltics to the Balkans and
beyond. And he talked honestly about missile defense and
NATO expansion.
One day later, he held a warm, positive,
but very frank meeting with Russia's President Putin, demonstrating
that his vision is compatible with a constructive relationship with
Russia. That in itself is a story.
The President looks forward to continuing
all of these conversations -? both with our allies and with President
Putin -? on his upcoming trip.
He will also continue something else he
started on the last trip -- doing away with years of mixed signals and
ambivalent body language from Washington to make clear that the United
States welcomes the European Union's efforts to forge a European
security identity.
The President made clear that we welcome
this emerging identity so long as it is NATO-compatible and
NATO-friendly. We are prepared to welcome the EU as a
foreign policy actor if it is prepared to take on real
responsibilities.
And we are demonstrating that we mean what
we say in the Balkans. In March, when violence erupted in
Macedonia, there was alarm that the Administration was not engaged and
not, for example, appointing a special envoy. Then in April,
when Secretary of State Powell traveled to the region, he was asked why
he had gone when there wasn't an actual war going on. Did
this signal an unprecedented level of engagement? First we
are too late; then we are too soon. But I think the real
story is that the Balkans in general is one of the first proving
grounds for this new paradigm of NATO/EU cooperation.
The fact is that the President has focused
a lot of attention on the Balkans, meeting with Yugoslav President
Kostunica, Macedonian President Trajkovski, and Albanian Prime Minister
Meta. He visited Slovenia and will go to Kosovo at the end
of this upcoming trip.
With each of these leaders, and with our
European allies, the President has stressed that America is committed
to helping this region become fully part of a Europe whole, free, and
at peace. He has also stressed that the only way to make
this vision real is for the United States, NATO, and the EU to proceed
as full partners. That means that the United States will not
always grab the headlines. But it does not mean that we are
reducing our commitment to the ultimate goal.
The President will return to the theme of
global partnership with our European allies at Genoa. A
prime focus of the G-7/G-8 summit in Genoa will be global poverty
alleviation. The President will come to Genoa prepared to
put forward real, substantive proposals on how the world's most
industrialized nations can meet this challenge.
In his Warsaw speech the President said
that Europe's House of Freedom needs to look out to global challenges
beyond the geographic boundaries of the continent.
He said that the better world we seek
includes not just a free and open Europe, but a free and open Latin
America, a free and open Asia, and a free and open
Africa. Indeed, the President's focus on Africa in the first
six months of his Administration is another good example of the
headline and the story that has not been written.
Perhaps no region of the world holds such
a dramatically different place in our foreign policy thinking than it
did just a few years ago. When I first served at the National Security
Council from 1989 to 1991, African countries made the headlines too
often for the wrong reasons. And too often Africa was just
seen through the prism of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry.
Today, there are many African countries
making headlines for the right reasons; because their people and their
leaders are making the hard choices to open their economies and open
their political systems.
President Bush has met with seven African
Presidents during his first six months in office, including Nigerian
President Obasanjo and South Africa's Mbeki -- leaders of Sub-Saharan
Africa's regional powerhouses -- as well as three of Africa's most
promising reformers, Presidents Kufor of Ghana, Wade of Senegal, and
Konare of Mali.
Secretary Powell traveled to Africa and
made the earliest, most extensive visit to the region by any U.S.
Secretary of State in history.
He also met here in Washington with the
president's of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. This level of engagement is unprecedented so early in
an Administration. It reflects the President's strong
commitment to the continent's future.
We do not minimize the challenges facing
Africa today. They are many: everything from terrorism to
war and disease. But there is much to be hopeful about.
African leaders with vision are opening
their economies -- a step that requires real courage because it often
hurts entrenched interests and causes short-term economic pain -- and
sometimes even rioting in the streets. And it flies in the
face of the statist ideologies of the independence generation.
African leaders with vision are also
opening their political systems and promoting respect for human
rights. The majority of African countries now have elected
governments in place. And, like the Summit of the Americas
process, the Organization of African Unity has stated that no head of
state who comes to power by undemocratic means will be allowed to
participate in OAU decision-making.
Thirty-five countries now meet the
eligibility standards set by the African Growth and Opportunity Act
passed by the Congress a year ago last May. This Act
dramatically increases access to U.S. markets for countries that
demonstrate continual progress toward an open, market-based economy and
an open, pluralistic political system. These are clearly
powerful incentives.
Since 1999, Nigeria, for the first time in
15 years, has had three active political parties and an elected
civilian government. The press is open and the investment
climate is improving.
As recently as 1998, Lesotho was fending
off an armed mutiny and rising violence and
instability. Today, it is estimated that just four new
projects stemming from AGOA will generate $122 million in new
investments -- which is more than four times the official development
assistance from all sources in 1999.
And in Senegal and Ghana, longtime
incumbent parties recently lost elections and the transitions to the
new presidents were both seamless and uneventful.
Put all these pieces together and what we
see is that in many places important barriers are crumbling -? barriers
that historically have prevented Africans, individually and
collectively, from realizing the fruits of their hard labor and blocked
them from sharing an expanding world economy.
The President is determined to foster this
process. That is why he made the United States the first to
contribute to the new global fund to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB
being sponsored by Secretary General Annan, the G-8, and
others. The United States already provides nearly 50 percent
of all international HIV/AIDS funding. This new measure will
build on that record.
The President will also ensure that the
United States remains a leader on responsible debt relief and reform of
the multilateral development banks.
The President has been and will continue
to be a forceful advocate for peace, religious freedom, and justice in
Sudan.
Before I conclude, let me turn to one
other story -- one that has been written and written about, but where
-- I submit -- the writing has been about the trees not the forest.
There have been a lot of stories about
missile defense. There have not been a lot of stories about
the paradigm shift going on about how leaders and strategic thinkers
are looking at the doctrines of strategic deterrence that were born in
the Cold War. And there has been little written at all about
how much this speaks to a change in the fundamental nature of the
relationship between Russia and the U.S.
For much of my career, I was a Soviet
specialist. More particularly, I was drawn to the hard core
material -- the Soviet military and General Staff; nuclear weapons and
warheads; nuclear war and how to prevent it. I was one of
the High Priestesses of Arms Control -- a true believer.
Like so many others, I eagerly anticipated
those breathtaking moments of summitry where the centerpiece was always
the signing of the latest arms control treaty; the toast; the
handshake; and, with Brezhnev, the bear hug. For those precious few
minutes the world found comfort in seeing the superpowers affirm their
peaceful intent. And the scientists would set the clock back
a few minutes further away from midnight.
Deep down we knew that arms control was a
poor substitute for a real shared agenda based on common
aspirations. But it was the best way anyone could think of
for regulating the balance of terror.
But along the way to the next summit
something happened. History happened. 1989.
So, while many of us were debating the
implications of MIRVs on SS-18s and Peacekeepers like so many angels
dancing on a warhead, the forces of history were making the old
paradigm obsolete.
To be sure, the Cold War arms control
regimes we built up for over four decades were useful for their
time. Those elements that are worth preserving today, we
will keep. And those arms control ideas or treaties that
respond to today's reality and build tomorrow's security, we will
advance and support.
But as the President has made clear, we
must deal with today's world and today's threats, including weapons of
mass destruction and missiles in the hands of states that would
blackmail us from coming to the aid of friends and allies.
We need to protect against today's threats
through a comprehensive strategy that includes strengthened
nonproliferation and counter-proliferation measures, as well as a new
concept of deterrence that includes defenses and a smaller nuclear
arsenal. And we need to recognize that just as peace is not
the absence of war, stability is not a balance of terror.
This is a big shift to wrap one's mind
around. But we cannot cling to the old order -- like
medieval scholars clinging to a Ptolemaic system even after the
Copernican revolution. We must recognize that the strategic
world we grew up in has been turned upside down. It's not
that everything we believed was wrong, it's that the world has
fundamentally changed and that much that used to be true just doesn't
apply anymore.
And the President has made real headway in
bringing others around to his way of thinking. At the NATO
meeting in June, there was a new receptivity to the idea of defenses --
from some quarters you might not expect. Vaclav Havel, for
one, spoke strongly and movingly of the need for a defensive Alliance
-- NATO -- to be open to defense against new threats.
And in their meeting in Slovenia,
President Bush and President Putin initiated a conversation about
building a strategic framework that is ?post-Cold War? in substance,
not just rhetoric. And across the board, our continuing
conversations with other friends and allies in Europe and Asia -- and
with the U.S. Congress -- are proving to be substantive, respectful,
and educational.
There's real movement here in the terms of
the debate, and in the day-to-day reporting on Pentagon plans, and
palace intrigue. I think it has received less notice than it
deserves.
For my part, I have enjoyed our
conversation here today. Or rather, I am about
to. Because conversation means two people talking and so far
there's been only one, me. I?m going to stop
now. And I greatly look forward to your questions.
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