Three decades after John F. Kennedy electrified Europeans by declaring “Ich bin ein Berliner,” President Clinton said Sunday that the old military threats of the Cold War have given way to new dangers caused by “creeping instability” spilling from the former Soviet bloc.
Rather than the troops and tanks of Kennedy’s generation, Clinton said the “new security” of Europe depends on replacing the old barriers of the Iron Curtain with borders open to the trade and investment vital for democratic reforms to succeed in the East.
Economic and military ties between East and West, he said, “are the strongest bulwark against Europe’s current dangers”-ethnic conflict, abuse of human rights, destabilizing refugee flows, the rise of aggressive regimes and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
But even as the president focused on Europe’s future, the U.S. and its West European allies were privately squabbling on the eve of their NATO summit over how to deal with the most urgent security challenge of the day, the continuing bloodshed and starvation in Bosnia.
The French have said they might call for NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs over their intensified bombardment of Sarajevo, an idea Clinton has resisted.
Televised images of carnage in the Balkans – and empty Western threats of a punitive response – have raised doubts about the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has been the glue of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
In a speech opening his first presidential trip to Europe, Clinton set out a vision of Europe overcoming the old political divisions and a NATO alliance, a creation of the Cold War, that joins with its former foes to share the burdens of safeguarding European security.
The West, he said, can’t afford to risk the consequences of turning its back on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union now that they have shaken off the tyranny of communism.
“We must not now let the Iron Curtain be replaced with a veil of indifference,” he said.
Clinton, the first American president of the post-World War II generation, harked back to the days when Americans fought alongside their European allies.
Most of the college-age audience-not even born when Kennedy went to Berlin in 1963-sat passively through Clinton’s speech. Secretary of State Warren Christopher at one point dozed off.
Clinton said that while “the Iron Curtain rusted from within,” there is no assurance that the reformers in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union will succeed in what has become for their countries a “race between rejuvenation and despair.”
And, “the outcome is bound to shape the security of every nation in the trans-Atlantic alliance,” he said.
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“In one lane are the heirs of the enlightenment, who seek to consolidate freedom’s gains by building free economies, open democracies and tolerant civic cultures,” he said. “Pitted against them are the grim pretenders to tyranny’s dark throne-the militant nationalists and demagogues.”
Clinton’s comments were clearly a reference to the unexpected success of Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his party in Dec. 12 elections.
Zhirinovsky has advocated Russian expansionism and militarism.
In setting out his security agenda, Clinton said NATO member nations must maintain their military strength while reaching out to former adversaries.
He said NATO can build ties to East European nations through initiatives such as his “Partnership for Peace” proposal that would offer them the opportunity to participate in joint military exercises but would stop short of extending full membership in the military alliance.
Despite criticism that the partnership doesn’t go far enough, Clinton said the plan “opens the door” to cooperation with former adversaries without drawing “a new line between East and West that could create a self-fulfilling prophecy of future confrontation.”
Slovakia on Sunday became the second nation to announce formal acceptance of the proposal. On Saturday, Hungary officially told the U.S. it would go along with the plan.
Clinton, who has stressed the growing bonds between the U.S. and the fast-growing economies of Asia, sought in his address to still fears that America is losing interest in Europe.
“The core of our security remains with Europe,’ he said, restating his commitment to resist congressional pressure to reduce U.S. troop numbers in Europe below 100,000.
Clinton also pressed West Europeans, who are suffering from recession and unemployment, to open their markets to imports from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe-something they have been slow to do in key areas such as food, textiles, steel and coal.
This is a particularly sensitive issue for countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which have made major strides in reforming their economies but found the European Union unwilling to offer them membership that would open West European markets to their exports.
That has left those nations-whose leaders Clinton meets with Wednesday in Prague-adrift between East and West, a pawn in big-power politics.
Clinton appeared subdued on his arrival here, a day after his mother’s funeral in Hot Springs, Ark. He met briefly with Belgian King Albert II and Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene before giving his speech in a tapestry-lined room of the 15th Century Gothic Town Hall.
Afterward, he visited the ornate Grand Place, the city’s historic center, as George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” blared from loudspeakers.
Cheered by a crowd of hundreds, the president paused for about 20 minutes to shake hands with onlookers.
Clinton’s motorcade stopped outside a small cafe, Au Vieux Saint Marie, where the president stopped for a cup of decaffeinated coffee and a conversation about his favorite subject, the economy, with surprised diners.
Clinton later told U.S. Embassy families that he spoke with “this incredible Belgian lady” who was out of work for two years but now has her own business benefiting from Europe’s economic integration.
“We’ve got to communicate that spirit, that belief that we can bring this economy back, this whole global economy,” he said.