Condoleezza Rice Remembers German Reunification

This month, Germany is celebrating 20 years since the reunification of East and West Germany.

Unlike British and French leaders at the time, the American administration of President George H.W. Bush encouraged the reunification of East and West Germany two decades ago, even if it wasn't sure how the details would all work out, says former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel, Rice says there was only a short window of opportunity when "the Soviet Union had to be strong enough to sign away its powers and rights but not strong enough to stop it." As a result, when the opportunity presented itself and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl went full speed ahead with plans for bringing together the two parts of the nation separated by the Cold War, the Bush administration supported his fast-track approach.

In fact, there was apparently only one moment of disconnect between the White House and the chancellor's office, when Kohl didn't consult with his American counterparts before he presented a list of 10 points to guide the reunification process. But that speed bump was soon left behind, and Kohl and his plans remained in good standing with Washington.

Read the full Spiegel article for more on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's surprising role, the Bush team's worries about Kohl's re-election chances, the centrality of NATO to American comfort about German reunification, and more.

Condoleezza Rice will speak about her life, work, and family in a special event at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Monday, October 18.

How Has NATO Changed? How Must It Change?

Commonwealth Club President/CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy recently moderated a panel discussion of three ambassadors to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to discuss the challenges and future of this organization. NATO, founded originally to contain the Soviet Union and protect Western Europe, has grown in membership in the past two decades since the end of the USSR and is currently engaged in its first out-of-Europe activity with its mission in Afghanistan.

Joining Dr. Duffy were ambassadors Ivo Daalder, Stefano Stefanini, and Per Poulsen-Hansen for the February 25, 2010, program, which was held at The Commonwealth Club's headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Watch the video above of their discussion, and check out photos from the event below (click on the link beneath the photo).

From NATO Ambassadors 2/25/10

GM Loses Some Swagger

When General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner visited the Commonwealth Club in May of last year, he spoke with uncommon boastfulness despite the fact the automaker was in severe dire straits even then. In a speech that mainly covered the company's foray into green technology, he said:

Over time we have a natural advantage by our experience here and our depth of technology, and we plan to win. We welcome the competition, but when I come back to see you in 10 years there may be other guys in, but we plan to be leading the parade in this area.

Famous last words?

The good news is GM's $30.9 billion loss last year was not the company's worst ever. That was 2007. While Wagoner visits Washington asking for as much as an additional $16 billion just to keep the assembly lines rolling, the aftermath of GM's possible demise is being felt outside our borders.

Reports today say GM is preparing to ask European countries such as Germany for over $4 billion in aid to keep its Opel brand operating. This comes a day after GM announced it would cut 1,600 jobs and furlough another 900 at a plant in Brazil.

The situation in the U.S. continues to be perilous for GM. Wagoner reportedly told the auto task force created by the Obama administration that GM would cut the company's brands to four and eliminate 47,000 jobs as a part of a vast restructuring plan. In addition, an agreement with the United Auto Workers over a contractually obligated $5 billion payment to the union's health-care trust has not come to pass.


Wagoner mentioned GM's health-care predicament during his Commonwealth Club address, arguing that it inhibited the company's growth. “I have long been outspoken on the fact that the health-care costs in the U.S. is significantly damaging the manufacturing competitiveness of this country and the competitiveness of our economy, and I continue to feel that is true,” he said.

The plight of General Motors with its corporate tentacles extending far from Detroit might be a prime example of how GM's decisions and its fate not only affect the streets of Flint, Michigan, but employees in small European towns and workers in auto plants in South America.

Friends head into challenging jobs

Here's the inside scoop on some appointments and pending choices for key positions at the State Department, DoD and the NSC:

The Commonwealth Club applauds the appointment of our colleague and Board Member, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, as Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council. She left home in the Bay Area Tuesday, and reported for work at the White House yesterday. In that role, the Rhodes scholar and expert on Europe and the former Soviet Union will help guide US policy with countries that are our friends - or should be our friends. There is a lot of rebuilding to be done, after disputes with our European allies over how the war in Iraq has been prosecuted and policies dealing with terrorism suspects. Then there is the global economy as it affects the EU, the question of missile deployments in Eastern Europe, the future of NATO and so many other issues where our relationships with our allies need to be improved. Liz and I served side-by-side in the Pentagon during the Clinton Administration, so she is experienced in the ways of the federal government and will hit the ground running.

Working with Liz at the NSC will be Stanford colleague Mike McFaul, who will have specific responsibility for Russia. Another Rhodes scholar, McFaul participated on a panel at the Club just prior to the November election, and has been a commentator not only for local media but nationally. This is the Stanford prof's first tour of duty in the government. He has had little sympathy for what he sees as the Putin/Medvedev governments' bad human rights policies and encroachments on the security of neighboring countries, and can hopefully help to craft policies that will allow the US to positively influence Russian behavior.

I also note the pending nomination of good friend Rose Gottemoeller, until recently head of the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, to be Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Verification, and lead negotiator for the START (Strategic Arms Reduction) talks with Russia. The existing START agreement with Russia expires later this year, and little or no work has been done to update or replace it with additional limitations that will prevent a new US/Russia nuclear arms race. Getting these talks back on track with an ornery Russian leadership will be no small feat.

She will also be central to the question now being debated in the inner circles of the new administration: how far to set our sights towards the goal of elimination of nuclear weapons that has recently been laid out by the "Four Horsemen" - former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Rose is an experienced government hand, having served successfully in the White House and Department of Energy during the Clinton Administration. This role builds on her earlier work to denuclearize the countries of the former Soviet Union and put in place some controls on the spread of fissile materials that can be used to make nuclear weapons. She must be confirmed by the Senate, so it will be awhile before she formally takes up her new position.

My former Pentagon boss, Ash Carter, yet another Rhodes scholar and a Harvard physicist, is reputed to be in line for nomination as USD (ATL) - Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Another tough job. As the Pentagon's chief technology and weapons manager, he will confront the need to possibly cancel weapons systems that now seem too expensive or ineffective, like the F-22 aircraft, which has contractors in 44 of the 50 states (and is thus politically sensitive). If nominated, he, too, will await Senate confirmation.

Ambassador Dennis Ross, a Bay Area native and frequent speaker at the Club, is reputed to be in line to become the Obama Administration's chief envoy to Iran. The former negotiator for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict likes big challenges. On his plate will be finding a positive way forward with Iran which deals with Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Tall orders for these folks, but they are definitely up to the task. I wish them all success in addressing these difficult national security challenges!

Recessionomics: Think Local, Act Global?

Americans are feeling the economic pinch, but, in many cases, the decisions made in Washington may effect the rest of the world more deeply. In the current edition of The American Prospect, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson calls for a "Global New Deal".

Using the example of the American Insurance Group (AIG) and the ability to use its global tentacles to effectively be a company without a country to regulate its business, Meyerson constructs an argument that has received little attention nationwide.

Barack Obama may well seek a new New Deal to right a profoundly dysfunctional American economy. But he faces one constraint that Franklin Roosevelt didn't have to confront in the 1930s: The economy that Roosevelt saved was fundamentally a national economy that could be altered by national policies. The economy that Obama must fix, by contrast, has national dimensions that can be altered by national policies, but in matters ranging from corporate conduct to consumer safety to Americans' incomes, not to mention global warming, purely national solutions no longer suffice. To fix America today requires fixing global systems. The next New Deal won't work if it's only American.

Under the concepts of globalization, a multinational corporation is able to evade basic regulatory oversight that a nationally-based business would have to cooperate.

A report from the Center for American Progress deals more closely with the topic from the standpoint of foreign economies, saying Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to the Great Depression needs to be applied globally.

This common political imperative has created the conditions for an unprecedented exercise in international economic cooperation aimed at stabilizing the world economy and placing it on a stronger and more sustainable footing through a series of structural reforms. This is precisely the approach the creators of the New Deal took to our national economic crisis in the 1930s.

Americans may have a narrow view of the global ramifications of its own financial demise, but this fact need not preclude the newly elected president from scratching it from the national dialogue.

The European economies of Germany, France and England are searching for ways to stimulate their economies, while reports this past weekend say that Greece, Ireland and Spain may have their AAA-credit ratings downgraded because of worsening recessions. Of course, these are relatively rich nations as compared to say, Latin American countries, which are relatively stable, but are all encountering lowered gross domestic product figures in the new year.

Some economic isolationists may deny the inevitability of globalization, yet it exists. The effort to fix the U.S. economy needs to add the discussion of world markets in our national dialogu, because people around the world are beginning to argue that what is good for the United States is not necessarily good for the rest of the world.