U.S. Diplomacy

Last week–as the Bush administration sees it– diplomacy came out victorious in the standoff between North Korea (aka the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and the five other ”parties” attempting to halt its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang submitted an accounting of its nuclear arsenals to the Chinese government–a first step in reigning in the nuclear weapons program North Korea declared to be persuing back in 2003. To further demonstrate its intentions, on Friday the DPRK exploded the cooling tower of one of its main nuclear reactors.

In turn, the US removed North Korea from the “Axis of Evil,” more specifically, from its list of state-sponsors of terrorism, as well as the lifting of some economic sanctions. As President Bush remarked in the rose garden after the DPRK’s declaration:

“The six-party talks are based on a principle of “action for action.” So in keeping with the existing six-party agreements, the United States is responding to North Korea’s actions with two actions of our own: First, I’m issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea. And secondly, I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea’s designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days.”

Condoleezza Rice sounded triumphant in a Wall Street Journal column published the day of the declaration titled ”Diplomacy is Working on North Korea:”

“If North Korea chooses cooperation – by fulfilling its pledge from the September 2005 Joint Statement to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” – a path is open for it to achieve the better and more secure relationship it says it wants with the international community. That includes the U.S. We have no permanent enemies.”

The declration could be considered a victory for diplomacy not only because diplomacy was the method employed to reach the deal, but also because the US’ diplomatic agency (the State Department) beat out the White House to change to course of US policy toward North Korea after much wrangling on this issue. According to the New York Times:

“In the internal Bush administration war between the State Department and Mr. Cheney’s office over North Korea, Secretary of State Condoleezza Riceand her top North Korea envoy, Christopher R. Hill, won a major battle against the Cheney camp when President Bush announced Thursday that he was taking the country he once described as part of the “axis of evil” off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The administration sought to portray the move as a largely symbolic, reciprocal move, made in return for North Korea’s long-delayed declaration of its nuclear program to the outside world. It is the first step in what will be a long, drawn-out diplomatic process that is meant to lead eventually to establishing a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula…

…Thursday’s announcement intensified a pitched battle in Washington, where Democrats and many foreign policy experts said the administration had dithered too long before reaching this deal, allowing North Korea to acquire enough plutonium to make several nuclear weapons. From the other side of the fence, conservative hard-liners complained that the United States gave away too much for too little, and should have adopted a more absolutist approach with the secretive North Korean government.”

But for many critics, diplomacy won too little too late. Again the New York Times’ Helene Cooper explains:

“Accusing the North Koreans of violating a previous diplomatic accord on ending its nuclear program, called the Agreed Framework, which was negotiated during the Clinton administration, Mr. Bush pulled out of talks with North Korea in 2002 and pressed to isolate the North Korean government. The abandonment of talks gave North Korea greater leeway to produce plutonium and become a nuclear power, critics say.

Had Mr. Bush instead stuck with a diplomatic course, the critics say, North Korea might not have acquired enough plutonium to make a nuclear weapon.

“What is absolutely clear is the decision they took in 2002 to terminate the Agreed Framework gave North Korea the opening” to kick international inspectors out of its Yongbyon nuclear plant and press ahead with its work on the bomb, said Carlos Pascual, director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “That was the tragedy of the Bush administration’s policy,” Mr. Pascual said. “That by opting for terminating our engagement, we opened the door to North Korea’s becoming a nuclear power.”

On the other hand, John Bolton, a former Ambassador to the UN and old Bush administration hand, said of the declaration ““This is a sad, sad day… I think Bush believes what Condi is telling him, that they’re going to persuade the North to give up nuclear weapons, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think we’ve been taken to the cleaners.”

Steve Clemmons, foreign policy expert at the New America Foundation, captures the contradictions in this victory” for diplomacy, and gives credit where credit is due:

“This is huge news– and is a giant step in putting US-North Korea relations on a new and more constructive track. This is a success for the Bush administration– and more importantly for Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacfic Affairs Christopher Hill who has been a punching bag for former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who has been spitting on Hill’s deal-making for the last year.

There are still a lot of questions ranging from the interesting issue of North Korea cooperation with Syria’s alleged nuclear facility that was destroyed by Israel and other issues — but when President Bush gave Colin Powell the positive nod in the first week of April 2003 to proceed with the Six Party Talks, Bush and Cheney ignored Iran’s offer of a structure for normalized US-Iran relations the very same week in 2003.

The contrast in circumstances between where America is today with North Korea and where we are with Iran is vital to note. We ‘engaged’ North Korea and blew it with Iran.

Congrats to Christopher Hill, John Negroponte, Condoleezza Rice, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns and his successor William Burns. And for those who want to knock China around, they should know that this entire process was impossible without China’s impressive, collaborative diplomacy.”

Clemmons talks more about the implications of this move in this video:

(Secretary Rice at a press conference in June in Lebanon, courtesy of the State Department)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations’ International Affairs Fellows Conference last week. An edited video of her remarks can be viewed here.

The thrust of Rice’s speech centered on the “elements of continuity” thatthe Bush administration’s foreign policy has with that of past administrations. Her first example is maintenance of the US alliance with “big powers” Russia and China:

“For instance, coming in, I think everybody understood that it would be important to have workable relationships with the great powers, the big powers in international politics — China, Russia, the newly emerging powers like India and South Africa and Brazil. Important not just because one wants to have fruitful and constructive relations with important powers, but fruitful and constructive relations that can be put to use in carrying out the work of diplomacy and, therefore, solving international problems.

It goes without saying that it is not really feasible to solve many of the problems of international politics through diplomacy if you cannot find at least common interest and common cause with countries like China and Russia, even if you are not doing so from the basis of common values. And having constructive relations with those two giant powers, both members of the Security Council, has been an important part of what we’ve tried to do.

They are, of course, somewhat different. I think that in many ways managing the relationship with Russia has been one of finding common cause on many, many issues while recognizing that in a complex relationship there are going to be many differences and doing so, frankly, in an atmosphere in which perhaps there has been some disappointment that we have not been able to move closer to the common values with Russia that one would have thought possible in 2000.

In fact, it is the internal development of Russia away from a more democratic course that has been, in some ways, the hardest part of managing the relationship. Nonetheless, we have been able to do important things together in nuclear nonproliferation, in working together on Iran and working together on North Korea, in working together on the Middle East in ways that, I think, would have been unthinkable at the time of the Soviet Union.

And so one of the most important things to remind ourselves of almost every day is that however complex the relationship may be with Russia, however difficult sometimes, however difficult Moscow can make it with rhetoric that is, shall I say, outside, it is nonetheless a relationship that is quite unalike our relationship with the Soviet Union. Russia is not the Soviet Union. And reminding ourselves that the scope for cooperation with Russia is far wider and far greater than anything that we ever experienced with the Soviet Union is important to having a solid relationship with Russia going forward. This is embodied in a strategic framework agreement that Presidents Bush and Putin signed at Sochi, which I think shows the breadth of our relationship with Russia…”

The second element of foreign policy continuity Rice mentions is the strengthening of US  alliances. She names the US’ alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia before focusing on NATO, an alliance that she says has been “truly transformed.”

Noting that most Cold War scholars wondered whether NATO would find a purpose for itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Rice says that now:

“The remarkable thing is not only is NATO alive, but it is a fundamentally transformed organization for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, because now 12 of the 26+2, the 28 — soon-to-be 28 members of NATO, 12 of them are former captive nations. And they come to the Alliance with a zeal and a love for democracy that can only be the case if you are still very close to your experience with tyranny. And they have changed the nature of the Alliance. And they’ve changed its agenda. And they’ve kept at the forefront the values of the Alliance.

The Alliance is also different because it is taking on new challenges, most extraordinarily well out of area, as we used to talk about, as it takes on the efforts in Afghanistan, as it helps with planning in Darfur, as it helps with training of Iraqi officers and as it builds global relationships with countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea. NATO is a very-much-changed organization.

It’s had its ups and downs. I know that there’s been a lot of discussion about how it’s doing in Afghanistan. I think it’s remarkable that it’s in Afghanistan. And of course, as it has been developing its capabilities, it is getting better at fighting the tough counterinsurgency fights that we see in these parts of the world, fights that blur the lines between war and peace where very often you’re clearing an area and bringing in economic reconstruction at the same time. This is hard work. It’s different than what we’ve done before. And so perhaps it’s not surprising that NATO has had to adjust to this.

It is also an alliance that has suffered from the fact that many European armies, European militaries took the peace dividend very deeply and, as a result, cut their defense budgets, cut their capability. And NATO is now trying to rebuild some of that capability….”

What came as a surprise to Rice as she tried to maintain the foreign policy status quo? “I never thought that I would spend as much time as I do thinking about the fate of failed states and trying to resurrect failed states, trying to resurrect states that were coming out of sustained conflict and trying to use all of the tools of the nation, whether it is foreign assistance or military training or public diplomacy, whatever the elements, to use those elements to try and help build well-governed, democratic states where states were failing.”

I remember hearing an interview with one of NPR’s diplomatic correspondents that it has become a strategy of the Bush administration to speak of its legacy as one of policy continuity, rather than rupture from the norm. It appears that they anticipate the past eight years will come to be remembered as a radical departure from the past. Some examples of these ruptures do spring to mind: introducing the doctrine of preemption, eschewing the UN to invade Iraq, breeching international and American law in order to pursue terrorists and the intelligence they hold, wide expansion of the Defense budget and mandate, etc.

Even so, if I were a communications consultant for the Bush administration I would advocate the same spin strategy for the sake Bush’s foreign policy legacy: accentuate the positive (continuity), and bury the negative (change). For the Bush administration it’s the change that has brought on most of America’s foreign policy woes–with the glaring exception being  the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whose continuity without resolution causes a great deal of woes to all involved.

Indeed continuity was also the theme of an essay Rice wrote for CFR’s academic journal Foreign Affairs titled, “Rethinking The National Interest.”

“…As with previous strategic shocks, one can cite elements of both continuity and change in our foreign policy since the attacks of September 11.

What has not changed is that our relations with traditional and emerging great powers still matter to the successful conduct of policy. Thus, my admonition in 2000 that we should seek to get right the “relationships with the big powers” — Russia, China, and emerging powers such as India and Brazil — has consistently guided us. As before, our alliances in the Americas, Europe, and Asia remain the pillars of the international order, and we are now transforming them to meet the challenges of a new era.

What has changed is, most broadly, how we view the relationship between the dynamics within states and the distribution of power among them. As globalization strengthens some states, it exposes and exacerbates the failings of many others — those too weak or poorly governed to address challenges within their borders and prevent them from spilling out and destabilizing the international order. In this strategic environment, it is vital to our national security that states be willing and able to meet the full range of their sovereign responsibilities, both beyond their borders and within them. This new reality has led us to some significant changes in our policy. We recognize that democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest. And in the broader Middle East, we recognize that freedom and democracy are the only ideas that can, over time, lead to just and lasting stability, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq…”

But it’s important to look past the spin and try to learn from Secretary Rice’s experiences as Secretary of State. If we don’t, covering up failed foreign policies with spin could become the new ”element of continuity” that carries on from this  administration into the next.

On Thursday night the House of Representatives passed a vast supplemental spending bill (HR 2642), which would provide $161.8 billion in war funding, an expanded veterans’ education benefit, an extension of unemployment insurance and money to deal with flooding in the Midwest. The bill now goes to the Senate for approval, where Democratic leaders have already endorsed it.

This piece of appropriations legislation also provides $1.864 billion for international food and disaster assistance, $696 million for refugee assistance, and $465 million to fund the first year of the “Merida Initiative,” a US-Latin American security partnership aimed at combating drug trafficking.

Upon passage of the bill the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman said: ““The legislation also includes life-saving aid to refugees and internally displaced persons who have fled the conflicts in Iraq and Darfur.  By granting $475 million more than the Administration asked of us, Congress has done much to respond to the dire needs of people caught up in these crises — and we must continue to do so.”

While this sounds like a big chunk of change, this is merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of foreign assistance modernization. Those concerned about global poverty can thank a new initiative called the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network for bringing Congress’ attention to this issue. 

The network, comprised of development experts from a variety of institutions–think-tanks, universities, etc,–aims to “shape a consensus among a group of leading global development experts on how best to improve America’s weak aid infrastructure,” and then urge Congress to heed their advice.

Earlier this month Lael Brainard of the Brookings Institution did just that when she released the Network’s culminating report at a June 10^th Congressional hearing.  

Titled “New Day New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century,” the report underscores the need for international development concerns to be on par with those of national security:

“Since September 11, 2001, U.S. foreign assistance has been dominated by national security interests, with a particular focus on fighting terrorism. Security is clearly important, but it should not obscure the equally important imperative of fighting global poverty—which is itself a means to address the causes of terrorism and conflict, as well as a host of other urgent challenges. This link between development and sustainable national—and, indeed, global—security is increasingly recognized by foreign policy, development, and defense experts, and it must be acted upon. But the link is best understood not only as a rationale for providing foreign assistance to strengthen allies in the “war on terror,” but as a rationale for supporting development because it leads to a world where capable, open, and economically viable states can act in concert to build a better, safer world.”

In a press release, the Network’s co-chair Gayle Smith of the Center for American Progress, said: “By giving development a seat at the foreign policy table we can narrow the gap between the world’s haves and have nots, tackle the challenges posed by climate change, the global food crisis, and the world’s weak and failing states and, most importantly, strengthen the moral foundation from which we lead.”

Next week the House will hold a hearing titled “Foreign Assistance Reform: Rebuilding U.S. Civilian Development and Diplomatic Capacity in the 21st Century,” which will include testimony from two Former Administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development: J. Brian Atwood and M. Peter McPherson. Atwood is also a member of the Network.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project released today a large global public opinion poll that ties in nicely with my post yesterday about the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee report on views of the US. Here’s a chart that shows the decline in favorable views of the US around the world since 1999:

Today the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight released the culmination of ten hearings all based on global views of the US. The report, titled “The Decline in America’s Reputation: Why?” explores this important issue, thoroughly-documented with testimony from some of the country’s brightest public opinion and regional experts.

The report identifies eight main findings about the levels, trends, and causes of international opinion of American policies, values, and people:

(more…)

Andy Semmel of the Paternship for a Secure America gives some suggestions on how the U.S. Government could ramp up its global efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. His suggestions are entirely focused on improvements that could be made at the State Department.

This is not surprising, considering Semmel served for more than four years as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Nonproliferation at the State Department. Here’s an address he gave in that capacity on the same issue to a National Strategy Forum in 2005.

Semmel gives detailed, constructive advice on how the Department could make some structural reorganizations that  stand to greatly improve US action to counter nuclear proliferation. Here is an excerpt from Semmel’s article, though I reccomend reading the whole thing.

“The State Department must change its cultural biases against multilateral diplomacy and transnational activities.  State has a strong preference for service in the geographic bureaus and foreign country posts, but service in functional or transnational bureaus and international organizations is seen with disfavor.  The Department doesn’t staff the regional bureaus or foreign country missions with skills involved in nonproliferation and arms control negotiations,  and prefers conducting our diplomacy through bilateral, rather than through multilateral channels or in international institutions.  This attitude has been especially pronounced in recent years, but it has been a cultural attribute of the Department for years.

State’s institutional culture makes it difficult to recruit Foreign Service Officers to serve in functional bureaus.  Foreign Service Officers who serve repeated assignments in functional bureaus are generally not promoted as rapidly and frequently opt to terminate their careers early, thus depriving the Foreign Service and the United States government of the expertise and experience they have accumulated over the years.

To tackle these cultural biases directly would be very difficult and would take a long time to implement because they are part of the core make-up of the Department.

A potentially more rewarding option would involve a fundamental change in organizational structure, by creating a separate independent or semi-independent entity—inside or outside the Department –that would be guaranteed a seat at the table in important decisions.  A separate agency(modeled perhaps after the former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA)) would work in tandem with the State Department but possibly report directly to the Secretary of State and the President, with inter-agency coordination managed by a senior member of the National Security Council.  This type of re-structuring would elevate the role of the agency and its head above the Under Secretary or Assistant Secretary, could give the agency more clout in inter-agency and international negotiations, give more weight to multilateral diplomacy than it now has, and yield greater influence over its funding needs.

Of course, changing basic organizational structure—especially doing so frequently—is not without cost or challenges. There have been two major reorganizations in the structure and management of arms control and nonproliferation policy in the State Department in the past ten years.  The next administration will want to weigh carefully the possible costs of undertaking a third major realignment, whatever its intrinsic merits, as it begins to organize itself.

A less risky option for improving the conduct of our nonproliferation and arms control diplomacy would involve organizational reforms.   Several organizational and personnel changes could improve the conduct of our nonproliferation and arms control policy:

(1) More programmatic funding.  Current spending for nonproliferation and arms control in the 150 NADR account is less than one percent of the Department’s overall budget.

(2) The ISN (International Security and Nonproliferation) bureau needs authorization for additional permanent personnel so that it doesn’t have to rely less on temporary or part time staff to manage key issue-areas.

(3) The FSI (Foreign Service Institute) should add more courses on multilateral diplomacy and on nonproliferation and arms control to its training curriculum.

(4) The Foreign Service should include assignment(s) in functional bureaus as a required part of the Foreign Service career path.

(5) The Department should consider resurrecting the Foreign Service Reserve Officer program, or something similar, to recruit specialists for skills difficult to fill, such as physical and natural scientists needed to tackle the complexities of nuclear, chemical and biological proliferation and arms control.

(6) Re-writing the mission statement of the Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security to place it on a par with the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs to strengthen the internal trade-offs involving the nonproliferation/arms control agenda.

The Washington Post reports: “More than 100 countries reached agreement Wednesday to ban cluster bombs, controversial weapons that human rights groups deplore but that the United States, which did not join the ban, calls an integral, legitimate part of its arsenal.

…Advocates of the ban said they hope the agreement, which was supported by rich nations and poor from Scandinavia to Africa, will have the same effect as the 1997 ban on land mines, reducing use even among non-signatory countries.”

Also opposing the treaty and absent from the summit are Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia and China, who together produce 99% of the world’s supply of cluster bombs.

The White House opposes the ban because they say these bombs have a military utility. The United States has defended its non-attendance, saying it was “deeply concerned” about the humanitarian impact of cluster bombs and all weapons of war, despite “disagreements” about the best way forward.

Though, the Post reports that “the controversy over cluster bombs has led the United States to stop exporting them for now — a law that went into force this year bars the foreign sale of cluster bombs that have less than a 99 percent detonation or disabling rate, conditions that current versions of the weapons do not meet.”

To listen to Public Radio International’s program “The World” discuss the treaty, and explain how cluster bombs work  click here. Or view their diagram below.

Frida Berrigan, a Senior Program Associate at the New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative, authored a scathing endictment of the military buildup that occurred during George W. Bush’s presidency.

In the section called “The Pentagon as Diplomat,” Berrigan argues:

“… the White House’s foreign policy agenda has increasingly been directed through the military. With a military budget more than 30 times that of all State Department operations and non-military foreign aid put together, the Pentagon has marched into State’s two traditional strongholds — diplomacy and development — duplicating or replacing much of its work, often by refocusing Washington’s diplomacy around military-to-military, rather than diplomat-to-diplomat, relations.

She relates: “Since the late eighteenth century, the U.S. ambassador in any country has been considered the president’s personal representative, responsible for ensuring that foreign policy goals are met. As one ambassador explained; “The rule is: if you’re in country, you work for the ambassador. If you don’t work for the ambassador, you don’t get country clearance.”

In the Bush era, the Pentagon has overturned this model. According to a 2006 Congressional report by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign, civilian personnel in many embassies now feel occupied by, outnumbered by, and subordinated to military personnel. They see themselves as the second team when it comes to decision-making.”

Given the last post on this blog, it’s interesting to note that Berrigan quotes Defense Secretary Gates as saying there are “only about 6,600 professional Foreign Service officers — less than the manning for one aircraft carrier strike group,” while adding “don’t get me wrong, I’ll be asking for yet more money for Defense next year.”

Berrigan notes that “another ambassador lamented that his foreign counterparts are “following the money” and developing relationships with U.S. military personnel rather than cultivating contacts with their State Department counterparts.”

Berrigan concludes this section by describing a recent phenomenon in which Defense encourages “interagnecy cooperation,” between itself and other government agencies as a way to insert a military component into activities where it didn’ t traditionally or doesn’t necessarily belong.

According to Berrigan: “The Pentagon has generally followed this pattern globally since 2001. But what does [interagency] “cooperation” mean when one entity dwarfs all others in personnel, resources, and access to decision-makers, while increasingly controlling the very definition of the “threats” to be dealt with.”

Ron Nessen, a journalist in residence at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, reported on what he calls a “rare event” in Washington.  His article, titled “A Defense Secretary Says Something Nice About a Secretary of State,” relates the remaks  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made at a recent Brookings Board of Trustees meeting.

“Verbal battles, turf fights, and policy arguments between Secretaries of State and Secretaries of Defense are commonplace in American history. Think: Don Rumsfeld vs. Colin Powell earlier in the George W. Bush administration….

…That’s why it was such a rare occasion when the current Defense Secretary, Robert Gateshad this to say about his respect for and working relationship with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

“The fact that our respective bureaucracies know that Condi Rice and I get along goes a long way towards making sure that serious attempts are made to reconcile differences and coordinate policy.”

Gates acknowledged that such friendship and mutual respect between the heads of the two Cabinet departments have not always been the case in the past few decades.

“Not even the most enlightened or well-crafted interagency structure will work,” Gates declared to the Brookings audience, “if the Secretaries of State and Defense can’t stand each other and won’t work together, as too often has been the case during the seven presidencies in which I have served.”

Nessen continues:

“The Defense chief, who might have been expected to devote a large portion of his talk to the need for increasing the Pentagon budget to meet modern international challenges, instead devoted a large portion of his speech to the need for increasing Condi Rice’s State Department budget to meet modern international challenges.

“America’s civilian instruments of power, in particular the State Department, have suffered from chronic under funding for decades, and were virtually gutted in the 1990’s,” Gates declared. “Today, the entire Foreign Service – 6600 men and women – would not be enough to crew one aircraft carrier strike group.”

When Defense can publicly recognize the State Department’s financial deficiencies, you know the conditions are dire.

Nessen goes on: “The Pentagon secretary told his audience that there is “strong support” in the military services to build up the State Department’s capacity. He noted that at another Brookings event last year, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen said he’d be willing to give part of the Navy’s budget to the State Department, if it was spent properly.”

Wow, that’s quite generous of Admiral Mullen! It’s too bad that there’s such a Congressional stigma attached to the idea of “stealing” from our national security infrastructure to “feed” our diplomacy infrastructure. 

A note on Nessen: he served as Press Secretary to President Ford. Here’s a 2006 Washington Post article in which he relates a bit about the character of Ford’s presidency.

(Secretary Rice and Secretary Milliband in Silicon Valley)

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Milliband continued his US tour last week by conducting an interview with Public Radio International’s “The World” program. You can listen to the interview here.

On the controversial issue about whether Iran–and every country on earth–has the right to develop nuclear power for civilian purposes, Milliband tells The World’s Anchor Marco Werman that:

 ”I certainly believe that Iran has a right to nuclear power if it exercises its responsibilities… Until a country either breaches international negotiations or does things which undermines the confidence in the civilian nature of a nuclear program, then its reasonable for international cooperation to go ahead.”

On the US-UK relations, Milliband underscored that “We are bound together by our hisory,” but also by our values that “we try to project around the world.” None of the big problems can be solved without the US. “We do need strong American leadership.”

Having studied in the US, Werman asked Milliband about his view of the nation. Milliband responded: ”America is the least cynical country in the world… This is a country that permanently renews itself… this is an ethic the rest of the world can learn from.”