General Joulwan,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A few years ago, soon after my election as President of the free Czechoslovakia, I had the honour to be the first representative of a state that had shaken off Communism to address the North Atlantic Council at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Shortly afterwards I found myself entrusted with a very special, to my mind almost incredible, task: at the last Warsaw Pact summit in Prague it was me who announced to the world that the Pact had just been dissolved. And today I am the first politician from a country that is not a member of NATO who has the privilege to speak before your assembly. I thank you for inviting me to do so. To me, this opportunity to share my thoughts with you is yet another link in the remarkable chain of events which fate would have me experience.
______________________________________________________________
When the Iron Curtain was torn down and the bipolar division of Europe and the world began to fall apart, I believed - undoubtedly influenced by the joyous climate of those times - that the North Atlantic Alliance, as the most important security organization defending the values of the Euro-Atlantic West, would soon grow into a pan-European structure and thus become one of the building blocks in the construction of an integrated Europe. The fall of the Iron Curtain appeared to offer a chance that Europe would, for the first time ever, begin to build its order on the principle of cooperation in which all would be equal, that all would assume, jointly and severally, responsibility for its democratic existence, that it would finally become a continent emitting a spirit of peace to the rest of the world instead of exporting conflicts and wars.
I soon learned how much more complicated life was than it had seemed to be in those euphoric times, and realized that it would take much more time and effort to attain the goal that I had then thought to be but an inch away. Let there be no misunderstanding: I am not at all disappointed, I just know more than I did before. I simply cannot be disappointed because I am well aware that life always surprises us in one way or another, never being exactly what we would wish it to be, that unpredictability and dramatic events are its inherent features and that the string of unpleasant surprises and troubles that we may encounter is a part of life as well. Of course, this awareness cannot relieve us of our duty to constantly work - against the background of a reflection on life's dramatic development - in order to make it better.
It is a fact that the fall of the Iron Curtain was not the end of history. It was neither the end of human suffering or conflicts nor a beginning of a paradise on Earth. It was just the end of one historical era, and our generation has been called upon to build on its ruins the foundations of a new era with perseverance and patience, using the best of our knowledge and conscience, and with the boldness which this historic moment requires.
______________________________________________________________
What kind of a world it is that we are now entering? What kind of a new world order is emerging? What course should we take in our endeavours?
There is every indication that we find ourselves on the threshold of a period which we might call the era of one single global civilization. This civilization can only survive if it perceives itself as multicultural and multipolar, and bases its existence on the principle of cooperation, on an equal footing, of all its spheres, of all the cultures, regions and continents that it encompasses. In other words, it has to look for patterns of coexistence that correspond with all the good things generated throughout the history of human civilizations and with all the good standards to be found in the roots of the cultures which form it - patterns shared by all rather than imposed by some upon others. I am putting this very briefly, and thus in a somewhat simplified manner, but I hope you understand what I have meant to say: that the salvation of this civilization can only be found in a new type of universalism. Metaphorically, we might perhaps call it ecumenical universalism. That means that everyone should be allowed to be themselves and to maintain their unique identities while, at the same time, all should be able to live together, drawing on a shared minimum of universal values which they have embraced not because someone has forced them to do so, but because these values are a part of their primordial nature with which they genuinely identify.
It is a natural manifestation of this new era that the world has seen the emergence and development of a variety of more or less integrated groupings of states that share the same background of civilization and are close to one another geographically, culturally, historically, politically and economically. I believe that in future these structures may well be instrumental in meeting the very challenges which the multipolar and multicultural character of this civilization puts before us. First, they can guarantee the individuality of different parts of the world, cultivating that which distinguishes them from other regions. Second, they can serve as tools of peaceful cooperation inside those regions. Third, they can facilitate and enhance cooperation of the regions and their parts with other regions.
During the past few centuries, Europe has exported to the rest of the world many good things, and many bad ones as well. Now, it apparently finds itself at a fateful juncture, and has to decide which role it will be playing in the world in the decades and centuries to come. There are many options it can choose from. To my mind, one of the best courses open to it, and one that it should pursue, is the role of an exemplary integrated body that has no expansionist ambitions and therefore threatens no one, but is able to defend itself against a potential threat, a body that can resolve its various internal problems by peaceful means without deviating from the values to which it has pledged allegiance and that seeks to have the best possible cooperation with all the other parts of the world. In this, the North American continent, being closest to Europe in terms of civilization, will probably always hold the most important position.
______________________________________________________________
What role can the North Atlantic Alliance play in this vision of a future Europe? What should it do to live up to the historic tasks lying ahead of us?
Now, all of you probably expect me to say that its most important task is to boldly expand by admitting the new European democracies. I apologize for disappointing your expectations: I believe that the expansion of the Alliance, which I consider to be vital not only to the interests of our countries, but first and foremost to the interests of the Alliance itself and the whole of Europe, should be preceded by another step, one that is even more important: a new formulation of its raison d'être, its mission and its identity. The enlargement of NATO should come as a natural consequence of its new self-definition; only then can it make sense. If NATO were to be expanded just mechanically - like a club that takes in new members - or merely out of courtesy toward those who now find themselves in a security vacuum after dismantling the Warsaw Pact, it would not be likely to do much good. An enlarged NATO will necessarily be different from the unenlarged one. This has to be clearly understood in advance, and this knowledge should be reflected in its new self-definition. In other words: a NATO that would expand physically while failing to expand mentally and conceptually would hardly work too well.
NATO was originally established principally as a defence alliance of the West in the face of the Communist threat. It was thus a child of the bipolar division of the world. The danger that once emanated from the Communist part is not there any more, the bipolar world has ceased to exist and Europe is no longer unnaturally cut in two by the Iron Curtain.
What should NATO's new mission be under these circumstances? Let me offer a few remarks on this subject:
1) NATO should once again, in no uncertain terms, declare, and translate into every aspect of its strategy, the fact that it is before all else an instrument for the defence of the Euro-American political and cultural realm and its values against any possible threat, no matter where it might come from. The universality of the values which it protects should make the Alliance feel duty-bound not to a priori reject, for whatever reason, any nation of the Euro-American area that demonstrably shares these values and wishes to contribute to their defence. Doing so would amount to a virtual negation of the universal nature of the protected values, gradually reducing NATO to a mere sentimental memento of long bygone times, something like a company of pals from younger days or Cold War veterans, while others, including some NATO member states, would proceed to set up the real European security balance on their own. That would bring us precisely to the kind of situation which we now have a chance of avoiding once and for all: a situation in which the powerful ones divide spheres of influence between themselves, negotiating about what order they will impose in which part of Europe. We all know to what ends such practices usually lead: to conflicts. NATO should therefore make it clear that it is no longer a pact uniting certain states against a more or less obvious enemy and that it wants instead to become one of the guarantors of the secure existence of the Euro-American democracy as such.
2) Under certain conditions defined in the most precise terms, a NATO based on this concept should be able to intervene even outside its own borders in order to defend the Euro-American political realm and its values. And while it was originally built so as to be fit to resist a global attack by a predictable enemy, its new self-definition should logically lead it to focus much more on its ability to effectively check largely unpredictable particular threats to the area whose security, freedom and stability it feels obligated to defend.
3) With this new perception of itself, NATO should not beat about the bush in relation to Russia. It should say clearly that Russia is a power with which the Alliance wants to cooperate on equal terms, regarding Russia not as an adversary but as a country with which it needs to maintain a strategic partnership that may, if necessary, be underpinned by a treaty arrangement. In such an environment, the OSCE could also serve as an institutionalized forum for NATO's dialogue and cooperation with Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and other nations.
4) Partnership for Peace should be neither an automatic prelude to full membership nor a substitute for it. It should be a space extending around the Alliance in which NATO spreads its concepts, and thus a means through which the Alliance strengthens pan-European peace, in effect directly responding to its primary objective.
It may sound somewhat harsh, but I will admit my feeling that unless NATO finds soon the courage to clearly redefine its mission, and to expand in keeping with this new definition, it may within a few years become largely ineffectual. If that were to happen the Alliance would miss the historic chance it now has: the chance of gradually becoming the principal guarantor of security, peace and democratic development in Europe.
______________________________________________________________
Let me now finally turn to the subject which you probably expected me to begin with - the expansion itself.
The new European democracies that have emerged from the ruins of the Communist world are seeking membership in the European Union. Some have a chance of joining it sooner, others may become ready later on, but the process is bound to be long and arduous for all of them. It is not easy to make up for fifty years' delay. Nevertheless, it is evidently in the interests of the whole of Europe that these countries should progress toward membership in the Union, which has been a cornerstone of European integration. Throughout history, the price for any division of Europe has ultimately been paid by the whole continent. It follows that its unification is essential to the interests of all European countries.
However, the road towards the European Union affords no shortcuts.
Consequently, the decision about whether NATO will begin to expand soon, without making accession to membership in the Alliance conditional upon EU membership, is all the more important. Admission of the new democracies to NATO will make these countries feel safer and more secure and enhance their awareness of their European affiliation. It will erase the feeling that the West, lacking the courage to take tangible action, has nothing but kind words for us or that we shall be forever relegated to the position of inferior democracies, unworthy of complete integration with the full-fledged ones. I am certain that accession to NATO membership would add to political stability in the new democracies, allaying the natural nervousness of their populations, lessening the impact of the voices of demagogues, populists and nationalists, and thus creating favourable conditions for those countries to build ever closer ties with the European Union and to work in peace and quiet on all the things we have to do in order to become eligible to actually join the Union. I do believe that an enlargement of NATO carried out against the background of the Alliance's new self-definition and of its strategic partnership with Russia could represent the first major step towards a peaceful, increasingly united and truly safe Europe. On the other hand, prolonged hesitation might generate instability and the growth of nationalism. The most familiar psychological source of such sentiments has always lain in the feeling of being spurned, or of not having received adequate appreciation - to put it simply, in the feeling of not being taken seriously by the world, of being unwanted. If, God forbid, things were to go that way it would inevitably unsettle the situation throughout Europe sooner or later. The conflicts in the former Yugoslavia provide a most powerful warning to all those who may think that there are European developments that do not concern Europe as a whole. With the city of Sarajevo being the focal point of the Yugoslav tragedy, I can hardly imagine a more articulate or symbolic historical warning signal than the one which is being sent to Europe from there. In other words, it would be very short-sighted indeed if NATO were to wait until such time when the whole of Europe is perfectly stable before admitting new members. Such a time might never occur, and eventually the Alliance itself might have to pay a heavy price for its hesitation. As you can see, I perceive NATO as an instrument to spread stability, not as a body that just waits for it to somehow come. Didn't NATO play an important stabilizing role in the very first years of its existence, when it substantially contributed toward ending once and for all conflicts between Western powers that had dragged on for centuries? Doesn't this positive experience challenge the Alliance to make an effort to contribute toward pan-European stability as well?
Lively discussions have been under way about the delicate issue of who should be admitted sooner and who later, and who should never become a member. Being a representative of one of the nations aspiring to membership, I of course cannot advise the Alliance on this matter. I shall therefore limit myself to three general remarks:
1) I think that every person of sound judgment who knows European history and sees what the map of Europe looks like has to understand that the process should begin in Central Europe. That area, traditionally a neuralgic spot and a testing ground of European security, is closest to NATO both geographically and in terms of political culture.
2) If some are admitted sooner than others it should be made clear from the very beginning that it is not an act of distrust towards those still awaiting admission, let alone a sign that they are out for good. If there were some sort of a long-term, though of course tentative, timetable of the enlargement, based on understandable logic and laying down clearly formulated eligibility requirements, everyone would undoubtedly be reassured.
3) The expansion will obviously have to end somewhere; NATO certainly does not intend to turn either into a new OSCE or into a United Nations. But where does Europe end? Where is the end of the Euro-American cultural realm? It surely is a difficult question, but some things should nevertheless be said quite clearly from the very outset. First of all: wherever NATO ends, there will be no new Iron Curtain. There will simply be a natural border between two regional groupings engaged in functional cooperation, or a border of a grouping with an unaffiliated nation. Furthermore, it should be said that for all countries, including the ones situated, so to speak, on the boundary, the outcome will depend principally on the decisions they take and on their political development. It is these nations themselves that have to know best where they should belong, and their choice must be demonstrated through their policies and through the type of political culture which they adopt. Another thing which seems obvious to me is that Russia could hardly ever be a NATO member. Russia is a vast Euro-Asian power, one of the largest states in the world, so specific and influential that one could scarcely think of any reasonable way in which it might be integrated into a security structure grown out of different historical traditions and in a different spiritual environment, or how it could adjust to the decision-making systems or indeed to the working patterns of that structure without paralyzing the Alliance by the sheer weight of its own interests and force of its gravitational field. This makes it all the more important that a balanced strategic partnership be built between NATO and Russia.
______________________________________________________________
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me conclude with a few remarks about the Czech Republic. I once read somewhere that the Bohemian basin, surrounded by mountain ranges, was of no military-strategic importance worth mentioning. Unlike most of you, I am not a general, but only a private of the reserve. Nevertheless, I will dare to say that looking back at the history of my country, I find this statement very odd indeed. Almost no major European war failed to leave a trace in the Czech lands, and in fact many started or ended there. Bismarck himself is even believed to have said that whoever controls Prague controls Europe. It is not surprising at all that we have had such an eventful history: situated in the very centre of Europe, our country has - often to our detriment - always been a logical crossroads of a variety of spiritual currents, power struggles and geopolitical interests. The fact that a great part of our country is a basin does not seem to have made any difference.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I want to explain why the Czechs are so sensitive about everything that concerns European security, and why there is such a broad consensus among our population with regard to the intention to join the Alliance. Our historical experience with a network of bilateral treaties of alliance has been bitter, and our national community remembers all too well how in the past our fate was toyed with behind our backs.
But all this has been just a remark on the margin. What is much more important is the fact that our nation has for a thousand years been an active part of the area now known as Western Europe and has fully participated in shaping its values. You can find in our country the same kind of cathedrals as in France, and town centres similar to those in Germany; Charles University of Prague was one of the focal points of European spiritual life in the Middle Ages; the Reformation started in the Czech lands earlier than in the big Western European countries; the first Czechoslovak President was a European at heart whom all Europeans held in high esteem. Thus, it is not just a desire to put our security on a really firm footing that makes us wish to join NATO. Our motives are deeper: we want to participate in the defence of the values which we have for centuries helped to develop. We want to make a real contribution to the defence effort, not just hope that someone would come to our defence in the event of a threat. We are simply acknowledging our share of responsibility for peace in Europe and worldwide, no more and no less than that.
I ask you to take these remarks - regardless of whether you agree with what I have said here or not - as an expression of this sense of responsibility.
Thank you for your attention.