02.10.2009

Congratulations, Atlantic Times - keep doing the great job!

Anlässlich ihres fünften Geburtstags gratuliert Wolfgang Ischinger der jeden Monat auf Englisch erscheinenden deutschen Zeitung The Atlantic Times in einem Gastbeitrag.

Significant opportunities in the German-American and in the transatlantic relationship lie ahead: after the new beginning in the United States with the inauguration of President Obama in January, a new beginning with the election of a new Coalition government in Germany in September will now follow.  The "Obama-bounce" - the unprecedented level of support for the Obama-administration throughout Europe - offers a big window of opportunity to shape an even closer transatlantic partnership in the months to come.

I would like to pay tribute to the "Atlantic Times", which has accompanied this partnership through the last five years including some difficult moments which now lie behind us. Congratulations, Atlantic Times - keep doing the great job!

As we look forward, it is obvious that some difficult and potentially divisive challenges lie ahead: the most urgent ones are to agree on a common strategy to bring our intervention in Afghanistan to a successful conclusion, and to agree on the nature of the strategic relationship we would like to develop with Russia. On Afghanistan, Germany needs to have as thorough a debate as the one presently under way in the US. The most important thing to remember will be to take decisions together, not separately. There is no room for strategic surprise within NATO, and we must make sure that the NATO Council will be the place where the 28 member countries will consult, and decide together about their future course of action.

On Russia, the carefully orchestrated balance developed at the NATO summit in Madrid in 1997 needs to be re-established: a balance between the idea of enlargement and the equally important idea of developing an institutional and operational relationship with Russia. Unfortunately, the 1997 balance was lost when enlargement was pursued in recent years without an equally strong effort to upgrade the NATO-Russia relationship. The recent decision by Washington to abandon the missile defence project in Poland and the Czech Republic was a good decision: it will make further progress on the NATO-Russia front easier. But this decision was, in my view, poorly communicated and executed. Why was it not possible to develop a package which would have denied to Russia an opportunity to declare victory, and which would have re-assured people in Warsaw and Prague who deserve the full solidarity of all NATO partners.

If we can find common answers to these two key challenges - Afghanistan and Russia -, the transatlantic partnership will look very healthy indeed. But there are other important agenda items of which one stands out in particular: strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and promoting nuclear and conventional arms control and disarmament. I applaud President Obama's bold vision of a world without nuclear weapons, which is why I have become a member of the Global Zero Commission. It is often overlooked that NATO has not only preserved peace in Europe over half a century, but that NATO has also been a powerful instrument of non-proliferation: without NATO and its Art. 5, how many NATO members would not have been able to resist the pressure to become nuclear powers themselves?   What could the transatlantic community do today to re-enforce its commitment to non-proliferation and arms control? The proliferation clock is ticking, and this is why I believe it is time to come up with creative ideas. One such idea might be to review the need by NATO members to maintain, in Europe, a certain number of aircraft-based nuclear bombs. If NATO could offer to abandon this category of arms if others did the same, would this not be a powerful signal that we are prepared to translate words into action?

2010, not least because of the Obama-bounce, will be a great year for the European-American relationship. Let's seize this opportunity with determination - and I am certain the Atlantic Times will offer its continued support to help us understand each other even better.

Eine leicht veränderte Version dieses Beitrag von Wolfgang Ischinger erschien in der Oktober-Ausgabe von The Atlantic Times.