A New Course in the World, a New Approach at the UN
Ambassador Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
August 12, 2009
Thank you, Bruce, for that incredibly kind introduction. I don’t think it gets any nicer than that, so I am very grateful. I am also very grateful to Lynne Brown for all her work to pull this event together and to Bruce and Vera Jelinek for their warm welcome here at NYU. And I’m also pleased to see so many friends and colleagues here in the audience, including the distinguished former President of NYU, Congressman John Brademas.
I’m frankly delighted to be at this marvelous institution, because NYU, despite what Vera says, reaches today far beyond New York City. Yours is truly a global institution, with campuses from Accra to Abu Dhabi. NYU’s Centers for Global Affairs and International Cooperation are doing pioneering work in international relations, which is a tribute to the cutting-edge scholarship of its faculty, staff, and students, under the able leadership of Bruce and Vera. These Centers, as many of you well know, are major contributors to the intellectual life of the United Nations.
Your innovative contributions are especially valuable at the start of this new century, at a time when the world is morphing by the minute. As you and others in the academy seek more certain paths across a rapidly shifting global landscape, we too in the U.S. Government are reshaping and renewing American leadership for a very different era.
Six months into the new Administration, as we look ahead to the opening of the 64th General Assembly next month, many of my colleagues on the President’s national security team have been outlining how their departments and organizations are implementing the President’s national security strategy. Secretary of State Clinton recently explained the ways that our diplomacy furthers U.S. interests by building new partnerships, promoting universally held values, and reinforcing the power of our example. Secretary of Defense Gates is reorienting our armed forces for the unconventional, irregular conflicts of the 21st century.
Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano recently highlighted the local, state, federal and international partnerships that we need to keep America secure from catastrophic terrorism. John Brennan, the President’s principal advisor on counterterrorism, just last week detailed our new approach to safeguarding the American people from the evolving threat of al-Qaeda and other violent extremists. And General Jones, the President’s National Security Advisor, explained how the Administration will tackle transnational challenges through a newly integrated National Security Staff at the White House.
And today, as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, I’d like to offer some thoughts about how the United States is changing the course it charts in the world—and how, consistent with our new direction, we are rather dramatically changing our approach to the United Nations.
That change is essential because we face an extraordinary array of global challenges: poorly guarded nuclear weapons and material, a global financial meltdown, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran and North Korea building their nuclear weapons capabilities, al-Qaeda and its affiliates, genocide and mass atrocities, cyber attacks on our digital infrastructure, international crime and drug trafficking, pandemics, and a climate that is warming by the day. These are transnational security threats that cross national borders as freely as a storm. By definition, they cannot be tackled by any one country alone.
Since taking office, the Obama Administration has acted internationally on the basis of three core premises. First, the global challenges we face cannot be met without U.S. leadership. But second, while U.S. leadership is necessary, it’s rarely sufficient. We need the effective cooperation of a broad range of friends and partners. And third, others will likely shoulder a greater share of the global burden if the United States leads by example, acknowledges mistakes, corrects course when necessary, forges strategies in partnership and treats others with respect.
The reach, scale, and complexity of these 21st-century security challenges put unprecedented demands on states and the entire infrastructure of international cooperation that we helped to build after 1945. If ever there were a time for effective multilateral cooperation in pursuit of U.S. interests and a shared future of greater peace and prosperity, it is now. We stand at a true crossroads. We must move urgently to reinvigorate the basis for common action. The bedrock of that cooperation must be a community of states committed to solving collective problems and capable of meeting the responsibilities of effective sovereignty.
A fundamental imperative of U.S. national security in the 21st century is thus clear: we need to maximize the number of states with both the capacity and the will to tackle this new generation of transnational challenges. We need a modern edifice of cooperation, built upon the foundation of responsible American leadership, with the bricks of state capacity and the beams of political will.
Let me elaborate a little bit more on the bedrock issues of state capacity and state will.
The United States needs to grow the ranks of capable, democratic states—states that can deliver both on their international responsibilities and their domestic responsibilities to their own people. Capable states control their territory, govern justly, provide security and essential services, protect their citizens’ rights, and offer their people hope for a better future. When a country cannot—or will not—perform these core functions, when a nation is wracked by war, when a state becomes a shell, its people suffer immediately. But over the longer term, a fragile state can also incubate global trouble that can spread far beyond its borders. And that is where the transnational threats of the 21st century too often begin.
In the past, many dismissed poverty, hunger, and despair in faraway countries as other people’s problems, preferring to focus on the supposedly “hard” questions of war and power. But in a globalized age, the troubles that ravage fragile states can ultimately menace sturdy ones.
Standing aside while the world’s most vulnerable endure conflict, disease, and despair is surely a breach of our common humanity. But it is also a threat to our common security.
Our values compel us to reduce poverty, disease, and hunger, to end preventable deaths of mothers and children, and to build self-sufficiency in agriculture, health, and education. But so too does our national interest. Whether the peril is terrorism, pandemics, narcotics, human trafficking, or civil strife, a state so weak that it incubates a threat is also a state too weak to contain a threat.
In the 21st century, therefore we can have no doubt: as President Obama has said time and again, America’s security and wellbeing are inextricably linked to those of people everywhere.
Building the capacity of fragile states is a major part of our work every day at the United Nations, since it is the UN that is leading the charge in many of the toughest corners of the world. At its best, the UN helps rebuild shattered societies, lay the foundations of democracy and development, and establish conditions in which people can live in dignity and mutual respect. I have seen first-hand how the UN delivers—in Haiti, where peacekeepers flushed out deadly gangs from the notorious Cité Soleil slum and now are training a reformed Haitian police force. I have seen it in Liberia, where the UN Development Program supports impressive efforts to teach literacy, computer skills, and trade skills to jobless ex-combatants. I have seen it in Congo, where the UN has made it possible to hold the first democratic elections in that country’s history.
It is not enough though simply to build up the corps of capable, democratic states. We need states with both the capacity and the will to tackle common challenges. As we have been reminded in recent years, we cannot take that will for granted, even among our closest allies. The simple reality is this: if we want others to help combat the threats that concern us most, then we must help others combat the challenges that threaten them most. For many nations, those threats are first and foremost the things that afflict human beings in their daily lives: corruption, repression, conflict, hunger, poverty, disease, and a lack of education and opportunity.
When the United States joins others to confront these challenges, it’s not charity. It’s not even barter. In today’s world, more than ever, America’s interests and our values converge. What is good for others is often good for us. When we manifest our commitment to tackling the threats that menace so many other nations; when we invest in protecting the lives of others; and when we recognize that national security is no longer a zero-sum game, then we increase other countries’ will to cooperate on the issues most vital to us.
We build that will by demonstrating responsible leadership. We build will by setting a tone of decency and mutual respect rather than condescension and contempt. We build will by abiding by the rules we expect others to follow. We build will by pursuing pragmatic, principled policies and explain them with intelligence and candor. And in the broadest sense, we build will when others can see their future as aligned with ours.
All of this helps explain why so many of America’s security interests come together today at the United Nations. Day in and day out, my colleagues and I at the U.S. Mission to the UN are working to build the will of countries to cooperate and to strengthen their means to act. We are actually on the front lines of what President Obama calls “a new era of engagement.”
And that is why, I have to confess, it is actually a great time to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Everyone notices when a superpower becomes an agent of change—in word and deed, in policy and tone. We are demonstrating that the United States is willing to listen, respect differences, and consider new ideas.
In both the Security Council and the General Assembly, we seek to forge common purpose with other nations. But the fact is: we cannot and will not always agree. Some things are not negotiable. We will always choose to stand firmly on principle rather than fade like cowards into a crowd.
And we have no illusions. A serious gap still separates the vision of the UN’s founders from the institution of today. The Security Council is less riven than it was in the coldest days of the Cold War, but it still stumbles when interests and values diverge, as they do over such issues as Darfur, Zimbabwe, and Burma. In the General Assembly, member states still often let political theater distract from real deliberation and decision. Israel is still unfairly singled out. And the UN system still must confront waste and abuse even as it struggles to meet daunting new responsibilities for peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and development.
As President Obama has said, the UN is imperfect; but it is also indispensible. There can be no substitute for the legitimacy the UN can impart or its potential to mobilize the widest possible coalitions. There is no better alternative to sharing the costs and burdens of UN peace operations and humanitarian missions around the world. There is no doubt that we are more secure when the UN can foster nonproliferation and promote disarmament. It is we, along with others, who gain when the UN spurs sustainable development and democracy, improves global health, upholds women’s rights, and broadens access to education. And we reap the benefits when the UN sets little-known global standards that enable our cell phones to work properly and our airplanes to fly more safely.
In short, the UN is essential to our efforts to galvanize concerted actions that make Americans safer and more secure.
Today, as we steer a new course at the United Nations, our guiding principles are clear: We value the UN as a vehicle for advancing U.S. policies and universal rights. We work for change from within rather than criticizing from the sidelines. We stand strong in defense of America’s interests and values, but we don’t dissent just to be contrary. We listen to states great and small. We build coalitions. We meet our responsibilities. We pay our bills. We push for real reform. And we remember that, in an interconnected world, what’s good for others is often good for the United States as well.
Let me share with you six ways that we are putting these principles into practice every day.
First, we work at the UN to promote America’s core security interests. Consider North Korea. We recently negotiated a unanimous Security Council resolution imposing the toughest array of sanctions on any country in the world today—including new asset freezes, sweeping financial sanctions, a complete embargo on arms exports, and an unprecedented set of obligations for the inspection of suspect vessels. These sanctions are aimed at pressing North Korea to fulfill its commitments and at achieving the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
We also continue to work in the Security Council to ensure that Iran meets its international obligations.
In both cases, our efforts are advancing one of President Obama’s top priorities: nuclear nonproliferation. Through the UN’s Conference on Disarmament, the U.S. is seeking a new treaty to verifiably end the production of fissile materials. We can thereby reduce the chance that al-Qaeda or another terrorist group could lay hands on nuclear weapons or their deadly material. We’re aiming to achieve a successful NPT Review Conference next year. And this year, next month, on September 24, during the U.S. Presidency of the Security Council, President Obama will chair a rare summit meeting of the Council to create a new momentum toward nonproliferation, nuclear security and disarmament.
The UN is also playing vital roles in two countries at the top of our national security agenda where American troops are in harm’s way. In Iraq, the UN is providing expert advice on elections, mediating the longstanding internal boundary disputes between Arabs and Kurds, and assisting Iraqi citizens displaced by war.
In Afghanistan, the UN is helping to promote political development, coordinate donor assistance, support the August 20 elections, and build the capabilities of the Afghan state. All of this buttresses our comprehensive, new international strategy for Afghanistan.
And elsewhere, the UN strengthens America’s security by preventing the smoldering embers of conflict from blazing back to life. For 60 years, the UN has played a crucial role in ending violent conflicts in such places as Korea, Namibia, Mozambique, Guatemala, Cyprus, the Golan Heights, Haiti, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Where people are suffering—where conflict is enduring—where hope is fleeting—that is where you will find the United Nations.
Second, we participate constructively. Rather than throw up our hands, we roll up our sleeves to get things done.
Consider the UN Human Rights Council. Through three election cycles, the United States refused to seek a seat, dismissing the Council as flawed and anti-Israel—which obviously it is. But what did this approach achieve? Dictators were not called to account for their records of repression; abused citizens did not have their voices heard; obsessive, unproductive Israel-bashing raged on.
So in May, we changed course and we won a seat on the Human Rights Council with 90 percent of the votes cast. We join this body well aware that, in many ways, the Human Rights Council is the poster child for what ails the UN. But sitting on the outside will not stop the posturing in Geneva nor defend those bleeding under the boot of despots.
Real change does not come from sitting on the sidelines. Real change can only come through painstaking, principled diplomacy. So we will work hard to reduce customary divisions. We will demand fair treatment for Israel. We will amplify the voices of those suffering under the world’s cruelest regimes. And we will lead by example through our actions at home and our support for those risking their lives for democracy and human rights abroad.
It will not be easy. It will not be quick. But let’s remember the words of a former university president who once said, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Well, if you think engagement is imperfect, try isolation.
Third, we stand firm on principle and resolute on the issues that matter most—but we are resisting indulging in petty battles. In the past, we have sometimes let ourselves be defined by what we stand against, not what we stand for. Well no more. Over the past six months, the United States has taken a fresh look at our positions across the board—including some policies that left us and others scratching their heads to understand what we objected to—policies that failed to advance our interests or our values.
