REMARKS BY U.S. AMBASSADOR LAWRENCE P. TAYLOR

AT TARTU UNIVERSITY
DECEMBER 9, 1996

Good afternoon, and I thank you for taking your time to be here together with me this afternoon. I apologize in advance that I'm going to have to speak in English because I would very much like to be able to deliver this lecture or discussion in Estonian, but it's well beyond my reach, and I'm sorry.

I'd like to say a few words about American foreign policy but leave enough time for discussion, for questions, and for comments. In that way, I hope that the majority of our time together can be spent discussing issues that you think are important and that you want to talk about. But your questions and comments also help educate me about the perspective that you are bringing to these issues. So I'm very much looking forward to your questions and comments.

Let me start by referring to what is now almost a cliche. And that is that for almost 45 years, American foreign policy did have a commanding framework of Cold War confrontation, in which to devise its strategy, its operations and its tactics. And that framework of course collapsed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. And so the United States, as well as other countries, but the United States as a global power, as a global actor, found itself for the first time in 45 years without an overarching conceptual framework within which to conduct its foreign policy. And this happened, five and six and seven years ago, about the same time that Estonia achieved its re-independence. And of course the causes were the same: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communist power.

In that interval of time, the United States of course has continued to conduct a global foreign policy. It must, we must, because that is the nature of our size, of our interests, of our commitment. But we've done it without a single conceptual framework. And if we look at the last five or six years, there have been several features of that foreign policy that are worth noting.

The first is that new issues achieved a higher priority. Economic issues, for example, have had a much more central role in American foreign policy for the last five or six years than they did in the Cold War period. And if there has been one consistent, strong theme of President Clinton's foreign policy, it has been to open markets, break down trade and investment barriers, to try to build a global economy modeled on liberal economic principles and standards and policies, in the belief that in a global economy, that is the key to American prosperity. And so the economic issues, opening markets, fair trade, free trade, the building of a global system based on liberal policies and standards and values, have been a hallmark of American foreign policy for five or six years.

Another dimension to the last three or four years has been an increasing emphasis on the so-called global issues. Now the global issues, and you know what they are, are called that because they do not respect national boundaries. A nation like the United States, as big as the United States, or as small as Estonia may say "This is my frontier, and in this frontier I am sovereign," but international pollution, international crime, don't care about that. They just flow across those boundaries anyhow. And how to deal with these global issues that affect us all across boundaries has become an increasingly important element of American foreign policy in the last four or five years.

So has an emphasis on non-proliferation, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. With the end of the Cold War there is no longer a great concern in the United States about a nuclear war with another major power. But there is a tremendous concern that nuclear weapons or chemical weapons or biological weapons may fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue states and be used on an episodic basis but with terrible consequences. So American foreign policy over the last three or four years has given a far higher priority than in the Cold War period to preventing the proliferation, the spread, of these weapons of mass destruction.

Now it is also true that, absent that Cold War framework, of facing off against communism and the Soviet Union, the United States has increasingly conducted a foreign policy that has interacted with major countries or regions of the world. Our policy with China is a story in and of itself. Our policy with Japan, another story in and of itself. So is building a new relationship with Russia. And the effort to create a new European political and security architecture.

And I'd like to talk just a little bit about that effort to work with the Europeans; that includes yourselves, that includes all like-minded countries in Europe. To create a new security and political architecture has been a theme, a priority theme of American foreign policy now, throughout the Clinton administration. And is very likely to be a central theme of the next year, given the expectation that in the next seven or eight months the NATO military alliance will open to new members.

It's important to have a perspective about this. What we are trying to do in partnership with the Europeans is to create a whole Europe that is democratic, that is full of economic opportunity, that is secure, that is stable, that is based on rule of law. And we bring to this a historical perspective in which, at the end of the First World War, the United States refused to engage in Europe. And partially as a result of that, the conditions that gave rise to the Second World War flourished. And after the Second World War, we were able in cooperation with European states to build, in Western Europe and on a transatlantic basis, democracy, rule of law, economic opportunity, and the institutional infrastructure of all of that. And now we'd like with the end of the Cold War and the opportunities, the political opportunities that the collapse of communism presents, this time to go all the way, and to work to shape a Europe that is wholly democratic, secure, and stable. Not just the western half, but all, including Russia.

It is that effort, that historic effort to seek to shape a Europe of the future that will be very different from the Europe of the past, in which two world wars started in this century, that is the driving vision of this effort at political and security architecture.

Now the role of NATO is a part of that effort to create a new political and security architecture in Europe. It is not the whole effort, or the only part. It's important, it's very important. But it's also important to understand what is going on with NATO. It is called the adaptation of NATO, and the adaptation of NATO has three elements, one of which is opening to new members. So opening to new members is a sub-set of adaptation of NATO, and adaptation of NATO is a sub-set of new European political and security architecture. But sometimes people only talk about the opening of NATO as though that was the beginning and the end. It's important, but it's a part of bigger things, of a bigger effort, and the other two parts of the adaptation of NATO are new organization, new roles and new missions for NATO. The NATO of the future is still being shaped and created, and it is not to be exactly the same as the NATO of the past. And that produces some kind of what we might call dysfunctional thinking. Because sometimes we see countries that want to join the old NATO. But the old NATO is not where we're going. NATO is changing, even as it is taking in new members. It is reorganizing itself and it is taking on new roles and new missions.

The third part of the adaptation of NATO is a deliberate, priority effort to create a new positive relationship between NATO and Russia. So the adaptation of NATO is opening to new members, new roles and new missions, and partnership with Russia. It's all of those together, not just one of them.

Now let me just talk about U.S. policy toward the Baltic states and Estonia. Although our policy here occurred within those broader frameworks that I've just described: emphasis on economic issues, emphasis on global issues, non-proliferation, and an effort to create a new European political and security architecture. Now the United States has a very special relationship with the Baltic states. And within the American foreign policy community and within the policy itself, the Baltic states have a special role. A role that is qualitatively larger and more important than one might believe, looking at the size of the Baltic states. And there are some reasons for that.

One of the main reasons is that the Baltic states, although they are small, are important. They're on the front lines, in a sense. And in many ways, what goes on here, both internally and in the neighborhood, can be seen as a litmus test of whether the Europe of the future is going to be like the Europe of the past or something better and different that we're trying to shape for the first time. So the history and geography of the Baltic states give them an importance beyond their size.

Secondly, in terms of American foreign policy, the Baltic states are not just a foreign policy issue, they are a domestic policy issue. Most foreign policies have a domestic root in interests or groups. There is some reason why a country cares and how much it cares about what goes on abroad. Usually the reason is related to something at home. In the case of the Baltic states, there are very important communities of American citizens who came from or whose parents or grandparents came from the Baltic states. Throughout the period of Soviet rule in the Baltic states, these communities remained active within the United States, always keeping alive the concept, the hope, the inspiration that one day the Baltic states would be free and independent again.

Now by a miracle of history the Baltic states are free and independent again, and those constituencies have, through their efforts, given American foreign policy a sense of special success. All of that time we never recognized the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania into the Soviet Union, and for all of that time flew the flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as independent countries in the State Department in the United States. It was the right policy. And so having had the right policy, vindicated now by historical experience, and having these communities of American citizens of Baltic ancestry still active in support, and having all of the communities of American citizens whose ancestry is from Central Europe now very much interested in creating this new political and security architecture, very much interested in the expansion of NATO, there is a very strong American interest in what goes on here, in Latvia, in Lithuania, and in the other countries of Central Europe.

Now with respect to the expansion of NATO and the Baltic states, and Estonia specifically, NATO will be making decisions on opening to new members over the next six or seven months. Those decisions have not been made, but they will be, and they're expected to be announced at a summit meeting which is, I think, planned for early next summer. It's easy to read in the press reports that, according to press commentary, none of the Baltic states are expected to be included in that opening. There's no way to know, except to use your own judgment about whether that's true or not. The decision has not actually been taken. But U.S. policy with respect to the opening of NATO to new members is, I think, emerging very clearly. And to understand it, we need to step back and remember that that opening to new members is only one part of the adaptation of NATO. And the adaptation of NATO is only one part of efforts to create this new European political and security architecture.

So for us, we have said quite clearly that we do not expect that the first new members of NATO will be the last. That it is a process, not an event. And that nations that continue to aspire to NATO membership will have opportunities for future membership, and the door to NATO will remain open in that regard. There is also likely to be an emphasis on enhanced and strengthened Partnership for Peace activities for those countries who are not announced as initial candidates for NATO membership. And the Partnership for Peace is a military process between NATO and aspirant countries that train, that conduct activities, that hold meetings all designed to upgrade the professional military capacities of these countries, all designed to make them increasingly interoperable with NATO capacity, and all designed to help in the general process of building a professional military that functions in a democracy and in a market economy and a rule of law society and behaves as militaries behave in those kinds of societies. And that Partnership for Peace process, I think, has been very successful. Estonia has been a strong and active participant, and we expect, although it is up to Estonia, that it will continue to be a strong and active participant into the indefinite future.

Let me conclude and move to questions, with just a couple of comments about the difference, the distinction, between foreign policy as a concept and foreign policy as implementation. At the level of concept, U.S. foreign policy in this area is remarkably consistent, regarding Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. At the level of implementation, though, it may be different, depending on local circumstances: the state of Estonia's, Latvia's and Lithuania's own development, their own policies, and their own preferences. Part of what an Embassy does is the implementation phase of foreign policy. Just as in business or in life in general, there has to be a balance between concept and implementation. You can have the right strategy and still fail because you don't know how to implement the right strategy. And some of the things that we emphasize at the Embassy in very practical ways, to implement American policy, for example, to strengthen the economic and commercial relationship between the United States and Estonia, and my Embassy works very hard to attract more American business to Estonia, more American investors to Estonia, and we work very closely with American business to do that and with Estonian authorities and Estonian business people who want that to happen.

The American Embassy in Tallinn today is larger than it was when I came 18 months ago. We have more people, and we have more activities. That reflects some of the importance that we discussed earlier of the Baltic states, in terms of American policy. One activity we don't have anymore that we used to have is foreign assistance to Estonia. Estonia graduated from U.S. foreign assistance in September, and in a decision that was controversial and could be argued on all sides, I think Estonia deserves a great deal of credit for being willing to give up a foreign assistance relationship and to stand on its own feet, as it looks forward, and to ask for help and support more on the basis of equals and partners, rather than on the basis of a foreign assistance relationship. It was a difficult decision on both sides, but I think it's one that, if we implement it correctly, will turn out to be very positive and quite constructive.

The final thing I'd like to say is that there are judgment calls that are to be made in foreign policy all the time. I often hear and may hear from you in a minute, as I've had others tell me, that the security and even the future of the Baltic states really depends on developments in Russia. Obviously, developments in Russia are very important, and not just in the Baltic states. Important on a European basis and even on global basis, since Russia is a huge country with immense potential. But I'm not sure that I would say that the future or security of the Baltic states depends on developments in Russia. My sense is that the future depends on the political will and political skill of the Baltic states themselves, and on the degree of commitment to the Baltic states from the West. Time will tell whether that's right, or whether it is developments in the East that are the more important determiner of the political direction of Central Europe.