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Orzulak
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SAMUEL R. BERGER
REMARKS TO
CONSTITUENTS OF SENATOR JOE RIDEN
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE
JANUARY 24, 2000
Thank you, Senator. It's an honor for me to be here today, and I want to thank you for inviting
me. Please forgive me if I was a few minutes late. I was trying to leave for the speech, but
members of my staff only wanted to t~lk about which actor would be playing them in tomorrow
night's episode of"The West Wing." I have a beef with that show. In the cast, they have actors
who portray the President, the Vice President, the Chief of Staff, the Deputy Chief of Staff, the
Press Secretary, and even the speechwriter. But even though many of the episodes involve
foreign policy decisions, no one has portrayed me.
It's probably just as well, considering how Hollywood has portrayed national security advisors in
the past. A stuffed shirt in "the Peacemaker." An egomaniac killed off in "Air Force One." A
calculating sell-out in "Clear and Present Danger." And just last week on television, as a zealot
with really bad hair in "Murder at 1600." I can't imagine who was the model for these
characters, but let me stress that each of these movies was in process before I assumed the job.
But one role I have been proud to play for nearly two decades is friend of Joe Biden. When Joe
was a young Senator serving his first term on the Foreign Relations Committee, I worked for
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Our paths crossed a few times. [TRUE? STORIES?]
You~ll
be
happy to know that Joe Biden hasn't changed much the past 25 years: he's still the same lowkey, soft-spoken guy he's always been.
It's been said that every generation of Americans has had at least one
~enator
who helped define
and explain America's role in the world. In a way, what Arthur Vandenberg was to the 1950s;
what William Fullbright was to the 1960s; what Ed Muskie and Scoop Jackson were to the
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1970s; and what Nancy Kassebaum and Sam Nunn were to the 1980s; Joe Biden has been to the
1990s: a clear and consistent voice for American interests and American ideals.
It's easy to be cynical about the world we live in today. It's easy to be cynical about decisions
made by others, and then go your own way. But it's a lot harder to stand in the arena, to believe
in a cause, and work day and night to convince others to believe in that cause, too. Joe Biden is
one of the people who believes.
His leadership in the Senate and beyond has helped make this a better world. With the President,
he led the fight to improve America's security by expanding NATO. He built a bipartisan
coalition to approve ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. He was an early and
principled voice against the atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo. And he continues to be one of the
world's leading voices on arms control. On nearly every issue that keeps us safe as Americansfrom the security of our borders to the safety of our streets --Joe Biden is making a difference.
He is also one the people in the Senate who has worked hard to maintain the bipartisan
consensus that has been the heart of American foreign policy for more than 50 years. Joe Biden
has always understood: at home, people may be characterized as Republicans and Democrats.
But when we look beyond these shores, we are all Americans first- and we should never forget
that.
We just said goodbye to Century in which America sent its sons and daughters further from its
own shores to fight for freedom than any nation in history. In the 20th Century, millions of
American men and women- including more than 75,000 from Delaware-- worked to defeat
fascism, contain communism, and sustain liberty when it was most imperiled._
Thanks to their sacrifice, we enter a new Century with American power and values ascendant.
Today, for the first time in history, more than half the world's people elect their own leaders. For
�3
the first time in history, the world's leading nations are not engaged in a deadly struggle for
· security or territory. And America is in a unique position. Our military might and reach are
unrivaled, and nations look to us to deliver decisive influence wherever it is needed. Our
economy is the engine of global growth and technological change-- we are home to half the
world's computers and the world's eight biggest high-tech companies. People around the world
look to our open, creative society as a model of what it takes to succeed in a globalized world.
As Senator Biden said in a speech last year, "the good news is that we are the world's only
remaining superpower. The bad news is that we are the world's only remaining superpower."
In other words, we have a remarkable opportunity to advance the cause of peace, prosperity and
freedom for our people and the world. But we also have a responsibility- now, perhaps more
than ever-- to lead.
The President has worked over the past seven years to make sure we seize that opportunity, and
meet that responsibility. And America has a lot to be proud of. Over the past seven years, we've
aided the remarkable transitions to free-market democracy in CentralEurope; stopped two cruel
wars in the Balkans; worked with Russia to deactivate thousands of nuclear missiles; helped
broker historic peace agreements from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, Mrica to South
America; and signed more than 270 trade agreements that have opened markets and raised living
standards here at home. We've also worked to focus our national security strategy on the new
dangers of a new age: the organized forces of crime, narco-trafficking, cyber-terrorisni, and
governments too weak to handle the forces of globalization.
Along, the way, we've had quite a few passionate discussions with people from both parties
about what our proper role in the world really is. With the Cold War over, some people,
understandably, are tempted to say we don't need to play an active role in the world, or to worry
about distant conflicts, or play our part in international institutions like the UN. You could say
I
it's one part go-it-alone and another part don't-go-at-all. So the President has worked hard to
�4
bring people together around the basic principle that Americans benefit when nations come
together to deter aggression, to resolve conflicts, to open markets, to raise living standards, to
prevent the spread of dangerous weapons, and meet other dangers that no nation can meet alone.
And with the help of people like Joe Biden, I believe we've managed to sustain a consensus for a
principled and active American role in the world.
The beginning of a new Century should cause us to reflect on the larger purpose of that
leadership. For we are experiencing something more than just a changing of the digits on the
calendar; this period in history has been a genuine changing of the times - a time of collapsing
empires, expanding freedoms, eroding barriers and emerging threats. The question now is: what
do we do with the opportunity we have? What are the really big challenges facing us at the
beginning of the 21st Century? What fundamental, long-term questions will affect the success of
our foreign policy in this new era? Let's go through a few.
One critical question is whether our former adversaries Russia and China will emerge as stable,
prosperous democratic partners of the United States.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, our engagement with a democratic Russia has produced
concrete results -the dismantlement of 5, 000 former Soviet nuclear weapons, the withdrawal of
Soviet troops from the Baltics, and Russia's role in ending the conflict in Kosovo. We all know
that Russia is still struggling: with the legacy of totalitarianism, poverty, corruption, and conflict
in the Caucusus. But the way President Y eltsin left office last month reflected just how much
has changed. For the first time in their 1,000-year history, the Russian people now know that
leaders can voluntarily transfer power, under constitutional rules, instead of holding on till death
or being forced from office, and that elections will be held to select his replacement.
Of course, we will continue to speak about about the problems that still exist, including the
situation in Chechnya. We've made clear that Russia's indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya
�5
IS
wrong. It is inviting far more serious problems for Russia than it can possibly solve. But that
doesn't mean we should stop supporting those forces in Russia that are trying to strengthen the
rule of law and build faith in democratic institutions. Russia is paying a price for its conduct in
Chechnya; Russian democracy must not.
As for China, we've got to press our interests on issues like the proliferation of dangerous
·weapons, and speak out clearly about the denial of human rights. But even as we defend our
interests, we shouldn't isolate China from the global forces that are empowering its people to
seek a better life.
That's why we recently signed an agreement to bring China into the World Trade Organization.
As it stands now, our markets are open to China's goods and services. Our new agreement
requires China to open its markets in every sector from agriculture to telecommunications to
automobiles. It will mean jobs and increased exports for American workers and American
products. In the long run, the WTO will also obligate China to reform its economic system in a
way that will get the government increasingly out of people's lives and increase the freedom of
its people- while committing China to play by international rules. We want to see China on the
inside, playing by the rules, rather than on the outside, denying them.
A second question is whether our security will be threatened by regional conflicts, especially
those rooted in ethnic and religious tensions, that pose the risk of a wider war.
We should be proud of the men and women of our armed forces who turned the tide against
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. That campaign was the latest chapter of an effort we have
undertaken the past seven years to help complete the job of building a Europe that will be, for the
first time in history, undivided, democratic, and at peace. There is a great deal more to do to
(
advance this vision for the region: helping the people ofKosovo rebuild while continuing to
clamp down on violence; bolstering the democratic opposition to Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia;
�6
promoting investment in the Balkans so the people there have a better future to build for;
encouraging progress greater cooperation between Greece and Turkey and an end to the long
dispute over Cyprus; helping more new democracies get ready for membership in NATO. Some
of this will require money and the steady support of people like Senator Biden. But if we're
persistent, we may one day reach a time when no American will ever again be asked to fight and
die in Europe.
We should also be proud of the role America has played to help bring the Middle East closer to
peace than they have ever been before. Today, Israeli, Palestinian, and Syrian leaders all want
peace, and recognize that this is a unique moment. The gaps between them right now are not so
wide, but they are deeply entrenched, and the President is working today to find a way to make
sure that everyone's needs are met. It's hard work. But let's keep this in perspective: this
conflict has been a source of tension in the world for 50 years. And we have never had a better
chance to end it. The President is going to work as hard as he needs to this year to get this done.
A third question is whether the inexorable march of technology is going to give terrorists and
hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses, and force us to live in fear again.
Thankfully, the New Year's celebrations worldwide passed without a terrorist attack. But just
because we dodged a bullet doesn't mean there was no bullet to dodge. The last weeks of 1999
saw the largest US counter-terrorism operation in history. Terrorist cells were disrupted in eight
countries and attacks were almost certainly prevented thanks to the good work of our law
enforcement and intelligence agencies. And the threat remains real. We'll need to keep meeting
this challenge the same way: with both vigilance and a refusal to be intimidated.
Part of the challenge will be to make it more difficult for weapons of mass destruction and the
missiles that can carry them to fall into the wrong hands. In Russia today, the average salary of a
highly-trained weapons scientists is less than $100 a month. For a small investment, we can help
�7
.
,
them tum that expertise to peaceful projects that help the world. Or, we can do nothing and pray
that each and every one of them resists the temptation to market their expertise to those who
wish us harm. Common sense says to help them. That's why we are working with Senator
Biden to increase funding for threat reduction by two-thirds over the next five years.
It also means we must continue to work to prevent potentially hostile nations like North Korea
and Iraq from obtaining weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. It means
that we must work to protect our computers and critical infrastructure - like our air traffic control
system and nuclear power plants -from attacks by cyber-terrorists and nations who wish us
harm. And it means strengthening global standards against the spread of deadly weapons, so that
other nations stand with us when we need them. With Senator Biden's leadership, I hope we will
be able to find common ground on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
A fourth question is whether the stability of the 20th Century will be threatened by a growing gap
between rich and poor. As the President has said many times, it is unacceptable that in a world
with so many riches, more than one billion people live on less than one dollar a day. It is ·
unacceptable that more than two billion people get sick every year- many of them childrenbecause they don't have clean water to drink. It is unacceptable that more than three million
African children have already died of AIDS. It is not only morally unacceptable, it is
economically unsustainable. It robs the world of the contributions of much of its population.
What can we do about this? Part of the answer it to pr:omote freedom and good government, so
that leaders are responsive to the needs of their people. And freedom is expanding: with the
hopeful transitions to democracy in Nigeria and Indonesia, more people won the right to choose
their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell.
But even countries making all the right choices often have to struggle' to benefit from the global
economy. That's why the President has led a global effort to alleviate the crushing debt in so
�8
many nations. No country should have to choose between educating its children and paying
interest on debt. It is also why we have begun a concerted effort to fight AIDS and other
diseases that are holding so many impoverished nations back. In his State of the Union Address
later this week, the President will propose new initiatives to address these challenges.
Finally, we also have to work to expand trade. It's hard to see how people living on a dollar a
day will ever be able to live in dignity if we deny them the chance to sell the fruits of their labor
and creativity beyond their own borders. There are practices such as forced labor and child labor
that the world should not tolerate. But we must also understand that, for the poorest countries,
trade means growth and growth means improved working conditions. We don't want a race to
the bottom in the international economy, but neither do we want to keep the bottom down. What
we want is a steady march to the top that leaves no one behind.
In the years ahead, we will face many other fundamental questions, and challenges we can hardly
foresee, whether tragedies or hopeful breakthroughs. But as a result of the last several years, we
look to that distant horizon from higher and more hopeful ground. Every day, we have·a chance
to make real for the world what Delaware set into motion more than two centuries ago when it
became the first state to ratify the liberties and protections that we hold so dear.
Sometimes, that history may seem long, but the cord that connects us to ages past is short. Think
about it: Senator Biden serves in the Senate with Senator Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond,
who first entered the Senate in 1954, served with Walter George, who entered in 1922; who
served with Henry Cabot Lodge, who entered in 1893; who served with John Sherman, who
entered in 1861; who served with Hannibal Hamlin, who entered in 1848; who served with
William King, who entered in 1819, who served with Rufus King, who re-entered in 1813; who
served with Joseph Anderson, who entered in 1797; who served with John Brown, who entered
in 1792; who served with George Read, the first Senator from Delaware, who entered in 1789and signed both the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Through
�•
9
just ten people- starting and ending in Delaware-- we are directly connected to the two
documents that have moved this nation and this world for two centuries.
Today, we are closer than we have ever been to turning the promise of the freedom call that
began here in Delaware into a reality for more than half the world. Seven years after the question
was asked "is the U.S. in an irreversible decline as the world's premier power"- America has
arrived at a moment when our strength and prosperity are unparalleled. For all the billions of
people who came before us, it has been left to this generation to lead the world into a new
millennium, to use our freedom wisely, to walk away from war and hatred, and to walk toward
peace. When historians look back on this Century, let them say that is exactly what we did.
Thank you.
�..-----------c----------------------------------
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'•
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.THE WHITE HOUSE
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Office of the Press Secretary
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For Immediate Release
December 31, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AND THE FIRST LADY
AT "MILLENNIUM AROUND THE WORLD" EVENT
Ronald W. Reagan International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.
2:20P.M. EST
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much, Secretary Albright, for your leadership and
for your example. I'm delighted to be here with so many distinguished members of the
diplomatic corps. ·I also wish to thank Dave Barram and all of the hard-working people at the
General Services Administration, the·Environmental Protection Agency; the Governor and
people of Guam, the World's Children's Choir and the U.S. Army Brass Quintet. I'm so
pleased that we could gather here together to mark this moment in time. It's one that many of
us have been waiting for and preparing for and de-bugging our computers for, and it is just
hours away. In some of the countries represented here, it has already come and gone.
It is, though, a time oftaking stock. As we wait here in Washington, we remember
that, although we've seen a change in calendar in Australia and Japan and Guam, and others
are watching and waiting for the first sunrise of the new century and millennium, that these
tremendous hopes and expectations we share for this new century will help to bring our world
closer together. We pray and hope for new medicines to conquer our deadliest diseases, for
new technologies to help make work for so many who labor so hard a little easier. We hope
for our favorite teams to win the World Cup or the World Series or the Super Bowl. We hope
for peace ~nd freedom and prosperity to reign in all corners of the globe.
Over the last seven years, as I've been priyileged to represent my husband and our
country around the world, I have seen in so many places the same hopes and aspirations,
particularly for our children. Whether in a refugee camp for those fleeing from war in
Macedonia, or a camp for those fleeing from earthquakes in Turkey, a girls' school in
Slianghai or a housing project in Cape Town, a health clinic in Bolivia or a youth center in
Israel, a day care center in France or here in Washington, D.C., I have seen the same spark of
possibility in the eyes of children. And I have seen that spark kindled and nurtured by caring
'··
�and loving parents, by dedicated teachers and health care providers, and by leaders who put
the interests of children first.
But I have also seen that spark dimmed and all but extinguished amid war and poverty,
ignorance and disease.
In a few moments, I will be inviting some of our children here to share their own
wishes for the new century and the new millennium. But before I do, let me share one .of my
own wishes. My wish is for our childr~n, those lucky enough to be here with us today, and
those throughout my own country and across the globe who are celebrating this New Year with
loving families -- it is a wish for those children to grow up wiser and stronger and more
prepared for the future than any generation has been before.
But I know, as we all know, that there are many children for whom that present-day
reality has not yet come. They don't yet have the family or the school or the health care
facility that we so often take for granted. So, therefore, it is a hope that for these children,
governments and leaders around the world will work to make it possible for this time next year
and the years to come for us to believe that we have put the needs and interests of our children
first. I would wish that everyone in any position of power -- inside a home or in a business, in
a school or in a government -- would ask, is it good for the children, is it good for both the
boys and the girls, before every important decision; and that every citizen recognize our shared
responsibility to creating a world that maximizes the chance for all children to fulfill their
God-given potential.
Not so long ago, I met with some women and mothers from Rwanda. They had
witnessed and experienced so much unfathomable loss, horror and inhumanity. They could
have talked to me of anything, and could have asked me for so many things. But their minds
and their hopes were focused solely on the future of their children. Their one request was for
help to build a playground in the middle of Kigali, a place where children could play as
children again, where mothers and fathers could watch children at play and again believe in the
future.
So today, and in the century to come, let us resolve, like those mothers from Kigali, to
try to put the well-being of all children at the forefront of our hope and action. And when we
do that, we can ensure that every generation will have the opportunity to be better and greater
than those which have gone before.
Now I am delighted to invite six citizens of the world, six boys and girls, to step
forward and share with us their hopes and dreanis for this new year, this new century, and this
new millennium. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
·
* * ** *
THE PRESIDENT: ·Good afternoon. I must say, after listening to them I don't know
that there'~ anything I have to add. I want to thank all of you for being here. I thank the First
Lady for her conception of this millennium celebration, and for all thos.e who helped to make
�it possible. I thank Secretary Albright for her work for world peace. Governor Gutierrez and
the people of Guam, we thank you for sponsoring this event. And we welcome Congressman
and Mrs. Underwood, Mrs. Gutierrez and members of your family, Governor. Guam is
where America's day begins, you know, and today it's where our millennium begins ..
I'd also like to thank the Environmental Protection Agency and its Administrator, Carol
Browner; the GSA and its Administrator, Dave Barram, who is here with his family; and all
others who helped to make this day possible.
I'd lik~ to ask you to express our appreciation to the World Children's Choir and the
United States Army Brass Quintet. We thank them. (Applause.) We wanted to spend a part
of this day with diplomatic representatives from around the world, and with children from
around the world, to signal the importance of strengthening our global community in the new
millennium.
On this day 200 years ago, in 1799, our second President welcomed the 19th century.
It then took six weeks by boat to get news from Europe. On this day 100 years ago, when
President William McKinley marked the start of the 20th century, it took six seconds to'send a
text by telegraph. Today, satellites and the Internet carry our voices and images
instantaneously all around the world. Never before have we known as much about each other.
Never before have we depended so much on each other. Never before have we had such an
opportunity to move toward what the generations have prayed for -- peace on Earth and a
better life for all.
We must both imagine a brighter future and dedicate ourselves to building it. And I
ask you all here today to reaffirm the clear understanding that we must do it together. .
Two thousand years ago, the calendar that turns at midnight began with the birth of a
child on straw in a stable, with a single, shining star in the sky. It attracted no notice at the
time. Today, as we meet in this international center, though all the world is now a part of this
millennia! calendar change, we must recognize that for more than half the world, because they
are not Christians, the number 2000 has less significance. For Muslims, this is the year 1420 .
. For Hindus, it is 1921. For Buddhists, it is 2543. Mayans honor the year 5119; and the
Hebrew calendar marks this year as 5760.
So what we celebrate here today is not so much a common calendar of history or faith,
but a common future for all people of goodwill, a future of peace and harmony. A future
rooted in the forces of freedom and enterprise· and globalization and science and technology
that have powered so much of the 20th century, but a future which now -- now -- may reflect
timeless lessons as well, the lessons of all religious faiths: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Do unto others as you would have·done to you. Do not turn aside the stranger. See the spark
of divine inspiration in eve~y person. As long as ~e have had philosophers and prophets on
this Earth, this lesson has been taught, yet, it still seems the hardest for us to learn.
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. The past 100 years have seen the victory of freedom over totalitarianism. For that, we
can all be grateful. They have seen us coming together more and more so that it is possible to
have a stage with this beautiful, brilliant array of children; and for that, we can all be grateful.
But, still, all around us we see the failure to use our freedom wisely, as too many
people still give in to primitive hatreds and we still face the oldest problem of human society the fear of those who are different from us. History shows that people do tend to be afraid of
those who don't look the same or practice religion the same way, or come from different tribes
or have different lifestyles . Those fears, when ignited and organized by unscrupulous leaders,
have led to terrible violence in the modern world. Even in the most .open societies, including
our own, children who learn to look down and dehumanize those who are different, and
perhaps to blame them for their own problems, continue to grow up to commit awful hate
crimes.
Still, we must begin a new century with great hope. Think of this:· 100 years ago not
a single country in the world recognized the. right of all its citizens to choose their leaders and
shape their destinies. Now, for the first time in history; more than half the world's people live
under governments of their own choosing. Sixty years ago, many people thought that nothing
could stop dictators from imposing their will on the world through violence. But, since then,
democratic countries have risen -- not just once, but time and time again -- to defeat Fascism;
to help nations free themselves from totalitarianism; to help stop racial apartheid and ethnic
cleansing; to uphold and advance human rights. In freedom's century, we have learned that
open societies are mo,re just, more resilient, more enduring.
Even today, we see our newest discoveries bringing us closer to goals humanity has
shared for centuries -- to eradicate disease, educate all our children, clean our environment,
provide economic support for families and lift up nations. The forces of science, technology
and globalization have shattered the boundaries of possibility. And in the new century, our
achievements will be bounded mostly by the limits on our own imagination, understanding,
and wisdom.
There are, to be sure, tremendous challenges ahead. The old problems are there:
leaders all too willing to exploit human difference to preserve their owh power; places where
freedom still is silenced and basic rights denied; outdated, unnecessary industrial practices
endangering our global environment; abject poverty, with more than 1 billion people living on
less than a dollar a day. And then there are the new problems: the organized forces of crime,
narco-trafficking, terror; governments too weak to handle the sweeping forces of globalization
and their impact on their people; ordinary people across the world who have yet to see the
benefits of democracy and free enterprise, but have borne the burden of the economic and
social changes some can delay, but none can avoid.
Still, I say again, we must be hopeful. It is a good thing that we are more and more
free and more and more interdependent. It is possible to have prosperity while preserving the
environment. And it is possible to share prosperity more broadly with those who have been
too long denied. It is possible to thwart the organized forces of destruction. In short, it is
�---------------------------c---------------------.
possible to listen to the children in this room who come from over 100 nations of the world
' and give them a chance to live their dreams.
When we see threats to peace and dignity abroad, we can choose not to speak, we can
choose not to act. But no longer can 'we choose not to know. That is why there was such a
similarity in the vision these children from all over the globe shared with us today.
The explosion in information and the technology for getting it to people everywhere at
the same time has enabled us to build a common sense of commun~ty that is already taking
shape in ways large and small. When there's a flood in Venezuela that kills thousands and
thousands of innocent people, when we see the plight of young war victims in Sierra Leon who
have lost their limbs, when we see hundreds of thousands of people displaced by ethnic
Cleansing from their homeland in Kosovo- we can choose to do nothing, but we can't pretend
we don't know. And we can no longer shield our conscience or our interest from their impact.
So now we care about one another in ways we never did before. On our ever smaller
planet, one way or another, sooner or later, what happens anywhere may be felt everywhere.
So I'd like to make a few New Year's predictions. In the new century we may not be
able to eliminate hateful intolerance, but we will see the rise of healthy intolerance of bigotry,
oppression and abject poverty in our own communities and across the world.
·· We may not be able to eliminate all the harsh consequences of globalization. But still,
we will trade more and travel more and communicate more, and learn to do it in ways that
advance the lives of ordinary people and lift the quality of the environment.
We may not be able to eliminate all the inadequacies of government and our global
institutions, .but we will see more and more governments able to protect their people from the
harshest side effects of globalization, and able to prepare their children -- all their children,
boys and girls --for the 21st century world. And we will see more-- much, much more-cooperation among nations to meet common challenges and seize cominon opportunities.
In short, the children you see on this stage in the new century will become more and
more part of the same community -- not by giving up their ethnic and religious differences, but
by honoring them and by affirming our common humanity and our shared' destiny. It is
happening already -- I say again. You see it in our response to an earthquake in Turkey or a
hurricane in the Caribbean.
Earlier this year, the last time so many nations were represented in this room,' it was on
the 50th anniversary of NATO, when the allies gathered there to stand against ethnic cleansing
in Kosovo. Today, from Southeastern Europe to the Middle East, to South Africa, to
Northern Ireland, to East Timor, the century is ending with a clear message that there is no
place in the 21st_ceritury for power rooted in hatred and dehumanization. People everywhere
want peace and harmony and the chance to live their dreams not at their neighbor's expense,
but instead, with their neighbor's help.
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We owe it to the children here to begin this new millennium ready to take on our
problems together -- an unrelenting battle against poverty, sharing the promise of the new
economy, leaving no one behind, deepening our democracies, preserving our shared earthly
home. Today, we celebrate more than the changing of the calendar.. We celebrate the
opportunity we have to make this a true changing of the times -- a gateway to greater peace
and freedom, for prosperity and ha~mony. If we listen to our children, they w1ll tell us the
future we should build.
Last week, I received a letter frol? a, sixt~-grade class in northeastern Connecticut, who
knew I would be speaking to you here today. Here's what they said: "Never forget, God
didn't put us here to fight, but to live in harmony. If we can help our children, our future
leaders, to find their way to love for all mankind, and to teach them there is no future in
racism, then we can find that the success and glory of world peace will grow and blossom into
a never-dying flower."
I said at the opening of my remarks that 2000 years ago, those of us who are Christians
believe the new era began with a bright light in the sky. You should all know that when
darkness falls tonight for the very last time in this millennium, the brightest light in the sky
will be the constellation Orion.· From December· to April, it is the only star system visible
from every inhabited point on Earth. Scientists tell us that the light from one of those stars
began its journey ~ere almost exactly 1000 years ago.
In the time it took the light from Orion to reach the Earth, Leif Erikson sailed;
Gutenberg printed; Galileo dared; Shakespeare wrote; Elizabeth ruled; Mozart composed;
Jefferson drafted; Bolivar liberated; Lincoln preserved; Einstein dreamed; Ataturk built;
Roosevelt led; Gandhi preached; Mother Teresa healed; Mandela triumphed. A pretty good
space of traveling light.
Now that light shines upon all of us. For all the billions of people who came before, it
has been left to this generation to lead the world into a new millennium, to use our freedom
· wisely, to walk away from war and. hatred toward love and peace. When people look back on
this day a hundred years from now, may they say that is exactly what we did; that inthe 21st
century our children went further, reached higher, dreamed bigger and accomplished more
because love and peace proved more powerful than hatred and war.
One of America's most popular authors of children's books is . Theodor Geisel, who
wrote under the name of Dr. Seuss. One of the very last books he wrote was called, "Oh,
The Places You'll Go." I want to end today with words he wrote in that book, looking ahead
at the world our children should inherit. Listen to this and help to make it so.
"And will you succeed? Yes, you will, indeed, ninety-eight and three-quarters percent
guaranteed. Kid, you'll move mountains. So be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray, or
Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea- you're off to great places. Today is your day. Your .
�mountain is waiting, so get on your way." Good luck to the children here and Godspeed in
the new millennium. Thank you very much. (Applause.
END
2:55 P.M. EST
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Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. --Biography
'.. .....
http://www.senate.gov/-biden/about/index.htm
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Joseph R. Biden, Jr., has served in the
United States Senate since January, 1973.
Now the senior Democrat on·the Foreign·
Relations Committee and a member of the
Judiciary Committee, he has earned national
and international recognition as a policy
innovator, effective legislator and party
spokesman on issues ranging from
international relations and arms control to
crime prevention and drug control.
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In the Senate, Biden served as Chairman of
the Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995,
and ranking member from 1995 to 1997. He
is now the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Youth Violence and co-chairs the
Senate Caucus on International NarcotiCs Control.
Biden is a leader on anti-crime and drug
policy. He has authored every major piece
of crime legislation this decade, including
the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act, which was signed into ·
law in 1994. The Act includes his Violence
Against Women Act, the first
comprehensive law to address gender-basedcrimes. Biden also wrote the law creating
the nation's "drug czar," which mandates a
national drug control policy. He continues
to work to control new drugs such as
Ketamine and Rohypnol.
In January, 1997, Biden became the,ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. A member of the committee since 1975, he served as Chairman and is now the
ranking .Democrat on the European Affairs Subcommittee. Biden is the Co-Chairman of the .
Senate NATO Observer Gr:oup, Vice Chairman of the Senate Delegation to the North
Atlantic Assembly, and Co-Chairman of the Senate National Security Working Group.
Biden is widely recognized as one of the, Senate's leading foreign policy experts, and he has
published numerous editorials and articles, nationally and internationally, on international
relations. Biden was among the first to predict the collapse of communism and to call for a
comprehensive redefinition of American foreign policy to fit the post-Cold War world. In
the spring of 1993, Senator Biden called for active American and Western leadership to
contain the war and to support the Bosnian government with air power and military
supplies.
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1/18/2000 11:44 AM
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http://www. senate. govI~b iden! about/ index. htm
Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. --Biography
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In 1997, Senator Biden led the successful effort in the Senate to approve ratification of the
Chemical Weapons Convention and in 1998 led the effort to expand NATO. He also has
been a forceful advocate for arms control agreements and has authored legislation to curb
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction~
In 1998, Congressional Quarterly named
Biden one of "Twelve Who Made A
Difference" for playing a lead role in several
foreign policy matters including NATO
enlargement and the successful passage of
bills to streamline our foreign affairs
agencies and punish religious persecution
overseas.
In May, 1999, Biden became the youngest·
Senator ever to cast 10,000 votes in the
Senate. At that time, Senate Minority
·
·
Leader Tom Daschle said: "His steel will,
dedication and compassion, reinforcing a powerful intellect and impressive communication
skills, have made Senator Biden an exceptional Senator."
Senator Biden grew up in New Castle County, Delaware, and graduated from the University
of Delaware in 1965, and from the Syracuse University College of Law in 1968. Prior to his
election to the Senate, Biden practiced law in Wilmington, Delaware, and served on the
New Castle County Council from 1970 to 1972. Since 1991, Biden has been an adjunct
professor at the Widener University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar in
constitutionallaw.
·
Senator Biden lives in Wilmington, Delaware, and commutes to Washington when the
Senate is in session. He is married to the former Jill Jacobs, and has three children: Beau,
Hunter, and Ashley; and two granddaughters: Naomi and Finnegan.
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Home II Working for Delaware II Constituent Services II Issues II Press Office II About
Senator Biden II Contact Senator Biden II Federal Government Resources
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"Bipartisan Foreign Policy at a Time of Crisis"
Speech by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. ·
Center for Strategic and International Studies
October 1, 1998
Thank you for asking me to speak to you at thi~ time of serious political turmoil in
the United States.
The President has admitted to serious moral indiscretions. The House of
Representatives is considering impeachment proceedings. The Senate waits to
see whether it will have to sit in judgment of the President's actions. The public is
divided about what punishment should be meted out to a President who has
engaged in such despicable and indefensible actions.
·
Clearly this is a difficult time for the nation domestically. It is also a perilous time
for the nation internationally.
Throughout our history, Americans have understood that no matter what is
happening in this country's internal political life, it is in our national interest to
present a strong, united front to the world:
That's true now more than ever. The good news is we are the world's only
remaining superpower. The bad news is, we are the world's only remaining
superpower.
Unless we lead, no one will. The dangers we face are many:
•
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•
•
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Financial crises in Russia and Asia;
Hum.anitarian disaster in Kosovo;
Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq;
Nuclear weapons in North Korea, India, and Pakistan;
Missile programs in North Korea and Iran;
Fragile peace in the Middle East;
And continuing threats from international terrorism.
The risks of not acting are obvious. There is real potential for foreign policy
paralysis.
In my view American foreign policy, which has already fallen victim to the.antics of
the Republicans in the House of Representatives, has been further harmed by this
growing domestic crisis.
In the face of major world problems, we cannot be distracted from our task of
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maintaining America's security, leadership,. and credibility abroad.
.
.
As I see it, the problem breaks down into two areas. In some key instances ·
Congress is not doing its job. The need for IMF funding, payment of our UN
arrearages, and sanctions flexibility regarding India and Pakistan are just three
examples. I will mention others later in my remarks.
In other areas, the President is limited in doing his job by the uncertainty of
Congressional support. As President he has the power to act, but he has to ask
himself in this political climate whether he will be cut adrift by a Congress that will
not back him up.
And foreign leaders, knowing of the President's difficulties, wonder whether the
President can deliver on his commitments. ·
The two most immediate cases in point are Iraq and Kosovo.
In Kosovo, the Serbian special .police and Yugoslav Army continue a terrorist
policy that has destroyed more than two hundred villages, driven more than
300,000 ethnic Albanians from their homes, with an estimated 50,000 forced into
the forests and mountains. With the onset of winter only weeks away, a
humanitarian catastrophe looms. The stability of the entire southern Balkans·
hangs in the balance.
I believe the United States and its NATO allies should give President Milosevic a
date certain to cease military operati9ns. If he fails to do so, then NATO should
undertake an air campaign, whose preparations were agreed upon by the Alliance
in Portugal last week.
But for the President to be able to act he needs to have the support of the
Congress. If that support is not asked for - or given - because of the growing
chasm created by the impeachment debate, United States leadership will be
forfeited, and the Balkan tragedy will continue.·
A similar potential for paralysis exists in the face of the threat posed by Sad dam
Hussein. Iraq's decision in August to block further UN inspections, and the
resignation of UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, have forced both the
Administration and Congress to focus on the need for a clear Iraq policy.
Do we rely on the immediate, unilateral use of force to back UN inspections? Or·
do we rely instead on sanctions and deterrence to contain Iraq?
These are tough choices, but, again, I worry that our ability to make the decisions
required to exercise U.S. leadership is being diminished because of the
uncertainty of Congressional support for Presidential action.
It is vital that the Administration work with Congress in making that decision, and
that Congress deliver bipartisan support once a difficult decision is made:
No matter how we feel about the actions of President Clinton, and the debate over
impeachment proceedings in the House, Bill Clinton is still President of the United
. States.
As President he has constitutional responsibilities to conduct our foreign policy
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and protect our national security.
Congress shares that constitutional responsibility. It is critical that we rise above
our partisan differences, and work, with the President to address these problems
together.
There are also areas where Congress alone must act, and has not. We have two
weeks left in this Congress. To date we have failed to address several critical
issues.
In almost every case the
Senat~
has acted in a strong bipartisan manner.
\
In the House a small group of highly partisan Members have been holding
hostage important foreign policy initiatives - taking actions I am confident the large
majority of the American people do not support.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the ability of our country to lead requires
that we face up to the issues I am about to mention and act before we adjourn.
Embassy funding
First among these issues is consideration of the $1.8 billion emergency embassy
security funding legislation to rebuild the destroyed embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania and meet urgent security needs of other diplomatic facilities around the
world.
The embassy bombings ·in East Africa were tragic reminders of the long-term war
against terrorism. ·
An example of rank partisanship surfaced when President Clinton acted decisively
and retaliated against Bin Laden and the other terrorists who killed so many
innocent people. Rather than get the facts, the specter was immediately raised as
to whether the President's action was like that in the Wag the Dog movie.
We need to pass this emergency legislation before we adjourn. I am confident we
will, but with this group I am never certain. The House may try to tie it to other
unrelated domestic legislation to give them partisan advantage on some unrelated
issue.
·
IMF Funding
A second critical issue is funding for the International Monetary Fund.
America's own economic security depends on the ability to provide strong
international leadership at this critical time for ~he international economy.
Other nations understand our system and understand that our leadership can only
come from the President acting with the full support of Congress ..
The Asian financial crisis has sent shock waves as far as Russia and Latin
America. It is the only serious storm cloud on .the horizon for the American
economy. It requires decisive action.
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�· Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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The President requested $3.5 billion for IMF emergency reserves in February of
1997 and the additional $14.5 billion to replenish the United States share of our
quota in February of 1998.
It is shameful that the House of Representatives has prevented Congress as a
whole from acting in support of the President's request to replenish the IMF.
To protect our economy and to keep the ·crisis from spreading, Congress must act
now in the next few days on these emergency reserves and to replenish our share
of the IMF's resources, which have reached dangerously low levels.
It is clear ther~ has been plenty.of time to act.
Why didn't the House act? Now the response is the IMF needs to be reformed.
We all agree to that and the Senate bill has significant reforms. That is not the
·
issue.
The House is using the IMF as a domestic bargaining chip.
Time may· have run out on the IMF's ability to help in the current Russian crises,
but an immediate funding of the IMF is critical to addressing this economic crisis
as it spreads to Latin America and our own economy.
Now is not the time for the United States to walk away· from its commitment to the
IMF and our country's leadership in addressing this international economic crises.
ewe
Chemical weapons, among the world's oldest weapons of mass destruction, are
truly horrific- as we learned when Iraq's Saddam Hussein gassed. whole villages
of his own people. Partly in response to Saddam Hussein, the world moved to
adopt the Chemical Weapons Convention which outlaws chemical weapons and
allows unprecedented on-site inspections to verify compliance with that treaty.
After a vigorous debate in the Senate, which I was proud to lead, there was a
strong bipartisan vote of 74 to 26 to ratify the treaty. On May 23, 1997, the Senate
unanimously passed bi-partisan legislation necessary to implement the treaty.
But the Chemical Weapons Convention is ·in limbo, and the Uniteq States, a
leader in its creation, stands today in violation. Why?
·
Because House Republicans failed to act on the Senate's implementation
legislation for six months, finally choosing to attach it to unrelated legislation to .
sanction Russia for allowing missile technology to be transferred to Iran.
This was done knowing the President would veto the Russian sanctions
legislation. The President did veto the bill, and was correct in doing so, ·to preserve
his flexibility in negotiating a wide range of issues with the Russians at a time of
economic and political upheaval in Russia.
·
That was an unwise and unnecessary political confrontation with the President,
which also put implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention at great risk.
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Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Page 5 of7
The House could pass the ewe implementation bill whenever the Speaker wants.
If it does not do so in the next two weeks, we will continue to be in violation of the
treaty and be unable to demand compliance by others.
It is time people like yourselves called on the House of Representatives to step
forward and put the national interest above petty partisan political considerations ..
Let me reiterate, for the first time in my 25 years in the Senate an extreme action
by a minority of the majority Republican party in the House is dealing with serious
foreign policy issues as if they were fighting over Congressional reapportionment.
Foreign policy in the past has never been used as a bargaining chip for highly
charged domestic social issues. This is an outrageous way to behave and must
come to an end. Our security depends on it.
India/Pakistan
In the wake of the India and Pakistan nuclear tests, the Preside-nt was forced by
existing sanctions law to impose sweeping economic penalties against these
countries, even though this made resolution. of the crisis more difficult.
The Senate quickly moved to repeal part of the sanctions law to make exceptions
for food and other humanitarian supplies. The Senate Sanctions Task Force,
which I co-chair with Senator McConnell, also recommended changes in the
existing sanctions regime to give the President flexibility in negotiating a
deescalation of the nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan.
The Senate adopted these changes as an amendment to the Agricultural
Appropriations bill. We need to complete action on this legislation before we
adjourn.
We were all encouraged by the positive statements of the prime ministers of India
and Pakistan indicating their willingness to negotiate eventual accession to the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
We also want them to pull back from the nuclear brink and agree not to deploy .
nuclear weapons on missiles or aircraft.
·
In order for the United States to be able to influence that outcome, this President
and future Presidents need flexibility on sanctions.
This is not a game, and right wing Republicans should understand that. They
should debate and act upon these changes in the sanctions laws and not let this
legislation get caught up in the search for the favorite hostage of the day.
I am truly fearful we may have reduced our ability to impact others' behavior on
the Sub-Continent because ofour failure to act quickly and decisively.
UN Arrears/State Department Reorganization
At the very moment when Republicans in the House are criticizing the President
for failure to keep together coalitions in support of actions in Iraq or Kosovo, they
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�- Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Page 6 of7
deny him the ability to meet our fair share of United States commitments at the
United Nations.
Chairman Helms and I worked hard to craft a bipartisan plan to pay $926 million in
our arrears if the United Nations agreed to make reforms. Those'plans are
contained in the State Department Conference Report that has yet to be sent to
the President.
Unfortunately, o~r payment to the UN has been held hostage to an unrelated,
controversial provision that would prohibit giving population planning funds to
foreign organizations that use their own funds to lobby their governments on
·
abortion.
Holding the payment of UN arrearages, reform of the UN, restructuring and
funding of our foreign policy agencies all hostage to this "Mexico City" provision
has been highly irresponsible in my view.
The House is also holding any funding for the IMF hostage to this same Mexico
City legislation.
The President has made it clear he will veto any bill with the Mexico City
languag~.
However, the House Republicans insisted on keeping this totally unrelated
language in the Conference Report.
This has resulted in an end game of chicken, with a terrible legislative collision
ahead of us.
In my view the Mexico City language should be stripped from both the State
Conference Report and the IMF bill, with a commitment to debate and vote on it
up or down early next year.
The UN legislation had reflected bipartisan support for U.S. leadership and
credibility abroad and is essential to strengthening diplomatic readiness.
We need to restore our bipartisan commitment before we adjourn. Our failure to
act will clearly diminish our country's leadership abroad.
CTBT
Finally, two years after the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I regret
that the Senate has not been able to act on this important treaty this year.
Chairman Helms and I disagree on the importance of this treaty and he has
'.indicated a need to address other treaties first.
Nevertheless, I felt we had an obligation to hold hearings and act on a treaty of
such importance. Had I been Chairman of the Committee we would have acted.
We need to next year.
How ironic it is, just a week after India and Pakistan have pledged to negotiate
ratification of this treaty by next September, that the United States Senate has not
moved to take similar action.
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�Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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I hope my message has been clear: lfwe don't act on these foreign policy matters,
the potential for paralysis is real, and the consequences disastrous.
It is time for strong bipartisan .action.
Our time is running out.
You will.have questions for me, but I have several questions for you.
Why, given the importance of the issues I have just discussed is there such a
deafening silence?
·
Where are the editorials demanding action?
Where are members of the foreign policy community, many of whom are
represented in this room, demanding action?
Where are members ofthe business community and others, who will be adversely
affected by a failure of the United States to exercise leadership either at the IMF,
the UN, or elsewhere in the world?
The issue we must be thinking about in the days before we adjourn is leadership:
leadership at a time of crisis at home and difficulties abroad. If the United States
doesn't lead no one will. But can we lead?
You know where I stand. If you agree, my colleagues in the Congress need to
know where you and the American people stand.
John F. Kennedy once remarked that 'our domestic policy can defeat us, but our
foreign policy can kill us'.
He was right, of course. And in the coming days, Congress and the President
have the responsibility to step up to the plate and address our unfinished foreign
policy business -- or risk allowing these neglected issues to jeopardize our·
national security interests. Thank you.
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·· Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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"Strategic Policy and the-Future of Arms Control"'..
.
Speech at the Council on Foreign Relations-- New York, NY
December 13, 1999
We are two weeks away from the new millenni~m. More significantly, we are a
couple of weeks from an election year-"' when the great issues that define.the ·
direction of our country should take center stag·e. ·
Of those great issues, the most significant involves the shap,e and direction of
American foreign and strategic policy. Should the United States remain actively
engaged in the world, promoting multilateral arrangements in, the military,
economic and political spheres? Or should it rely on our overwhelming military and
economic power to assure our future, and reduce our reliance on military alliances
and trade partnerships?
I believe the. choice is clear, but the outcome uncertain. The world is simply too
complex for America to withdraw. We may be the world's sole superpower, but we
lack the power to impose our will ori all others.
In the military sphere, our power is clearly unmatched. Notwithstanding our .
predominance, however, Russia could still destroy our society in a nuclear war;
China could inflict awful damage; and lesser powers like North Korea or Iraq could
embroil our forces in full-scale war .. For two generations, the United States has
successfully used nuclear deterrence, formal alliances like NATO, and coalitions
of willing states to keep the peace and, whe·n necessary, to restore world order.
In the economic sphere, we are by far the world's strongest economy. As we
- found with the "Asian flu·," however, our economic well-being is tied to the. fortunes
of smaller economies from Mexico to the Far East. We have successfully used ·
both regional and world-wide trade agreements, as well as international financial,
institutions, to maintain a stable world economy and to advance our interests.
These "entangling alliances" have been the subject of American debate since
George Washington warned ofthem over two centuries ago. Today, that debate is
still with us-- in the streets of Seattle and in.the hans of Congress.
I want to focus today on one important aspect of that debate: whether the United
States should turn away from the strategic doctrine that has formed the basis for
our arms control and non-proliferation poliCies over the last generation. I submit
that, although the Cold War has ended, both the doctrine of deterrence and the
pursuit of international agreements to maintain strategic stability are vital to·
continued American security.
·
·
MY STRATEGIC DOCTRINE
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Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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Let me sketch for you my own strategic doctrine, which is rooted in the events I
have observed in my 25 years as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. This doctrine proceeds from our basic national interest in preserving
world stability.
We also stand for democracy, human rights and open markets. We take the lead
in countering terrorism and narcotics trafficking. And we work to reduce
environmental degradatiqn. But regional and world stability furthers those goals,
and is often a prerequisite to achieving them.
I believe that the lynchpin of our strategic policy must continue to be deterrence,
as it has been for decades. Our enemies must be confident that we will destroy
them if attacked. Our allies must be confident that we will defend them as well,
and also that we will not drag them into unnecessary wars.
Although the Cold War is over, the U.S.:-Russian relationship remains our central
· strategic interest. This is based on Russia's strategic military strength, its ability to
affect its neighbors on two continents, and its potential to recover much of its
former economic and conventional military might. The challenge is to help a
weakened Russia find its legitimate place in the world, reduce its stock of nuclear
weapons, decrease its need to keep those weapons on hair-trigger alert, and
lessen the risk of its spreading weapons of mass destruction.
The strategic arms agenda that we must pursue with Russia is clear: lower
strategic force levels, greater transparency, and th~ safe removal and
neutralization of excess nuclear weapons. We should consider repackaging
START Two with START Three. We should also propose lower force levels than
the 2,000-2,500 warheads agreed to at the Helsinki summit two years ago. ·
A similar strategy can be applied to our relationship with China. As China's power
increases, the world must accord it both respect and a constructive role on
security issues. China, in turn, must accept its own stake in, and responsibility for,
regional and world stability-- even on the sensitive issue of the future of Taiwan.
Our strategic agenda with China must promote their further acceptance and
enforcement of non-proliferation norms, across the board: nuclear, missile,
chemical and biological. China has come a long way from the days in which it
favored nuclear weapons for all. If we show persistence, firmness and sensitivity
in our dealings with China, we can keep it on a responsible path, in Asia and in
the world.
·
That leaves the threat from so-called "rogue states" such as Iran, Iraq and North
Korea. Thoughtful conservatives like Henry Kissinger admit that they accepted the
need to base U.S. strategic doctrine on deterrence during the Cold War. They say
that they no longer trust deterrence to ensure our security, however, because the
countries to be deterred are irrational Third World states, rather than the Soviet
Union or China. Conservatives propose that we rely instead upon our own
defensive might and build ballistic missile defenses, at least to guard against
Third-World missiles.
In my view, those conservatives are misreading history. We must not demonize
our enemies. For all the talk of "irrational" leaders in Iran, Iraq and North Korea,
those regimes have responded rationally when pressure was backed up by the
determination and the capacity to use world-wide economic sanctions or military
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force.
THE STAKES FOR ARMS CONTROL
The debate between those who understand the continuing relevance of
deterrence and those who would cast it aside has had a debilitating impact upon
strategic policy and arms control.
The Clinton Administration came into office in 1993 and won several significant
achievements in the area of strategic arms control and non-proliferation in the four
years that followed: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was extended
indefinitely; the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was signed; and the
Senate approved U.S. ratification of both START Two and the Chemical Weapons
Convention. But that's about as far as we got. The Russian Duma has not ratified
Start Two --which would reduce strategic warheads by half and eliminate MIRVed
ICBMs -- and I will be truly surprised if it does so this week, although that's the
latest Moscow rumor.
Meanwhile, Republicans want to abrogate the ABM Treaty, even if that causes a
collapse of the START process. Congress also cut back the Nuclear Cities
Initiative, which combats proliferation by helping Russian nuclear weapons experts
to find new careers. And of course, you know the fate of the Comprehensive
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. That, in turn, casts a shadow on the Non-Proliferation
Treaty. In 1995, we used the promise of that test-ban to convince non-nuclear
weapons states to agree to an indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Now we are failing to keep our end of that bargain.
That vote two months ago today-- rejecting the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty
on a nearly party-line vote, after a straight party-line vote on procedure -- was a
watershed event. It has become, for the moment, the defining political reality for
U.~. foreign policy.
Many arguments were made against the Test-Ban Treaty, and I can respond to
those arguments in whatever detail you might wish. My point today, however, is
that the Treaty's defeat signals the collapse of the bipartisan consensus that once
existed on our basic strategic doctrine.
We must rebuild that consensus.
One of the most telling moments in the Test-Ban debate was when Senator Jon
Kyl of Arizona responded to the concerns raised by three of our closest allies:
Great Britain, France and Germany. Senator Kyl said: "1, frankly, don't care much
if people around the world who don't want the United States to defend itself
against ballistic missile attack are.going to criticize the Senate for rejecting ....
CTBT." Senator Kyl was not merely tying the Test-Ban issue to that of a national
missile defense, as did othertreaty opponents. He was also expressing their
impatience at having to maintain what Thomas Jefferson so·eloquently termed "a
decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind."
That conservative impatience is part of a disturbing pattern. Call it isolationism,
call it unilateralism, call it whatever you want. But it must be recognized for what it
is: a turning away from the doctrine of deterrence and arms control that has
maintained our security and guided our relations with friend and foe alike since the
1960s.
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�· Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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Continued reliance upon deterrence does not require a rejection of all defenses.
Indeed, we must develop effective theater missile defenses to protect American
and allied troops overseas.
But it is folly to base our strategic posture on the idea that we can develop
effective defenses against all the diverse threats we face today. We must analyze
proposed defenses in light of their impact not only upon our ability to deter "rogue
states," but also on our mutual deterrence relationships with Russia and, to some
degree, China, as well as the concerns of our allies who rely upon our nuclear
umbrella. We must also consider the impact that missile defense would have on
nuclear proliferation.
It is in this regard that the Republican crusade for national missile defense ignores
critical realities:
·
·
the reality that every step we take to construct a missile shield will affect the
strategic posture of our adversaries and allies;
the reality that no affordable missile shield will protect us from .short-range
missiles, a bomb in a boat, or chemicals in a truck;
the reality that a· missile shield may only prompt Russia, China, and even rogue
states to respond with countermeasures and more warheads.
I see no sign that the theologians of the right who demand immediate deployment
of a national missile defense have thought through the implications of these
realities.
·
What would a realistic defense against Third-World missiles look like? I favor a
multi-pronged approach:
maintaining our deterrent posture;
• working to remove the missile threat by pressing negotiations like those now
ongoing with North Korea;
• continuing to strengthen existing non-proliferation regimes;
• maintaining the international consensus necessary to impose multilateral
sanctions upon rogue states; and ·
. • improving our ability to take out the missiles, if necessary.
If we must add a national missile defense to that mix, I recommend the proposal of
your senior fellow, Dr. Richard Garwin, for a land-based (or sea-based) boostphase missile defense, built in cooperation with Russia to stop only rogue-state
missiles.
·
REBUILDING A CONSENSUS
As you well know, the challenges of strategic policy are complex. The political
reality is equally problematic- the views that I just outlined may have been the
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Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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mainstream view 10 years ago, but they are not the views of those Republicans
who control the Senate today, or of the candidates for the Republican presidential
nomination.
One lesson I draw from the Test-Ban Treaty debate is the need to reach out to
Republicans early. But of course, it's a two way street. Both sides must engage in
a dialogue on strategic arms.policy.
In the months to come, Democrats will rebuild the public record in support of TestBan ratification. We will also reach out to Republican senators who will consider
eventually supporting ratification after adding sensible conditions to a resolution of
ratification. Senators Levin, Lieberman, Moynihan and I, among others, are
already trying to promote such a serious dialogue.
Finding consensus will not be easy. Both common sense and the national interest
require, however, that we find areas of common ground, rather than forging a U.S.
policy in the executive branch that Congress simply rejects.
A related task will be to articulate clearly and directly to the American people, who
are largely supportive on these issues, how arms control and continued world
engagement serve our national interest and their own interests. The case for arms
control is there to be made, and you don't have to be a nuclear weapons scientist
to understand it.
In summary, a strategic doctrine of deterrence, arms control, and multilateral
engagement remains both valid and vital in the post-Cold War world. By ccmtrast,
a doctrine based upon the illusory goal of unilateral defense would put American
leadership and security at risk.
The challenges of strategic arms policy and arms control are a fitting topic for
political debate. We in Washington need your help, however -- to keep that debate
rational, and to keep our national security from becoming one more political
,football in Campaign 2000.
·
Your sponsorship of this lecture series may focus America's attention·on the real
foreign policy issues, rather than the artificial ones that are sometimes created in
Washington. I wish you every success in this important effort.
·
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"The Role of the United States Going into the 21st Century"
Harvard University
April16, 1999
I am delighted to be here at Harvard today. For more than 3 1/2 centuries few
other institutions have contributed so much to the development of this country.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been asked to reflect on the role of the United
States in the world as we enter the 21st century. It is generally recognized that
because of this country's size, wealth, .technological expertise, and societal
flexibility, it is in a unique position to exert influence on the world stage.
Nonetheless, the cliche describing the United States as "the sole remaining
superpower," while literally true, strikes me as somewhat beside the point. We
may be unchallenged in the depth and breadth of our might, but in some ways we
had more effective power relative to many other countries in the days when we
were challenged by the other superpower, the Soviet Union. The world has
become a much more complex place, and no single player can dominate it.
Even if it wanted to, the United States certainly could not solve every global
problem alone. But it is difficult to imagine a major world problem that could be
solved without the involvement of the United States, and in most cases without
American leadership.
This means that in order to lead effectively, the United States must also cooperate
- cooperate with its allies, its friends, and with the rest of the world community in
many international organizations~
It is, NATO more than any other organization, that engages the United States
internationally, for our relations with Europe are fundamental to our position in the
world. Europe, together with Japan and the United States, is one of the three
great global centers of wealth and power. And more than any two other areas,
North America and Western Europe are on a daily basis inter-related politically,
economically, and culturally.
·
It wasn't always that way. After World War II large parts of Western Europe were
desolate wastelands. Thanks to the wisdom of George Marshall, who announced
his far-sighted relief plan here at Harvard nearly fifty-two years ago, the United
States primed the pump of European recovery.
Bu.t it took NATO, founded in Washington, D.C. fifty years ago this month, to
guarantee that these promising beginnings continued. The nations of Western
Europe could not have flourished without the security umbrella that the Alliance
has provided. Without NATO there would have been no European Coal and·steel
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Community, no Common Market, no European Community, and no European
Union. It's as simple as that.
Recognizing the changed post-communist world, NATO met in 1991 and revised
its so-called Strategic Concept, its mission statement. In it the Alliance
enumerated new threats to its members including ethnic and religious conflict, the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and international crime and
terrorism.
It is true that many of these new threats originate outside of Europe, and that all
alliance members share vital interests such as guaranteeing energy supplies from
the Middle East and keeping the sea lanes open around the world.
Nonetheless, I reject the idea that NATO partners should be obliged to undertake
missions outside of Europe. For the foreseeable future "coalitions of the willing"
such as in the Gulf War, which involve the United States and NATO allies who so
wish, remain appropriate.
Within Europe, considering the continent as an integral whole is inherent in any
attempt to create a stable, just, and peaceful order. But while the formal division of
Europe has ended, it has proven difficult truly to integrate its former communist
half with the wealthy democratic and capitalist West.
It is clear that, once again, a security structure must provide the umbrella under
which democratic politics, free-market economics, and institutions of civil society
can painstakingly effect a transformation. As it did for Western Europe, NATO has
a pivotal role to play for the rest of the continent. I believe that the Alliance's
strategy to extend the zone of stability into Central and Eastern Europe should
contain three elements:
• First, NATO must continue the measured, criteria-based enlargement of its
membership. The accession last month of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech
Republic was a giant first step in this process, and the "Open Door" must
stay open.
• Second, NATO must deepen its partnerships with non-member states of
Europe. The Partnership for Peace, a creative and hugely successful
American initiative, already involves forty-four countries in a variety of
consultations and operational exercises. Similarly, NATO has concluded two
special partnership relationships with Russia and Ukraine. Because of the
war in Yugoslavia, Russia has suspended its. relations with NATO, but I
believe that the Kremlin understands the benefits its gains from continued
and sustained involvement with NATO and that at the opportune moment it
will resume cooperation.
·
·
• The third element of NATO's strategy to extend the zone of stability in
Europe must be to counter murderous anti-democratic regimes like that of
Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic, which whip up the ethnic and .religious
tensions described seven years ago in the Strategic Concept to further their
own authoritarian political agenda. Not only is regional stability at risk in
Kosovo, but also our core values. If the West does not stand for putting an
end to genocide and vile ethnic Cleansing, then what do we stand for?
I will be glad to join Minister Robertson in discussing the Kosovo situation at
length during our question period. For now, let me summarize my position in three
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words: NATO must prevail.
The catastrophe in Kosovo illustrates that European-American cooperation is
more important than ever. Whenever I am asked why we have contributed six
thousand to twenty thousand troops to IFOR and SFOR to protect the people of
Bosnia from further massacres, I respond by saying that for most of the last fifty- ·
four years we kept more than three hundred thousand troops in Western Europe
to guarantee its freedom. We now have 100,000 soldiers currently deployed in
that theater.
I ask the opponents of American involvement in the Balkans the following
question: why is the idea of keeping, say eighty-five thousand troops in Western
Europe and fifteen thousand in the Balkans, such a radical intellectual
breakthrough?
•
As we in the United States carry the responsibilities leadership within the NATO
alliance we must remember that a constant theme in West European-American
relations ever since the founding of NATO has been an equitable sharing of
burdens within the Alliance.
It was understandable in the early days of NATO, when Western Europe was in
the first stages of its economic recovery, that Washington should shoulder the
lion's share of defense costs. Now, however, with eleven Alliance members also
part of the vibrant European Union, and other European NATO members in good
economic shape, those days are long gone. The United States has a right to
expect that its allies will assume more of the burden.
If there is one positive aspect of the Kosovo nightmare it is that our European
NATO partners have been stepping up to the plate, as exemplified by the British
role. Nonetheless, the national defense budgets of most European NATO
countries are sinking, and with the exception of the United Kingdom, our
European partners are allowing an alarming technological gap to widen between
their militaries and those of the United States.
Steps must b~ taken to address this imbalance and close the technological gap in
our respective military capabilities. But, I must emphasize, upgrading European
military capabilities in a European Security and Defense Identity, known by its
acronym ESDI, must not be at the expense of NATO cohesion.
As Minister Robertson has described, the Anglo-French cooperation announced
last December in St. Malo by Prime Minister Blair and President Chirac represents
a potentially important step in creating a real ESDI. Implicitly responding to the
burden-sharing issue, the Blair-Chirac communique declared that the EU is to
acquire the "capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces,
the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to
international crises." It went on in somewhat ambiguous terms to speak of the
need to maintain the collective defense commitments of the Atlantic Alliance.
As the United States has made clear, in any ESDI there are "three no's" that must
be observed:
• no decoupling of Europe from North America within NATO;
• no discrimination against non-EU European NATO members; and
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• no duplication of scarce defense resources.
I am encouraged by Minister Robertson's assurances on these issues, but the
devil is in the details.
I could not conclude without a personal appeal to the students in the audience not
to heed the siren song of the nee-isolationists. Self-imposed detachment didn't
work for the United States after World War I, and it would be incomprehensible in
today's interconnected world.
I urge you, who are receiving the finest education this country can offer, to see it
as a duty to be active not only in domestic politics, but also to steep yourselves in
the complexities of international affairs and in foreign cultures and languages.
Wherever your careers take you, it is a rare profession that does not have an
international dimension, so your engagement will further personal as well as
national goals.
The United States can, ~nd must, continue to play a positive, leading role on the ·
world stage, but it can only do so with the support of an informed citizenry. I am
confident that you will help create this consensus.
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· --
·~
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..Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
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Bosnia and Kosovo: the Lessons for U.S. Policy
Speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center
July 22, 1999
Reflecting on the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, William Butler Yeats wrote that "a
terrible beauty" had been born. To Yeats a bloody victory had been achieved,
creating a new world that offered the Irish people the chance to change their lives.
I believe that Central and Eastern Europe in 1999 exhibits the same kind of
fundamental break with the past and similarly offers the people of the region new
opportunities.
What a change in the last ten years! Communism has collapsed in most of
Europe. NATO now numbers nineteen members, including three Central
European states. The Federal Yugoslavia of Slobodan Milosevic lies in shambles,
and his rule is increasingly in jeopardy. Bosnia and Kosovo have been freed from
Belgrade, but, as was the case in Yeats' Ireland, the people are often using their
freedom. to kill each other.
'
Today, in four parts, I would like to suggest some lessons we can learn from our
decade of involvement with the former Yugoslavia:
First, I will discuss tactical lessons learned from the conduct of the recent air
campaign against Yugoslavia.
Second, despite obvious differences in the two cases, I will attempt to use our
experience in Bosnia with the implementation of the Dayton Accords as a guide
for what to do --and what not to do --in restoring civilian government in Kosovo.
Third, I will look at larger strategic lessons learned, including how the United
States Government might deal with future crises in a more systematic way.
Fourth, and finally, I will outline my vision of long-term regional economic and
security develop":lent for Southeastern Europe.
The air campaign against Yugoslavia was the first war waged by democracies in
Europe in the information age. But it probably won't be the last --and it certainly
won't be the last case in which we contemplate using force. I would submit that
the U.S. must adjust to this changed world by developing new policies, often with
new modes of operation.
We Did the Right Thing, and We Won
Let us look at what happened. To spare you any suspense, I think we did the right
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thing in our seventy-.eight day air campaign, and we succeeded. The war against
Milosevic was of great consequence. If NATO had not acted, the results, I believe,
would have been grave.
The war might well have spread, with NATO allies Turkey and Greece being
drawn in on opposite sides.
Milosevic would have been able totally to destabilize neighboring countries, as he
attempted through his mass expulsion of Kosovars to Albania and Macedonia.
Moreover, refugee flows would have severely strained Western Europe.
There would also have been a demonstration effect: other potential demagogic,
racist strongmen in Europe would have.taken the lesson that their ilk could
massacre and "ethnically cleanse" with impunity.
There were, to be sure, real risks in countering Milosevic militarily, but none of the
big worries of March 1999 occurred.
·
First of all, NATO kept together.
'
'
Second, the war did not spread.
Third;' contrary to expectations, the Republika Srpska in Bosnia did not blow up; in
fact, its government has become more cooperative in Dayton implementation.
Fourth, Montenegro's democratic government, under severe threat from Milosevic,
has not been overthrown, although it surely is'in need of increased Western
support.
Finally, U.S. prestige and influence in the Balkans has not suffered as a result of
the air campaign; it has been enhanced.
·
I recall the immediate effects of the air campaign not in order to rest on our
laurels. These achievements come at the end of a decade of involvement in
Yugoslavia in which the record is decidedly mixed. It is well worth our while to
examine the period, focusing on Bosnia and Kosovo, in order to draw policy
lessons for the future.
The U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia in the 1990's was a qualitatively new
experience. Hence, it is not surprising that we made a lot of mistakes; many of
them were predictable. Underlying our Yugoslav policy, with regard both to Bosnia
and Kosovo, was a commitment to maintain unity within NATO. This underpinning
was, I believe, in most cases an absolutely correct ordering of U.S. national
priorities. Striking a balance between alliance membership and doing the right
thing was, and remains, extremely difficult.
At the risk of opening myself up to the charge of Yankee boastfulness, I believe
that both the air war against Yugoslavia could have been handled, and the
looming civilian reconstruction in Kosovo could be handled, more efficiently by the
United States alone, rather than by an international coalition.
Realistically, though, "going it alone" would be totally impossible to sell politically,
either to the American people or to Congress. Moreover, European involvement in
Bosnia and Kosovo is an important part of the continent's political maturation.
\
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The European Union's lead-role in the Southeast Europe Stability Pact, which I
will discuss later, is the most obvious signal that this process, at long last, is
moving ahead.
To "come clean," however, I freely admit that there have been times when I
personally have given precedence to the need for American unilateralism over
NATO solidarity, such as when I called for a policy of "lift and strike" in a Senate
speech way back in September 1992. I was pretty lonely then, and it took three
years and nearly a quarter-million dead in Bosnia before we finally adopted that
policy.
But this is not the time either to gloat or to rationalize. Rather, we should, as
responsibly as possible, review our mistakes in order to formulate policies to bring
stability to the Balkans.
·
Tactical Lessons of the Air Campaign
As promised, let me begin by looking at tactical lessons we should learn from the
recent air war.
First, we should maintain unity of command in crisis management. In the twelve
months prior to the beginning of the air campaign, NATO was temporarily replaced
on several occasions by the Contact Group, which includes Russia.
This switch in the command of crisis management in effect shifted policy because
Russia did not have the same goals as NATO. Milosevic, of course, was well
aware of this fact and, therefore, was encouraged to believe that he could
stonewall on a possible settlement.
Second, we should not have ruled out the use of ground forces even before the
outset of the campaign. Preserving uncertainty is a key element of crisis
management and is important enough to maintain, even at the risk of dividing the
alliance. In fact, once the war had begun I privately urged the President to begin a
visible deployment of troops to keep Milosevic guessing.
That is why Senator McCain and I introduced a resolution in April 1999 authorizing
the President to "use all necessary force and other means in concert with U.S.
allies" to achieve goals in Yugoslavia. White House lobbied against it, allegedly
out of fear it would lose an up-or-down vote. It was tabled by a vote of seventyeight to twenty-two.
Nonetheless, when we finally began to move toward deployment of ground forces
late in the campaign, it contributed to changing Milosevic's mind about the wisdom
of trying to hold out.
Third, NATO needs to alter its war-time decision making apparatus. There should
be no more North Atlantic Council "town meetings" of the early weeks of the war
when unanimity was required for targeting. The structure proved to be unwieldy
and was altered in the middle of the war. This was one of the predictable
examples of "learning by doing" in a new situation. The new process had only the
major NATO allies able to veto targets. The result was hitting television towers,
police headquarters, and dual-use facilities like the electrical power grid --whose
destruction contributed decisively to the Serbian capitulation.
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In the future NATO should decide upon a political-military course, set the strategic
parameters, and then leave daily implementation to the alliance's generals and
admirals.
Fourth, in future conflicts NATO must improve its internal communication channels
so that the media are not given premature denials of errant bombing or missile
attacks. Above all, the alliance must repeatedly underscore the fundamental
difference between premeditated aggression, massacres, and war crimes on one
side, and occasional, regrettable mistakes committed in morally justified
resistance to crimes, on the other.
Fifth, NATO should also never announce positive military moves too early. The
textbook case for this was the Apache helicopters, initially touted by many as a
"silver bullet" but then never employed in combat, to the embarrassment of the
United States Army.
And sixth, the United Nations must have absolutely no command involvement in
any NATO-led military operation, beginning with KFOR. We must never repeat the
impossible dual-key structure of UNPROFOR in Bosnia.
In spite of all these ways that we could have improved upon our prosecution of the
air war, our forces did a great job. As a result, through the use of military force we
have arrived in Kosovo in mid-1999 at roughly the same point we were at, through
military action followed by high-profile multilateral diplomacy, in Bosnia at the end
of 1995.
Restoring Civilian Government in Kosovo
Despite crucial differences between Bosnia and Kosovo, with which this audience
is intimately familiar, I think we can profit from three-and-a-half years' experience
in the former in several ways.
Here I think my nearly three decades as a politician help me to cut through some
of the haze. We all know that Kosovars, Serbs, Roma, Slavic Muslims, Turks,
Frenchmen, Britons, Germans, Americans, and other nationalities have their
unique traits and peculiarities. But fundamentally they all want the basics for their
families and themselves: security under the rule of law, a job with a living wage,
and the absence of discrimination against them because of their race, ethnic
background, or religion.
What this means for Kosovo is quite simple. Even while the geopoliticians and
development experts are, quite properly, discussing the eventual shape of the
Southeast Europe Stability Pact, we have to move as rapidly as possible on the
ground in Kosovo to secure the basics I have just described.
Preventing returning Kosovars from killing remaining Serbs, disarming lawless
individuals, stopping domestic disputes, getting traffic lights back up and running -all these are essential tasks, for which our marvelous military has not been
trained. This is the job for police --in some cases your normal cops, in others
European-style, more heavily armed gendarmes.
So, first, we must accelerate the recruitment and deployment by the U.N. of an
international police force. The U.N. has had experience in this field, and there is
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no reason for the lagging that is going on. I pushed early and hard in Bosnia for
European gendarmes to take over crowd control, resettlement of minority
refugees, and hunting for indicted war criminals. The so-called "MSU's" or
"Multinational Specialized Units" from Europe and Argentina that have been
deployed in Bosnia have done the first task, but not the refugee returns or war
criminal hunting. In Kosovo, the international police should be equipped and
tasked to do all three.
Second, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE,
must immediately speed up its program to train local police officers from all the
ethnic communities in Kosovo. Again, the OSCE has done this before, and must
pick up the pace in Kosovo. The rebuilding of ethnically integrated police forces in
Bosnia and Herzegovina has not been a smashing success, but promising strides
have been made. If Croats and Muslims who shot at each other in Mostar can now
go on joint patrols, as they do, then, I submit, Kosovars and Serbs can do the
same in Pristina.
·
Third, the U.N. must getits act together with regard to creating an interim
government in Kosovo. The international community must immediately make
funds available to build emerg'ency housing, restore vital services, and fund the
salaries of the new, indigenous civil servants. World Bank President Jim
Wolfensohn estimated yesterday that this would require $50 million, surely a sum
well within our means .
.Fourth, a clear division of labor must be worked out among the U.N., OSCE, and
the EU (European Union) and close liaison channels immediately established with
KFOR. Until now this has not occurred. The not surprising result is that the local
population is turning for all advice and permission to the guys with the guns-KFOR.
An important corollary of the division of labor is that bureaucracy and red-tape,
especially in the U.N. and EU, must be minimized from the outset, and rigorous
oversight mechanisms established. If the U.S. comes across as being overly
zealous--in an earlier age one might have said "too Prussian" --then so be it.
Fifth, although self-determination and political freedom are central to Western
involvement in the Balkans, a too hasty carrying out of elections can undermine
the achievement of those goals.
In Bosnia more than eighty parties, coalitions, alliances, and independent
candidates have run for office --certainly a very democratic picture. But the
nationalist parties of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia --Muslims, Serbs, and
Croats--were the first to organize, dominated the campaigns through legal and
illegal media tactics, and as a result have captured most of the races. ·
After the carnage, Kosovo needs a breathing space for civil society to re-emerge.
Following this necessary pause, but before elections are scheduled, the
international community should take an ironclad hold on the mass media and
financial institutions in Kosovo to ensure that campaigns are not only "free" but
also "fair."
·
The sixth and final lesson in civil reconstruction that I would draw also holds true
for our military contribution to KFOR. We should not fall into the politically-induced
trap the Clinton Administration fell into with IFOR and SFOR in Bosnia of giving a
timetable for withdrawal, which from the outset was totally unrealistic. Our only
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"exit strategy" should be to leave Kosovo when we have fully achieved our goals.
· The American people must know that we are there for the long haul because it is
in our national interest to do so.
Strategic Lessons Learned
Now to the third part of my presentation. Our decade of involvement in Yugoslavia
also has yielded longer-term, broader strategic lessons for the future. Above all, it
has illustrated that too much of American foreign policy has been reactive. A
conceptual framework is _sorely needed.
Others have made this same point. The question of priorities in U.S. foreign policy
has. periodically been examined by private groups. In 1996 a "Commission on
America's National Interests" dealt in detail with the subject.
More recently, former Secretary of Defense William Perry has discussed it. And
writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Kennedy School Dean Joseph Nye
grapples with redefining the national interest. Nye, who also served in the Defense
Department in the first Clinton Administration, modestly concludes: "The national
interest is too important to leave solely to the geopoliticians. Elected officials must
play the key role."
Dean Nye is right on target. I recommend that the President, working with a
bipartisan Congressional group, create an inter-agency planning process on U.S.
national interests abroad --both geographic and thematic. The result of the task
force's study would be to classify American interests in categories like "vital," "very
important," "important," and "peripheral."
By my own initial calculus, non-NATO Central and Easterri Europe, including the
Balkans, would fall into "very important" geographical interest category, and
furthering democracy and preventing genocide would fall into "very important"
thematic interest category. Combining these two with the capability, via NATO, to
effect the desired outcome created, I believe, a convincing case for military action
against Milosevic's genocidal actions, both in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Apparently the Bush Administration, and the Clinton Administration until late 1995,
didn't see it that way. After the Clinton Administration came over to this policy, it
never adequately described the logic of its decision to the American people.
For most of the 1990's, particularly in the first half of the decade, Congress was
left to fill the vacuum.' That is a complex, detailed story, which requires more time
to relate than we have today. Some of you may wish to pursue this topic in the
question-and-answer period.
·
Suffice it to say that I believe there are two lessons to be learned from this
Congressional involvement. First, the internationalists in Congress simply must
carry the day against the nee-isolationists. Second, there is a crying need for a
Vandenberg-type consensus that "partisanship ends at the water's edge ....
My Vision of the Balkans in 2010
To what end in the Balkans should we utilize these tactical and strategic
recomm~ndations? What is my vision of Southeastern Europe in, say, the year
2010?
http://www .senate.gov/~foreign/minority/press/990722_ speech.html
01/19/2000
I
\
(
J
�Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Page 7 of9
For the benefit of its inhabitants, and of its neighbors, the Balkans must end the
tribal warfare, which flared sporadically for centuries and became the dominant
theme as new nation-states won their freedom from the slowly crumbling Ottoman
Empire throughout the nineteenth century.
Now I will turn somewhat messianic. Despite all the well-known defects of modern,
economically developed, democratic Western society, I firmly believe that it still
offers the individual human the best opportunity for a peaceful, self-fulfilling life.
Translated into today's world this means that Southeastern Europe should be
helped to integrate with Western Europe.
·In other words, the Balkans should choose to emulate the good side of twentiethcentury European history --the European Union and NATO --not the horrific side of
two world wars and the Holocaust.
How do we get from here to there?
First, as the military would say, we must control the environment. This means
stabilizing the situation on the ground by disarming the rival armies, militias, and
individual civilians. Even while this is occurring, shelter must be provided for more
than one million returning displaced persons and refugees. •
The international community must then set up a rational system of civilian
governance. In Bosnia only now --three-and-a-half years after Dayton--are the
governmental institutions finally beginning to work, and there is still much room for
improvement.
. In Kosovo, as I mentioned, the international community should assume the initial
governing burden to give the province breathing space before provincial
institutions are created and elections held. This de ·facto international trusteeship
makes imperative the immediate clarification of the division of labor among KFOR,
the U.N., the EU, and OSCE, and non-governmental organizations. ·
During the trusteeship period, every·effort must be made to involve all parties
within the ethnic Albanian community --from Rugova to the KLA, the remaining
Kosovo Serbs, and other minority groups in the beginnings of local governance.
The first results of such effo'rts have not been promising.
Then, we must chart a strategic road map for the civil and economic reconstruction
of the entire region, not individual countries. I believe that a sine qua non for any
regional effort to succeed is a democratic government in Serbia on good relations
with its neighbors. Translated into policy that means that we should make every
effort to assist the contentious Serbian opposition to topple Slobodan Milosevic. I
cannot tell you when and how Milosevic will fall; but I am confident that he will not
be in power a year from now.
It goes without saying that while Milosevic struggles to hold onto power, and fails,
reconstruction planning must go forward. The infrastructure must be developed on
a regional basis with integrated telecommunications systems, trans-Balkan
superhighways, new high-speed rail links, and, as economic development
progresses, non-stop air links between Balkan countries. Today, for example, in
order to fly from Bucharest to Zagreb one must go through Vienna, and the same
http://www.senate.gov/-foreign/minority/press/990722_ speech.html
01119/2000
�'"Remarks by Senator Joseph.R. Biden, Jr.
Page 8 of9
is tru·e for most other intra-Balkan air routes.
The Stability Pact to be led by the European Union offers the best opportunity for
creating this strategic roadmap. The July 30th Stability Pact Summit meeting in
Sarajevo, an idea of President Clinton, is exactly what we should be doing.
An important side-benefit of this process is that the Stability Pact can give us the
leverage to force antagonists within individual countries, and in neighboring
countries, to cooperate. In doing this we would be following the example of the
Marshall Plan, which made ~ooperation among West European states as a
precondition for assistance.
·
Two days ago the. EU foreign ministers agreed "in principle" to choose
Thessaloniki, Greece as the reconstruction center for the Balkans. I would like to
make a counter-proposal for immediate action.
The Balkans comprise a large, diverse geographical area. Therefore, after its July
30th summit, I urge the Stability Pact --of which, I woul<;t remind our EU friends,
the United States will be an important member --to locate a significant regional
headquarters in Sarajevo, a move which would greatly enhance the prestige of the
Bosnian national government, help the Bosnian economy, and exert pressure for
more rapid implementation of the Dayton Accords.
Within a few years I hope, and expect, to see a Southeastern European free trade
area, including a democratic Serbia, with preferential access for its exports to the
European Union arid the United States.
Thereafter, with EU assistance tlie countries of this regional common market
would move into the euro zone for their common currency.
The Southeastern European free trade area would, sooner rather than later,
become part of the EU's free trade zone, with agricultural products phased in over
several years.
Meanwhile, the process of accelerated membership in the EU for individual
Southeastern European countries would continue. Slovenia and Hungary are
already well on the way toward full membership in the first half of the next decade.
Bulgaria and Romania could follow relatively soon thereafter. .
The only logical way to cement the security structure of the region is through
NATO membership for countries that meet the detailed requirements.
Slovenia already is fully qualified and should be invited as soon as possible as a
sign that South Slavs are not congenitally incapable of "joining the club."
President Clinton in his recent speech in Ljubljana said as much by praising
Slovenia as a model for the region.
Romania may also be ready to join NATO in the very near future if it gets its
troubled economy back on track.
Bulgaria, with a democratic and free-market government, must clamp down on
serious corruption. If it succeeds in doing this, and continues fulfilling its
membership action plan, it too could qualify for NATO.
http ://www.senate.gov/~foreign/minority/press/990722_ speech.html
01/19/2000
�·Remarks by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Page 9 of9
Croatia, after Slovenia the most western of the former Yugoslav republics, has
been hampered by Franjo Tudjman's authoritarian style of rule and his often
mischievous policies in Bosnia. Upcoming parliamentary elections offer the
promise of a fundamental change in Croatian domestic and foreign policy, which
could enable it to join the Partnership for Peace and dramatically enhance its
chances for NATO and EU membership.
Am I certain that my vision 'is possible? No, I'm not. But I am reasonably confident
that there is a decent chance it can be implemented. I stress that there must be a
domestic U.S. consensus in order for us to devote the necessary human and
material resources to the task.
Many Senators and Representatives shrink back from such a commitment, either
because of nee-isolationist ideology, or because they see more important issues
demanding priority such as preventing nuclear proliferation, dealing with a
crumbling Russia, handling relations with a resurgent, yet brittle China, and coping
with rogue states and international terrorism.
How to calibrate the resource allocation among all these valid issues is essentially
"where it's at" in twenty-first century American foreign policy.
I don't pretend to have a simple answer.
But I do think that the inter-agency study I recommended is a necessary first step
toward finding an answer.
The Woodrow Wilson Center and this distinguished audience are accustomed to
thinking ahead in big terms, and I would welcome your suggestions as we enter
the new millennium.
Thank you for your attention.
http://www .senate.gov/~foreign/minority/press/990722_ speech.html
01/19/2000
�..
1/20/00 5:30p.m.
Orzulak
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SAMUEL R. BERGER
REMARKS TO
CONSTITUENTS OF SENATOR JOE BIDEN
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE
JANUARY 24, 2000
Thank you, Senator. It's an honor for me to be here today, and I want to thank you for inviting
me. Please forgive me if I was a few minutes late. I was trying to leave for the speech, but
members of my staff only wanted to talk about which actor would be playing them in tomorrow
night's episode nf"The West Wing." I have a beef with that show. In the cast, they have actors
who portray the President, the Vice President, the Chief of Staff, the Deputy Chief of Staff, the
Press Secretary, and even the speechwriter. But even though many of the episodes involve
foreign policy decisions, no one has portrayed me.
It's probably just as well, considering how Hollywood.has portrayed national security advisors in
the past. A stuffed shirt in "the Peacemaker." An egomaniac killed off in "Air Force One." A
calculating sell-out in "Clear and Present Danger." And just last week on television, as a zealot
with really bad hair in "Murder at 1600." I can't imagine who was the model for these
characters, but let me stress that each of these movies was in process before I assumed the job.
But one role I have been proud to play for more than a decade is friend of Joe Biden. When he
was a young Senator serving his first term on the Foreign Relations Committee, I worked for
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Our paths crossed a few times. [TRUE? STORIES?] You'll be
happy to know that Joe Biden hasn't changed much the past 25 years: he's still the same lowkey, soft-spoken guy he's always been.
It's been said that every generation of Americans has had at least one Senator who helped define
and explain America's role in the world. In a way, what Arthur Vandenberg was to the 1950s;
what William Fullbright was to the 1960s; what Ed Muskie and Scoop Jackson were to the
1970s; and what Nancy Kassebaum and Sam Nunn were to the 1980s; Joe Biden has been to the
1990s: a clear and consistent voice for American interests and American ideals.
In this day and age, it's easy to be cynical about the world we live in today. It's easy to be
cynical about decisions made by others, and then go your own way. But it's a lot harder to stand
in the arena, to believe in a cause, and work day and night to convince others. to believe in that
cause, too. Joe Biden is one of the people who believes.
When the President took office seven years ago, Time Magazine asked the question: is the U.S.
in an irreversible decline as the world's premier power? Today, nobody is asking that question.
Just think about all the things America has done to build a better world. We've aided the
remarkable transitions to free-market democracy in Eastern Europe; stopped ethnic wars in
Bosnia and Kosovo; worked with Russia to deactivate thousands of nuclear missiles; helped
broker historic peace agreements from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, Africa to South
America; froze North Korea's missile program; and signed more than 270 trade agreements that
have opened markets .and raised living standards here at home.
0
�2
And every step along the way, Joe Biden has been our go-to guy in the Senate. He's been able to
build coalitions, and make others believe in a cause, when few others thought it was possible. In
particular, with the President, he led the fight to improve America's security by expanding
NATO. He built a bipartisancoalition to approve ratification of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. His eloquence on the floor of the Senate helped provide the moral authority we
needed to stop the killing in Bosnia and Kosovo. And he continues to be one of the world's
leading voices on arms control. On nearly every issue that keeps us safe as Americans - from
the security of our borders to the safety of our streets-- Joe Biden is making a difference.
His leadership helped write an uplifting final chapter to the Century. In the 20th Century,
millions of American men and women- including more than 75,000 from Delaware- worked to
defeat fascism, contain communism, and sustain freedom when it was most imperiled. ·
Thanks to their sacrifice, we enter a new Century with liberty ascendant. Think about this: one
hundred years ago, not a single country in the world recognized the right of all its citizens to
. choose their leaders and shape their destinies. Today, for the first time in history, more than half
the world's people elect their own leaders. For the first time in history, the world's leading
nations are not engaged in a deadly struggle for security or territory. For the first time in history,
America stands as the world's only superpower. Never before have we had such an opportunity
to move toward what generations have prayed for- peace on Earth and a better life for all.
But this is not a world without dangers to us. We must not assume that because we are secure
and at peace, that we don't need military strength- or that because we are prosperous, we are
immune from problems half a world away.· Today, more than any time in our history, America
has a responsibility to lead. We have a responsibility to those who came before us-- who
sacrificed for liberty-- to be engaged in the world, to work with others to secure peace and
prosperity where we can, to lead where we must, and to finish the fight for freedom. I believe
we must do our part to answer the big questions that will shape the 21st Century.
One critical question is whether our former adversaries Russia and China will emerge as stable,
prosperous democratic partners of the United States.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, our engagement with a democratic Russia has produced
concrete results- the dismantlement of 5,000 former Soviet nuclear weapons, the withdrawal of
Soviet troops from the Baltics, and Russia's role in ending the conflict in Kosovo. We.all know
that Russia is still struggling with demons that have bedeviled it for years: the legacy of
totalitarianism, poverty, corruption, and conflict in the Caucuses. But the way President Yeltsin
left office last month reflected just how much has changed. For the first time in their 1,000-year
history, the Russian people now know that leaders can voluntarily transfer power.
Of course, we will continue to speak about the situation in Chechnya. We've made clear that
Russia's fight against terrorism is right, but its indiscriminate use of force is wrong. And it is
inviting far more serious problems for itself that it can possibly solve. But we should not stop
supporting those forces in Russia that are trying to strengthen the rule of law and build faith in
democratic institutions. Russia is paying a price for its conduct in Chechnya; Russian
democracy must not.
As for China, a sense of realism cautions us to be prepared for the possibility that this emerging
power emerges as a threat. China is a country that has lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens
�3
from poverty and expanded personal freedoms - but it is also a country whose progress is held
back by resistance to political reforms vital to its ·growth and stability. We believe that we can
protect our security and encourage the right kind of change in China by continuing a policy of
principled, purposeful engagement. A good example is the recent agreement we signed to bring
China into the World Trade Organization. As it stands now, our markets are open to China's
goods and services. Our new agreement requires China to now open their markets in every
sector from agriculture to telecommunications to automobiles. It will mean jobs and increased
exports for American workers and American products. In the long run, the WTO will commit
China - for the first time -- to play by international rules. We want to see China on the inside,
playing by the rules, rather than on the outside, denying them.
A second question is whether our security will be threatened by regional conflicts, especially
those rooted in ethnic and religious tensions, that pose the risk of a wider war. With all its
amazing advances, our modern world is still plagued by our oldest failing: fear of those who are
different from us. In too many places, there are unscrupulous leaders all to willing to feed on
that fear to preserve their own power. We have worked hard the past seven years to overcome
those fears and help complete the job that so many Americans fought and died for- to build an
undivided, democratic, peaceful Europe for the first time in history.
We should be proud of the men and women of our armed forces who turned tlie tide against
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. There is a great deal more to do to to create a peaceful Europe:
helping Kosovo through its first free election while continuing to clamp down on violence;
bolstering the democratic opposition in Serbia; promoting investment in the Balkans;
encouraging progress in the Cyprus talks and greater cooperation between Greece and Turkey;
helping more new democracies get ready for membership in NATO. Some of this will require
money and the steady support of people like Senator Biden. But if we're persistent, we may one
day reach a time when no other American will be asked to fight and die in Europe.
We should also be proud of the role America has played to help bring the Middle East closer to
peace than they have ever been before. Today, Israeli, Palestinian, and Syrian leaders all want
peace, and recognize that this is a unique moment. We will have to work hard this year to
succeed.
As you know, Israelis and Syrians met two times recently in Sheperdstown, West Virginia. The
gaps between them right now are not so wide, but they are deeply entrenched. Each side has its
own priorities- and each side wants those priorities dealt with first. It's aggravated by a real
lack of trust between the two sides, which worsens every disagreement. We are working today
to find a way to make sure both sides' needs are met. Soon, experts from the two countries will
be coming to the U.S. for further discussions. We'll keep working for results. But let's keep
this in perspective: this conflict has been a source of tension in the world for 50 years. We
always knew this would be difficult. But we have never had a better chance to end it.
I'm optimistic that we can make real progress this year.
A third question is whether terrorists and hostile nations will acquire the means to undermine our
defenses, and force us to live in fear again.
Thankfully, the New Year's Eve Celebrations around the world passed without a terrorist a,ttack.
But just because we dodged a bullet doesn't mean there was no bullet to dodge. The last weeks
of 1999 saw the largest US counter-terrorism operation in history. Terrorist cells were disrupted
�4
in eight countries and attacks were almost certainly prevented thanks to the good work of our law
enforcement and intelligence agencies. We must continue to work with other nations to destroy
terrorist and criminal networks and target the havens that launder money.
Part of the challenge will be to make it more difficult for weapons of mass destruction and the
missiles that can carry them to fall into the wrong hands. In Russia today, the average salary of a
highly-trained weapons scientists is less than $100 a month. For a small investment, we can help
them tum that expertise to peaceful projects that help the world. Or, we can do nothing and pray
that each and every one of them resists the temptation to market their expertise to those who
wish us harm. Common sense says to help them. That's why we are working with Senator
Biden to increase funding for threat reduction by two-thirds over the next five years.
It also means we must continue to work to restrain North Korea and Iran's missile programs, to
prevent Iraq from threatening its neighbors; and to pursue terrorist and maintain pressure on
those who shelter them, including the Taliban in Mghanistan. With Senator Biden's leadership,
I hope we are also able to find common ground on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
A fourth question is whether the stability of the 20th Century will be threatened by a growing gap
between rich and poor. It is unacceptable that in a world with so many riches, more than one
billion people live on less than one dollar a day. It is unacceptable that more than two billion
people get sick every year- many of them children- because they don't have clean water to
drink. It is unacceptable that more than three million African children have already died of
AIDS. In the next 100 years, the one war we all have to fight to win is the war to end glob~l
poverty.
A large part of the answer is freedom. With the hopeful transitions to democracy in Nigeria and
Indonesia, more people won the right to choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, the year the
Berlin Wall fell. Now, the question remains: how do we shape globalization so that it spurs
tgrowth, lifts the poor as well as the rich, improves the dignity of labor, and strengthens the
protection of the environment.
In various ways, the protesters in Seattle last month were raising that same question. But they
offered a confusing answer. Many complained that the World Trade Organization is too
powerful, yet argued, in effect, that the WTO should acquire new powers to impose and enforce
labor and environmental standards around the world. All expressed solidarity with poor people
in the developing world. But it's hard to see how people living on a dollar a day will ever be
able to live in dignity if we deny they the chance to sell the fruits of their labor and creativity
beyond their own borders. There are practices such as forced labor and child labor that the world
should not tolerate. But we must also understand that, for the poorest countries, trade means
growth and growth means improved working conditions. We don't want a race to the bottom in
the international economy, but neither do we want to keep the bottom down. What we want is a
steady march to the top that leaves no one behind.
In his State of the Union Address later this week, the President will propose several initiatives
that will help countries make the right choices and attack poverty at the root.
In the years ahead, we will face many other fundamental questions, and challenges we can hardly
forsee, whether tragedies or hopeful breakthroughs. But as a result of the last several years, we
look to that distant horizon from higher and more hopeful ground. Every day, we have a chance
�5
to make real for the world what Delaware set into motion more than two centuries ago when it
became the first state to ratify the liberties and protections that we hold so dear.
Sometimes, that history may seem long, but the cord that connects us to ages past is short. Think
about it: Senator Biden serves in the Senate with Senator Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond,
who first entered the Senate in 1954, served with Walter George, who entered in 1922; who
served with Henry Cabot Lodge, who entered in 1893; who served with John Sherman, who
entered in 1861; who served with Hannibal Hamlin, who entered in 1848; who served with
William King, who entered in 1819, who served with Rufus King, who re-entered in 1813; who
served with Joseph Anderson, who entered in 1797; who served with John Brown, who entered
in 1792; who served with George Read, the.first Senator from Delaware, who entered in 1789and signed both the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Through
just ten people- starting and ending in Delaware-- we are directly connected to the two
documents that have moved this nation and this world for two centuries.
Today, we are closer than we have ever been to turning the promise of that freedom call that
began here in Delaware into a reality for more than half the world. Seven years after the question
was asked "is the U.S. in an irreversable decline as the world's premier power"- America has
arrived at a moment when our strength and prosperity are unparalleled. For all the billions of
people who came before us, it has been left to this generation to lead the world into a new
millennium, to use our freedom wisely, to walk away from war and hatred, and to walk toward
peace. When historians look back on this Century, let them say that is exactly what we did
Thank you.
�
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Speechwriting Office - Paul Orzulak
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National Security Council
Speechwriting Office
Paul Orzulak
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1999-2000
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36267" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7585791" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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2008-0702-F
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<p>Orzulak served as speechwriter for President William J. Clinton and National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger in 1999 and 2000.</p>
<p>Orzulak authored speeches for President Clinton concerning permanent normal trade relations with China; the United States Coast Guard Academy commencement; the role of computer technology in India; the defense of American cyberspace; the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award; the memorial service for Former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi of Japan; the Charlemagne Prize in Germany; the presentation of the Medal of Freedom to President James E. Carter and Rosalyn Carter in Atlanta; the Millennium Around the World Celebration in Washington, DC; the Cornerstone of Peace Park in Japan; the role of scientific research and the European Union while in Portugal; sustainable development in India; armed forces training on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico; and the funeral services for Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. in Annapolis. Orzulak’s speechwriting for National Security Advisor Berger concerned Senator Joseph R. Biden, China’s trade status, Kosovo, and challenges facing American foreign policy.</p>
<p>This collection was made available through a <a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/freedom-of-information-act-requests">Freedom of Information Act</a> request. For more information concerning this collection view the complete finding aid.</p>
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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82 folders in 7 boxes
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Paul Orzulak
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Box 1
<a href="http://clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/2008/2008-0702-F.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
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7585791