Debate Ammunition

“I Am Not Convinced” was the title of Joschka Fischer’s book, written when he was foreign minister in Gerhard Schroeder’s administration. The subject of the book was the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. These were the words Fischer used in answer to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he said, “Diplomacy has been exhausted,” attempting to justify the U.S. invasion. There was crackling tension in the elegant Hotel Bayerischer Hof during that trans-Atlantic meeting. Moments such as that one are when political processes are put in a nutshell.

For the 45th time, hundreds of politicians and journalists will converge at this year’s international security conference in Munich. After 2003, the rift between the United States and Europe’s major countries deepened. Six years later, all signs point to bridge building.

Ex-President George W. Bush was at his ranch, Donald Rumsfeld already assigned the role of protagonist in the “Cold War” between the United States and its European allies. America’s new president wants a change in policy vis-à-vis the European allies, but he wants new policies vis-à-vis real and potential enemies as well.

Downtown Munich will become a fortress this weekend. When the security conference opens, there will be strict security measures in place for the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. Police are being brought in from all over Germany and checkpoints on all highways to Munich are being set up.

Police expect counterdemonstrations and protest events to draw around 5000 peaceful and 400 potentially violent anti-military demonstrators. Those opposed to NATO will hold a major protest march through the downtown area on Saturday. Early after taking office, Obama announced his intention to have improved relations with the Arab world in an interview with the al-Arabiya television network. His next move will be to make a gesture of solidarity with his European allies on the 60th anniversary of NATO’s founding.

A preview of this is expected to take place in Munich this weekend. The U.S. delegation will be headed by Vice-President Joe Biden. The former Senator is considered one of America’s most experienced people in the area of foreign affairs. The fact that he and not the Secretary of Defense leads the delegation is a signal that the U.S. President intends to take the lead with no room for doubt. But it also signals the dawn of a new age of multilateralism – international cooperation rather than Washington going it alone.

The conference, once a private initiative of the Munich-based publisher/publicist Ewald von Kleist, is a good forum. Downtown Munich might not be as cozy as Davos, especially since they have to transform it into a high-security compound every year because of the demonstrators, but the quality of the participants and the opportunities for informal meetings and casual talks makes it equal in the defense and security world to the economic forums that take place in the Swiss Alps.

It wasn’t always a forum for dialog. Ewald von Kleist was a member of the July 20th plotters involved in the attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944. After the end of WWII, he was an active Cold Warrior, ideologically opposing everything that was red and eastern in his magazine “Wehrkunde,” and his annual Wehrkunde conferences took on the same tone.

That changed over the years. After Horst Teltschik, former security advisor to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, assumed responsibility for the meetings, they gradually became more forum-like in character. The new leader, Wolfgang Ischinger, wants to maintain and refine that profile.

There may never again be so many illustrious guests at the conference as there will be in 2009. Besides Biden, White House Security Advisor James Jones and envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrook, with whom Ischinger was able to accomplish much in the way of peace in the Balkans, will attend. Besides these guests, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Afghan President Hamid Karazi are also expected to attend.

What the United States has to say about new strategy in the Hindu Kush will be one of the most tensely anticipated items on the agenda.