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UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies

Transatlantic Affairs Newsletter
Volume One, Issue 5
March / April 2006

Ireland and the United States

St. Patrick's Day and the "Shamrock Ceremony"

Since the early1990s, Irish Taoisigh have been invited to attend a special function the "Shamrock Cermony" in the White House to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. The customary act on the day is for An Taoiseach to present a shamrock to the President of the United States. The annual meeting, which is designed around the celebration of the Christian festival, has over recent years become a significant political meeting, where issues of common concern have been discussed. In fact, for the Irish Government it is an important "open door" to the highest political level(s) of US Government year on year.

At its core, St Patrick's Day in Washington is a celebration of shared histories of immigration and common values between the US and Ireland. It provides an annual focal point for enhancing an already close partnership, and offers a platform to raise issues of mutual concern. In recent years that issue has been Northern Ireland. Over the past decade or more, the United States has invested a great deal of political capital in attempting to reconcile historical differences in the North and bring about a lasting peace. It was during the tenure of President Clinton that St Patrick's Day became a notable event on the calendar in Washington. It was under Clinton that "the White House has also in effect hijacked Irish policy, taking it away from the State Department and lodging it with the Nations Security Council."*

A notable feature of the St Patrick's Day celebration in Washington during the Clinton era was its inclusive nature. All leaders of political parties both North and South were invited and made welcome at the White House. Since 2000, George W Bush has remained committed and involved in the Northern Ireland issue, but has not been as personally involved as former President Clinton. Perhaps against this background, St Patrick's Day actually becomes more valuable as a means of forwarding the stalled agenda for peace in Northern Ireland. However, it can be argued that the decision not to invite certain Northern political party leaders, however justified, weakens the capacity of the White House to bring about reconciliation and peace. Viewed in this light the St Patrick's Day celebration in Washington returns to being more ceremonial rather than crucially political.

* Conor O’ Clery, The Greening of the White House, p. 603

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The United States and the European Union

U.S., EU Ministers Reaffirm Positions on WTO Negotiations

Bruce Odessey

An atmosphere of optimism and enthusiasm surrounded the launch of the Doha Development Agenda in 2001. However, the WTO negotiations soon proved to be a bigger nuisance than most had hoped for. Failure to achieve agreement on sensitive agricultural trade issues has marred the Round with tension and conflict. With the conclusion of the Doha Round set for the end of 2006, it seems increasingly unlikely that any useful agreement will be reached.

In a recent trade meeting in Washington U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and EU Commissioner for Trade Peter Mandelson reiterated their position of recent months and increased the likelihood of failure. Mandelson was adamant that the EU would not reconsider its agriculture proposal unless developing countries make serious efforts to cut industrial tariffs and open their markets to services. Portman voiced similar sentiments and was quoted as saying that “all countries, including developing countries, need to make concessions to open their markets and that the negotiations on agriculture, industrial goods and services all must move together to make success possible.”

Despite the sluggish progress in the WTO negotiations, there have been moments when a breakthrough seemed possible. In October 2005, the United States offered sharp reductions of trade distorting domestic support and agricultural tariffs. However, from an American perspective, the subsequent EU offers–which has far higher subsidy and tariff levels- was disappointing. And according to some sources “would result in no real increase in market access.”

Although progress has foundered on the negotiations, the recent remarks made by the EU and US in Washington did provide a sense that they wanted progress. According to Portman, “the U.S. and EU are committed to progress because there’s so much at stake…. all countries lose if there’s a failed Doha round.”

Odessey, Bruce. U.S., EU Ministers Reaffirm Positions on WTO Negotiations. USINFO.STATE.GOV

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How to Overcome Political Obstacles For a Truly Global Response

Ambassador Boyden Gray

On February 21, 2006 U.S. Ambassador Boyden Gray addressed the East West Institute’s Third Annual Worldwide Security Conference. In a speech called “How to Overcome Political Obstacles For a Truly Global Response” Ambassador Gray focused on “US-EU cooperation in investigating and prosecuting terrorists, efforts to increase the sharing national security information for use in analysis, investigations and prosecutions, and cooperation on border and homeland security issues.”

The cooperation between the EU and US in the non-traditional foreign policy area of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) has been developing gradually over recent years. The horrific terrorist attacks on September 11 2001 in American and the subsequent attacks in Spain and the UK has increased the appeals among politicians to enhance our cooperation in the area of JHA.

The EU and US are already cooperating productively in several areas that may prove useful. For example, in 2003 the US signed agreements with the EU member states on Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance. There are a number of crucial aspects to this treaty, which include inter alia, a requirement for each side to identify bank accounts of suspected terrorists in each other’s territory. In other areas, there now exists legislation to enable the sharing of national security information for use in analysis, investigations and prosecutions. Furthermore, cooperation now exists between the US and EU on Border and Homeland Security issues. This is most clearly demonstrated in the agreement -after much debate- on the transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data and on the use of biometrics to secure travel documents.

There is of course a careful balance that needs to be struck between the implementation of legislation that is designed to thwart the terrorist networks and the infringement on individual freedom. After all, the road from legitimate suspicion to rampant paranoia is very short indeed. Ambassador Gray offers a summation of the challenge ahead. “Our challenge is to preserve the legal protections we extend to our citizens as we take the steps necessary to safeguard them against terrorist attacks.”

The Ambassador concluded by praising the current on-going cooperation and summed up the path ahead by stating that the challenge against terrorism “is a collective challenge, and it requires a collective response.”

Gray, Boyden, How to Overcome Political Obstacles For a Truly Global Response, February 2006, The East-West Institute.

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U.S. and Europe: Advancing The Freedom Agenda Together

Daniel Fried

According to Daniel Fried, U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, “American support for freedom is the foundation of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy. ”

This foreign policy trajectory was first initiated in President Bush’s second inaugural speech, but Fried argues it has formed a long-standing and consistent element in US foreign policy for nearly a century. In pursuit of this policy the United States and Europe are “essentially united. ”The acrimonious language and sentiment that was so prevalent during 2003 and 2004 over Iraq has all but disappeared. And, in fact, there is evidence to now to suggest that there is a “developing transatlantic consensus” and that “our shared interests cannot be separated from our shared values.”

In January, German Chancellor Merkel met with President Bush in Washington and stated her commitment to transatlantic unity in confronting the challenge of Iran. Furthermore, the acrimonious language between Europe and the US in 2003 and 2004 has all but ended. “What we no longer hear are the voices calling for a strong Europe as a counterweight to the United States – a check on U.S. economic, political and military power.”

In fact, according to a recent German Marshall Fund poll, seventy-four percent of the European public supports joint European-American action to advance democracy in the world. For Fried all this is evidence of a developing transatlantic consensus.

Throughout his speech, Fried gave a clear indication of where he believes European and American priorities lie in 2006. A solution to the on-going Balkan impasse needs to be reached. It is of crucial importance that the transatlantic alliance cooperates to “bring the Balkans from post-war to pre-Europe.”

Our continuing efforts to support and conate democracy in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan should be maintained and enhanced. Also, we should continue, “to help the Belarusian people achieve democracy; and to encourage countries such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to move more decisively and consistently in the direction of democracy.”

Regarding Iraq, Fried argued that Europeans now realize that failure in Iraq would be detrimental to our common interest in the Middle East. On Iran, he stated that Europe and America “should not now accept that theocracy and isolation are the fate or desire of the Iranian people”. We should provide an “agenda of hope for Iran.” Moreover, international pressure on Iran should continue and increase throughout 2006.

Fried, Daniel. U.S. and Europe: Advancing the Freedom Agenda Together, January 18, 2006. Address to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Relations.

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The United States and International Affairs

The Demagogue Neocons Love to Hate

Jim Lobe

The mounting foreign policy challenge facing Washington policymakers is to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons. This challenge is potentially so volatile as to replace Iraq as the key foreign policy issue of the 2008 presidential campaign. Against this background, it would appear strange that influential neoconservatives in Washington are welcoming Tehran’s defiance. In a recent article Reuel Marc Gerecht of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute wrote , “the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a godsend.”

The praise does not stop there however; other likeminded neoconservatives have echoed this sentiment in recent months. In his new book Tehran Rising: Iran’s Challenge to the United States, hawkish author IIan Berman writes “Thank goodness for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

According to Gerecht, “Ahmadinejad’s inflamed rhetoric against America, Israel, and the Jews, which is in keeping with the style and substance of the president’s former comrades in the praetorian Revolutionary Guard Corps, combined with the clerical regime’s decision to restart uranium enrichment, has returned some sense of urgency to efforts to thwart Tehran.”

Jim Lobe argues that Ahmadinejad’s declarations are like sweet music to the ears of neoconservatives, who for years “have long had Tehran in their gun sights.”

Notwithstanding the desire of neoconservatives to act against Tehran, the administration has been accused of being too complacent. To many it seems ironic that the administration, which promulgated and then implemented a doctrine of preventive war against presumed enemies, has not taken any firm action. The continuing failure of the EU 3 (Germany, the United Kingdom and France) to reach a diplomatic compromise and the nature of the remarks from Tehran seems to provide the administration with a clear unilateral mandate to act. Could it be that the United States has learnt lessons from the on-going debacle in Iraq? Or is this just a Republican plan to shift a war-weary American public’s attention off the mess in Iraq?

There is little doubt that Iraq has overstretched U.S. ground forces. Lobe believes “the most Washington can do militarily…. is to use air power to take out as many nuclear-related sites as possible-reportedly more than 300, requiring three days of non-stop bombing-and hope for the best.”

However, many in the administration see the military option as the absolute last resort. “In all my conversations with senior administration officials, I have never heard them be so cautious about what they can know and tentative about what they can achieve.”*

Perhaps the Iraq debacle has caused the Bush administration to uncharacteristically think before they act in foreign policy. However, it is important to keep in mind the forthcoming 2006-senate and the 2008 presidential elections. The failure to achieve a successful outcome in Iraq and the rising death toll among American soldiers has put Iraq front and centre in the forthcoming elections. Over the last few years the Republican Party has had an excellent track record when it comes to political maneuvering at election time. Given the acrimonious nature of the Iraq debacle, it would be politically prudent and astute to shift the focus early - before the real campaigning kicks off in earnest. Iran could provide such a focus.

* David Brooks “Hating the Bomb” New York Times Article January 2006

Lobe, Jim. The Demagogue Neocons Love to Hate, January 25, 2006. Right Web Analysis.

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Breaking the U.S. Oil Addiction

Daphne Wysham and Nadia Martinez

In his State of the Union address 2006, President George W. Bush was resolute and unambiguous. “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which if often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology.”*

According to Wysham and Martinez what was “left unsaid in the pledges Bush made in his so-called ‘advance energy initiative’ is almost as important as what was said”.

If President Bush is ready to tackle the serious issue of oil addiction than he must tackle the root cause of that addiction. Although too soon to assess the success of the President’s commitments, the administration’s track record does not offer any reasons to be optimistic.

Although a twenty-two per cent commitment to increase investment in clean –energy research is desirable and welcome, it is important to put the commitment in perspective. The President’s enthusiastic declaration that he has spent nearly 10 billion dollars since 2001 on cheaper, cleaner and more reliable alternative energy sources has been dwarfed by the amount of tax breaks, subsidized loans and other government handouts that are provided to the oil, gas and coal industry each year. In 2005, most of western liberal democracies faced increases in the price of fuel and gas and were continuously warned of likely possibility of “necessary” interest rate increases. Throughout the year, energy companies and governments repeated these statements regularly. It was argued that Iraq and hurricane Katrina were the main culprits for this problem. However, in the same year Exxon Mobil Corp., one of President Bush’s strongest supporters, made a record $ 36 billion in profits. The same was true in Europe. Just this month, the giant Anglo-Dutch oil company, Shell, announced that it made record profits of almost twenty three billion dollars in 2005. The truth is that this type of energy policy will do nothing to decrease America’s addiction.

Wysham and Martinez put forward three clear ways to kick the oil habit and the current corruption. First, “replace subsidies and tax breaks for the oil, gas and coal industry with carbon taxes.”

Second, “stop muzzling the climate scientist and listening only to oil, gas and coal interest”

and finally, “withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and start to reorient the funds now being spent on the military with clean energy fund to rapidly phase in emission-free vehicles, better public transportation, and the rapid uptake of renewable energy nationally and globally.”

Of course, there are those who will claim that these policy recommendations are unrealistic and given the current trend in Washington no doubt they are correct. But if the President is serious about this fundamental policy change and is truly committed to “replacing more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025,” then what is needed is a full overhaul of mindset and policy. Watch this space….

* President George W. Bush “State of the Union” address 2006.

Wysham, Daphne and Martinez, Nadia “Breaking the U.S. Oil Addiction” Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) February 7, 2006.

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Think Again: Soft Power

Joseph S. Nye Jr.

Since the concept was first published in 1990, the term “soft power” has been misinterpreted, broadened and twisted, almost beyond recognition. In this illuminating article Joseph Nye has offered to set the record straight on the seemingly elusive concept. According to Nye, “power is the ability to alter the behavior of others to get what you want.”

In the realm of diplomacy there are three basic modes to achieve that: “coercion (sticks), payments (carrots), and attraction (soft power).”

The fundamental elements that imbue “soft power” with its attractive power come from several related characteristics about a country’s makeup. First its culture (in places where it is attractive to others) second, its political values (when it lives up them at home and abroad) and finally its foreign policies, (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority).

In this interpretative framework we can assess exactly what Nye defines soft power to be and were exact such soft power come from. Many pundits have mistakenly referred to economic sanctions as a kind of soft power. But as Nye writes, “there is nothing soft about sanctions if you are on the receiving end.”

Of course it is possible to use economic resources to develop both hard and soft power. As Walter Russell Mead has argued “economic power is sticky power; it seduces as much as it compels.”

There are some myths and ideas about soft power that need to be dispelled and clarified. First, it is often the misguided belief of ethnically minded scholars and policymakers that soft power is more humane than hard power. But Nye argues that is this interpretation is not necessarily exact. Soft power, like any form of power, can be wielded for good or bad. “Hitler, Stalin and Mao, after all, possessed a great deal of soft power in the eyes of their acolytes.”

According to Nye, “it is not necessarily better to twist minds than to twist minds.”

Second, according to Nye, Europe relies far too much on soft power and the United States relies far too much on hard power. It would be more prudent productive for both to adopt a position of “smart power.” Smart power is basically an ability to combine the correct amount of hard and soft power in one foreign policy pursuits. Finally, there are many who argue that the Bush administration has traditional relied too much on hard power and have ignored America’s soft power capabilities and potential. Professor Nye argues that this claim was clearly correct when analyzing the Bush first term, however, is less obvious in the second. Since starting his second term President Bush has “stressed values in foreign policy and has increased the budget for public diplomacy.”

This can be seen as a clear indication of the need to develop and implement a soft power element to the current foreign policy trajectory. Throughout the rest of the article, professor Nye addresses some of the current issues in American foreign policy and attempts to dispel any misapprehension surrounding the role of soft power.

Nye Jr, Joseph. Think Again: Soft Power. Foreign Policy. February 2006.

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Transatlantic Affair Editor: Frank Groome

If you have any comments or suggestions to improve this service please contact the editor frank.groom@ucd.ie

The William Jefferson Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College, Dublin, www.ucd.ie/amerstud