Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) 2005 Conference
09.16.2005
www.SHAFR.org
Hosted by: University of Maryland and the National Archives and Records Administration, June 23-25, 2005
Panel papers provided by: The Streiit Council for a Union of Democracies.
SHAFR holds annual nationwide conferences for scholars and practitioners. An invitation was extended to Richard C. Rowson, President of the Council for a Community of Democracies, to present his comments on three papers on global democracy developments in the Atlantic community over the past 100 years. The panel was entitled “Hard and Soft Power” and took place in College Park, Maryland, June 2005.
Further background information on the current activities of the Community of Democracies' UN Democracy Caucus can be found in "Can the UN Democracy Caucus Put Wheels under UN Reform" by Richard C. Rowson, President, CCD.
Summary of commentary on papers presented at 2005 SHAFR conference on U.S. policy toward Atlantic democracies over the past 100 years.
Commentary by: Richard C. Rowson, President, Council for a Community of Democracies
Donald Dennis, President, Council for a Union of Democracies
Foreign Policy Association: “The League of Free Nations Association”
Link to Full Text at The Streit Council for a Union of Democracies.
Summary of Rowson Commentary:
In a carefully drawn and researched exposition of the formation of the League of Free Nations Association following WWI, Dennis speculated, “what if” ‘the League had survived, might WWII have been avoided? As Dennis pointed out, this vision of President Woodrow Wilson, the first ever organized international effort to move toward a “union of democracies” was thwarted by inept political handling of isolationist forces within the U.S. Senate and foreign rivalries abroad, which led to failure of this Atlanticist initiative. What was made clear is that the League was not a truly global effort and that that portended its failure. This was apparent by the League's failure to respond to the l936 appeal by Ethiopia to protect that nation's sovereignty against Italian Fascism's imperialism.
Dennis presented an excellent historical review of how the failure of the League led to lessons learned and applied following WWII resulting in the realization of many of Clarence Streit's dreams of Atlantic community, namely, NATO, the UN and European Union. However, these institutions fell short of Streit's vision of an international “governing” system based in the North Atlantic community with participation by nations from other regions of the world. The prospect for a global “union of democracies,” this commentator pointed out, emerged from a new, globally-based “union of democracies” called the Community of Democracies (CD), founded in Warsaw in 2000 by 106 nations from all continents. Since its founding, CD has organized a “caucus of democracies” at the UN and has endorsed a joint initiative of the Council for a Community of Democracies (the NGO counterpart to the intergovernmental CD) and the Hungarian Government called the International Centre for Democratic Transition, whose mission is to assist governments in making the transition to democracy in their own countries drawing on the experience of those who have made that transition successfully.
Richard Arndt, President, Americans for UNESCO
Columbia University: “Sources and Concept of Postwar Cultural Democracy”
Link to Full Text at The Streit Council for a Union of Democracies.
Summary of Rowson Commentary:
Arndt presented a good review of the origin and development of “cultural diplomacy” from its beginnings as a “religious stewardship” in the 19th century. This evolved during WWI into the Creel Committee for Public Information and President Hoover's debt relief operations focused on American generosity, good will and culture. In WWII, a bilateral cultural program in Latin American (under Nelson Rockefeller) was launched and postwar, a sophisticated, multilateral program in cultural diplomacy was initiated by Assistant Secretary for Cultural Affairs, Archibald MacLeish, which resulted in the formation of UNESCO, the Fulbright Program and the Smith-Mundt Act based in “honest intellectual discourse and relationships.” The MacLeish program was designed to convey a “cultural internationalist Atlanticist vision” designed to build and put in place a “global infrastructure” founded in shared democratic values. Both the strength of this universal, global approach and its weakness in assuming a permanent institutional and global political base would result from this approach, was pointed out by this commentator. As Mr. Arndt admitted, more than an “honest exchange of views” was needed, namely, a broad-based effort linking democratic values with the political problems. As a result, a strategy, which became known as “public diplomacy” was developed. During the Cold War, this approach new strategy offered countries locked into the Soviet Communist system, hope of eventual freedom and re-admission to Europe as free nations through, for example, the international political communication efforts of Radio Free Europe. Following the end of the Cold War, another fundamental step forward was taken by the creation of the Community of Democracies, which for the first time committed 106 governments to democracy and its promotion, globally.
Ira Straus, Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia in NATO: “Atlanticist Establishment and its Successful Strategy after the 1890”
Link to Full Text at The Streit Council for a Union of Democracies.
Summary of Rowson Commentary:
The merging of “soft” and “hard” power in the Atlantic community post WWII reflected an Atlanticist hegemony and the triumph of multilateralism over unilateralism, in the region and the culmination of a struggle over the previous fifty years within the councils of U.S. foreign policy and resulted in the acceptance of a multilateral approach to trans-atlantic relations by the United States and its European allies.. It, however, left unfulfilled the Atlanticist's dream of a global strategy for the non-European/North American world. As Straus pointed out, the capability for collective action on common democratic issues globally – something the UN has not yet been able to effect – has neither been provided by Atlantic unity. This commentator claimed that that was a result of the assumption that an Atlantic “concert of nations” of democratic would somehow lead to a global union of democracies such as the Community of Democracies was organized to create.
Summarization by:
Dick Rowson, President, Council for a Community of Democracies
