Ambassador
James B. Cunningham

Biography

Speeches

Ambassador James B. Cunningham
Security Challenges of the 21st Century
At the National Institute for National Security Studies
(INSS)

December 15, 2009

REMARKS

AMBASSADOR CUNNIGHAM: Thank you for asking me to join you today. I will try to stick to my time limit. When Oded [Eran] opened the session he referred to a U.S. dilemma, which he defined as whether we are going to give up or, as Martin [Indyk] used the phrase, “double-down.” I don’t know how that translates into Hebrew.

Oded’s point was focused on Iran and the Middle East. I want to thank Sallai [Meridor] for providing some context because our dilemma is actually something quite different and it is primarily not of President Obama’s making.

When he took office, President Obama faced a set of challenges that were unprecedented, since the Second World War and probably before. Overseas he was confronted with two wars of waning popularity and the whole network of Islamic extremism, Iranian issues and terror that others have discussed. The specific issues of Iran and its role in the Middle East, and Middle East peace, loomed large. Domestically he was faced with the collapse of the financial system and the economic crisis. In addition he had promised to the American people to change the approach that the United State was taking to focus more on diplomacy and engagement and less on military conflict.

As Stan Fisher reminded us last night, the economic crisis isn’t over. Just to cite one small piece of the continuing problem we are dealing with today, in the United States, we need to create one hundred thousand jobs per month just to meet the growth of our population. To grow back to something that even looks like the full employment that we have had for the last years, we need to create 300,000 new jobs a month. In November the stock market went up because we lost only 11,000 jobs. We have a long way to go on that front alone.

So, the American president views the challenges that we are dealing with as global challenges, as Sallai said. I urge you if you haven’t done so to read the President’s Nobel Prize speech. It is really a thoughtful attempt - he did the original drafting - to try to address something that American political leaders don’t often get the chance to speak about. He is looking forward and trying to think through in his own words what is the nature of diplomacy and war in the 21st Century. He talked about new threats that are very relevant to what we have been discussing today. He talked about the threat of proliferation and terror when they link up. This is a very different threat from what we have dealt with in history.

This is not conflict between state and state, or even a standoff between nuclear powers. It is the worst threat to security that one can imagine: a small group of people who have access to weapons that can do incalculable damage. The President also talked about wars within nations, instead of wars between nations. And he talked about wars taking place among civilian populations. That is something that obviously hits home here. He also talked about the willingness of the United States to remain committed to global security, whether it is through the use of diplomacy or, unfortunately if needed, through the use of force.

I think that the message President Obama gave in Oslo answers the question that Oded posed in the beginning. He is not disposed to “back off.” We are committed to what we have begun not because it is a favor to any part of the world or any country, but because it is necessary for our interest, our view of the future, and our view of our own security.

While war is sometimes necessary, of course it usually doesn’t solve the problem. Martin [Indyk] spoke earlier today about the President’s approach being one of what he called “gradual evolution or incrementalism.” In his speech, the President spoke of a gradual evolution of human institutions, because history is difficult to overcome, human nature is difficult to overcome; it evolves over time. What we have seen in the last year, the first year of the Obama Administration is, I think, a definite evolution in the world and the issues that we have been grappling with. Not always the way we would like, not as rapidly as we might have liked, but the tides are changing.

President Obama spent some time talking about the fact that the United States alone cannot secure peace. He said that the belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it - it takes responsibility, sacrifice, and risk. He was quite clear that we will continue engaging in the issues here, the challenges posed by Iran, and by the search for peace in the Middle East. To succeed and to maintain the support of the American public for this engagement, which is an extremely important part of the whole equation, we need not only a convincing way to explain what it is the United States is trying to do, but we need partners. We need people who will work with us in this region and elsewhere in the world in support of diplomacy, in support of what we are trying to do with Iran, for instance, which will require a truly global effort. We need that support as we are working through the problems of diplomacy, as well as if we need to use force when diplomacy fails.
In this region, in the view of this Administration and, I think, it is safe to say of most Americans, time is not on the side of peace. If the status quo mentality prevails, I think that none of us are going to like the outcome.

Americans firmly believe in and will continue to work for a better future for the entire region. We do believe it is possible. If we succeed in meeting one of the most complicated diplomatic challenges, I think, of all time - addressing an arc of crisis and instability that runs from the India-Pakistan border all the way through the Middle East - everybody in this region will benefit and Israel will be immeasurably more secure. If we don’t succeed, it may be because we have made mistakes, or we weren’t smart enough to see some of the opportunities, but it will also be due, in part, to the failures of others to do the work they need to do to make it happen.

Thank you.