[WCUSP] Fwd: Looking Forward: A Model State of the Union Address

[Odile Hugonot Haber]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Frida Berrigan <BerrigaF at newschool.edu>
Date: Jan 22, 2007 12:20 PM
Subject: Looking Forward: A Model State of the Union Address
To: Frida Berrigan <BerrigaF at newschool.edu>


WORLD POLICY INSTITUTE

Contact: William D. Hartung, hartung at newschool.edu
Frida Berrigan, berrigaf at newschool.edu

212-229-5808, x4257, x4254

Looking Forward: A Model State of the Union Address
for January, 2009

By William D. Hartung
January 22, 2007

The 2008 presidential race is already well under way, with candidates
beginning to clarify their positions on Iraq, climate change, and other
key issues. In advance of President Bush's State of the Union address
tomorrow night, it would be interesting to look ahead at what a new
president might address in his or her first State of the Union address
in January 2009. Below is an optimistic model of one such address, which
assumes that the United States has fully or partially withdrawn from
Iraq, creating room to discuss other pressing foreign policy issues.

My Fellow Americans,

The State of the Union is strong. And working together with partners
around the world, we can use our strength to make the world an even
better place for our children and grandchildren.

Our fundamental principle in working towards a safer, better world must
be the concept that every human life is precious, from America to Iraq,
from China to North Korea, from Chile to Colombia, or from the Sudan to
South Africa.  We must protect humanity from all of the threats we face
- whether from terrorism, or nuclear weapons, or environmental
destruction, or outbreaks of disease, or entrenched poverty.

Not only must we preserve life in all corners of our interconnected
world, we must make it worth living.  Every person on this earth should
have the opportunity to reach their full potential, to unleash the
intelligence and creativity that makes each of us unique.

And we can only reach our full potential by working together to foster
cooperation rather than confrontation; unity rather than division; and
hope rather than fear.

In moving forward on this ambitious but essential agenda, we have much
to learn from our experiences of recent years. Perhaps the most
important lesson of all is the  recognition of the basic generosity of
the American people. From aid to tsunami victims in Asia to help for
those displaced and devastated by a hurricane on our own Gulf Coast,
Americans from all walks of life have given of their time, their energy,
and their money to respond to these immense human tragedies. Now, we
need a government as decent and generous as its people.

We also need to recognize that we are most effective when we work
together with other nations to solve the complex problems that we face.


We ignore this lesson at our peril. In Iraq, we have seen the danger of
plunging forward without heeding the advice of our friends and allies.
After expending hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives,
we are no closer to a solution now than we were at the outset of the
war. We would be far better off today if we had done more listening, and
engaged in less arm-twisting, in crafting a solution to the threats
posed by the regime of Saddam Hussein.

By contrast, when we have contributed to global efforts to deal with
threats like the HIV-AIDS crisis, we have made progress.  We have far to
go, but the common understanding of the scope of the problem and the
need to solve it on a global basis has had a genuine, positive impact on
the lives of millions.

Just as our communities work better when people are encouraged to
participate in community organizations from the PTA to little league to
kids' soccer, so will the world work better when more nations feel
empowered to participate when decisions are being made on how to address
global threats like climate change or childhood disease.

I have spoken thus far about the values that should inform our foreign
policy and the goals we should try to reach by applying those values to
our real world problems. Now I'd like to talk a bit about how we go
about this by developing policies that are both pragmatic and
principled.

One basic underlying theme for all of our policies must be the idea
that in addressing complex problems, we need to use all of the tools of
statecraft, from military force, to diplomacy, to economic cooperation,
to intelligence and information sharing, to public education.  To make
an analogy to the human body, we need to use all of our muscles, not
just one set. We need to be both strong and agile, fast and flexible,
able to address the threats of the moment while anticipating those yet
to come.

In the 2004 election campaign, both Al Gore and George W. Bush
identified the greatest threat we face as the prospect of a terrorist
group getting hold of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, in recent years
our ideas of how to address this frightening problem have leaned too
much on saber-rattling and military force, and not enough on effective
diplomacy and genuine cooperation. This is true despite the fact that in
the modern era, no nation has given up its quest for nuclear weapons as
a result of military force being used against it.

On the other hand, diplomacy has a track record of success. Since the
end of the Cold War, more countries have given up nuclear weapons and
nuclear weapons programs than have started them: Brazil, Argentina,
Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Libya. In each case, it
was diplomacy, not military threats, that got the job done. At the same
time, the United States and Russia are in the midst of cutting their
deployed nuclear weapons by two-thirds. Thousands of "loose nukes"
and tons of bomb-making materials have been secured or destroyed in the
former Soviet Union. And none of the major nuclear powers - not the
United States, not Russia, not China, not France, and not the United
Kingdom - have tested a nuclear weapon for over a decade.

This is not to suggest that we have solved the nuclear dilemma; far
from it. The emergence of India, Pakistan and North Korea as
nuclear-armed nations shows that in key parts of the world, our
diplomacy has failed, at least in the short-term. And it remains to be
seen whether the conflict over Iran's nuclear aspirations will be
solved peacefully and effectively.  But this is all the more reason to
address these complicated problems in a multi-faceted way. Countries
need positive incentives to change, not just threats of what might
happen if they don't. Diplomacy may need to proceed on many tracks -
on a regional and international basis; on a one-on-one basis between
nations that view each other as threats; and through citizen diplomacy,
cultural and economic exchanges, and other methods that go beyond the
reach of what governments can do on their own.

This doesn't mean that there is no role for military power. There are
cases in which diplomacy backed by force can be successful; by contrast,
force without diplomacy is a recipe for disaster.

There are immediate steps that can be taken by the United States,
sometimes alone and sometimes working with allies, to stem the nuclear
threat. In confronting what President Bush has described as "the nexus
between technology and terror," we can start by serving as a role
model of how to radically reduce the nuclear danger.

The best thing we can do to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of
terrorists is to invest more funds and more energy in the process of
destroying and securing existing nuclear bombs and bomb-making materials
against being spread as a result of theft, corruption, ideology, or
incompetence.

We already have a program that has been highly effective at meeting
this objective. Started with the leadership of Republican Senator
Richard Lugar of Indiana and former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn of
Georgia, this bipartisan initiative is known as "cooperative threat
reduction." It has been utilized to destroy thousands of bombers,
missiles, and loose nukes, and thousands of tons of nuclear bomb-making
materials in the former Soviet Union and its successor state, Russia. It
has been a result of cooperation between Washington and Moscow in
sharing expertise and funds to accomplish this essential goal. Our
European and Asian allies have also contributed funds and personnel to
this effort. Now we need to accelerate the pace of this program, and, as
Senator Lugar has suggested, apply it on a global basis to any country
whose nuclear materials could be stolen or bought by terrorists.

If we are going to lead by example, we need to get our own nuclear
house in order. First and foremost, that means abandoning plans to build
a new generation of nuclear weapons. Our goal should be to eliminate
nuclear weapons in the next generation, not "improve" them. No
government, dictatorship or democracy, team player or reckless
isolationist, is responsible enough to possess these "weapons of mass
murder," as former President Bush has called them.  We need to
eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us, by design or by
accident. It is well within the power of the international community to
do this, if key governments - backed by strong public advocacy - make it
a priority.

Perhaps the other most urgent threat to humanity is climate change,
also referred to as global warming. Even what might seem to the lay
person as relatively small increases in average global temperatures can
wreak havoc with life as we know it, by melting the polar ice caps,
flooding coastal areas, fostering growth of new diseases, undermining
agriculture, and striking at the basic building blocks needed to support
human life.

As with the case of the nuclear threat, there are clear steps that can
be taken to address this issue, if we devote the time, energy and
attention that the problem deserves. More fuel efficient vehicles; clean
energy sources; energy efficient homes and workplaces;
government-supported investments designed to create greater markets for
recycled materials; and tapping the same creativity and technical
prowess that put a man on the moon.  These are just some of the ways we
can address this problem. But it won't mean anything if we do it
alone. We must enlist India and China, Russia and Brazil, Japan and
South Korea, Nigeria and South Africa and every other major and minor
energy-using nation in this effort. And far from being a drag on our
economy, the steps we need to take to stop climate change and keep the
world livable for our kids and grandkids can spawn whole new industries
built on the concept of keeping harmful gases from despoiling our
atmosphere.

As a start in the right direction, I pledge tonight to double the
government's commitment to fighting global climate change tenfold,
from $5 billion per year now to ten billion dollars four years from now.
And we should continue to increase that investment as needed in the
years to come. If we can spend hundreds of billions on military
security, we can afford to do what it takes to ensure climate security.
We have no choice but to act; the only question is whether we will do so
effectively, in cooperation with other nations, or ineffectively by
going off on our own path, disconnected from the needs and aspirations
of the rest of the world.

You are the key to making all of this happen. Every major change in our
nation - from  abolishing slavery, to establishing a woman's right to
vote, to defeating fascism in World War II, to promoting civil rights
and environmental protection - all of these massive changes for the
better have begun with citizen action, not government policies. Whether
it involves recycling at home, pressing your schools and workplaces to
implement better environmental practices, or sponsoring a speaker at
your community organization or place of worship to talk about how best
to reduce and eliminate the nuclear danger, you are the leaders. A
president can raise issues, but only what President Eisenhower described
as an "engaged citizenry" can resolve them.

I look forward to working with you to make our country and our world a
better place, a world in which cooperation is the norm, not the
exception. Even if we fall short of some of our most ambitious goals, we
will be better people, a better nation, and a better world for trying.
Together we can do this, for ourselves and the generations to come.


William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the World Policy
Institute at the New School in New York City. This speech was developed
in cooperation with the U.S. in the World Project at the New America
Foundation.
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