Avuncular American

In Washington, With All Its Denizens

Denizen-in-Chief, Barack Obama, is on the cover of maps sold to tourists.  I can't tell you what it means to pass by Pennsylvania Avenue and know that a good man, a smart man is in residence there.  That said, as I was contemplating the change since I last set foot in this city (circa November 2006) and looking at the American flag fluttering in the floodlights, I almost tripped over a rather fat rat, scurrying across the sidewalk.  Oh well, not everything has changed. 

The panhandlers are still here, though they don't seem any more numerous in these straitened times.  They've always been a feature of Washington, ever since Reagan-era closings of places like mental institutions simply put people out on the street who had nowhere else to go.

No, the rat was not a squirrel - I saw plenty of them in today's daylight.  The autumn colors were lovely as the plane swooped down to Dulles.  It's nice to be back, and next time I'll report on what the locals tell me.

Transatlantic Trends: Can US Surf Obama's Wave In Europe?

The 8th annual Transatlantic Trends survey of European and American attitudes is out.  I must first qualify "European," which includes non-EU Turkey (which is not even in Europe, according to many), but does not include a number of EU countries.  No Scandinavians, no Balts?  Likewise, "American" is just that: North American partners in NATO, the Canadians, don't figure in the report.  Maybe next time, funding permitting.

That said, it is a fascinating survey of public opinion on a range of important policy issues, from what to do about Afghanistan to whether to kowtow to the Russians.  And don't presume you know where public opinion in selected countries already stands on these questions.  Ronald Asmus, the German Marshall Fund's Executive Director in Brussels and former Clinton Administration State Department appointee, says that a common reaction to his numbers is "that can't be so!"

Yes, the numbers don't lie: "Old Europe" Westerners are generally more pro-NATO and pro-US than their "New Europe" Eastern counterparts (Donald Rumsfeld must be saying "that can't be so!!").  And Turks - whom successive US administrations have adopted as their favorite EU candidate country - haven't gotten over their Iraq War slump, when Rumsfeld's Deputy Paul Wolfowitz tried to sic the Turkish Army on a recalcitrant elected civilian government.  Turkish attitudes toward the US - though improved over the Bush years - are the least susceptible to the Obama charm.

But the sheer magnitude of the "Obama Bounce," as Asmus likes to call the chart-topping effect, is what is so different.   "Unprecedented," says Asmus, of the 70 point jump in approval ratings between Bush and Obama (in the case of German public opinion).

I wish I had another slide that was shown at the recent GMFUS briefing, a composite of similar surveys taken since 1952, where European opinion of the US has had its momentary ups and downs, but nothing like the abyssal depths of the Bush years, followed by the bends-inducing rise beyond the surface after Obama's appearance on the scene.

Okay, all this is refreshing but what to do with it?  Confirmed Atlanticist Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, German Liberal Member of the European Parliament, called the findings evidence of "political capital."  "Now, let us use it," he said.   Indeed.

So I pose that very question to the public diplomacy community, which knows that it is good to have public opinion on your side.  How can the Obama Administration build on this groundswell of European public opinion in favor of the person of Barack Obama, which, as the survey shows, does not always have its corollary in support for US policies?

In a week where some of his fellow citizens called him a liar, it has to be reassuring in the White House and in Foggy Bottom that the Obama magic still appears to be working on the European side of the Atlantic.

Planet Earth: The Final Frontier

Yes, yes.  Happy 40th moon landing anniversary, NASA.  There are celebrations galore to mark the event, which I suppose is fine, given the general gloom prevailing.  But let's not get carried away.  There is nothing on the moon - or on Mars - that is nearly as important as there is on Earth.

Listening to all the Apollo nostalgia, you hear lots of stuff about not only exploring Mars, but colonizing it.  And some even see this as the ultimate escape from a dying Earth.  These people, I submit, have watched too many Star Trek episodes.

Even former astronaut Buzz Aldrin has succumbed to the mania, calling in today's Washington Post for "the first homestead in space: an American colony on a new world."  Oh my.

Climate change on a vast scale has reshaped Mars. With Earth in the throes of its own climate evolution, human outposts on Mars could be a virtual laboratory to study these vast planetary changes.

Well, Buzz, the real life laboratory is Earth in the here and now, and the goal has to be keeping Earth green and livable, not studying how Mars became the Red Planet.

Almost every day, there is a new dire report on how bad things have become so quickly, whether it's our seas becoming acidic, our glaciers melting, or the tropics heading north.  Doing the necessary on an urgent basis - drastically reducing greenhouse gases, protecting forests and wetlands, to name only a few priorities - will require effort that will dwarf that of the space program.

Do we want to divert precious resources from the fight to save Earth to mount a quixotic attempt to colonize a planet millions of miles away?  Talk about a distraction from Priority Number One.  Maybe we need a massive "place branding" campaign for the place that can't be replaced - Earth.

I'm no Luddite, and admit that research for space exploration has produced highly useful spinoffs in the battle to save planet Earth.  But we Earthlings cannot entertain notions of trashing our planet and finding refuge on Mars.  We can't just continue to pollute our way to the next pristine wilderness; there aren't any left.  It worked for a while - picture American pioneers heading ever Westward - but the trash builds up, if not in landfills, then in terms of carbon trash in the air and in our oceans.  The atmosphere - the ultimate bubble - holds it all in.

So honor those astronauts, engineers, and scientists who gave us the original Moon Walk, but harbor no illusions about Mars providing a home away from home.  And the next time you hear a politician go on about Mars exploration, bring him down to Earth.

(image: AppleWorks clipart)

Swedish Breath of Fresh Air for Europe

This post first appeared in Euractiv/Blogactiv's Errant European.

To our Swedish friends who have taken over the helm of the EU Presidency, hej! (pronounced "hey," which makes saying hello so easy for Americans in Sweden).

To the people from Prague who kept the seat (luke)warm for six months, ahoj! ("goodbye" in Czech; couldn't find "good riddance" in the online dictionary).

After six months of the frenetic French présidence, followed by six months of Czech I-don't-want-to-be-here questioning of the very concept of Europe, we will now return to a more classic activist term by a government of committed Europeans.

I confess to a certain affinity for the Swedes, in part because my daughter has been studying there for the past year. I've only been there twice, but Stockholm has to be one of the most functional and beautiful capital cities in the world, and the city of Lund on the other side of the country is an historic university town nestled in beautiful countryside.

But it's the Swedes' success in melding capitalism and social welfare and environmental responsibility that will serve it well over the next six months. Last fall, as the Bush Administration was floundering with its bank bailouts, more than one observer pointed to the Swedish experience in the '90s, when it rescued - with strings attahed - its banking industry.

The timing of the Swedish presidency is either inspired or fortunate, or both, given the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference. The EU will have at its helm a country that walks the walk when it comes to environmentalism of the practical sort.

Not that it will be all sweetness and light: the Russians have already said nyet to the Stockholm venue for EU-Russia talks. And the Swedish Presidency will have to deal with the unresolved matters of the second term of EU Commission Chairman Jose Manuel Barroso and the still unratified Lisbon Treaty.

But it will be a breath of fresh air to have a coordinated, conscientious, and image-conscious leadership at the European Council. Just look at the logo above for the just-inaugurated Swedish Presidency. Its simplicity is worthy of the country that gave us IKEA and its universally-recognized brand.

Maybe the Swedes can give the European brand a lift while they're at it.  Anything beats the Crayola coloring book approach of the Czechs.

Europe's Multiplicity of Messengers

At a recent Brussels conference on the international media, it took an octogenarian to cut to the heart of things: the creation of the European Union has helped prevent war on a continent that has known many wars, and was at the center of two World Wars in the last century. Ferdinando Riccardi of Agence Europe, an institution that predates the European Union which it covers for subscribers, has been aware of this message for the fifty-plus years he has been reporting from Brussels. War is news, but absence of war is, well, absence of news.

That “message” is not new, in fact it is of such glaring self-evidence that it is now almost invisible. Too bad, and too bad that the campaign for the European Parliament is such a yawn, as described recently by The Economist’s Charlemagne. The European Parliament, says Charlemagne, “is worse than dull: it does not work properly. Like a student union, only with better expenses, it spends an inordinate amount of time on subjects way outside its mandate, such as foreign policy and defence.”  Most Belgians are aware of regional elections scheduled alongside the European Parliament elections next month; voting for MEPs is almost an afterthought for many.

For the international journalists gathered at the conference organised by IERI, “who speaks for Europe?” is more than a matter of whom to phone for an interview. Labib Fahmy, Brussels correspondent for Al-Jazeera, spoke of “misunderstood Europe,” the victim of its multiplicity of institutions (Commission, Council, Parliament). Sounding like an Arab Henry Kissinger, he asked “who is Europe?” American readers will be surprised to learn that Fahmy’s struggle to explain Europe to his audience (“Inside Europe”) has languished, while, “despite difficulties,” the Stateside program “Inside Washington” carries on.

Quentin Dickinson (a Frenchman with Scottish forebears) of Radio France Internationale (RFI) has covered the European Union from Brussels for years, and has seen the evolution of Europe’s spokesmen. From the days when spokesmen knew more about the subject than about spin, to today’s tendency to hire “communications” experts, with the result that the experienced journalist hardly consults them if he or she is looking for hard news.

Last word to the dean of the international Brussels correspondents, Ferdinando Riccardi.  When Agence Europe was started, the European Union had morphed from its precursor, the European Coal and Steel Community.  That economic, technocratic underpinning - for what in reality is a unique experiment among nation-states, that of surrendering pieces of sovereignty in the name of national interest - still dogs the EU.  “Brussels,” instead of being synonymous with lofty ideals of peace on the European continent, is in most Europeans’ minds another way of saying mindless bureaucracy.

Let’s see what happens if and when the Lisbon Treaty is ratified.  Will there be a super-spokesman, or will he or she just be another “president” with a small “p?”

Can the United States Be a "Normal" Country?

This week, I'm cross-posting two entries in the series that The Hegemonist is running, "Foreign Service Interviews."  I urge you to check out TH, which is a great blog by a serving FS Officer who recently suspended blogging - and has thankfully resumed - when the State Department announced what appeared to be impossible pre-clearance guidelines for what is a rather instant medium.

Here is my answer to TH's question, "What is the biggest foreign policy challenge the U.S. faces?"  I will post separately the other part of the interview.

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Others will say it's brokering a Middle East Peace, solving climate change and resolving energy dependence, or defeating obscurantist terrorist groups. All these are important, vitally so. But I say the biggest challenge is self-perception. Is the United States "the indispensable nation" as Madeleine Albright (and President Clinton) liked to say, or the Reagan/Winthrop "shining city on the hill?"

While I think it's good to aspire to shining images and to try to be as indispensable as possible, what I think the U.S. needs is a dose of humility. Not the kind that George W. Bush preached and didn't practice: "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us," said he during the 2000 campaign. Sounded like Field of Dreams.

More like Field of Nightmares, but we're rid of him, if not his legacy. So if he gave humility a bad rep, how can we describe what is a worthy stance for a great country suffering from a case of post-Bush reality?

How about "normal country?" Hey U.S. - be normal! Normal countries have ups and downs, and we're dealing with the downs right now. But like manic-depressives, we should be wary of going from a self-perception of shining indispensability to morose has-been-ness in the space of a couple of months.

Other countries will still call for "US Leadership," and we should be happy to oblige, as long as it's not just a more polite version of "with us or against us." You can lead by example, and probably should. There's nothing worse than "do as I say..."

From my days at NATO in the mid-nineties (and it really hasn't changed), I knew that everyone knows that the US was the first among consensual equals. We pay the most into the Alliance, and our defense establishment dwarfs all the others combined. But it was bad form to ever remind Allies of that. It was a given. I remember a Big Four (US, UK, France, Germany) ambassador reminding a smaller country's ambassador of their relatively meager contribution to the Alliance's budgets. Boy did that go over badly. No need to rub things in, or to play "my GDP, my population" is bigger than...

So a little dose of normality - or accepting that the US, while big, rich, and powerful, does not have all the solutions - is a bigger challenge than might seem evident. It means admitting that others might have better approaches, for example. Learning from other countries' experience in everything from micro-finance (how about a Grameen Bank approach to sub-prime repossessions in Florida?) to alternative energy (Germany and Denmark could teach us a thing or two about wind power).

Normalcy - hasn't sounded good since Warren Harding mangled the word "normality" - but it might be a way for the U.S. to navigate what is a very abnormal situation in the world.

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P.S. To readers whose second (or n^th) language is English: please don't use the term "normalcy," though it is in Webster's Dictionary.  You'll sound like Warren Harding, who, until George W. Bush usurped his place, had always ranked as the worst ever American President.

Brussels: Capital of Europe or Small (International) City?

"Etats Généraux de Bruxelles" sounds grander than "Citizens' Forum of Brussels," but that is what has been going on over the past several weeks, culminating in an end-of-March final plenary session. I attended one of the conferences last night, "Brussels as an International City," with a Power Point summary of the brussels-international-city (.pdf) study done by a team of "cultural geographers" from Brussels' main universities, ULB and VUB.

A city of a little over one million that houses institutions like the European Union and NATO, and almost a third of its inhabitants from other countries - that qualifies as international, so that's that, right?

Actually, no. Part of the problem is that Brussels - whose name recognition rivals that of Coca Cola, and beats by far the other constituent regions of Belgium (what foreigner, outside of a select few, has ever heard of "Wallonia" or "Flanders?") and of Brand Belgium itself - is synonymous with "bureaucracy." The European Union is at once one of Brussels' major sources of income, and the bane of its efforts to improve its brand or, as was used last night, its "city image."

People pay good money to visit Brussels, whether on business or on holiday. The more than 5 million overnight stays per annum account for some 30,000 jobs. And yet Brussels struggles with its self-image.

European institutions - ably represented at the conference by several articulate "Eurocrats" (though the often pejorative use of the name shows the challenges facing the image folks) - are only now, more than 50 years into their prolonged "temporary" stay in the Belgian capital, coming to grips with how best to fit into the city that houses them.

Brussels, before it became the de facto capital of Europe, was and remains the capital of Belgium. Oh yes, that's yet another image problem. Brussels, officially bilingual French-Dutch, probably has many more anglophones than Dutch-speakers in its midst, and perhaps many more Arabophones than English and Dutch speakers put together.  Cacophony to some, opportunity to others: The Brussels Enterprise Agency (BEA) tries to put the city's assets into context for foreign investors, as does Brussels Export (image above left).

Geographically surrounded by Dutch-speaking Flanders, Brussels' periphery is Ground Zero in the Belgian language wars, which are really political wars masquerading as linguistic ones. The natural region of Brussels - were it not for the political boundaries that are limited to 19 "communes" in the urban center - would in other metropolitan areas stretch to include its economic hinterland.  Some, like writer Marco Martiniello, quoted in yesterday's Le Monde, have even likened Brussels' unenviable political situation to the French acronym for UFO - OVNI - "objet politique non identifié."

So, Brussels has politics (Belgian and European), language (Belgium's own, plus those of polyglot newcomers), and geography to contend with.  A tall order for any city, but an immense challenge given the current morose economic context.

Luckily, the very convening of the "Etats Généraux" and the efforts of BEA and other home town boosters provides cause for hope.  After a stint at NATO in the '90s, we decided to return to Brussels and make it our permanent home.  There's truly no place more international - comforting for lifelong nomadic expats like us.  That feeling of allegiance by Belgians and expats alike was evident last night, though several speakers pointed out that the "Méditerranéens" who constitute a large chunk of central-western Brussels inhabitants were largely absent from the Forum.  At least the lacunae was noticed.

Far from taking its orphan political status lying down, citizens (and hangers-on like us) of Brussels are starting to look closely at their fate.  There's even a new political party in the making, "ProBruxsel," which nicely misspells its very name to show bilingual (even trilingual) inclusiveness between French, Dutch, and English-speaking inhabitants.  A similarly trilingual forum, Brussels Studies, has ambitions to be a "scientific" (meaning academic) meeting place for serious work on the idea of Brussels.

Brussels has started to identify its brand.

(A version of this post first appeared in "Errant European" on Blogactiv.eu)

Obama DOD: Order Mercy & Comfort For Gaza Victims

Let me explain.  The United States Navy operates two hospital ships, the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort (photo).  Robert Gates is the Secretary of Defense, and will continue his job uninterrupted by the upcoming Inauguration - President-Elect Obama has asked him to stay on.

Secretary Gates could issue an order to the Military Sealift Command, in charge of the hospital ships, to bring them out of "reduced operating status (ROS)" at their home port of Baltimore Maryland, which takes a maximum of five days.  *See below for ships' capabilities.

Deployment of one of the hospital ships off the coast of Gaza could be one of the very first actions ordered by the new Commander in Chief.  Already, the French humanitarian relief organization "Medecins Sans Frontieres" is pressing the French government for similar action.  With the close US-Israel ties of which all administrations, Republican and Democratic, are proud, US Navy hospital ships should have a good chance of access to the Gaza coastline.  Once hostilities cease.

Israel chased away an Iranian relief ship the other day, accusing it of aiding Hamas.  Presumably it would not be as inhospitable to an American hospital ship, but you never know.  Israel did sink the USS Liberty during the June 1967 Six Day War.

Since the inhabitants of Gaza have nowhere to go (they are already refugees from previous Arab-Israeli wars, and are blockaded, walled-in, and currently being bombarded day and night), it is appropriate that nations that preach humanitarianism should instead come to them.  Since the munitions raining down on the non-combatants and combatants alike are of US manufacture, it is only fair that US military surgeons help treat the victims.

I've been on board the USNS Comfort.  It's a veritable floating hospital.  It even has a special armored operating room in case the projectile that hit you is still live.

Mr. Gates, please order it to "Stand To."  So that on January 20 (or maybe the 21st), President Obama can make his first command a mission of Mercy - and Comfort.

*Description: Two hospital ships owned and operated by Military Sealift Command provide emergency, on-site care for U.S. combatant forces deployed in war or other operations. The hospital ships' secondary mission is to provide full hospital services to support U.S. disaster relief and humanitarian operations worldwide

Features: USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) and USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) each contain 12 fully-equipped operating rooms, a 1,000 bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT-scan and two oxygen producing plants. Each ship is equipped with a helicopter deck capable of landing large military helicopters. The ships also have side ports to take on patients at sea.

Background: Both hospital ships are converted San Clemente-class super tankers. Mercy was delivered in 1986 and Comfort in 1987. Normally, the ships are kept in a reduced operating status in Baltimore, Md., and San Diego, Calif., by a small crew of civil service mariners and active duty Navy medical and support personnel. Each ship can be fully activated and crewed within five days.

Dubya We Hardly Knew Ye

In some ways, we think we know George W. Bush too well.

He's been President of the United States for eight interminable years.  Today begins his last full week, for those who don't have the official Countdown Out of Office Calendar.

For the 3,000 to 5,000 American families who homes are repossessed daily, Bush has a permanent place in their broken hearts.

To the families of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died since his invasion of their country, "Boosh" will be shorthand for their multiple reasons to hate.  To the families of American soldiers killed there, they will not be able to see his name without remembering who sent their sons and daughters to his war of choice.

And for generations of Americans to come, he will be remembered as the leader who saddled them with insurmountable debt and a stricken economy, rivaling Herbert Hoover in opprobrium.

(Thanks to MAD Magazine and Warner Bros. for their unforgettable poster)

But do we know George W. Bush at all?  Don't look for much help in his endless series of "legacy" interviews, where he finds fault with everyone but himself for the country's parlous state.  Not much help either from the "biopic" by Oliver Stone, despite Josh Brolin's best efforts at impersonification, as Dubya might say.  What is George W. Bush?

Anti-government? (though he expanded both government payroll and national debt as no President before him).  Christianist zealot? (though jeopardized the lives of his fellow religionists in the Middle East, who lost a longtime safe haven in Iraq).  "Master of Business Administration?" (his MBA got him nowhere in "managing" the meltdown brought on by his policy of malign neglect).  I suspect the books analyzing his psyche will continue to be legion, to be added to groaning bookshelves full of tomes attacking his policies while in office.

My apologies to fans of the Irish tune "Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye," and to Kenneth O'Donnell, who appropriated the title for his book on the lamented John F. Kennedy.  No one will lament Dubya.  But he remains an enigma.

I've been reminded by conservative readers that W. probably won't be - and they think he shouldn't be - tried for war crimes.  On the prediction, they're probably right.  On his guilt, well you just have to read the indictment.  It will take more than four or eight years of an Obama Administration to wash away the stain that Bush's torture policies left on a sullied American reputation.

But here's a Travel Warning to the soon-to-be-ex-President: if I were you, I would avoid travel to democratic countries that have an independent judiciary.  Once out of office, the aura of the US Presidency and the immunity it affords will no longer be a force to dissuade prosecutors who respect human rights.  You might just get pursued beyond the borders of Crawford, so it might be best to lie low.

And please, please, don't write any books.  Even Spell Check won't be able to correct your twisting of the language, and of the truth.  Just cut some brush, and fade away.  We won't be needing your advice any more, thank you.

Faraway Fields of Lake Wobegon

Checking in after my Christmas-New Year's hiatus far from internet connections.  Actually, far from publicly-available internet connections that were not closed over the holidays.  I've been in provincial France.

On our drive back towards Brussels, we got into range of BBC on our car radio, and a couple of reports provided food for thought.  One was on Britain's (or, I should say Britons') self image in years of late: rather glum, with a tendency in the media to dwell on bad news (teenage knife crime, binge drinking, loutish behavior, etc).

But to a large number of Germans, who gather for such rituals as Scottish country dancing and other rites connected with Great Britain, the United Kingdom is the promised land.  We all know the old Irish expression "Faraway fields look green."  Sometimes you have to travel beyond the confines of your own borders to appreciate your country for what it's worth - or to see it as others see it.  That's a running theme in this blog, of course.  An expatriate view of America and the world from Europe.

So if the BBC report showed Brits how much their low societal esteem is unjustified, another BBC report showed how individual Brits have a rather high regard for themselves.  In part, this is the "Lake Wobegon Effect," Garrison Keillor's imaginary place "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

According to the BBC, in matters of intelligence, civility, and driving skills, 60% of the population place themselves in the top 20%.  I would guess that this doesn't happen exclusively in Britain or in Lake Wobegon.

But if people put themselves (or their children) in the top bracket, why do they often sell their country short, or think that things have to be better elsewhere?  Though it can be carried too far, a bit of international comparative shopping is healthy.  Especially if you live in a state of mind that makes you think your country is better than anywhere else.

So why don't we resolve to do this in 2009: use those "sister city" links for some real world uses.  LIke looking for best practices?  American city planners could check out how European cities are taking on the automobile and making downtowns accessible by public transportation.

French people, fond of complaining about everything, including their world-class medical system, might be sent on an internship to the US, where they could navigate America's health-care "situation."

Short of these exchanges, maybe we should all just admit that other people/countries might do things better than we do, or conversely that sometimes things just aren't so bad in our own countries as we've convinced ourselves they are.  Either way, we just have to open our minds that there is no monopoly on ways to run a country or society properly.