It's a particular pleasure for me today to introduce an old friend rose on Ridgeway was on and I attended high school together and st. Paul many years ago. And at that time I can tell you she was a very distinguished student and none of us are surprised at her many accomplishments. She is president of the Atlantic Council of the United States and former Ambassador both to the German Democratic Republic and to Finland Ambassador Ridgeway will discuss the political economic and Military challenges in Europe raised by the dramatic events in the Persian Gulf in the Soviet Union.Has a career Diplomat was served in five presidential administrations Ambassador Ridgeway is exceptionally qualified to present her observations on the future of us relations. She is a Hamline University graduate and st. Paul native serves on the Council on Foreign Relations and is on the board of the institute for East-West studies. She was assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian affairs from 1985 to 1989 following her presentation questions will be addressed from the audience Jane Mara second, Gloria mcclenahan of Minnesota meeting will move among you to manage the question and answer session, please use the slips of paper on your table to jot down questions for discussions. It's now my pleasure to present you was an Ridgeway.Thank you very much, Andy. I should in tribute to at least some in the audience this afternoon add to the Bayou by saying I'm a very proud member of the board of the 3M Corporation as well. Now that I'm not in the government. Will that do Arlo good? many of you I know are on the speaker's circuit and You probably have the same problem. I do these days. I have a great reluctance to write anything down. I do not know from one broadcast to the next how well-founded My Views will be I do not know from one flick of the channel selector to the next. We're in fact in the world. The United States will be the more deeply engaged and whether or not some of the views that one might have recorded with such conviction have any Merit and so I have said to a lot of audiences lately as I'm going to say today now that I'm in retirement, I don't do windows and I don't do lectures. But I do like to share. Thoughts leading to understanding about some main themes in American foreign policy and the one that we have chosen for today the United States and the new Europe the road ahead is a theme I think will be with us not only for this decade, but well into the next someone announced the end of 1990 that when and all German Parliament is convened on January 1 1991. The post-war era will formally end. I would submit to you that it was on that occasion that the true post-war period began. That for 45 years the United States and allies in Western Europe were pushed off the road of the initial concept of post-war development by a challenge from the Soviet Union its Partners in the Warsaw Pact and only with the events of 1989 and 1990 only with the reunification of Germany and the meeting of the all German Parliament January 1 of this year. Has it been possible for us to return to in fact the real beginning the real challenge of the post-war period The institution that we had in mind at that time as we came out of World War 2 was of course the United Nations and I can't help but think as we watch the United Nations today in the Middle East the American leadership thinking to myself that in fact, this is the test. That the democracy has failed in 1918 1919 1920 5 1933 and while there are many views today as to whether or not our policy is correct many views as to whether or not the United States should continue to assume such a large burden in world leadership. I wonder if many would care to take on the argument that it was the failure of the International Community and its institutions in the 20s and 30s that gave us the last 45 years and the challenge before us today and whether we meet it will in fact set the tone for the next several decades and so that is one my perhaps largest message today as we move to to discuss the United States and Europe that is that we having finished a transient post-war task in Europe over the last 45 years. Years now face, the fundamental tasks that has always been before us, but from which we were pushed as we confronted the challenge of the Soviet Union. The West Europeans have been our partners in this Enterprise for 45 years and I would like to discuss just briefly our interests in Western Europe. In 1945 before the challenge of the Soviet Union was clear. We came out of the War years convinced along with major thinkers in Europe. That the way to end conflict that emanated seemed to emanate consistently from Europe was through Unity that a unified Europe would be a Europe. That would not be the source of conflict and As Americans looking to a destroyed European continent, we realized as well that a prosperous Europe based on Unity would be the best trading partner for the United States and finally as the years took shape. We realized that we had as well to act as the shield of the democracies while we confronted The Challenge from the East we do not I think give ourselves enough credit for this major achievement of these last decades and for the dedication of Americans from all walks of life Europeans from all walks of life in staying the course until the inevitability of History arrived in the Soviet Union. I'm often asked what's going to happen next in the Soviet Union. In fact, the question is and has been for the last six years will Gorbachev last and it's rather unfortunate that in these days as I meet with groups of costs across the country a number of people are asking do we want him to last because we have seen in the years since Gorbachev assumed power a very dramatic change in his agenda. I believe on the basis of The privileged opportunities I had to listen to him describe what he wished to do in the Soviet Union the Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in power convinced that the Soviet Union could not safely arrive into the twenty twenty first century as a functioning economy without dramatic change his initial agenda was economic and it was reformed. He learned as so many have the dramatic economic reform without political consensus is not possible. That in fact was the message of solidarity in Poland for a decade. And so he took time out from the economics of it all to try to restructure the politics and the political institutions of the Soviet Union and in the course of the years, we all became fluent in Russian. You need only three words. It seems to understand what's going on glass nost perestroika and democratization, which I will not attempt to pronounce in Russia. And yet something has happened something seems to have gone wrong. Experts can give you some very elaborate discussions and reasons. I would say that those who really know the Soviet Union have known from the outset that sooner or later he would arrive at the nationality question that reform restructuring new political institutions would free the latent political ethnic nationalities agenda that has always been a part of the Soviet Union. And so today is one asks, what is happening in the Soviet Union. I think two broad statements can be made first that the enormity of the economic task was not understood and it was not understood principally by people who still do not know economics. And the strength of the nationality question also was not understood and the conclusion that seems to have been reached at least for the moment is to address the question of staying in power. And for those who ask is this good or bad? I do not have an answer. I would only say that we have watched Gorbachev Zig and zag and very skillful fashion Master political manipulator for the last several years, but there is always the moment when you might get caught on one of the zigs or one of the zags and you simply do not know when that will be but if as many fear that his objective today is staying in power then it is in fact a very sad day and it is one that means that we will see even greater confusion in the Soviet Union. What does it mean in East and Central Europe and I know you've had a succession of experts through here who have discussed this I do believe East and Central Europe are now free to determine their Futures. But again, for those of us who studied history and had to go back to school to pick up the economics. It is very clear that East and Central Europe today is all about economics. It is about markets and prices and the willingness of populations to accept large-scale dislocations as these tortured economies try to find their way way back to the mainstream of productive societies. We all hailed the revolutions and the brave people in the streets The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. What we saw happen in the German Democratic Republic the 10 Mighty and brave years of luck Valencia and solidarity in Poland but a revolution in the streets for a political agenda. Those not give you the proof that new political institutions will be strong enough to withstand populations in the streets on strikes on jobs on prices and on Goods that is the test of democracy. And that is what we are. We are watching today and perilous times in East and Central Europe. And so I would say with respect to both the Soviet Union and East and Central Europe that while many hope that when we got through 1989 and 1990 that we could say the task is done. The Cold War is Over that in fact, the task has just barely had its opening days and that we will we will through the next decade see in both the Soviet Union and in East and Central Europe instability and uncertainty now, we don't like instability and uncertainty if you watch the weekend news programs and you see the administration spokespeople who have volunteered to go on those Programs, you know, they always get the question. Well, what are you going to do about it? Because we cannot help but ask that question. We ask it if everybody we ask it in our industry. We ask it in our schools and our government councils and we ask it in foreign policy. Well, what are you going to do about it? And I submit that some kinds of uncertainty and instability in these regions are the kinds of things we can't do anything about we can continue to show our interest and to show our support and to be willing to enter into arrangements and contracts and exchange programs and university university exchanges and lectureships where there are clear-cut opportunities the terms of which are clear on both sides but to move from those step-by-step occasions to a broad formula of how we can fix it. I think is an impossible task and when we should not try to set for ourselves, If Gorbachev goes someone will take his place right or left each as possible. But if you look at the economy of the Soviet Union, I think you can at least admit the validity of the view that no one is going to be able to put that place back together the way it was and over a period of time. The only way it can go is forward to a more open Society with all of the risks, excuse me, that that entails for transition East and Central Europe. People are afraid of someone on a white horse that might turn black on the way to office could be But again, there are no particular answers from us except to be willing to cooperate where we can and willing to associate ourselves with projects that make sense from both sides. What about Western Europe then? If the threat from the Soviet Union is receding. If it is becoming potentially quite real than what are we going to do about those West Europeans who seem to be ready to gang up to take us on in the economy, isn't it about time? They all showed a little bit of gratitude isn't it about time that the burden was shared more equally in fact, isn't it about time that we just came on home and showed them that we couldn't have access to their Market. They were going to have access to there's two hours. Well now I feel better for having said that but I wouldn't want to try to run an international economy and and Multinational American corporations with that kind of policy background. And so we're going to have to learn to get along with these new West Europeans of the policy. They are pursuing as a policy prescribed by the United States long ago in association with distinguished European thinkers. It was one which said that Prosperity is less likely to produce. Liked then poverty that our societies are interdependent and that we should find a basis for moving to ahead progressively together. I think that still stands and I think that long-term American interests are still found in engaging itself in Western Europe only with only one provision. And that is that the Western Europeans must now start doing some thinking for themselves people always ask will the United States stay in Europe. Question I like to ask is do the Europeans want us as partners on the continent. I believe most Americans today could find interests of the United States in continued engagement in Europe lower Force levels dramatically lower Force levels dramatically different institutions different ways of doing business, but nonetheless with a commitment to Europe and to the what is known as the transatlantic partnership, but the voices from Europe on behalf of that equation have not been so strong in coming forward and I would say that if the transatlantic partnership that has sustained us over these years and which I believe would be good for the United States over the future should fail if that partnership should fail. It will not be a failure of American leadership. It will be a failure of European leadership an unwillingness on the part of Europe for all of its push to integration and unity to stand up and state the case for Kind of partnership. What about all the institutions that we have out there? Will they be any good for this new partnership? What about the future of NATO surely, you know by now that if you want to write a thesis on contemporary European history, you've had to tear up the one about the future of divided Germany and you've had to start all over again on something called the architecture of the new Europe. Well, the architecture they're talking about is the architecture of the Old Europe and much of the new Europe that I see in front of me today with the problems of nationality immigration economics and development is the Old Europe. So there's something rather comforting about the fact that the institutions are the same and some of the problems are the same one shouldn't take comfort for too long. But nonetheless there is a lot on the scene today that can be dealt with inside. The arrangements previously established. NATO does has a task. It does have a tag. It may not be a forever institution and those levels of troops are not written in stone. But there are today 380,000 Soviet troops in what is now called the eastern part of Germany. There is in the Soviet Union today a large question about the terms of the force reduction agreement that was signed in November and the extent to which the Soviet Union and the Soviet military intend to live up to it. There is a large question about nuclear weapons at a time of instability in the Soviet Union and there is just simply a very long period of transition taking place. I think it would be foolish or some I'd say imprudent. To begin to bring everyone home in that circumstance but a cautious drawdown certainly is in order and we ought to get on with it and it means that we will change the way we talk with Europeans about security issues. And that's good too Americans have long said and I think believed that they would like to have a more partner like European partner on the topic of security in Europe. We have before us on the economic side, as you know, major questions in the European community on economic and monetary Union, they scared us to death with the concept of EC 92, and I know from previous visits to Minnesota that most Minnesota corporations of any size soon came to see the advantage to them in EC 92 and quickly organize their Affairs and their relationships on the continents take advantage of that integrated Market, but having scared a lot of people with EC 92 people who are now accustomed. We have the new agenda of Economic and monetary Union a single currency a single bank. So there will be new challenges coming from the continent and we have the challenge of political integration and the European desire to have a European foreign policy. Now when all of this is done, it's not clear to me that every American is going to like this new European partner who has a different foreign policy in a different point of view at a different currency and different rules, but I'm convinced that it is the kind of European partner that dealt with constructively can in fact enhance our own economy. The immediate problem is the Apparently or so far failed Gat negotiations. One of the more unseemly International arguments if I could use that word the agriculture the capacity of Agriculture to to destroy possibly this very important to negotiation is very clear. The agenda includes not only agriculture, but all of the trade problems of The Next Century of from intellectual property and to computers and insurance and Technologies banking ideas people. And we do not want to lose that opportunity but it seems that we are all determined on both sides of the Atlantic for step back into the 19th century and just have a good old fashioned. Very expensive slugfest. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying it should not be characterized as a forward-looking a negotiation at this stage of the game. It is being dominated by domestic politics and I fought the Europeans particularly on this one, but if it fails we will soon get back to it because we are interdependent economically and we must find a way of dealing with with Europe in these fields and the Gantt negotiations are bring me to the international Dimension that Andy Jankowski used introducing me the Gap negotiations are Global and the org why round is global and there are countries out there who are not involved in the agriculture question, but who are involved for example in the question of intellectual property rights and copyright who simply will not enter. Two new agreements until there is a comprehensive single document. And so we see ourselves not only as regionally involved but also globally involved that Global agenda of the future is scientific its Financial its economic its institutional and so I returned as we move to allow plenty of time for questions, I return to where I began that we are in fact in my view only at the beginning of the post-war period that the principal challenge today in front of us is the challenge to not only International institutions, but to the will of the International Community to make its views known and to make its opinions stick that Community continues to look to the United States for leadership and it the major question before the American people today is one that so far we are answering is perhaps the world expected us to do. And that is do we understand that our leadership continues to be required and are we prepared to offer that leadership? Have we become tired of the last decades or do we in fact see a continuing interest in the United States and the interests of the United States in building those International relationships so that we can also withstand this period of instability events in Europe from Dublin to Moscow have altered dramatically The Familiar framework of our transatlantic relations. We don't know whether all of our institutions will withstand the test of the future. We don't know whether all of our Partnerships will be the same in the future. But certainly we know that the American economy American society the American intellectual wealth is found on engagement and interdependence. We will need European partners of all varieties even as we work. Address that very important agenda that's out there. And with that one of the attractions of Minnesota meeting, I believe is the question and answer period so with that scene setting or stage setting why don't we move to the questions and get some of the more specific things that might be of interest. Thank you Ambassador Ridgeway a question here from Bob Tennyson Master given the political divisions which appeared in western western Europe over the policy and the gulf you feel the gulf the differences among the countries attitudes towards the Gulf War. I has a potential for ripping the European communities political systems apart. I have been amazed along with everyone at the at the fact of the Coalition and have been very admiring of the way the administration put together a 38 Nation Coalition and put together a European counterpart. I believe over the long run. There are very distinct differences among the United States western Europe the United States the Soviet Union with respect to the Middle East and when the Middle East with the Gulf War is over and we come to the question of follow-on. I think that it would be very difficult to hold that Coalition together. I would not expect the European part to break itself. That is I think that there is generally a continental view in Europe Britain France Italy, Germany. From that of the United States and so I would expect their partnership to hold together a little bit better on this one than I would the transatlantic point of view. We have a question here from dr. Margaret Prescott Ambassador Ridgeway you grew up and went to school in Minnesota and we're proud of you. Could you comment please on what you see as the implications for American Education in the new developments in Europe? I should tell some people who know me in the audience at that was not a planted question, even though it leads to one of my favorite one of my favorite topics. It is very difficult with the media being as effective as it is to maintain a sense of perspective a sense of history and a sense of what is important. And what is not as we are Deluge bombarded whatever you want to say. Bye fact, not necessarily thought not necessarily analysis, but by fact very dramatic fact surrounded by music and and all of the color that can come to us now and the ability to understand our interests is and and to not act in a way that is disconnected from our interest is under special challenge with that kind of media opportunity. Now in front of us, I think the challenge for education then in the area that I know best. The area of foreign policy is the challenge to make history real to make sure that the future has an understanding of the past not the past has pattern. The past is prologue is many like Say but an understanding of where in fact we have been and how we got to where we are and what some of the roads ahead of us might be. I say that because the popular thing to say as well in this interdependent world. The United States is going to have to be competitive and we must do better on science and technology. I take that as true the American economy the success of the American economy in the global economy will in the future be as it has been in the past in my view at The Cutting Edge with the product of vibrant industry research and development a flexible Society people who understand how to move from basic science to applied science. So, I don't want to make that speech that's not mine to make the science scientists and the technology people have made it and I think it is true. I would link Mike interest in the history and foreign policy in our place in the world something else that I that I see that is my among my favorite topics and that is the question of Education to make choices. Because we are surrounded by a host of good things education is good science is good parental leave whatever your view on it is a topic for the future schools for for children with special with special needs highways infrastructure Healthcare long-term care and adequate defense tuned to the age in which we are asking to be defended. All of these things come with dollar signs in front of them. They are all good things. How do we educate public policy decision makers to make those choices? How do they come to weigh the values in our society? How do they come to understand the values in our society as they either as voters as legislators as bureaucrats and I have 30 years in the government. So for me bureaucrat is Be and the good thing as bureaucrats struggle to make these choices so that I think is the change it requires a new kind of education in which people understand context in which they are willing courageous enough to make choices and in which they understand the need to Foster these special areas that will be the source of our wealth and prosperity in the future. Thank you Ambassador Ridgeway a question from Jean sit. Ambassador two-part questions from the Alberta oil one is that in the four plus two agreement for the reunification of the two germanies? I don't believe the Supreme Soviet Parliament has approved the treaty are providing for the reunification and I guess the question there is that given the problems. What is the risk of that being delay? And what are the implications? Should that be delayed? Secondly, as you said there are 300,000 Soviet troops remaining in Germany and 50,000 plus and Poland and so on and those were draws a supposed to take place soon. That's not likely to happen given the military's influences today. What are the problems associated with that? I don't know whether there was a commitment for the Supreme Soviet to ratify in a legal sense the two plus four agreement, but certainly there the fact of German unification and the fact that Germany remains in NATO has become those two facts have become among the issues being discussed by the conservative elements in the Soviet Union. It was the basis of their criticism for shevardnadze and continues to be a basis for criticism of Gorbachev in the political institutions of the Soviet Union. And I don't know whether there is a requirement for those documents to go and be voted upon and receive a certain amount of votes, but I would not expect there to be a retreat in East and Central Europe. I think they're the history is done Europe in Germany is I'd and I do not see how the Soviet Union whatever the political coloration of leadership in the Soviet Union. I do not see how sane people could attempt to return to the pre 1989 picture in East and Central Europe. That does not exclude the possibility that on the range of what can happen in the Soviet Union there would be a military conservative KGB oriented government that attempts to put everything back in the box and pretend that none of it has happened that there would not be a period of bloody repression and the loss of Human Rights only so recently gained but I do not think that is sustainable because the next morning so we've got to wake up and say alright now let's have this country produce something and it cannot produce and so new leadership of any kind is going to face the same problems Gorbachev has faced and they are emotionally difficult for all sides of the question in the Soviet Union. This is about private property. And this is about making decisions and it is very difficult there for people to understand private property and most people are against it. So I think that maybe the the two plus four agreement won't go before any of these institutions for a good long while but I would not interpret it to mean that there will be an effort to reverse the course of history in East and Central Europe. What about the troops in Germany Poland and elsewhere there to be gone by 1994 the polls want the Soviet troops out even sooner and the Soviets are saying we are not going to remove our troops from Poland until the troops are gone from Germany because we need a backup. We need a tale of communication supplies and the rest and the polls are getting very angry. There are reports every day of what's happening to them around the living standards the military standards of the troops in Germany, and I think that they simply are not a military threat they are certainly a social threat. I think they would be more likely to disintegrate and disappear what the Germans seem to be worried about what all Europeans are worried about today. By the way is immigration. Not a return of the Soviet Union it is it is immigration migration of historic proportions from the east across the west and from North Africa northward and they see other societies and their economies besieged by the expectation of hundreds of thousands. If not millions of people fleeing instability and Rampage in the Soviet Union. They expect the same out of the Baltic states. They fear the same from other regions and they put the troops in the Soviet troops in Germany into the same category that there will suddenly be three hundred eighty thousand refugees. I don't know if it'll be that dramatic but I expect that forced to disintegrate or to go home or to do both over the agreed period of time. Thank you. We have a question now from Louis Gibson. Thank you. You just touched on the question that I was going to ask and that is we see as The Break-Up occurred in the Russian monolith an increase in nationalism, whether it is bosc separatists or catalog catalonians and Spain Albania Scerbo serves croatians this rise in intense nationalism how and and I question if the Scandinavian countries have the same economic and political interests as the countries Spain and Portugal and the southern part of Europe? How will this reconcile itself? How can there be any kind of unified European Community when these things are so disruptive and the end of the question actually started at the beginning of the question is the rise in. What is the word there's what I'm looking for? I'm getting too old to find words these days where we have no tolerance for other people. I think in terms of the AFS students that we've had here. The first thing they say is everyone is different. We're in Germany. Everybody's German and in Spain everybody Spanish and in France, everybody's French. Does that question make any sense and can you address it? It does and it gives me the opening to a challenge. I think for American policy that I did not cover over the years of the East-West confrontation. We came to think of Europe as the 12 countries of the European Community First there were six of nine now 12 and when we said Europe, we really meant those 12 and I believe that over that same period of time those twelve came to think of themselves as Europe one of the questions that predated 1989 began to arise in 86 87 and 88 was the relationship of that Europe of 12 to the still Warsaw Pact bound countries of East and Central Europe who were doing what they could reorient their economies to make them have greater Western features and have more Western ties and it was expected that there would be an evolutionary process taking place and that over a period of time the countries of East and Central Europe would change and they would and the community of 12 would act as a magnet and in time decades all of this wood back into the Soviet Union and the human rights and change would come there and of course Evolution turned into Revolution and now the countries of Europe that is the 12th thinking of themselves with Europe are having to ask What is the new year of going to be are we the twelve the Europe or is it the 12 plus the six countries now five countries of the Warsaw Pact and then you have the countries of the European free trade association with the Sweden's and finland's in the neutrals saying wait a second. We're on this continent at also. Also when the argument first broke out it was described as an argument between the deep iners and the widener's the Deep iners of The Twelve said, we don't want all of those extra countries coming in we want to get on with the agenda of single currency of a single Central Bank. We want deeper political institutions. We don't want the distractions the widener's were saying we simply cannot exist that way on the continent. We must make some kind of arrangement and the two countries up first for Austria and turkey. With the unification of Germany The Defenders have been saying we must really proceed with deepening in order to tie Germany firmly to the west and others have been saying we must widen the scope now that we have this opportunity so that Germany and the strength of Germany exists within a broader political Coalition. I do not believe may be here. I'm just being a well-trained diplomat. I don't believe the courses of action are exclusive. But the one that worries me is the one the replaces the east west division with a division of The Haves and the Have Nots you mentioned nationality conflict wherever you look the Common Thread is poverty. It is having nothing. It is centuries of feeling exploited the centuries of feeling that there is no way to change the condition in which you find yourself and you look to others than as the source of your tribulation. And so I believe that the answer for Europe is prosperity for more of its country's prosperity for more of its people and where you have Prosperity. You see that that other agenda tends to diminish it isn't gone but it diminishes one at one of the most fractious countries in Europe is Belgium. Language problems religion problems but a prosperous Belgium has found a way to contain that within a political system. There's an Unwritten Accord and it works. It is becoming increasingly true. I think in Spain where you are seeing less and less of the terrorism as Prosperity extends to more two more groups. So my fear is that the Europe of the 12 will be too smug. To recognize the danger to its own prosperity of a new Division and that danger will be in the kind of conflict that you have described of instability uncertainty as a Revenge taking for four centuries of of perceived hurt and I think the American foreign policy posture has to be to encourage the 12 to widen even as they look to the deepening and if we have to make a choice, then I would often favor of a wider Europe in order to draw people into systems that give them some hope of prosperity. Thank you Ambassador. You're listening to Ambassador. Rosin Ridgeway speaking to the Minnesota meeting on the Stations of the Minnesota Public Radio a question here from ronbo call. Ambassador Ridgeway with all of these tugs and pulls on fragmentation protectionism and Gat and the overriding unifying forces of EC 92 and others. How do you see the leadership Dynamic playing out over the next twenty ten or Twenty Years both personal and institutional. Where is that leadership going to come from particularly in the light of acceptance or lack of it's from leadership from Germany. Within the community or talking within the community. Well, there's a very elaborate dance going on at the moment that everyone is aware of it. Everyone is sort of on the dance floor at the same time. Germany is very wealthy and Germany has tested its political institutions and has found them strong and it has a tremendous task and the rebuilding of Eastern Germany larger. I think than it thought and larger than we thought but it Remains the most powerful country on the continent and it's trying to get everybody to believe that it is not and everybody else is out there on the dance floor is also trying to make sure that while they know that Germany is the biggest player on that dance floor that they have a chance in fact to do some partnering and in a way this I think sets things back. I'm not troubled. I do not share the history that some do I recognize that but I am not troubled by the prospect of German leadership on the continent and I am troubled by the fact that we're going to go to such great efforts to mask it and to pretend that it isn't there that we will allow Germany to escape from that leadership. I believe one of the major challenges in German foreign policy that lies ahead is to explain to the West after the gulf crisis. Just exactly what the new Germany expects its Global role to be you cannot be that influential that decisive in world affairs and opt out and if Germany is told by many on the continent that a decent Behavior would be to be less obvious less visible and allow us to make the decisions and I think it feeds into Were into a tendency to opt out entirely and that would not be good for Germany and it would not be good for future Global foreign policy. There are in fact as we all know to countries that must find their way to a real post-war foreign policy one is Germany and one is Japan Germany has the institutions of the economic Community the political institutions as well as the economic Community to to give it a sustaining support and Japan in Asia does not have that and so Japan also does not yet feel comfortable. I believe with an understanding of its place as a regional power and we on our part also are not yet comfortable with a view of Japan as a regional power. So we do a lot of of pointing and shouting and accusing back and forth but in the capitals of say Tokyo Bond and Washington, there's a lot of hard. Going to be down about what kind of Partners we want those countries of ours to be in the next Century. I think they should be major Global Partners. And I do not think they should be allowed to say that they are Regional economic Powers with no Global responsibilities. Thank you Ambassador Ridgeway a question from Henry Montgomery. Ambassador sometimes countries do one thing let's say another not uncommon. I'm wondering Gorbachev change of face is a very emotional thing that we hear a lot about it in the Press. What a different person he's become why do we expect him to preside over the breakup of the USSR? The each go its individual way. We didn't mr. Lincoln in the United States was not really out to free the slaves. He was out to keep the nation together. Shouldn't we let mr. Gorbachev do the same thing in his economy. Let me start quickly by saying I do not agree that there's a parallel here between Gorbachev in Lincoln or the American Civil War and what's happening in the Soviet Union. I know that the current the new Soviet Ambassador Soviet foreign minister who's a colleague of mine of many years was recently in Washington and was trying to get the administration to see things in those terms. But if you do the history of the Soviet Union, you know that the basis on which all of those pieces joined the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1920 to and 24 and then the Baltic states in 1940 is quite different from the Constitutional conventions that people subscribe to voluntarily in the 17 in the 1790s my message to Gorbachev if I were delivering would one would be The Soviet Union is going to fall apart anyway. Now what is the better basis for rebuilding blood or instability and I would argue it's instability. I do not think he or anyone else can hang on to that current collection of things that make up the Soviet Union and the you can go backwards and crush it under tank treads or you can go forward and throw a lot of people out onto the street through Unemployment and price change in price reform. Those are really the dramatically put the two the two courses of action. I think he should have gone forward take the instability take the uncertainty the uncertainty and indeed take the revolution in the streets, but it is a different kind of Revolution. Then what he's going to get or someone else is going to get inevitably as a result of tank treads people would be willing then those elements of the Soviet Union that want to reconstruct their relationship to the center would find it I think More congenial to reconstruct a central relationship if he had chosen reform rather than repression that they would voluntarily come back saying look we can't make it there are parts of the Soviet Union that simply cannot make it on their own the Gaga lose people in Moldavia, for example for whom a new relationship with the senator might be of great interest, but not if if the road to that as I say is marred by tank treads. So our interest is is I I believe is in saying to him that all of this needs to be reconstructed. Anyway, so choose the two the two paths now if he says look I have to stay in power and if I don't go the way I'm going because the Army and the KGB or whatever is happening to him then I don't I don't think we can do much beyond that. We are essentially without influence inside the borders of the Soviet Union. And we can only appeal to the man's common sense as to what's likely to have the better outcome. And if he doesn't agree with that we have no way of imposing a point of view. We have a question now from Inga Thompson. Hello, the United Nations structures can be changed as governments can change their policies and what support in the unified Europe. Do you sort of feel toward a more unified Global governance particularly in its judicial decisions, you know with with enforcement Powers. I think that the the larger the unit becomes the less likely countries wanting are going to give it enforcement powers that can be employed without reference back to the individual countries. That is they are not going to be saying to the United Nations. You can go do what you want in the middle of whatever the United Nations is not going to say to an international bureaucracy. You make any decision that you want about the Middle East. You don't have to ask us you have your own Force you have your own international law and you can go impose it. I don't see that coming for a long time the best that I And I'm not so certain I favorite because I don't like large governments that have no way of reaching back to Grassroots and that would be a mighty big government. And so I think the coalition's Partnerships what colleagues of mine in Washington called in a recent publication focused strategic Partnerships issue by issue groups of Nations. Small Regional institutions are the ones most likely to be to to act to enforce a law or a point of view long before the International Community will be given that kind of enforcement Authority. And so I'm not so certain that I favored an International Community of global Dimension having enforcement Authority that can be employed without coming back to the countries in the citizens involved. Thank you. We have one more question from Harlan, Cleveland. I was part of the dream ever since the Second World War. My name is dream and the dream that you and then she ate it earlier is a Europe that has a foreign policy Europe that Expresses in global Affairs the values of European civilization. the first test of that in the post-cold war period Europeans were all over the lot in disarray. So I was a little surprised to find you so sanguine about They're developing a foreign policy anytime soon. Could you spell that out a little bit more? Well, I think Europe will be able to have a common foreign policy more common the farther the problem gets from Europe. I would expect the there will not be a common policy about what to do on the continent of Europe. There will not be a common policy about what to do with the Soviet Union and I think in fact that is one of the areas where most Europeans will turn to the United States to be the counterweight the balance and and a partner in forging something that they can all stand behind whatever the current requirements are. But I believe as you move in the immediate area of the Middle East that there will be European interests more common among themselves and common to us true. I think the UK and France have a different history there. Germany has not only different history of the region broadly but has its special obligations to Israel which it which it follows a siddhu. Like but I think their view of a prospective for example International Conference on the Middle East would be much more positive than the American view has been and I would expect their sense of the requirements of Palestine State Palestinian State the requirements to accommodate whatever it is that's known as Arab nationalism that they're their understanding and appreciation of that and I don't use those as positive words perhaps I should say their knowledge of it would be greater than ours. And I think that we will begin to differ then regionally. I think they have a different view in Asia. They're going to have a different view in Africa. They did on South Africa for a long time and it's in those areas. If you get far enough from home, you will find European unity and foreign policy you get very close to home. They will shatter along the traditional lines.