Setting the Tone
By Dr. Jackson Janes

There are certain phrases in one language that are difficult to translate into another. A person may know what is generally meant but some words set a certain tone that does not have the same resonance in another language. The meaning of gemütlich in German does not quite find an English counterpart. The use of the word "stranger" to greet someone in the U.S. cannot quite be replaced with the word Fremder in German.

Last week, President Bush talked a lot about freedom in his inauguration speech, a word the meaning of which both Germans and Americans generally agree on how to interpret. The interpretation of Bush's speech however seems to be a different matter. While Americans bickered about the policy implications of Bush's pronouncements, Germans focused heavily on the frequent use of the word "freedom," uncertain of what the president intends for the world. "Bush is threatening: with more freedom" led a headline in a German newspaper. On the heels of an almost hysterical reaction to a report about alleged U.S. plans to attack Iran, the German critics saw the president's speech as a confirmation of the same missionary zeal which led him to attack Iraq.

For Germans, a key message and cause for anxiety in the speech was the idea that extending freedom around the world was necessary to preserve American freedom at home. What concerns the Germans about this link between the domestic and the foreign is whether, in the pursuit of liberty and peace at home, Bush will push U.S. views on the rest of the world with or without anyone else's input or consent.

Anyone reading inaugural speeches of American presidents will see familiar themes in Bush's statement. It mirrored everyone from Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton. It was particularly reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's elevation of human rights as a part of the foreign policy goals of the United States. Wanting to make the world safe for democracy is nothing new in the American foreign policy debate. How to do it, however, remains at the core of that same debate.

Speaking of freedom as a foreign policy goal should not be anything new in Germany. Twenty years ago, Helmut Kohl's mantra amidst the last few years of the Cold War was to preserve peace and freedom (Frieden und Freiheit) with an emphasis on the importance of both. That message was aimed at those who were worried about the escalation of confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States because Germany was geographically positioned at center stage of the east-west clash. Drawing the lessons from that Cold War experience has led some Germans and Americans to arrive at different conclusions about the means and ends which ended that stalemate. While Americans might believe that it was the threat of deterence and military superiority that faced down the Soviets, Germans might conclude that it was the détente and dialogue which ultimately undermined the basis for the Soviet empire. In fact, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a result of both, not to speak of the enormous courage it took for those on the other side of that wall to challenge their own systems in the name of securing freedom. "Frieden und Freiheit" were the twin goals to be achieved by using all the available tools of diplomacy. A look at Europe today is ample evidence that the tools were effective. It is also that to which both the president and his new secretary of state point, and particularly Germany, as the model for those efforts in the future.

Arguing the importance of freedom as a principle and a goal for American foreign policy, indeed for any foreign policy, is neither new nor surprising. It is the interpretation of the methods and priorities with which they both are to be achieved that is a basis for debate. Negative reaction in Germany to the president's speech cannot be understood without considering the widespread doubt about his sincerity in the wake of the Iraq war, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, and the interpretation that Bush is all too eager to move ahead with military muscle "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world." Not the objective is questionable, but whether Bush will be working with the rest of the world to accomplish it with a full range of tools and a full recognition of everyone's interests in the process.

There will be plenty of opportunity for the president to discuss this further with his European friends next month. And there will also be plenty of opportunities to define and apply principles to the realities we all face today. Perhaps it might be useful to paraphrase Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as a basis for practical discussion: when confronting challenges, you deal with the world you have, not the world you may want or wish to have at a later time. But it does not hurt occasionally to remember why we are working together even if we are sometimes using different words to describe it.

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This essay appeared in the January 27, 2005 AICGS Advisor.