1814, 1914, 2014: Opening Presentation, Keynote and Discussion

as president of the salsburg global seminar to welcome all of you here to scho Leopold scr for This truly historic Gathering 2014 already has seen many memorials to the destruction Unleashed in 1914 as we looked at accelerating crises around the world we saw an opportunity to use this Gathering to do something different to focus on what lessons from the past could say to us about Visions for the future Edward Mortimer in his foundation paper for this meeting reminds us that the Congress of Vienna which brought together Statesmen from across Europe after the ravages of the Napoleonic Wars established a system that produced a period of relative peace in Europe until it all came crashing down a century later Edward raises and this meeting will examine whether today we are more like The Architects of 1914 or like those excuse me of 1814 are like those in 1914 sleepwalking their way into a nightmare we think this offers more than a clever Point of Departure rather it summons us to Serious soul searching lest our vision our leadership fail the tests before us now and produce consequences for the world potentially Graver even than the horrors Unleashed by the first World War this Gathering has been developed through close cooperation between two institutions salsburg Global seminar and the International Peace Institute when we discovered one year ago that we were both planning to host events on this historic occasion we decided to combine efforts and by the time you leave here we hope that you will agree with us that dialogue cooperation and partnership have triumphed yet again salsburg Global seminar was born in 1947 out of the ravages of Another War and was the vision of three students at Harvard University one a young Austrian Clemens hel they believe that former enemies could together talk and learn and imagine a peaceful future for Europe and for the world they argued for a Marshall Plan of the Mind as a critical element of recovery salsburg Global's own frame of reference was stretched much wider during the presidency of Bradford Morse before coming to salsburg the under Secretary General of the United Nations and legendary director for 10 years of the United Nations development program president Morris took steps to make salsburg seminar truly Global in scope especially drawing in participants from East Asia the Middle East and other regions salsburg Global Builds on that Legacy today examining world problems from differing perspectives and providing a safe place where inconvenient truths and new ideas can be expressed we are as well an incubator for Rising leaders and Global innovators providing them a platform and connecting them to one another and to those in positions of influence and power we're honored and delighted that those here today come not only from countries on six continents but from different professions and backgrounds this week offers all of us the opportunity to cross boundaries not just on the ground but in our minds let me recognize and thank those who have joined with IPI and salsburg Global to make this event possible in particular we thank the foreign ministries of Canada and Norway for their support of this program I want to end by saluting the International Peace Institute and its extraordinary staff LED of course by its president T Rod Larson at every step along the way we've been inspired by ipi's commitment to peace and by its ability to persuade outstanding thinkers and decision makers to engage the evidence well it's here in this room and will be throughout the next several days it's now my honor and pleasure to introduce the IPI president to Ron lson excellencies ladies and gentlemen dear friends good morning everybody it is indeed my pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the International Peace Institute to this I believe as you do historic event I'm very happy to tell you that one of my staff members equipped that this could be the most important meeting in Austria since the Congress of Vienna that might be a slight exaggeration but let's see what I do know is that we have assembled a top caliber group of people look at each other uh here to discuss some of the most pertinent issues of the day and what a wonderful place to do it this is the beautiful and historic schlo Leb grr and thank you all for coming here our this week is not to dwell on the past rather it is to look through the lens of History to provide lessons and inspiration for dealing with the crisis of today and preparing for the challenges of tomorrow we have purposely invited people from different backgrounds we have historians with us we have journalists we have diplomats Statesmen States women and we have artists in order to take a Fresh Approach the very reason why we asked you to come here is that the status quo isn't working which I think we will hear many examples of in the next couple of days one thing I would like to stress from the outset this meeting is designated to promote dialogue we don't want to hear speeches indeed there are no easy answers we want to stop and take the time to think together about the world situation and see if we can make it better I do strongly believe that the collective wisdom and experience that has been brought together here for the next few days can transform the way we think about adaptation to dramatic and rapid changes now on some procedural issues with the exception of this opening session and the panels tomorrow morning this meeting will take place under chatam house Rule and that of course as you all know means that you can refer to the content of what was said here but not to attribute it to the speaker ladies and gentlemen when we started planning this meeting a year ago the hook was the anniversaries of 1814 and 1914 but so many crisis have erupted in 2014 that this meeting is taking on an added significance I encourage you to use the opportunity of the discussion sessions as well as the more informal sessions to uh on the palace grounds to debate and discuss ways of enhancing International Peace and security I hope that uh through our deliberations and policy recommendations we can develop ideas and maybe recommendations that might have a potential to impact positive changes I would like to thank the foreign Min ministries of Canada and Norway and the ministers themselves John be who is with us um um the Norwegian foreign minister Mr berer Brenda was instructed by his prime minister to go on very short noce to um Iraq I think it's in Baghdad right now so he could unfortunately not be with us today however I'm very pleased that his Deputy Hans Brar um a skilled and experienced Diplomat is here in his place and I would would also like to um thank once again uh the support from uh Canada and Norway which has made this event possible I would also like to take this opportunity to thank um uh Steven suer CLA shine and the whole team here at the salburg global seminar for their cooperation I think we should give them a round of applause and now it is my very great pleasure to in introduce our keynote speaker namely Margaret McMillan we are very very lucky to have Margaret here with us because she is arguably the world's greatest expert on the first world war her two books on the topic entitled The peacemakers and most recently The Fabulous book the war that ended peace are both bests Sellers and priz winners Professor [Applause] McMillan is a warden of St Anthony's College in Oxford she is a professor of international history a fellow and a board member of many prestigious institutions and a frequent commentator in the media she holds several honorary degrees and is a recipient of the Order of Canada and I was very interested to learn that her great grandfather was David Lloyd George so thank you for your kind attention and uh Margaret welcome you have the floor thank you for being with us it's all [Applause] good well thank you very much for that very kind introduction I I would say too kind but it was very nice to hear it so thank you um and I'd like to thank as well the International Peace Institute and the salsburg global seminar for putting this event on and for inviting me to take part part in it it's a great honor and a great pleasure pleasure also to be in this extraordinary building and to be in Saltsburg in the summer so thank you all for making this possible I'm going to of course look at this as an historian and I hope you'll forgive me if I go back to 1814 and the years immediately afterwards because I think there are some interesting parallels and some interesting thoughts which come out of looking at the past I'm always wary of lessons from the past partly because you can find any lesson you want in the past um there's an awful lot of past out there and if you want to find lessons if you want to find guidance you can I think find pretty much anything you want um what I think the P can do is act like warnings it can act like the sort of warnings you see when you're driving which said this road has a dangerous curve ahead or this road is particularly dangerous in Winter and I think this is what history can help us do it can offer warnings and some guidance perhaps as to how to avoid the pitfalls that others have fallen into to in the past I think 1814 1914 and 2014 of course occurred in very different periods in very different circumstances but I think there are some interesting and provocative similarities all I think it is fair to say were pivotal moments in world history we can see it clearly in 1814 that long period of the French Revolutionary Wars and then the Napoleonic Wars came to an end and a very different world eded that period of War 1914 was the end of that long period of Peace almost unprecedented in European history from 1814 to 1914 there were it is true short Wars in Europe but they were generally decisive Wars and they generally were over very quickly indeed and so Europeans could be forgiven for thinking by 1914 that they were living in a world where war was becoming obsolete that it was not something at least they in Europe did anymore and that they could EXP expect another Century of extraordinary progress peace and prosperity because that is what they look back on in 1914 and of course we know now that 1914 was not going to be the beginning of yet another prosperous Century it was going to be the beginning of one of the worst centuries in Europe and world history 2014 of course is more difficult to see because we're in the middle of it but I think we would all agree that the events that have taken place since the beginning of this year are in the elves worrying and seem to suggest that certain shifts are occurring in the world certain things are happening in the world the consequences of which I think will be with us for a long time and so I think there is real real value in looking at these three key moments 100 years apart I think similarities among them all are that they took place in Worlds that were in the process of becoming increasingly interconnected Europe was more interdependent as a result of the Napoleonic Wars partly because of what those Wars themselves did but also because the beginnings of the great transformation of the Industrial Revolution was starting to take place and travel was in the process and Communications were in the process of becoming better across Europe and of course the period of 1914 was a period of increased interdependence not just in Europe but increasingly globally the Great era of globalization before our own was those two decades before the first world War when the world was linked in so many ways when you had massive movements of capital of goods and indeed of people around the world something that was really only paralleled in the years after the end of the Cold War I think all three periods 184 1914 and 2014 also were periods in which the very changes that were taking place were causing tremendous strains in society and I think that is particularly clear in 1914 and 2014 um in 1914 there was a very similar concern that we have today about the growing gap between the Haves and the Have Nots the ways in which the middle classes were being squeezed the ways in which those who felt themselves somehow to be alienated and marginalized by their own societies were perhaps increasingly prepared to turn to violence and in the period before 1914 there was increasing worry among Europeans and indeed in in in parts of North America as well and South America that the world was becoming a dangerous place that people were resorting more easily to violence that there was the spread of an international revolutionary movement which of course is something we fear today I think we also saw changes in the nature of war in all three periods the wars of the French Revolution had brought about a very new relationship between the subjects in a particular country and their own governments people had moved in many European countries starting of course with France from being subjects to being citizens and that brought a very different relationship between those who lived in a country and the wars of that country fought It the French citizens felt themselves as part owners or indeed owners of the French State and and French polity and that of course imposed upon them a corresponding obligation to come to its defense and so we see in the wars of the French Revolution the beginnings of the movements towards Mass War which were going to become of course so much more pronounced in the 19th and 20th centuries what we're also seeing in our own periods and what they were seeing in 1914 which was something they weren't seeing as much in 1814 was a tremendous change in the technology of war in the period before 1914 thanks to the very success of European industry in science and technology Europeans were becoming capable of building enormous armies sending those armies into the fields keeping them in the fields for periods which would have been Unthinkable in earlier Wars and of course they were becoming much more efficient at killing each other and I think we again living through a period of Rapid technological change in War I think really not yet because we're in the middle of it clear what it's going to be like but I think the development of new kinds of weapons the development of drone technology for example the potentials for biological chemical warfare or something which we are having to confront more and more in our own period I think what we also see in each period is a balance between those forces that push for war and those forces that push for peace as in histori and I resist very strongly the idea that that events in history are inevitable we can look back and we can see reasons why things happen but that doesn't mean they had to happen and I think we need always to keep in mind that there are balances always in societies between those forces that would push towards war and those forces that would push towards peace and sometimes the forces that are making War more likely tend to win out sometimes the forces that make peace more likely win out and I think we must also take into account individual human agency um history of course is affected by forces economic social political intellectual religious but I think we also have to be aware that there are key moments in which those who are in positions of power making decisions are very important indeed I think the first world war and I believe this strongly could have been avoided if certain key decision makers in that fateful month of July 1914 had made different decisions or had perhaps in some cases stood up to their own military when those military were urging war and so we can never abstract or take away the role of human agency and the importance of human leadership in the ways in which history turns out let me just say something very briefly about the period after 1814 because I think in some ways it's a period Which is less familiar to most of us I know we have with us a very distinguished historian of of that period but I think for a lot of us the period after 1814 is is more remote and perhaps less familiar than the period after 1914 or of course the period after the end of the Cold War and I think what we need to do is look again at what the Congress of Vienna did this was the great Congress of Nations which met in 1814 was briefly interrupted when Napoleon came back from Exile and and had to be defeated yet again at the Battle of waloo and then Congress of Vienna resumed its work I think what was very important about the Congress of Vienna was it did not just settle the S the the the the the borders it did not just settle who was going to rule which country it did not just settle what would happen to France um as it was as it was defeated what it did was set up a system which actually served Europe very well for the next half a century and might have gone on serving it well if if other things hadn't happened I think there was a very important shift as a result of the Napoleonic wars in the thinking of those who came to make peace in Vienna and that was that they had to build something different very much the same sort of attitude you got after 1918 when the peacemakers who met in Paris said we can't do this again we can't afford to have a war on this scale again and very much I think the same sort of shift in thinking and Sensibility that you got after 1945 again when those who were responsible for trying to set up a new world order said we can't just repeat the sort of mistakes we had in the past and we can't repeat the sort of system we had in the past and I think the key shift at the Congress of Vienna was was a shift from the thinking of the 18th century where international relations was seen very much as a zero sum gain game where Nations jockeyed for Advantage if one Lo if if one nation won something another Nation had to lose and I think what the Napoleonic Wars had done was persuade many of Europe Statesmen that in fact this was not the right way to manage the international order that in fact you could build an international order in which every participant or at least key participants had a stake in stability and order that in fact all would benefit by a more stable order that it wasn't necessarily a zero sum de game that you could actually move beyond that and build an order in which nations could work together and avoid and costly and protracted struggles and what the concert of Europe which came out of the of the Congress of Vienna did was help to bring the nations of Europe into this sort of understanding in a sense help to socialize them helped to make them part of a community of Nations helped to make Statesmen realize that there were other ways of settling disputes and if you look at the pattern of international relations in Europe particularly in the first half of the 19th century you really do see an understanding that disputes can be settled peacefully if the powers agree if if the powers can be brought into some sort of understanding with each other that you can in fact build an international order that will work and you see time and time again in Europe potentially dangerous disputes the the the the f St of Belgium for example which is settled by cooperation among the great powers and I think you get a sense that a new type of world order is is at least struggling to be emerged the system as we know didn't last it began to break down with the Crimean War when the Great Powers Britain and France went to war with Russia and that helped serve serve to alienate Russia so to drive Russia out of what had been a system that it was very much involved with and I think had a longer term impact on Russia's relations with the rest of Europe when Germany began to move towards unification the Russians were prepared to stand aside and that had of course significant long-term consequences for Europe by 1914 you had a breakdown of that consensus which had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars and increasingly states were reverting to the attitudes of the 18th century that international relations were an anarchic system in which states jockeyed for Advantage and which someone had to lose and someone had to win um what helped also to feed into that were the ideas of social Darwinism I think we should never underestimate the importance of ideas in human Affairs and in shaping the ways in which we and those who are in positions of authority look at the world and the social darwinist ideas of the late 19th century the misapplication of darwinian theories to human Nations arguing that each human nation was somehow a separate spe species as it would be in nature arguing that struggle was a part of the relationship between human species that they were in fact condemned to struggle with each other became very much part of the thinking of those in positions of authority and indeed of many people in European Society by 1914 and so you get people saying what can you do war is a part of human history war is something we do war is necessary in fact Nations that won't struggle Nations that aren't prepared to fight don't deserve to survive and so I think I think you've got a very dangerous breakdown in that consensus which had helped to provide a sort of stability and peace in Europe well as you know the War of 1914 1918 was a war unlike a a war that most people in Europe had had seen or had expected there were a few people in Europe who expected that the war would be long and protracted because of what was happening with technology and because of the enormous industrial capacity of European societies to organize themselves and put troops into the field but they were very much lone voices in the wilderness and they tended to be dismissed and one of the great um profits of what the first world war was going to be like was a Russian Banker called Ivan block who wrote a six volume history of War saying that Europe is in danger of getting itself into a dreadful stalemate out of which no country will will emerge a winner and societies will be destroyed old orders will topple because of the strains that such a war will impose and he was dismissed by many of those in positions of authority because what did he know he was a Russian he was a Jew who'd converted to Christianity he was a banker he was a civilian all these things were used as ways of dismissing him um alas he was he was in fact prophetic in his recognition of what was happening and so Europeans went into the first world war believing or wanting to believe that it would be a short and decisive war and as we know it wasn't it was a war that turned into a dreadful war of stalemate particularly on the Western Front on the Eastern Front what you got was a three cornered struggle when with neither of the three corners emerging Victorious um the Russians could defeat the austrians but the Germans could defeat the Russians and so the struggle went on until eventually in the case of Russia and austrial Hungary those two countries began to collapse under the strain of War Europe was left in 1918 bad badly damaged it had thrown away much of its wealth thrown away much of its advantage in the world it had gone from being the most powerful part of the world now to a very much depleted part of the world its Empires were beginning to shake and of course new powers including most importantly the United States were now emerging much more strongly onto the world stage the Dreadful thing I think for many people about the first world war is that it caused enormous damage it destroyed Empires it brought about the end of the Russian Empire and of course the birth of bolshevism in Russia with long-term consequences for the 20th and 21st centuries it destroyed the austrial Hungarian Empire and it destroyed in the end the Ottoman Empire which meant that there were going to be tremendous changes on the map of Europe and I think what appalled people about the first world war is that all those changes didn't bring a period of peace and stability what they did in fact was Usher in a peace a period of instability the first world war for all its cost for all its expense for all that had done to societies did not settle things and although I don't believe that it led directly to the Second World War I think 20-year period is a long period to say that something that happens in 1918 leads directly to 1939 it did help that war did help to create the conditions in which the second world war took place I think it's fair to say that we would not have had a second world war of that particular kind and that particular horror without what had happened in 1914 1918 those who went to Paris in 1918 realized something of what had happened realized something of how European societies had been shaken to the core and realize something of what that meant to the world because it wasn't just Europe that had been engaged in the war in the end of course the European Empires were engaged the United States was engaged China came in Japan came in as did a number of of Latin American countries and the consequences of that war while they were felt I think much more sharply in Europe were were I think truly worldwide and I think what you got after 1918 was both a shocked recognition of what Europe had done to itself and what that might mean for the world but also I think a very genuine attempt to build a better sort of World Order um it's very easy to criticize those who met in Paris to try and make peace because they didn't in fact build a a world order um they didn't in fact prevent Another War from happening but I think they tried at least some of them tried and some of them tried harder of course than others the tragedy I think of the peacemaking in 1919 and immediately afterwards was that the objective conditions for peace simply were not there um unlike the Congress of Vienna when the French Revolutionary forces had burned themselves out when Napoleon had been completely defeated when Europe was ready for peace what you had after 1918 were in many cases Rising revolutionary forces not just bolshevism which was going to become an example for similar movements around the world but also the rising revolutionary forces of ethnically based nationalisms which were almost impossible to contain and almost impossible to satisfy and the peacemakers in Paris found themselves having to try and draw boundaries for ethnically based states in the center of a Europe where the ethnicities were completely mixed up um when they finally came to some sorts of border after 1919 something like a third of all the people living in the center of Europe were ethnic minorities in the states in which they found themselves and these now were ethnically based States and so for example in Czechoslovakia you had a state based on a Czech and Slovak ethnicity in which there were large numbers of hungarians and Germans who always felt themselves to be marginalized this I think is not the fault of the peacemakers this was the fault of that long period of History which had left this jumble of peoples at the center of Europe and unfortunately ethnic nationalism is not sympathetic to such jumbles ethnic nationalism looks at us and them we belong here they don't belong here and so often there are exceptions but so often ethnic nationalism is tied to possession of a particular piece of land um this land must be ours and those who don't belong here must somehow be either absorbed um assimilated or of course got rid of the ethnic minorities problems in the center of Europe was solved as you know no by Murder By genocide and by forced migration um it is it it it it was not a way of course that any liberal International order would want to solve it but that that is in the end what happened and so I think the objective conditions of Peace were not there after 1919 but what did happen I think again was a rethinking of the international order and the ideas that were associated with woodro Wilson but by were no by by no means were his ideas alone ideas of building A League of Nations ideas of building International institutions ideas of building international law ideas of finding alternative solutions to conflict between nations for settling disputes and many of the these ideas had been around in the world before 1914 the whole notion of arbitration for example as a way of settling disputes among nations had been there since the 1790s and you could see in the course of the 19th century a real Trend developing there was some three 00 arbitrations to settle disputes between nations between 1794 and 1914 more than half of those 300 were held after 1890 and so many of the ideas which woodro Wilson and others Drew on in the aftermath of the first world war in fact were ideas that had been around for some time but the first world war made them seem that much more Salient and that much more important and so there was a very genuine attempt made after 1919 after 1918 in in in the conf conference at 1919 to build a new world order to build some form of international structures or International institutions which would try and and mitigate um the horrors of conflict between nations and I think there were also um strong again feelings attitudes that the more the world could be linked together the more trade could be freed up for example the more economically interdependent the world would become um the safer it would be and the more likely it would be to be stable well as we know it didn't happen but again I think it was an honorable attempt and those ideas like the ideas that came to be common place after the Congress of Vienna didn't disappear and in 1945 A Renewed attempt was made to try and build an international World Order drawing on the experience of the 1920s and 1930s but drawing on those older Traditions that there must be some way of having a world order um as an alternative to Anarchy In which nations simply constantly are at each other's throats trying to gain advantage or trying to protect itself and so in the period after 1945 the United States which had for various complicated reasons not engaged fully with the world order after 19 819 did become committed to the building of the United Nations did become committed to the building of a large number of international Institutions and although the Cold War intervened it did luckily for all of us not become a hot war and gradually and you can see this as the Cold War went on the the Soviet Union be was which was becoming increasingly a conservative power was drawn in to an engagement with other nations drawn into to becoming part of an International Community and China of course eventually by the 1970s was drawn in as well well we're now seeing again what had been a system which brought us a period of Peace um being challenged being undermined 2014 perhaps mark the end of that period of internationalism and international cooperation which we saw since 1945 we see increasing unilateralism on the part of certain powers which have undermined the system most recently of course President Putin in Crimea and and now in Ukraine and it may be that we're now living through a period of change much as people lived through the period of the fading of the Congress of viena system and then the failure of the League of Nations system so are there some lessons we can take from those earlier two periods um I'm not sure again that we have very clear lessons but I think there are a certain number of things that we need to take very seriously indeed we have to somehow come to a way of dealing with the struggle which is always there in societies and in the international orders between the forces of stability and change how do we manage to contain change without preventing it how do we manage to preserve stability another problem which they had to deal with then in the aftermath of both those earlier struggles and I think we still have to deal with them is how do we deal with the end of Empires and we tend not to think in terms of Empires these days because most of them have disappeared but they had to deal in the past with the end of Austria Hungary as an Empire the Ottomans as an Empire how do you deal with the emergence of peoples out of the wreckage of Empires and I think we're seeing the same today with the emergence of the countries around the periphery of the old Soviet Union and how do we how do we collectively deal with states that are often new and shaky that are emerging out of Empires where they haven't had um the autonomy and the experience and I think this is one of the problems how do we deal with public opinion public opinion has become increasingly important since the beginning of the 19th century it is a factor which has to be dealt with every government has to be aware of it how do we manage public I don't mean manage it in a way of telling the public what to think but how do we deal with public opinion and I think this is becoming more difficult than ever because public opinion is now so fluid and has so many different media in which it can express itself I mean in the recent um troubles in Ferguson um Missouri apparently Twitter has been providing much more current and upto-date um reporting than than than newspapers or or or the the more conventional media um but this is not necessarily always a good thing because it can often be misleading and dangerous these are just issues we have to deal with how do we deal with the dangers of local conflicts which have W possible wider percussions where you have great power interests they didn't do it very well in the Balkans before 1914 where local conflicts Drew in great power interests I think we see the same dangers today possibly in the Middle East in Iraq and Syria and certainly in the South and East China Seas today where local conflicts can get overlaid by great power conflicts um how do we deal with the need to build confidence among nations how do we deal with bringing in Nations which feel the themselves to be alienated from the international situ system I me I think again as they knew then um statesmanship and Leadership and diplomacy are very very important tools here I think we have particular challenges at the present which perhaps they didn't have in the previous periods 1914 and and 1814 I think the interlocking nature of the global order is unprecedented certainly in 1814 and in 1914 there were connections among parts of the world but I think the world is now much more interlocked so that a crisis in one part of the world can have repercussions almost instantly in another part of the world how do we build International institutions and Norms that will work how do we prop up those which we have and this I think is something we're really dealing with at the moment how do we deal I'm not throwing these out in any particular order but I think there're things that will probably come up how do we deal with the shift in power which seems to be occurring in the International System um we are probably living through the end of the American hegemony which certainly we saw from the end of the Cold War the United States is still a very powerful Nation but relatively is Le relatively it is less powerful in comparison to other nations than it might once have been it is still the world's leading military power it may be according to the economist T overtaken by China as the world's greatest economic power or at least the world's um greatest with the world's greatest GDP not yet um the United States will not be yet overtaken as the world's greatest military power but these are things which perhaps we will see um in some of our lifetimes will there be another hedgemon will China be prepared to play the role that the United States and Britain before it played in maintaining a world order or will we have a series of regional hedgemon with no world hedgemon I think it's very very difficult to see how do we deal with identity politics um this is something which continues to plague the international order and continues of course to plague societies and we're seeing now in Iraq what had been loose often very loose religious identities Shi Sunni ydi kurd sorry Kur Kurds can be sh or Sunni Christian um hardening into what are something what is much closer to ethnic identities and what we're seeing I think in Iraq is identities which were once exclusively religious now becoming in some way um ethnic and religious identities in which those who purport to speak for their particular co-religionist whether Sunni or Shi are no longer simply talking about religion but are now talking in terms of land and are now beginning to do what we saw happening elsewhere in the world in earlier periods um they're beginning to carry out cleansing of those they think don't belong in their particular pieces of land I mean what's happening in the north of Iraq today is an appalling example of what can happen when such identities become these exclusive sort of identities which turn on others how do we deal with some of the enormous problems that the world is facing and these are not just political problems how do we deal with the environmental issues which affect the world as a whole how do we deal with competition for resources I water for example is increasingly becoming a war a resource which I think is is capable and has been capable of causing conflicts how do we deal with the economic instabilities in the world and we came through a very difficult period to 2008 but we are by no means out of the woods and I think um there there's a good deal of reason to fear that the economic system worldwide is much more fragile than we might like to think how do we deal with the social issues I've referred to it earlier the gap between the rich and the poor how do we deal with unstable regimes how do we deal with the tremendous growth of refugees now and it's estimated that there are some 51 million people in the world who are now refugees and this is a huge strain not just for individual countries but for the International System how do we deal with health issues and the spread of Ebola I think has has shown us just how necessary it is to deal with disease which spreads Beyond border and how do we deal um with our own electorates who may be disillusioned um disenchanted with um the politics I mean one of the great problems it seems to me the European Union has is that people are forgetting why it was so necessary as the generations go by people forget why it was that a European Union seemed so important and was so valuable after 1945 well I've talked too long i' I've disregarded the Chairman's talk about not making speeches I I apologize but I'd like to just leave us if I may with four questions um that we might consider can we hope that there has been progress over the past 20 years in international relations for all the failures in international relations can we hope that we have moved ahead a little bit we we seem to have to relearn things every so often but can we hope that we have learned that it is important to try and build a system that people can invest in and that we have to keep building it um is international law order breaking down or is it changing can we remain hopeful that we can continue to build can we continue to talk of a world Community with shared values and rules and respect for the rights and interests of others and perhaps on a grander and more abstract level can we talk about International order at at all um is there something called International order if there is is it always going to be a work in progress and do we simply have to resign ourselves to that well um I'm not feeling a bit like a teacher saying we've got an exam at the end of the week and I don't mean that at all but I think there are some questions we may want to consider and and perhaps the very consideration of them may help us to become clearer about what it is we need and about what it is that we can all collectively do thank you [Applause] thank you so much I think everybody here wants you to talk to for eternity because this was really great may I now give the floor to um Hans Brar who is the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway for his remarks and then I will ask the panelists to take to take the [Applause] chairs thank you uh thank you Tad and excellencies ladies and gentlemen it's a great uh pleasure for me to be here with you today uh as you heard T said earlier uh my foreign minister Mr ber BR would have very much uh like to have been here with you today but he on very short notice had to go uh on a very important uh uh Mission but um I would also like to to thank the salsburg global seminar and the International Peace Institute for organizing this uh I a very timely uh Symposium and I think that as we heard earlier I think that even a year ago we wouldn't have predicted the number of issues that we have the opportunity to discuss here uh today and also to thank the the Canadian government for its very important support of uh uh of um the Symposium this week and a warm thank you to you uh Professor McMillan uh for very inspiring a keynote address I think your um um thoughts around Lessons Learned of 1814 and 1914 is absolutely fascinating and also some of the lessons that we can learn in the world of 2014 should uh certainly lead to interesting discussions in the days to come but we do uh indeed need to uh learn uh from the mil uh from history as we look at uh and deal with the many challenges of our still quite young uh Century one um very simple uh but very important lesson learn it is that it's very difficult to predict developments and events who would have thought only one year ago that borders in Europe once again would be changed by the use of force Russ Russia's annexation of Crimea was a serious violation of international law and who would have predicted that our relationship with Russia during the last few months would go uh from uh sanctions through stages of sanctions or as our lawyers call it restrictive measures to talks the horrific Downing of mh17 new restrictive measures and counter measures by Russia we have a very different relationship with our great n neighbor to the east than we did only a year ago and this is just one of many events of 2014 that make me certain that this will be a year that historians will discuss for generations to come we do believe that the best way to prepare for the unknown is to be act according to our principles and values based on universal issues such as democracy human rights international law and multilateral cooperation through the United Nations and other International Regional bodies it's a simple lesson but in a time of un certainty a very important one another lesson is as Professor McMillan said that decisions made by individuals matter and we have certainly seen President Putin make such decision decisions in 2014 the responsibility resting on the shoulders of political decisions makers is just as heavy today as it was in 1814 or 1914 we continue to live in a world where decisions made by the few can have terrible consequences for us all to the today the security of a country depends on even more factors than in a 1914 or 1914 in our changing world it is vital that European Democracies and our allet friends further strengthen our cooperation on issues that are important for a common uh future such as security with all the conflict issues falling within that uh challenge trade and development cooperation with countries in the South human rights respect for international law and the responsibility that we have to fight poverty around the world and to deal with the issue of climate change and I hope that we will also have ample time to discuss some of these issues this week history will judge us maybe at another seminar here in salsburg in 2114 I hope that our grandchildren we'll see that we try to make base our decisions on the values and principles in which we all believe I thank you for your [Applause] attention then ask the panelist to uh take their chairs thank you since I uh started in um my somewhat jetl mind to wish everybody good morning at 5:30 in the afternoon maybe I should start by saying good afternoon everybody I think we've listened to um two very interesting uh interventions and uh if I should try to uh crystalline to crystallize in my jadl mind uh what the main uh or the core of the analysis of your Margaret um it is that what happened in 1914 is that you had two empires which were crumbling namely the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire being on the verge of crumbling because the the nationalities issues ETC balans and then uh today maybe we're not seeing Empires crumbling but what we maybe are seeing is a us which is withdrawing from uh International Affairs both in the in the Middle East but also uh in Europe and what we see is a Europe who is expanding into what was the old Soviet domain and uh I have a friend who uh spoke to um a very very senior Russian official recently and he asked Russian official why I mean you worked so well with Europe and with President Obama at the beginning but now there is animosity and conflict what is the reason for this the senior Russian official uh answered because they're taking away my friends so and what it was implying is that uh the European Union is trying to I'm looking at the map is trying to expand into the former Soviet domain and and that this has created the an it this brings me back to um to uh to Germany before 1914 because bismar was the master uh balancer he understood that Germany could expand but it could not expand so ferociously that it created alliances against it so my question is actually to to all three of you is something similar happened but in a different way it is the road you described where you can see there a sharp curve there's a yellow light there is a red light are these red lights blinking now is the Folly of empire in 1914 in a different way repeating itself today if I if I may I actually I say this very deliberately um because we have two Canadians here because an historian which I read recently said the following that Russia with the Ukraine uh is like the United States in uraa but Russia without uh Ukraine is like Canada mostly snow and oil uh maybe maybe maybe John uh since you are the foreign minister of of Canada John of course everybody knows John how many ministerial postings have you had John six seven 10 10 okay I can't keep it job yeah so you can you can speak well on behalf of J thank you would you like to com I just say at first um 18 14 the War of 1812 uh for Canada was in many respects the war that secured uh Canada British North America as an independent state of the United States uh so the last two years we've done a lot of uh work to mark that historical Milestone um and 20 and the 1914 also really was the beginning of Canada be fully assuming its place as an independent nation state up until uh 19 um uh 14 you know we didn't have a foreign minister or foreign policy um when Britain declared war we automatically were there and um 2014 certainly is an interesting um time to be a foreign minister I think we're seeing a fundamental challenge to our world order and it's manifesting itself in a number of ways I won't mention them all but I'll mention two I mean what we see from Moscow is one man in the Kremlin determined to assert himself and his people um obviously you can see this you know early on whether it with South assia whether it was u in Maldova transnistria whether it's in Crimea but also on the values front with his persecution of religious minorities of sorry of sexual minorities um and this is really challenging the world order and it's really exposed in my judgment unfortunately just how weak our institutions are uh to be able to to respond to that challenge the the Second Challenge is one that is Manifest itself over many years but increasingly so today and that's the struggle against extremism and terrorism I I often speak of my grandfather who was a real mentor to me he went to Europe in 1943 and then stayed in the Canadian Forces for 25 years and the great struggles of his generation were fascism and and communism well the great struggle of our generation is uh is Terrorism and it manifests itself in a whole host of ways so there's two areas which are just fundamentally challenging our uh the world order and we've got to look at how have we been in responding to that challenge I look at the situation in Ukraine which is deeply disturbing for uh for Canada for Canadians and the reaction among some quarters has been a surprise um you know some will you know quietly point out well Crimea really is Russian territory so it's okay or you know you don't understand because you know we have strong economic interests in our relationship with uh with Russia so an economic equation and and um I'm not sure where that's leading us but it does for at least for me cause a huge concern thank you John um so you do think that there is an imperial ambition in Russia these days to restore not only the Soviet Empire but the sist Empire I don't know whether I would put it that way but um sometimes people um are very honest and upfront with what their views are and when you have one man in the Kremlin who who has been very clear that um you know the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe um and then you look at a series of actions and I I said Georgia mova and now Crimea and Eastern Ukraine I think it's not hard to to to draw that conclusion and it's not it's not so much rebuilding an Empire but wanting to rebuild Russia as a superpower and unfortunately is coming at the exact same time when as Professor McMillan mentioned uh you know the shadow of the war in Iraq the war in Afghanistan you know I'm a Canadian I want to see a strong United States projecting its values uh projecting its power in the world for good and uh uh obviously that's uh for many of us uh were been concerned not just frankly it's not a situation I think it would be a mistake to say it's just the administration it's it's the Congress but it's also fundamentally about the American people who are becoming uh increasingly isolationist and it's a mistake to just look at you know the White House or just look at Capitol Hill because I think it is very deep rooted in the American people tooking back to my uh my Canadian metaphor um you don't think that the European Union and the West are being too aggressive in order to lure former Soviet republics uh into Western fold and more formly into the European Union into NATO and this actually has been a mistake because it tilted the bance of power I mean when you walk through as I did the maidon in the center of Kiev ke I mean you see the you know a sea of European Union Flags it's what people aspire to it's not governments it's not uh in Brussels or in London or in Paris and Berlin these are what uh the people of Ukraine aspire to um and it's not just uh Prosperity but it's also a freedom it's also uh lashing out at cronyism and Corruption and um I I've said this uh many times to Katherine Ashton I'm a conservative from Canada and if I was a British conservative I'd probably be a mild euroskeptic having said that my three and a half years as foreign minister I see the European Union as a powerful force for good of common values uh of open economies free societies and that's what in my judgment what people uh on the street in uh in keev want that's what they aspire to and uh it's not like um it's not like uh uh you know Brussels has some sort of Imperial Ambitions to uh you know to to to grow the team it's uh it's they have uh desires to to share what uh what has been accomplished in the EU thank you again um Edward Edward is of course uh with the SB Global seminar and he was the leader here for several years and uh adward is also a former colleague of mine we both work foran uh ad was uh probably the best speech writer in un history and uh Serv his um the Secretary General exceedingly well and I at a very close range and adward has also accomplished The Story So Edward does uh Russia have an imperial ambition has wait has uh has uh the West done a mistake by being too rash too reckless in his Ambitions in uh encompassing uh former Soviet republics in it in its uh in its domain and my third question which has been kind of implicit in what we've been discussing so far is uh is there us withdrawal from International Affairs um in Europe uh in the Middle East U and maybe elsewhere and is this encouraging both uh States and uh non-governmental organizations as we see many places particularly these dayses in Iraq and Syria uh to um move in and the vacuum that the has left I'd be very unwise to call myself an accomplished historian in the present company but I also think that Margaret might share my amusement that you think an accomplished historian would be the right person to answer those questions um she's written very eloquently about the uses and abuses of history and uh um I think we've seen a good deal of both in recent times and um some I remember in Hungary in the early post Cold War years I think they had a historian as their foreign minister and um he was perpetuating in a way all the worst kind of ethnic myths and we see some of those coming back to haunt us now in present Hungarian policy um so I think I would give an opinion not as a historian um but as a journalist and as as you say somebody who's tried in a small way to help make the International System work um I I think calling names isn't particularly helpful um Empires were uh you know established phenomena of 1814 and more especially of 1914 and they're not actually nobody calls themselves an Empire now um and um probably to say that Putin has an imperial ambition doesn't get us much further I mean I think it clearly is true that he's not alone among Russians in feeling that that they have somehow been dealt a very bad Hand by the post Cold War developments and um that other people have taken advantage of this and uh he is trying to regain something restore self-respect to his own people and um you know of course I deplore the methods that he's used as much as anybody but I think it probably does help to have some understanding of that uh we should remember that Ukraine and Russia had been well first of all the the Russian State originates in Ukraine it was kavan Rose in the time of St Vladimir and secondly that Ukraine and Russia have were part of the same polity from 1654 uh until uh 1991 that's quite a sizable chunk of History so um of course the ukrainians have the right to determine their own destiny but the famous ethnic Patchwork that Margaret was talking about uh unfortunately affects Ukraine as it affects other parts of Central and Eastern Europe and indeed parts of Western Europe as um in my country we are very well aware you you talk Margaret about um in the Middle East religious divisions becoming ethnic divisions well my goodness we know about that in Ireland and we have known it for quite a long time so I I think the fact is that ukrainians are clearly not completely United about their identity and um by and large the Russians speaking minorities have gone along with the breakup of the Soviet Union and maybe seen some advantages in it uh but when push comes to shove uh they feel worried about being militarily reconquered by the government in Kiev and some of them are willing to look to Russia for help that is a very dangerous situation now second question is the West too expansionist not in an oldfashioned and conventional way but I think you rais a very interesting question because we've we all know about soft power now and um uh you know probably we'll have a statue to joai somewhere as the inventor of this wonderful concept uh but it's an interesting thought that soft power can also be expansionist and can dis be disturbing to some of people on the receiving end of it and this may be a way to interpret some of the ethnic um and um sectarian um reactions that we're seeing um I remember back in the days when I was an ft columnist um and it was the the time of um the wars in the Balkans and I interpreted these partly as a reaction to globalization that if you are living in a period of very rapid stress and change and insecurity uh and I think Margaret is right that that is something that we do have in common with 1814 and 1914 um then you tend to try and grab hold of what's familiar and you may assert it or reassert it in ways that you wouldn't have felt the need to in the past and I think in some cases that's an ethnic identity and in some cases it's a religious identity and I think that was already visible in some parts of the world um we might remember that Benjamin Barber read a book called Jihad versus mcworld um that was already visible in the 1990s but I think it's become even more so now and so then your third question um is the US withdrawal um and uh is it leaving space which other states and NGS are moving into yes I think that's true and but again I think it's not necessarily purely a deliberate policy I mean there are many Americans who would accuse Obama of that and say you know he he's handing over the world to all these people um I think it's more what Margaret said that there is a reordering of the pecking order I mean we live we've lived through an extraordinary very very unusual period first of all between 1945 or 6 or S and 1989 um with this bipolar World Order which is certainly not typical of most of History um and then we had Charles cram's famous unipolar moment in which it really looked as though nobody could stand up to the United States um and I think that was never going to last I think you I don't agree with crammer about most things but I think he was right that that was a moment that was not going to last um and I'm afraid I think that George W bush greatly accelerated the end of it by the very misguided use he made of the wrong kind of power in the wrong place that's probably enough uh and I'm sure Margaret has better answers to all of your questions I don't thank you thank you very much uh Edward um not an accomplished historian I don't think you convinced convinced us on that but anyhow so we move to the accomplish the story and can you touch upon the three of course you've already commented on the three questions in your your men intervention but maybe you would like to elaborate a little bit on those three questions and then I have another one for you afterwards um I'm trying to remember them in order but Russia as an expansionist there a new Imperial ambition there and then Mistakes by the West in being too aggressive tilting uh the balance particularly related to not only the Ukraine but maybe also for other former Soviet republics some of them are represented here this afternoon uh and um us yeah I think these are the two uh two main ones here well all fascinating ones I mean I think um to take the last first I mean the United States in a way we're all going to get what we thought we wished for and that is a less engaged United States and we're now realizing that this may not be a very easy World in which to live because it's not clear how the world is going to manage itself um I think the United States has made some really bad mistakes I mean I would um agree partly with what um my foreign minister said and partly disagree and I think where I disagree with you is the notion of the war on terror um I think that when the United States declared a war on terror it it left an open-ended um notion and an open-ended process I mean how do you know when you won the war on terror I mean it's it's it's I think it's it's I find the analogy call struggle not a war struggle yeah fair enough but the US calls it a war on terror um and I I I can see that the use of Terror to carry out to achieve political ends is is deeply troubling I think I think particularly for societies like USS which believe in Persuasion and and Democratic um consensus but I'm not sure it is actually going to destabilize our Societies in in the same ways that other things might um and I think in a way we run the danger of ascribing too much power to the acts of terrorists um so often what they do is is hurt the people around them but don't actually bring down societies and certainly don't bring about great change and their power seems to be entirely destructive there many types of terrorists carrying out terrorist activities for different ends and I think we need to look at them with discrimination in many cases I think terrorism can be dealt with by better policing and I think some of the great successes in dealing with terrorism have in fact been through very effective International cooperation and policing um I think I would agree with with Edward Mortimer on on George W bush accelerating um the both the the perception of the United the decline the perception of decline of the United States accelerating antagonism United States and I think actually damaging the International System and I think by going into Iraq and certainly the British bear responsibility for this as well by going into Iraq um without clearly defined objectives by really acting unilaterally I think in defiance of the internationalism they have helped to weaken a system which they themselves have benefited from and I think this is dangerous I mean I think International systems are always in trouble when you get too many significant significant players and Russia clearly is one today who don't want to play by the rules and who are revisionist powers like Hitler was and musolini was the Japanese militarists were in the 1930s who don't see any value in adhering to the system because it doesn't bring them any benefits and they're prepared to try and destroy it and I think that's dangerous and I think unwilling unwittingly I think um the United States by its actions in Iraq um helped to weaken a system which in fact itself wants to prop up and I think it is now paying I think part of the price for that um how the American public will react is very very difficult to tell American politics strike me is very volatile at the moment and and very fluid and it's very difficult to know I mean it's very difficult I mean we were just about to get into what seemed like inable American election presidential election campaigns and they will at some point be talking about foreign policy it be very interesting to see where those go um Mistakes by the West well the mistakes we made I think were were were not as serious as the mistakes which Russia is now making but I think we treate we we tactless we treated Russia with contempt after the end of the Cold War we made it feel negligible and that is a mistake I mean Bismark always said and I think rightly Russia is never as strong as it seems nor as weak and it's a very big country with a great deal in the way of resources with a very strong sense of itself and to marginalize it and treat it as though it didn't count to tell it to you know become like us do you know our way is so much better was foolish um but I think foolishness is one thing I think what Putin's doing is is is much worse I mean I think he is deliberately um defying the International System he's telling the most blatant lies without really I think expecting anyone to believe them um he seems to me to show nothing but contempt for public opinion and I do think um in some ways he's very influenced by Russian history I mean he's he's constantly calling on it and he he has been heard to say as my predecessor Peter the Great once said you know this this I find worrying um now it may be just that he's using it but it does seem to me he has a very Lively sense and in a sense I would argue that he is trying to rebuild the old Russian Empire you know and if I were of Kazakhstan these days I'd be pretty nervous or ltia Estonia or Lithuania they are sitting right perhaps well you don't look nervous but but no but I think he he he he is I will open the floor in a minute but he's very conscious of of what used to be Russia and I think this does affect him and he's the way in which he's um pushed in in education in the Russian schools he's been pushing a sort of trium fullest view of of Russian history and I find it very very woring and of course what he's done now it seems to me is he has sort of stimulated and Unleashed um the powers of Russian nationalism I think he has to write it now and I think it's going to be more difficult for him to back down because he's got you know very dangerous of politicians when they have 99% approval seems to me or whatever it is he has it's very high and means that his room to maneuver is much less thank you very much can I shift the topic uh slightly um to and I would start with the Middle East because um I mean Europe has seen religious fundamentalism which uh um legitimized Terror as a as a means to uh maintain to grab power and maintain power and even seeing it as a necessity in order to do it and we've seen the same arguments in fascism Nazism and communism when you look at the ideologies of the um groups of political Islam in the Middle East these days um many of the programs are pretty similar and they are totalitarian they see Terror as legitimate they see Terror as necessary in order to achieve uh their goals and some of them actually have programs which have striking similarities to the programs of Fascism and Nazism for inance Hamas claims that um in its um Charter that the Jews were responsible for the French Revolution the Russian Revolution the first world war and the second world war and they quote the same sources as Alfred Rosenberg did namely the protocols of the wise of Zion uh and and it's explicit in there and call for the eradication not only of Israel but of the Jewish people globally is this um Fascism and nism uh with a new Cod well should I yes I think it is I mean I I think it actually doesn't have that much to do with religion I think religion is an excuse and there have been some very interesting articles recently about how little many of these people who claim to be right acting in the name of Islam actually know about it um you know a lot of them haven't read the Quran a lot of them don't read Arabic or if they don't read it well enough to be able to read the Quran um they seem to have a very shaky grasp on many of the tenants of Islam and they keep on talking about restoring the caliphate well the caliphate was known for its relative tolerance of other religions I mean both the Jews and the Christians were tolerated under the caliphate in ways that know Isis for example um is clearly not prepared to tolerate I I think they I think they are Fascist movements I think they have many of the features of European fascism I think perhaps some of them they're organizing principles and motivation come in fact directly from that I don't think that they're necessarily hom grown in the Middle East I think they're very much affected by things elsewhere and I think very much um prepared to use the most appalling means to to to achieve their ends I mean their ends seem to me to be very very unclearly defined it's very difficult to know what they want it's clearer to see what they're against um but very difficult to see what they want I mean they seem to me to be really almost like gang Lords who simply want control and power but don't really know what they want to do with it John and then Edward on the same topic I think um you know political Islam radical political Islam is just completely inconsistent not just with democracy but pluralism and with freedom um what we're also seeing manifest itself though are State actors sponsoring non-state actors to um almost Outsource you know State activities you look at Iran's financial and material support um for Hamas for Hezbollah it's interference in just about every single one of its neighbors um there's another country in the region who's been um using its economic wealth for U nefarious purposes in my judgment and that that is a deep deep concern thank you Edward well I think that I partly agree with Margaret but I think one has to beware um because the um there is some ideological continuity and these people are basically wahhabis and um if you look at what wahhabis did when they were building up the first Saudi State they went to Naf and carala and they destroyed the Shia shrines there I mean there there is a history this is a particular variant of Islam which is like extreme protestantism it's very iconic clastic and uh it's very intolerant it's very puritanical and it's very rigorous now uh um in some respects these people may be even worse uh and they may also have been because there isn't an effective califate or an effective state in parts of that region now and that some of the ones that are there have mistakenly thought they could use these people for their own purposes um it's got way out of control uh and I think that um we in the west certainly haven't handled it well we've been very slow uh to realize that this is something that affects us uh and indeed for which we have some responsibility to me is absolutely appalling as a citizen of the United Kingdom to discover that the guy who's beheaded this American colleague of mine um is from London uh and it seems even from a relatively uh well healed and U well educated part of London Society I mean this is Gastly Beyond Beyond Le um but so we probably haven't done a very good job in educating our own people um to make sure that they are not they do not fall prey to these kind of ideologies um but I think the states in the region have a great deal of responsibility too um I think that until very recently these movements were heavily bankrolled and armed by countries in the Gulf probably some of which are represented in this room and which are supposed to be good friends of of the West and uh you know present themselves in other contexts as moderates uh I also think about Turkey um the country which for which I have enormous affection and admiration but I think that the in the last few years the policy of the Turkish government towards what was going on particularly in Syria has been either mad or deeply malign I think it's now time to open open the floor I think we've heard vations here so um may I ask you to raise worry about the invitation to president eran's inauguration not too worried about that I ask you to raise your hand and um since everybody doesn't know everybody's faces here I would very much ask you to state your name and your affiliation when you take the floor I will start on my left hand side over there and then we'll we'll move rightwards thank you hi Terry it's Steve arer from The New York Times um I was hoping the panel would expand a bit on the notion of challenges to what exists of the world order I mean I myself having lived in Germany and in Russia and the Middle East I'm very struck by the sense that Russia which used to be a stakeholder no longer feels like one um for lots of reasons that we understand and China which has never been much of a stakeholder wants a bigger stake and the Middle East which we took for granted has gone through enormous convolutions to actually a much harsher reality now in Egypt for instance I mean we like stability but it's a very high price I should have said um so if you could talk a bit more about that I'm particularly struck by the European part of this world order um does Russia really have no stake in it does it want to pull it down if so um does Russia and China they begin to make noises about a whole different set of alliances with India and other countries and I'm curious how seriously the panel takes that thank you thank you I will take two more interventions and then I will ask the panelists to to comment I saw a hand uh there in the back it it seems to me okay my name is Nasim molas Talib um it seems to me and I'm I happen to be as on the side a Christian from Lebanon okay and uh it seems to me that uh people under don't really realize the connection between uh modern fundamentalist Islam and modernity it's really a product of modernity effectively if you take a history it is a minority that started growing like a cancer okay of course subsidized by old money and of course against those that caused it but when I grew up in Lebanon I'm Greek Orthodox you could recognize a Greek Orthodox woman from a Muslim one at the fact that the Greek Orthodox woman had a headband okay and they've been transformation in a differentiation of that thanks to now the internet and everything so really what has happened is really modernity in other words everybody start having a a this communication Network you making your religions very uniform and certain brands of religion marketed more than others so I think that's what the problem is effectively so if you take Islam 97% of Islam was not was of the tolerant kind that preferred Christian locals to Muslim foreigners and now it's exactly the opposite thanks thank you very much uh when I heard um Edward's last remarks I knew there was uh one participant here who inevitably would take the floor and it just now happened Prince turkey you have the floor our good friend turkey faal a descendant of Muhammad B Abdul wahab directly not only in terms of genetics but also in terms of ideology and uh also just one question about Crimea first is there a religious diation and what's happening in Crimea um in terms of different Christian sects uh between the Russians and the crimeans I'm not much of a knowledgeable person about that part of the world um on the question of of of wahhabis and so on and I think people here not just here but I think many places in the way including among Muslims tend to throw us all in in one pot and say they're all terrorists and and vicious and and so on um the sacking of course of of of Graves and so on is unacceptable even in Islam um and in in the mid 18th century in our part of the world um sacking of cities and and and other uh places whether of worship or not was common practice uh it was not uh something that was unusual my my ancestral Homeland was was completely sacked by the Turks after carala and other places like that so I would not attribute it to to any particular ideology or anything like that however to answer a question of of of supporting the the Isis and and other such political Islam uh movements uh I hear that accusation not only addressed at the Kingdom but other countries in the Gulf Excellence you mentioned the Gulf States in in general I don't know if anybody has ever presented any any such evidence to the governments in the Gulf because uh if people would remember that a country like Saudi Arabia has been the victim of these uh states of these stateless persons and uh simply to make generalized statements like that I think is is misleading and maybe sometimes also perhaps unhelpful uh in dealing with with with Isis and and other such um uh groups what I can say is that Isis and and the other such fundamentalist groups that have operated not only in in in Syria and Iraq now operating everywhere have had in the mid90s particularly at the beginning of their formation you a very welcome can you can you hear I think something something happened with this sound system can you hear what prin Toki is saying this is not part of censorship is it um um these these groups uh had a very welcome uh home if you like in London we all remember when London was called londonistan um and I think journalists and others have commented on that so it's not just uh Gulf States and other places in in our part of the world that should be blamed for these uh for these groups but I think the blame goes uh goes around and it's very very distressing of course for for a Muslim to see that Muslims are killing each other so viciously and uh the caliphate as our distinguished historian said was a more tolerant um um State rather than what is being practiced in its name now uh by by by ISIS and I'll stop here I'll be speaking later so I'll make some other comments thank you very much I will now I will we will have another round but I will now go back to uh to the panel and give them an opportunity to um to answer the questions of course uh Prince turkey Alisal is of course the Former Intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia and former ambassador to both London and Washington so he speaks with authority on these matters um maybe uh I should start with you Edward well obviously I was aware that what I said would be considered provocative but it was not intended as personally hostile and I did preface it by saying that I think we in the West Bear a great share of responsibility and that we have severely mishandled this problem so I think we agree on that part there is unfortunately plenty of blame to go round uh but it's probably also true that um sitting around blaming each other is not going to be the best way to solve the problem I think the only good thing about this Dreadful situation in now prevailing in both Syria and Iraq is that these people have behaved so abominably that uh I think the Coalition of their opponents is very Broad and I think our task now really must to make that Coalition effective and um uh so I think one would like to see for example um some degree of understanding and cooperation between Iran and Saudi Arabia in in in facing up to this danger because I think it menaces both of them as it menaces the rest of them thank you very much uh John would you like to comment on some of the interventions here no what about you Margaret um well I I a couple of things I think um we're dealing I think with the internationalization of radicalism which is very difficult to contain and and just the nature of weapons we have now it's very easy to move very powerful weapons around and and the access that people seem to have to weapons and of course another problem which we haven't talked about much but probably will come to is is the whole problem of states that have failed I mean Libya is now a serious problem because it hasn't been able to um establish a coherent government and you have I mean it looks very much like Europe in the Middle Ages where you have Warlords who are armed to the teeth struggling with each other and making life miserable for everyone who happens to be in the neighborhood and we have too many places like this in the world um I think it's very very very dangerous and and now of course Syria and Iraq which is falling to pieces in ways which I think can only lead to further misery and and you how you then try and reconstitute societies like that um is very difficult and and I do think there is something and I agree with the speaker there that so much of of this and it's to do with what Edward said earlier as well this clinging to to these particular identities and being absolutely rigid and refusing to accept that other people can have their own identities I think is in part a reaction to modernity it's it's a fear of of a world which is changing and and which identities are fluid and I think we all feel it but I think there are ways of reacting to to modernity into a complicated World other than becoming parts of these inward-looking um often murderous groups and I think the question about stakeholders I mean that seems to me always a great worry for an international situation it's International order when powerful countries don't want to play the game anymore it doesn't matter um that much if North Korea is not a stakeholder because it can be isolated and contained um although it has nuclear weapons which which does make it worrisome but it does matter when Russia seems to be deciding that it doesn't want to play by the rules anymore because that will be dangerous it will encourage others to think the same but you know the idea that that that Putin has been floating that our new best friend is China um I don't believe for a minute um you know I think that I mean the Russians are scared stiff of the demographic Gap out in the Far East they know them billions of Chinese to the south of them and not many Russians living out there uh and the idea that China and India somehow going to become best friends it seems to be highly improbable as well but um but I all I can say is I do think we're in for for very turbulent times and we just have to hope that we you know those Nations that continue to want to build um a strong International order and that's where smaller Nations can play a role too because I think you know collectively they can do a lot I mean one small nation can't do a lot but together I think if they continue to buy into the International System they can make a difference thank you Margaret um we will now have another round of questions but I will tell you that we have to close in about uh 10 minutes so I will encourage you to be brief and if I cannot give the floor to all of you are raising your hands there will be plenty of opportunities for the next few days to discuss this this is supposed to be a Chapo of matters which we will drill very deep into uh tomorrow and day after tomorrow uh I will start on my left hand side there first row first row yeah thank you Terry I'm my name is Jean kazanov until recently I've been with the presidential Administration and as you rightly mentioned I'm probably the only together with our ambassador representing here the former Soviet Union country which is Kazakhstan actually and uh I would like to uh comment on uh what Miss margar McMillan said no we don't afraid of Russia occupying Kazakhstan we are more afraid of the sanctions that has been imposed against Russia that can seriously jize the iic development of Kazakhstan so what I wanted to ask uh our panelist to comment about the sanctions because we are feeling that the sanctions are leading to nowhere and uh speaking about kazakstan and Russia just very brief comment to give you the picture that uh we have a border with Russia of 700 or 7,500 kilm it's the longest continental border even longer than the border between Canada and the United States it already been registered in the Guinness book and Russia is our Ally and strategic partner and uh I mean we think that we showing a good example of uh Good Neighbor relations with this country but again coming back to sanctions we seriously concerned about those sanes that can seriously impact kazakstan economy thank you thank you very much uh Mr kazakov is a very modest man he's also the foreign minister of Kazakhstan and he's been ambassador to uh the United Nations to Vienna and he is assuming within the next few weeks his new position as ambassador to St James's Court uh then I think it was a gentleman uh there right um my name is Mark J I've written a book on the Congress of the N speaking tomorrow so I wanted to ask about hard power which you mentioned and I especially wanted to ask the foreign minister of Canada but all the representatives at the Congress of Vienna there was also an issue with Poland and the are Russia at that time was very interested in annexing the uh Poland and the British and the austrians were very much opposed but they did have this problem the Zar said well I have 200,000 men there and I'm not going to move them so they were so they tried to use soft power and I want to draw the analogy with Poland because in 1939 there was also the issue of protecting Poland and Britain and France of course got involved uh in World War II because of that but again they could didn't do that much to help the polls as you know and then in 1945 it was the Polish situation again which led to the Cold War because Stalin was supposed to have elections there didn't Truman got annoyed so during that analogy I just wanted to ask what hard power resources do you think could be used in the situation in the Ukraine and if hard power resources cannot be used what soft power resources do you think might be effective that's uh then uh I think I will go uh to the gentleman there and then I will give the floor to the gentleman over there and you will be the last speaker before we go back to the panel and then tomorrow you can ask whatever questions you like and have whatever interventions you want on the same topic thank you uh Andrea Lan of Kate Institute I have one comment and one question comment concerning Edward your uh comments concerning Russia and Ukraine which I in the stud you think that it is some kind of the same Identity or very similar Identity or some kind of uh common origin same polity and so on I think you just maybe involuntarily repeating a very substantial portion of Mr Putin's propaganda uh it's incorrect uh these two Nations have very different origin uh from institutional point of view origin of Russia is ground principality of Vladimir origin of Ukraine is ground principality of galich in vinia is very different places symbolize symbols of these two nations are very different Andre balski for Russia and uh the grand Prince or after that King danila ramanovic which is very different personality from institution point of view if for more modern period of time it would be certainly Ian the third Oran the fourth Ian the terrible in for Russia and the Paris Siege uh withit s uh for Ukraine very different places with a very different institutions with very different habits with very different Behavior one Po from 17th century uh Austria and Hungary were in the same po since mid since 17th century nobody would say that these two Nations have the same identity uh as for so-called Russian minority in East Ukraine there was no single case of persecution of Russian minority uh in East Ukraine or South Ukraine or anywhere for all this 20 3 years of Independence there was no Pro Russian parties there was no Pro Russian movements there was no Pro Russian slogans just and actually still there is no after this uh war of Mr Putin's against Ukraine still there is no PR Russian party in Ukraine the uh in Crimea there was only one PR Russian party that got even 4% in election not in national election in Regional election in crimeia it shows what is the support for the so-called minority so just you can check the facts and you would get much Clear understanding of just absolutely in incorrect understanding of the situation in Ukraine but my question Margaret to you you you provided very interesting comparison of the results of this International Congress of Vienna versus let's say Paris after uh the S of Napoleonic Wars and after the first World War from which uh the conclusion is quite clear that Vienna Congress happened to be much more successful in creating conditions for peace in Europe for almost half a century unlike uh Paris if we at one more Congress or actually not one more two more congresses uh of that kind we add after the events of the after the second world war yelpa and pdan which provided almost seven decades nonaggression in Europe should we conclude from this comparison that yelta and poam happen to be at least as successful as Vienna or even more successful than Vienna because it is a longer period of relative peace in Europe would you say so if not why or if you say yes could you explain what particular factors provided such a success for Yalta and pdom let's say versus Vienna I think we have food for thoughts here thank you uh now I will give uh the floor to um the last speaker uh this evening I'm Alexi Gan I'm professor of comparative politics from Kev yesterday we celebrated our independence day and it was very peculiar celebration because directly from the parade soldiers went to the Battlefront fighting with the Russian aggression and I would like to say some more things about socalled ethnic conflict in Ukraine there's no ethnic conflict in Ukraine it's very important no linguistic conflict in Ukraine it's very important to understand uh I was at the front line with the so-called volunteer Battalion volunteer Battalion most of these Battalion are Russian speakers from donbas and they are saying in Russian in Russian we are fighting for Ukrainian donbas so so the language issue or even ethnic uh identity is not the main issue here I can elaborate on that but we can we can have it later and my second point is suddenly because our kazak uh friend I would yeah so you rais the you raised the issue of sanctions so so I would like to remind to all of the audience that in 1994 Ukraine gave up its nuclear Arsenal which was the third largest in the world British French and Chinese combined together and we received so-called security assurances and unfortunately it does it didn't work in Crimea it it's not working right now so actually the question is what the West is doing and I believe that sanctions are actually very Li limited and unfortunately belated thank you thank you very much then I will start with John what is the West doing I just to respond to both on the issue of sanctions uh in my judgment I mean you really do need the EU the United States Canada Norway others to be meaningful I think we were probably too little too late um they have had not much of an effect on the micro level on the macro level they've led to Capital flight uh they've led to the instability uh the economy they've led to likely reality that they're in recession I think we've just struggled on how to respond to it in um in a in a in a 21st century way in terms of the comment about um Ukraine I mean as far as hard power I don't think there's an appetite certainly not in the United States not in Canada not in NATO for military intervention uh I think you know if there's many more things like um mh17 uh you know who knows I can't say you talk about hard power soft power um I liked when Hillary Clinton spoke about uh smart power we need more of that thank you John I move to Edward well I'm obviously not setting up as an accomplished historian of Ukraine and Russia there are people here who know much more about that than I do and I don't nor do I wish to pontificate about the identities concerned um I I I agree I think it's impressive that um the so-called Rebellion uh has been confined to a fairly small area uh in the donbas and um and then clearly not representing the population as a whole uh and you know I when we were here in June um we had a conference on um Holocaust Education there was a lady from KH and I asked I said you know it must be uh kind of dangerous place uh to not very comfortable place to live at the moment and she said well it's true that there are worrying things but there is no pro-russian um manifestation of any kind and kiv as I'm sure people know is a predominantly Russian speaking city so I absolutely concede that uh my I mean at the same time I think what Putin's tactics are to get uh Ukraine to have to reconquer these Eastern areas by military force which I think with a good deal of restraint uh it is trying to do but a lot of people are getting killed and the danger then is of course that that enables the Russians to say look uh you know this is a government that's attacking its own people and maybe some of the inhabitants uh do share that view so I think this is something we have to be but mainly I was talking about uh in trying to answer Terry's question um to empathize a bit with what the Russian Putin and the Russians who support him are feeling and whether we may have made mistakes I don't think the European Union is an expansionist power but I think that um it hasn't very clearly thought out what its policy is uh towards its immediate neighbors to the east uh I don't I think it made a mess of its uh policy towards turkey and in a slightly different way I think it's made a mess of its policy to the Ukraine I just if I have 30 seconds left um I'd like to come back to 1814 which I think is a little bit the danger of being the poor relation in this discussion um it's uh wonderful that we have Mark Jarrett here and we will hear lot more about it um tomorrow but I think this is the speciality of this there have been umen conferences about 1914 and the Legacy and the lessons of 1914 but the fact that we have linked it we are here in Austria I like the thought that it might be the most important international meeting in Austria since the Congress of Vienna I don't know whether that can be right but I think that um that there are very interesting examples we should be pondering and um I want to do a little commercial for a friend of mine uh in a moment you're all going to go across to the Great Hall of the Schloss and there will be a reception and during that reception there will be music and it's live music played by two artists uh who are professional con a Pianist and a violinist uh and they have specially agreed to do a program of Music composed in or around 1814 by Beethoven by Schubert by France kava msart the son of wul gang AZ uh and I think by hum um now it'll we'll all have a great deal to say to each other and we will all be wanting to Swig away at the um proo or whatever it is that the Sou seminar is providing but I hope that you will take a moment also to listen to that music and try and immerse yourself in the ostria of 1814 in preparation for the discussion tomorrow morning than thank you very much Edward and then Margaret well I I now realize I'm standing between you all and the reception and the music um but I'll so I'll be very brief um on sanctions um I think sanctions can work I mean we tend to expect them to work very quickly and they're a difficult instrument and they're they they they they need pressure and they need finesse but they did work against the apartheid regime in South Africa in the end and I think we should remember that and of course Canada I think really did play an important part in in in helping to broker a coalition on that um I think you know I think the the issue of identity I think is a very interesting one and it of course is hugely important for Ukraine but also for many other parts of the world and I think the thing about identities is they're not fixed they change and I think you can see this happening today in Iraq that what had been religious identities I mean Shi and Sunni have lived side by side for centuries um as have Christians and Jews in Iraq um often into Maring particularly among Shia and Sunni these were not hard and first identities but you can see them now changing into something different and the parallel I have in mind I mean I I use the word ethnic identities it seems to me this is somehow happens and the same thing can h and has happened in the past with linguistic identities people who live in villages one part of the village speaking German the other part speaking Hungarian have got on for centuries until it becomes often used by unscrupulous leaders it becomes something that they use to try and turn people against each other and so I think identities are more fluid than we like to think um and of course what Putin would like to happen and he's even I using language like this is to see Russian speakers in Ukraine seeing themselves as Russian Nationals which I think is is of course would be very bad for Ukraine and in the referend in the what was a referendum when when you decided whether or not to become independent from the um from the Soviet Union I think even in eastern Ukraine there was a majority in favor of Independence um among the Russian speaking areas so at that point the identities clearly were were were complicated and people can have multiple identities um on the on the Congress issue um Vienna was more successful because the objective conditions for peace were there than the Paris peace conference I'm not going to talk about the and partan because they weren't those sort of conferences those were wartime conferences to sort out what would happen afterwards um what brought the piece I think the long piece of of the Cold War was not so much yter and part Stam it was nuclear weapons um which luckily persuaded both sides they better not start fighting with each other um so if I may leave it there thank you very much I think I think this has been there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss this also at the backdrop of chamber music let me say this was terrific it's very engaged and very inspiring for our deliberations tomorrow and a very good backdrop I think for what we're going to do for the rest of our stay here so um with this thank you all first to the panelists then to the participants thanks to our chairman thank you thank you so let us March towards the palace [Music] very I think between

Channel: Salzburg Global Seminar

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Id: cHrhuhWub7s

Length: 112min 16sec (6736 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 14 2014