08 September 2010

Clinton: U.S. Building Global Alliances and Partnerships

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — Continuing U.S. global leadership in the 21st century will help build alliances and partnerships to solve shared challenges and promote global advances in areas such as development, nuclear nonproliferation and human rights, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says.

Speaking September 8 at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Clinton said that although there is a need for a new global architecture to replace the bipolar approach to the world that characterized the Cold War years, the world continues to look to the United States for leadership.

“When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us. When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to us,” she said.

“The United States can, must and will lead in this new century. Indeed, the complexities and connections of today’s world have yielded a new American moment, a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways,” she said.

The United States seeks to build a new global architecture that consists of “a network of alliances and partnerships, regional organizations and global institutions,” that Clinton said will be “durable and dynamic enough to help us meet today’s challenges and adapt to threats that we cannot even conceive of, just as our parents never dreamt of melting glaciers or dirty bombs.”

While only people and nations can solve problems, an architecture of alliances and other partnerships “can make it easier to act effectively by supporting the coalition forging and compromise building that is the daily fare of diplomacy,” Clinton said, as well as help “identify common interests and convert them to common action” and delineate “clear obligations and expectations” for all.

The United States “has the reach and resolve” to mobilize the world to cooperate to solve shared problems and build shared progress, she said, and this model of American leadership “offers the best hope in a dangerous world.”

Under President Obama, global economic development is seen as “a strategic, economic and moral imperative,” on a par with U.S. interests in diplomacy and defense, and it reflects the need for shared responsibility among nations in the 21st century, she said.

“Helping other nations develop that capacity to solve their own problems and participate in solving other shared problems has long been a hallmark of American leadership,” she said, and with the world growing ever more interconnected, U.S. security and prosperity is becoming more dependent on “the ability of others to take responsibility for defusing threats and meeting challenges in their own countries and regions.”

The new strategy seeks to help developing countries “obtain the tools and support they need to solve their own problems; to help people lift themselves, their families and their societies out of poverty, away from extremism and towards sustainable progress,” she said.

The secretary acknowledged areas where the Obama administration and some of its global partners do not agree, such as the expansion of democracy and human rights, which she said should be “cemented into the foundations” of global institutions.

“There’s no point in trying to build institutions for the 21st century that don’t act to counter repression and resist pressure on human rights, [which] extend fundamental freedoms over time to places where they have too long been denied,” she said. Investing to create opportunities for women is also important not only to expand their rights but also to help drive broader social and economic progress, Clinton said.

It is important to deepen U.S. relationships with emerging world powers and share the burden of solving common challenges, and “our goal is to establish productive relationships that survive the times when we do not agree, and that enable us to continue to work together,” Clinton said.

Clinton pointed to the international community’s response to Iran’s nuclear activities as an “example of American leadership in action,” showing how the Obama administration’s openness to direct engagement with Iran and its willingness to lead by example by adhering to its own obligations under the global nonproliferation regime have helped build support for ensuring that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.

“Through classic shoe-leather diplomacy, we’ve built a broad consensus that will welcome Iran back into the community of nations if it meets its obligations, and will likewise hold Iran accountable if it continues its defiance,” she said. As a result of this approach, the U.N. Security Council passed its strongest and most comprehensive range of sanctions against Iran, with other nations implementing their own additional measures, including Australia, Canada, Norway and Japan.

“We know that Iran is under tremendous pressure. Early returns from implementation of the sanctions are that they’re feeling the economic effects. We would hope that that would lead them to reconsider their positions,” she said.

Similarly, with respect to North Korea’s nuclear activities, “we are continuing to send a very clear message … about what we expect,” as well as what diplomatic engagement could offer “if they are willing to return and discuss seriously denuclearization that is irreversible,” Clinton said.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)