Madeleine Albright and the geopolitics of Europe

GeoJournal 46: 267–278, 1998. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 267 Madeleine Albright and the geopolitics of Europe Jan Nijman University of Miami, Department of Geography, and Regional Studies School of International Studies P.O. Box 8067, Coral Gables, FL 33124-2060, U.S.A. Received 10 April 1998; accepted in revised form 15 July 1998 Key words: geopolitics, Secretary of State, Euro-centrism, American exceptionalism “I’m from this region: I’m not naive.” (Albright, Belgrade, 5–31–971 ). “...I’m very proud to be an American.” (Albright, Washington DC, 1–23–97∗2 ). 1. Introduction This essay discusses the foreign policy views of Madeleine Albright, the current Secretary of State of the United States. It does so in the context of a broader theme that focuses on a distinction between European and American foreign policy traditions. That distinction relates in particular to the role of geopolitical visions in the crafting of foreign policy. It is particularly interesting to examine the policies of Madeleine Albright in view of her personal European background and the strong emphasis in her policies on the European region. Part of the paper concentrates on the issue of NATO expansion as a case study of Albright’s foreign policy. This has been declared, on many occasions, one of the most significant foreign policy goals of the Clinton Administration and, indeed, of US foreign policy since 1945. NATO expansion has clearly been an issue very close to Madeleine Albright’s heart, but also a matter of historic importance to Europe. The border between ‘Europe’ and its eastern neighboring region has been referred to as one of the most salient and riskiest in the world (Kolossov and O’Loughlin, 1997). More generally, the paper discusses Madeleine Albright’s foreign policy style and beliefs, and her geopolitical vision. The discussion also moves beyond Albright’s persona in that it seeks to identify ‘European’ and ‘American’ strains of the geopolitical craft in the United States. It does so in part through a comparison of Albright with Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, with whom she shares East-Central European origins, extensive training and academic experience in the field of international relations, and an apparent sensitivity to European-style politics. 1 Quoted in The Economist, 8–16–1997: p. 21. 2 The analysis in this paper relies extensively on public statements by Madeleine Albright in her capacity as Secretary of State. An asterisk (∗ ) indicates that the source of the quotation is a public statement as posted on the official website of the Department of State (www.state.gov). This site contains all public statements by the Secretary since the beginning of her tenure. Albright is also compared to three, typically American, predecessors: George Shultz, James Baker, and Warren Christopher. The latter three represent a political culture of foreign policy making that stands in sharp contrast with the European variant a la Kissinger and Brzezinski. I will argue that Madeleine Albright’s crafting of American foreign policy falls somewhere in between these two archetypes, a quality that has a certain charm but also carries substantial risk. 2. Anti-Europe: the American tradition “There are two Americas. The one that most Americans care about is a land of varied beauty and vast distance. Between skyscraping New York and the surf of the Pacific coast are 3000 miles of awesome contrast: prairie, desert, mountains, small towns in the middle of what seems nowhere. ... It is a self-sufficient America, indifferent to an outside world that rarely intrudes into the local paper or the television news. Then there is a second America, concentrated in concrete-clad Washington, DC. This is the domain of the policy wonks. These people share the concerns of the first America... But their America is not remote from the outside world: it is that world’s only superpower, and the centre of the global economy. For the wonks, foreign policy matters.” (Lexington, in The Economist, 9–27–97: 34) The above description conforms to characterizations of American culture as inward-looking or isolationist. It also corresponds to representations of America as an ideal, a utopia, a contrast to the imperfect world that was left behind by the ancestors of today’s Americans. Even though the policy wonks feel that foreign policy matters, it is a feeling born out of necessity, not enthusiasm. Further, foreign policy is continuously constrained by the dis-interested voters that live outside the ‘beltway’ in the first America. 268 The America described by Lexington became internationalist only because isolationism was no longer possible. In this view, the ending of US political isolationism in World War II has to this day not been accompanied by the dissipation of US cultural or psychological isolationism. The result has been reluctant and ambivalent internationalism (Dijkink, 1996: 53 passim). This is expressed, for example, in the frequent tension in US foreign policy between Idealism and Realism, one that is not found in a comparable way in any other country. This America has typically produced foreign policy makers that are acutely aware of their constituencies’ lack of interest in foreign affairs and of their resistance to foreign involvements. They are often at pain to articulate the limits of their internationalism toward the domestic public. American foreign policy makers tend to reflect this American political culture. This can be illustrated with a brief comparative discussion of the three most immediate predecessors of Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State. George Shultz (1982–1988), James Baker (1989–1992), and Warren Christopher (1993–1996) were American-born (multiple generations) outside Washington DC in Lexington’s ‘first America’. All three were born in a family of lawyers and entrepreneurs, and they continued their family’s tradition. Neither of them had formal training in foreign policy making or international relations, neither wrote any noteworthy texts on the subject, and none of them can be said to have brought much passion to their job. Two of the three came to the office of Secretary of State without significant experience in foreign affairs and, upon retirement, all three went back to their previous professional activities that are largely unrelated to foreign policy. A brief biographical sketch of each will illustrate these points. George Shultz was born in 1920 in New York, the son of the founder of the New York Stock Exchange Institute. He studied economics at Princeton (B.A., 1942) and industrial economics at MIT (Ph.D., 1949). He started his career as an assistant professor of industrial relations at MIT and gained a reputation as a specialist in labor relations and labor disputes. In 1957 Shultz became a professor of industrial relations at the University of Chicago, and Dean of the Graduate School of Business in 1962. Since 1969, Shultz held various government offices: Secretary of Labor (1969), Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1970), and Secretary of the Treasury for Nixon (1972). From 1972 to 1982, he was President of the Bechtel Group Inc., an engineering and contracting firm in San Francisco. He was Secretary of State form 1982 to 1988. Since 1989, Shultz has been a part-time professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford. Shultz’s style has been characterized as ‘unflamboyant’ (Time: 1982, p. 15) and as ‘pragmatic [and] incremental’ (O’Brien, 1991, p. 367). His contribution to US foreign policy derived from his business and negotiating skills. His rational, down-to-earth, approach probably helped to temper Reagan’s ideological zeal. Shultz wrote a number of wellknown academic books on labor relations, management and economic policy (Sobel, 1990, p. 330), but only one book on foreign policy, in the form of his memoirs. The book is en- titled Turmoil and Triumph and its main theme is the United States’ victory in the cold war (Shultz, 1993). The book also reveals the archetypical American strain represented by Shultz: while a large part of this 1200 page volume deals with the American role in East-European events leading up to the eventual fall of communism in 1989, the index contains only one entree on Lech Walensa and none on Vaclav Havel (see Weigel, 1993). James A. Baker III, the second example of the typical ‘American’ statesman, was born in 1930 in Houston, Texas, as the son of a well-to-do attorney. The family law firm was established by his great-grandfather in 1872, and Baker grew up as a ‘Houston aristocrat’ (Time 1985, p. 21). He obtained a law degree in 1957 at the University of Texas and started to practice law in the same year. Baker was active in the Republican party for many years and became the campaign manager for Gerald Ford (1976–1977) and George Bush. He was Under-Secretary of Commerce in the Ford Administration for a year in 1975 but left this post to direct Ford’s election campaign in 1976. Baker acquired a reputation as a skilled campaign tactician. In the first Reagan Administration, Baker was the White House Chief of Staff, and in the second Reagan Administration he was Secretary of the Treasury (1985–1988). He was Secretary of State in the Bush Administration, from 1989 to 1992. As Secretary of State, Baker was known for his ‘pragmatic, non-ideological approach’, and also for ‘lacking an overarching Vinson’ (Kuniholm, 1997a, p. 129; see also O’Brien, 1991, p. 17). Baker’s pragmatism implied resistance to US interventionism: ‘If my internationalist bias is clear, so is my preference for principled pragmatism.’ (Baker, 1996, p. 167). Elsewhere, he stated that American foreign policy ‘should be guided by the principle of selective engagement. Clearly, the United States does have an interest in encouraging democracy in Haiti, just as we do in averting human suffering in Somalia. But those interests are not of sufficient importance to squander American lives or fritter away American prestige.’ (Baker, 1994, pp. 299, 300). James Baker has not written on the subject of foreign affairs, except for his memoirs which materialized with the help of a professional writer (Baker and DeFrank, 1995). He is presently a senior partner in the Houston law firm of Baker and Botts. Finally, Warren Christopher was born in 1925 in Scranton, North Dakota, as the son of a banker. He moved with his family to southern California in 1939. After obtaining a law degree at Stanford University in 1949, he practiced corporate law with the firm O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, becoming a partner in 1958. He left the firm temporarily from 1967 to 1969 to become US Deputy Attorney General. Christopher’s first experience in foreign policy was as Deputy Secretary of State in the Carter Administration, and right hand to Cyrus Vance (1977–1981). From 1981 to 1993, Christopher returned once again to his Los Angeles law firm, where he would be chairman until 1993, when he was sworn in as Secretary of State in the first Clinton Administration. As Secretary of State (and previously as Deputy Secretary) Christopher was widely respected for his careful 269 judgment, attention to detail, and his negotiating skills. His experience as a (international) business lawyer served him well in a foreign policy with strong emphasis on US economic interests. Consistent with the emphasis of the first Clinton Administration on domestic economic issues, the ‘promotion of America’s economic security’ was identified as ‘the first pillar of our new foreign policy’ (Christopher, 1993, p. 387). This also explains the strong focus in this foreign policy on the Asia-Pacific region (Christopher, 1995) where, by the way, O’Melveny & Myers have many major clients. However, his ‘quiet, almost self-effacing manner’ is generally thought to have diminished his effectiveness as a foreign policy leader and public spokesman (Kuniholm, 1997b, p. 257). In a 1981 article, Time magazine described the following contrast between then Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski: “During a trip to Pakistan last year with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Warren M. Christopher sat quietly by while the flamboyant National Security Advisor seemed intent on humiliating him. Brzezinski stuck so close to Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq that Christopher did not even have a chance to present the Pakistani ruler with the official U.S. gift. While Brzezinski clowned and traded quips with the press, Christopher ... patiently studied his briefing books.” (Time, 1981, p. 19). In his days as Deputy Secretary, Time magazine labeled him characteristically as ‘The quiet American’ (Time, 1981: 19). More recently, The Economist underscored Christopher’s apparent lack of passion on foreign affairs with the less than flattering observation that he “lawyered audiences to sleep” (The Economist, 1–11–1997, p. 30). Christopher’s only significant publication on foreign policy is his contribution to a multi-authored volume on the Iran hostage crisis (Christopher et al., 1985). Christopher, Baker, and Shultz, all exemplify American political culture in the sense of their advocacy of internationalism as an unavoidable strategy, forced upon America by a world in which technological forces have made isolationism untenable. But they also reflect the continued cultural isolationism of America, one that is not conducive to an explicit geopolitical imagination and to a natural curiosity about the world beyond America and its interests. Characteristically, these statesmen are attorneys and economists with little intellectual interest in geography or foreign affairs, more likely to consult the lawyers almanac than an atlas. For these ‘policy wonks’ foreign policy matters, but their hearts and minds are made in Lexington’s ‘first America.’ 3. The European legacy of American geopolitics “... pure Realpolitik ... is essentially incompatible with the American tradition.” (Henry Kissinger, 1994a, p. 819). Geopolitics is a product of European history. Modern geopolitics, both as science and as statecraft, is rooted in a geopolitical imagination that emerged first in Europe during the times of the great explorations. This emergence of the geopolitical imagination was reflected in efforts of Europeans to map the world and relate it spatially to Europe. John Agnew (1997) states that the geopolitical imagination originated in the European renaissance: ‘[the] most distinguishing feature [of the geopolitical imagination] is the conception of the world as a single if divided physical-political entity.’ This view of the world as a whole, and separated from the observer, is a ‘peculiarly European perspective in origin’ (idem). Further, geopolitics as statecraft and as the scientific study of this particular form of statecraft is clearly linked to the emergence of states that first occurred in Europe. The Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 is often the designated marker of the start of the European era of a system of territorial states, even if the lineages of Europe’s states covered long historical periods that started long before that year and extend well into contemporary times. It is the territorial nature of the state, of course, that gave rise to geopolitics. In his superb Coercion, Capital, and European States (1990), Charles Tilly described how territorial control was a central aim of aspiring states as well as a common cause of war, and as such constituted a key element in the emergence and evolution of the state system. Early modern geopolitical theory, most of which dates back to the late 19th century, was either written by Europeans (e.g., Ratzel; Mackinder) or it was inspired by European history and/or existing European writings. The latter applies particularly to American writings on geopolitics. The works by ‘Europhiles’ like Mahan, Spykman and, later, Kennan or Kissinger, all centered on Europe’s history and the lessons it provided for American foreign policy. In practice, too, there is ample evidence during this century of the direct influence of European (esp. British) statesmen on United States foreign policy. For example, British interference is held responsible for the United States’ “open door” policy toward China at the beginning of the 20th century (Kennan, 1984). Several authors have also pointed to the pivotal role of Britain in creating the Cold War in the late forties and in positioning the United States opposite the Soviet Union in this conflict (e.g., Harbutt, 1986; Taylor 1990). A more recent example is the alleged personal influence of British prime minister Thatcher on the American decision to enter the war against Iraq in 1990. The most interesting ‘European’ influence on American foreign policy, for our purpose, is that by two European natives who ended up making US foreign policy in a formal capacity: Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They represent a remarkable European influence on American geopolitics in their strikingly similar (European) backgrounds and personal styles, but also in terms of their substantial contributions to geopolitical thought in the United States. In contrast to typical ‘Americans’ such as Shultz, Baker, and Christopher, for whom foreign policy making was something of a temporary occupation, Kissinger and Brzezinski can be considered as professional crafters of 270 foreign policy. A brief biographical sketch of each will underscore the point. Brzezinski was born in 1928 in Warsaw, the son of a diplomat. He spent part of his childhood years living and going to school in Poland, France and Germany. In 1938, shortly before Poland’s carve-up by Stalin and Hitler, Brezinski’s family migrated to Canada. He studied political science and economics at McGill University, where he obtained a B.A. (1949) and M.A. degree (1950). In 1953 he moved to the United States, to pursue a Ph.D. in political science and international relations at Harvard University. Brzezinski taught international politics at Harvard (1955–1960) and Columbia University (1960–1977), with a specialization in Soviet politics and American foreign policy. In 1961, Brzezinski became the director of the newly formed Institute on Communist Affairs, and he quickly gained a reputation for his expertise on the Soviet Union and East European politics. His first major involvement with the making of US foreign policy was around 1960, when he served as one of Kennedy’s preinaugural advisors. President Johnson appointed him to the State Department Policy Planning Council in 1966. At the time, Brzezinski was an outspoken supporter of American involvement in the Vietnam war (O’Brien, 1991, p. 51). From 1977 to 1981, his most influential years, Brzezinski was the National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter. At the end of the Carter Administration, Brzezinski returned to the academic profession, first at Georgetown University and later, until the present, as professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University. At the same time, he continued his direct involvement with US foreign policy making in a variety of capacities, such as his membership of President Bush’s Private Advisory Panel on foreign policy in the late eighties. In the course of his ongoing career, he wrote a large number of scholarly books and articles on the Soviet Union, communism, and foreign policy. To this day, Brzezinski remains one the most prolific writers in the field of geopolitics and US foreign policy (e.g., Brzezinski, 1997a, b). Five years older than Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger was born in 1923 in Furth, Germany. The Jewish Kissinger family escaped World War II by migrating to the United States in 1938. In 1943, Henry Kissinger became a US citizen, joined the US army, and fought with the Americans in Europe. After the Allied victory, he stayed in Germany as an intelligence officer until 1947. Back in the United States, Kissinger earned a B.A. (1950), M.A. (1952), and Ph.D. (1954) in political science and international relations at Harvard University. He stayed at Harvard as a professor of government (specializing in the field of international relations and foreign policy) until 1969. From 1955 to 1957 Kissinger was also affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations, where he published his Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, which brought him to the attention of policy makers and politicians. Since 1961, Kissinger was active as a foreign policy advisor to presidents Kennedy and Johnson. In 1968, as was discovered later, he simultaneously counseled Democratic (Humphry) and Republican (Nixon) presidential candidates. Kissinger was National Security Advisor for Nixon from 1969 until 1975 and he was also Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 (the only person ever to hold both offices simultaneously). Kissinger left the government in 1977 but remained active in the foreign policy arena. He continued his writings and also founded Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm that advises private clients on foreign policy issues. Kissinger’s and Brzezinski’s realpolitik perspectives on international affairs are framed in the explicit language of geo-politics. This geopolitical perspective concerns the place of the United States in the world, and its strategic implications, a perspective in which geography is explicitly identified as a guide to foreign policy. As Kissinger pointed out recently, “In the post-Cold War world, American idealism needs the leaven of geopolitical analysis to find its way through the maze of new complexities.” (Kissinger, 1994a, p. 812). It should be reiterated that this geopolitical perspective is not common among the ‘American’ crafters of US foreign policy: The authoritative Dictionary of Geopolitics (O’Loughlin, 1994) makes elaborate mention of Kissinger and Brzezinski, but contains no entries on Shultz, Baker, or Christopher. Further, both Brzezinski and Kissinger place a great deal of emphasis on Europe as the key region in American foreign policy. For both, of course, Europe is the geopolitical region par excellence, and it is mainly in reference to Europe that they formulated their respective world-views. In Brzezinski’s words, “Europe is America’s essential geopolitical bridgehead on the Eurasian continent. America’s geostrategic stake in Europe is enormous.” (Brzezinski, 1997a, p. 59). And Kissinger, in his most recent book, argues that: “Without Europe, America will become an island off the shores of Eurasia condemned to a kind of pure balance-of-power politics that does not reflect its national genius.” (Kissinger 1994b: A27). Brzezinski’s and Kissinger’s geopolitical views are closely intertwined with the Realist school of thought in international relations. Brzezinski’s realism functioned as a counter-weight to Carter’s idealism: “I know he [Carter] genuinely believed that as President he could shape a more decent world. I shared in that belief, up to a point. ... I put stronger emphasis perhaps than Carter on the notion that strengthening American power was the necessary point of departure.” (Brzezinski, 1983, pp. 48–49). Brzezinski’s strong stand on the use of force eventually led to a schism in the Carter Administration between the National Security Council and the Department of State. His plans for a (failed) military mission to free the hostages in Iran in 1980 led to the resignation of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Kissinger has been widely praised as America’s foremost diplomat and as an intellectual of great stature. Combining scholarship at the highest levels with significant involvement in policy-making, Kissinger has left a unique mark on the historiography of American foreign policy. At the same time, however, Kissinger’s style as well as his a-moral 271 approach to foreign affairs were never received well by the American public. He often drew criticism for ‘notable arrogance and self-promotion’ and many Washington insiders found him ‘vain and pompous’ (Schulzinger 1997, pp. 19, 20). More important than these personal shortcomings was his philosophical approach to foreign policy, which was at odds with the American political culture and world-view. Kissinger’s first book, A World Restored: Castlereagh, Metternich and the Restoration of Peace, 1812–22 (1957), defined his unwavering realpolitik perspective on international affairs that has consistently dominated both his academic work and policies (see Kissinger, 1974, 1979, 1982, 1994a). The main architect of the US policy of detente in the early seventies, Kissinger advocated a balance of power politics that had kept the peace in 19th century Europe: “Kissinger sought to bring a European-style realist perspective to the conduct of U.S. foreign relations.” (Schulzinger, 1997, p. 22). Kissinger has been well aware of the peculiarities of the American foreign policy tradition, and of his own deviation from that tradition. His well-known selfdescription as the ‘lone ranger’ is intriguing in this regard because, while it is an ultra-American metaphor (Campbell, 1992, p. 165), it underscores the cognitive distance between the ‘European’ Kissinger, and his American audience. 4. A biographical sketch of Madeleine Albright “...my life story is also the story of the evil of totalitarianism and the turbulence of 20th century Europe.” (Albright, Prague, 7–13–97∗). Madeleine Korbel Albright was born in Prague in 1937, the daughter of a Czechoslovak diplomat. Her family went in exile to Belgrade and Switzerland in 1938 and returned to Czechoslovakia after the war. At this time, her father, Josef Korbel, became the chief of staff to the Czech Foreign Minister, Jan Masaryk. In an interview, she recalled the time when her father told her that Moscow had turned down Masaryk’s plea for permission for Czechoslovakia to take part in the Marshall Plan. The Albright family fled their country again in 1948, this time to the United States. According to the official Department of State biography∗, Madeleine Albright is fluent in French and Czech, while having working knowledge of Polish, Serbian, and Russian. She arrived in the United States at the age of eleven, finished high school, and obtained a B.A. degree in political science at Wellesley College in 1959. She was married to and had three children with Joseph Albright, heir to a major newspaper chain. Biographical information is scarce with regard to the years between 1959 and the early seventies and it appears that during this time Albright dedicated herself to motherhood and undertook little professional activity. In later years, she acquired a Master’s and a Ph.D., in 1976, in the department of Public Law and Government at Columbia University. Alongside her studies in the early seventies, she was active as a volunteer in several Democratic campaigns. After obtaining her doctorate, she became the chief legislative assistant to democratic senator Edmund Muskie, and two years later, in 1978, she became a staff member of the National Security Council, as a ‘protégé’ of National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (Dobbs and Goshko, 1996, p. 25). At the end of the Carter Administration, she became a Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson International Center (1981–1982) and wrote a book on the role of the press in Poland’s political changes in the early eighties (Albright, 1983). In 1982 and 1983, Albright was a research professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, where she also held positions as Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and as Director of the Women in Foreign Service Program. She taught courses in international affairs, US foreign policy, Russian foreign policy, and Central and East European politics. As a program director, she was also responsible for developing and implementing programs designed to enhance women’s professional opportunities in international affairs. Notwithstanding her frequent public references to her former professorial status, Albright has been an academician for only a short period of time (1981–1983) and her scholarly work is meager. The State Department’s official biography∗ of the Secretary lists three ‘selected writings’ and these include, besides the already mentioned book on Poland, her unpublished Master’s and Ph.D. theses (Albright, 1968, 1976). Her published book is similar to her dissertation, that dealt with the role of the press in the Prague uprising in 1968. Both works contain little theory and are descriptive, well-told, stories. Albright wrote hardly any scholarly journal articles. To be sure, the scope of her academic work is not comparable to that of either Kissinger or Brzezinski. Similar to Brzezinski’s, Albright’s writings show a strong interest in East European and Russian politics and the role of the press and mass communication media in processes of political mobilization. For example, in the theoretical part of her dissertation, she draws heavily on the writings by Karl Deutsch (1963, 1966) on models of political communication and network analysis, but also on Brzezinski’s (1956, 1967, 1969) work on destabilizing democratic forces in communist regimes. Albright’s writings reveal a fascination with the media and their political use and with mass manipulation through the media. Her divorce from Joseph Albright in 1982 is said to have left her with a generous settlement that she used to run a ‘foreign policy salon’ in her house in Georgetown, which served as a meeting place for leading Democratic politicians (Dobbs and Goshko, 1996, p. 25). She became the foreign policy advisor of vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and of Michael Dukakis in his campaign in 1988. Until 1993, she was the president of the Center for National Policy in Washington DC, a non-profit research organization and think-tank that promotes the study of domestic and international policy issues. Albright became ambassador to the United Nations in the first Clinton Administration. As UN ambassador, she was most visible towards the end of her tenure, with her tough stand on demands for UN reform and her key role in 272 blocking a second term for secretary-general Boutros Ghali. Her performance in the UN, and its positive reception in the Republican dominated 104th Congress, played an important part in her nomination as Secretary of State by President Clinton in December of 1996. Albright’s passion for international affairs and her own personal life story seem closely intertwined. At no other moment in time was this more apparent then in early 1997, when evidence was found of her Jewish background. Born and raised a Roman Catholic in 1937 in Czechoslovakia, it was revealed that both her parents were Jewish and converted to escape the holocaust. Albright’s grandparents and a number of relatives perished in Nazi concentration camps. The discovery had an emotionally charged follow up during her official visit to Prague in July of 1997, where she found the names of her paternal grandparents written on the wall of the Pinkas Synagogue, among those of some 80 000 Czechoslovak Jewish victims of Nazism. If anything, these events seemed to further strengthen the impact of Albright’s European roots. At the time of her nomination for office, she repeatedly stated that her mind set was determined by ‘Munich 1938’. This shows not only her close personal ties to her country of birth (Czechoslovakia was the first casualty of that ill-fated meeting of Europe’s leaders with Adolf Hitler), but represents more generally a European lesson about the risks of appeasement. There are, then, some striking similarities in the backgrounds of Albright, Kissinger, and Brzezinski: they were born in East-Central Europe between the two world wars; they fled Europe in the same year, 1938; they naturalized in the United States; they were trained at the highest academic levels in international affairs and political science and they were active in the academic profession; and they held key positions as makers of American foreign policy. The next few sections discuss Albright’s foreign policy mind set from a variety of angles. While there are some important commonalities with the likes of Kissinger and Brzezinski, there are also some fundamental differences. As we shall see, Albright represents a peculiar blend of ‘European’ and ‘American’ political traditions. 5. Between Euro-centrism and American exceptionalism “To me, there could be no more appropriate place than here, on this continent, before this gathering of allies and friends, to make my first formal remarks overseas as America’s Secretary of State.” (Albright, Brussels, 2– 18–1997∗). “We Americans have an enormous advantage over many other countries because we know who we are and what we believe. We have a purpose.” (Madeleine Albright, Washington DC, 1–13–1998∗) Albright has herself alluded frequently to the influence of her European past on her present views, and she evidently identifies with her native country. This was particularly visible during her visit to the Czech Republic in the summer of 1997: ‘..nothing compares to the feelings of coming to my original home, Prague...’ (Albright, 7–14–97∗). In her Swearing-In Remarks as Secretary of State, she thanked her mother, father, the first US Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and Czech President Vaclav Havel (Albright, 1– 23–1997∗). Her close ties with Vaclav Havel seem rooted both in nationality and ideology and he seems to reciprocate her sympathy: “... what I appreciate in her, is her fine feeling for European problems, for European history, and for European security interests. Perhaps this fine feeling is influenced by memories of her youth spent in Central Europe.” (Vaclav Havel, Prague, 7–14–1997∗). Albright’s Euro-centrism is reflected in her travels. During her first fifteen months in Office, she visited Europe ten times, Asia and the Middle East each four times, Latin America thrice, and Africa once (Department of State web site). This is in sharp contrast to the travel patterns of former State Secretary Christopher, whose most frequented areas were the Middle East and Asia. Indeed, Albright’s focus on Europe in her first year coincided with a rather conspicuous lack of attention to the gradually derailing Israeli-Palestinian peace process. She did not visit the Middle East until her ninth month in Office (September of 1997) when IsraeliPalestinian relations has regressed into a state of crisis, and she did not get visibly involved in the process until that time. She has also been only marginally involved in the US response to the economic crisis in Asia in late 1997 and early 1998. In a key statement to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee (1–8–1997∗) in which she outlined her vision and the priorities of American foreign policy, she labeled the ‘transatlantic partnership’ as America’s foremost key alliance and regional interest. In the text of this statement, Europe received more than twice as much attention than Asia, the second ranking region. She emphasized the interests of the United States in Europe, and characterized America as a ‘European power.’ On other occasions, too, Albright has been very outspoken regarding the priority of Europe in US foreign policy: ‘however old or new the challenges we face, there is still one relationship that more than any other will determine whether we meet them successfully, and that is our relationship with Europe.’ (Albright 2–10–1998∗). This preoccupation with Europe is shared, as we have seen, by Brezinski and Kissinger. It seems rather obvious that this is at least in part a matter of personal heritage. Kissinger, in his observations of Albright, has commented approvingly that she is ‘an exception to the present generation of policy makers that, with no personal experience of World War II, having never established the kinds of European ties that bound an earlier generation to the Old World, accepts the Vietnam war as its Epiphany.’ (Kissinger, p. 1995, 101). Of course, these ‘European ties,’ in the case of Albright, have much more to do with her own European background than with her age or generation. Nonetheless, it is an interesting characterization that highlights the different roles of the Second World War and the Vietnam War in American world views. 273 The peculiar thing about Albright’s Euro-centrism is that it coexists with a powerful sense of American exceptionalism, one that is absent in the views of Brzezinski and especially Kissinger. In her address to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, this exceptionalism was expressed without the slightest reluctance and with language that invokes America’s Manifest Destiny: “By rejecting the temptation of isolation, and by standing with those around the world who share our values, we will advance our own interests; honor our best traditions; and help to answer a prayer that has been offered over many years in a multitude of tongues, in accordance with diverse customs, in response to a common yearning. ...I ask you to join me in doing all we can, as representatives of the indispensable nation, and with the help of God, to answer that prayer.” (Albright, Washington DC, 1–8–1997∗). “The phrase ‘indispensable nation’ is one that President Clinton has also used repeatedly during his second term – for example in his announcement of the choice of Madeleine Albright for secretary of state, in his second inaugural address, and in his State of the Union speech.” (Walker, 1997, p. 2). This is a major departure from the first Clinton Administration’s stand on foreign policy, that was heavily overshadowed by a domestic policy agenda. During this first term, from 1992 to 1996, US foreign policy seemed much less of a priority, almost subdued in terms of its ambitions, pretensions, and its sense of mission. The second term of the Clinton Administration offered a sharp contrast, and much of this can be attributed to Madeleine Albright. Her ambitions and her pretentious view of the role of the United States in the world was nicely summarized in her remark that the international affairs budget for 1998 constitutes less than one percent of the federal budget, ‘but that will be used to write fifty percent of the history and legacy of our times.’ (Walker, 1997, p. 1). Albright sketched her view of the post-Cold War world during a question and answer session after an address before the Institute for International Economics in the Fall of 1997. This digression was clearly not part of her prepared speech and it seems a particularly accurate and honest reflection of Albright’s world view: “If I might ... give you a short-hand version of how I have seen the world divided in terms of groups of countries. My previous job was at the United Nations, and when I got there, there were 183 countries. There are now 185. And I tried for myself, being a professor, to establish some kind of conceptual basis to what I was seeing. So I thought that perhaps there were kind of four different groups of countries. The largest group are those that understand that it is important to have some kind of rules of the game within the international system; that understand the value of working together. That is the largest group. We may not agree with the governments in ... that group. But generally, there is an agreement about the importance of abiding by international systems. The second group was basically the countries transitioning to democracy that wanted very much to be a part of the first group but did not yet have all the institutional structures to do that. The third group of countries was the rogue states, who not only did not want to be a part of the first group, but deliberately were doing everything they could to undermine it. The fourth group was the so-called failed states that for some reason or another were basically eating their own seed grain. The purpose of what we see in the 21st century is to ultimately move everybody in that first group. That is the long-term vision that has to exist. Those countries – the rogues – against whom we use sanctions, is our attempt to make clear that their behavior is such that it has to change in order to be part of the first group.” (Albright, Washington DC, 9–18–1997∗). This view corresponds to the United States’ policy of ‘enlargement,’ but it goes quite a bit further in the sense that it rules out any alternative to the American or Western model of political and economic organization. The assumption is that other countries are either in the process of replicating this model, or that they would want to but they are unable to, or that they belong to a relatively small group of irrational saboteurs that cannot be reasoned with (for example, Castro, the Bosnian Serbs, or the Afghan Taliban). For Albright, the United States is unique in its stand for reason, justice, and the power and will to remake the world for the better. The United States is the ‘indispensable nation’ because without its leadership nothing serious can be achieved in the world. 6. The denial of geopolitics “The great divide in the world today is not between east and west or north and south; it is between those who are the prisoners of history and those determined to shape history.” (Albright, Washington DC, 2–11–1997). Geopolitics as a science or more generally as a way of seeing the political world, tends to single out geography as the ‘domain of hard truths, material realities and irrepressible natural facts...around which the play of events in international politics unfolds’ (O’Thuatail and Agnew, 1992, p. 192). Geography is thus elevated to the prime cause or explanation of political processes. Often, this fundamental and deterministic role of geography is presented as more or less self-evident. In the words of yet another European-American proponent, the Austrian-born Robert Strausz-Hupe: “you cannot argue with geography.” (quoted in Crampton and O’Thuatail, 1996, p. 544). This explicit reference to the central importance of geography also abounds in the works of Kissinger and Brzezinski. In contrast, geography is virtually absent in Madeleine Albright’s writings and in her proclaimed foreign policy views. Indeed, she goes a step further than merely ignoring geography (which is not uncommon among typical ‘American’ foreign policy makers). At times Albright seems intent 274 on silencing the role of geography in foreign policy and on underscoring its insignificance in the larger scheme of things. She deliberately distances herself from geopolitics as an archaic and dangerous practice. She rarely references to geography or geopolitics, and if she does it is in a critical and disparaging manner. In the earlier cited address to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, Albright contrasted present-day ‘real’ American foreign policy interests to ‘geopolitical abstractions’ of the past (Albright, 1–8–1997∗). During a visit to Lithuania, she referred to the ‘old-fashioned geopolitics’ that had plagued Europe’s history: “the cynical, patronizing kind [of foreign policy] practiced by great powers that have tried to take a carving knife to Europe, determining the fate of smaller nations and fighting over the spoils.” (Albright, Vilnius, 7–13–1997∗). Not surprisingly (considering Albright’s audience on this occasion), the two powers that are implicitly castigated for these geopolitical practices – in this instance – are the Soviet Union and Germany. In her speeches, Albright tends to equate the current foreign policy interests of the United States with the common interests of international society at large. She emphasizes quite often that this commonality of interests is characteristic of a new global era that has emerged after the Cold War. In her address to the Foreign Service Institute in April of 1997, she remarked: “There are still some who refuse to accept that confronting these new threats [economics, the environment, rogue states, etc.] is real, serious, foreign policy. Like Bismarck, they want to play geopolitical chess – but don’t realize the board is not two-dimensional anymore. The players today are not only nations, but a host of non-state actors. The issues are often not separable, but inter-connected. The rules change with every scientific breakthrough. And the outcome is not zero-sum: in the long run, either we will all do better, or none of us will.” (Albright, Washington DC, 4–9–1997∗ – italics added). This is where Albright parts ways with Brzezinski and Kissinger. For example, her view expressed above stands in sharp contrast to that in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s latest book, that is characteristically entitled The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. The back cover of the book contains the following endorsement by Brzezinski’s long-time friend and co-author Samuel Huntington: “The Grand Chessboard” is the book we have been waiting for: a clear-eyed, tough-minded, definitive exposition of America’s strategic interests in the post-Cold War world. A masterful synthesis of historical, geographical, and political analysis, it is geostrategic thinking in the grand tradition of Bismarck.” (See Brzezinski, 1997a – italics added.) Albright distinguishes three types of threats to the United States: direct threats to American territory; regional threats to American interests elsewhere in the world; and global threats such as environmental degradation. The second cat- egory is especially interesting because of its geographic dimension. In Albright’s words, there is “a middle circle – a gray area of regional conflicts and potential conflicts that does not fit neatly into any national security framework but which, if left unattended, could erode the foundation of freedom and threaten world peace.” (Albright, 1994a, 434). In these regional conflicts, Albright says, “the American stake ... must be evaluated case by case, day by day.” (Idem, p. 435). Thus, she does not provide a vision or a geopolitical code that would allow an a priori geographical definition of vital interests: “Foreign policy is not auto mechanics; it is an art.” (Albright, 1994b, p. 745). In practice, though, she tends toward an emphatic interventionist position: “she epitomizes a belief in the virtue of uninhibited American interventionism.” (Harries, 1996, A21). Her rationales for involvement show little consistency and vary from nuclear proliferation (North Korea), to geographic proximity (Haiti) to risks of conflict escalation and diffusion (Bosnia), to postCommunist transitions (the former Soviet republics) (see Albright, 1994a). In short, Albright’s foreign policy views are grounded in a voluntaristic perspective, much more so than in any belief in geographic or historical determinism. In Albright’s view, geography is not a guide to foreign policy. Indeed, at times she argues strongly against Brzezinskian arguments about geostrategic ‘imperatives’ precisely because they tend to constrain the options in foreign policy making and because they may conflict with America’s Idealist calling. 7. The case of NATO enlargement and the missing link of geography “..no European democracy will be excluded because of where it sits on the map.” (Albright, Vilnius, 7–13– 1997∗). In the Spring of 1998, the United States’ Senate voted with a large majority in favor of the expansion of NATO to include the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary. NATO enlargement has been a key foreign policy goal of the second Clinton Administration. Most likely, the choice of Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State was at least in part based on her anticipated ability to sell this policy in the United States and in Europe. As a reflection of the importance of this issue, the State Department maintained a special site on the internet about NATO enlargement, something not previously done for any other purpose. Nonetheless, the debates on NATO enlargement as they unfolded in 1997 and 1998 were vague and confusing. The lack of clarity concerned at least three interrelated issues: the purpose of expansion; the effects on Russia; and whether or not the current expansion is one step in successive future rounds of enlargement. According to Albright, NATO expansion serves to bring to an end to the old division of Europe between East and West: “We are working in Europe to realize this century’s most elusive dream, a Europe that 275 is whole, free, prosperous and at peace.” (Albright, Washington DC 2–24–1998∗). And, more pointedly: “Our goal is an undivided Europe. This includes Russia.” (Albright, Brussels, 2–18–97∗). The security threat against which NATO is arrayed, is allegedly internal, not external: “..the new NATO is there in order to deal with the problems of instability... And those are conflicts within societies and border conflicts.” (Albright, Madrid, 7–8–1997∗). In a television news program she remarked that: “This is not arrayed against Russia. The enemy, if there is one, is basically the instability that is created by having these countries feel as if they are in a gray zone.” (Albright, PBS-TV, 5–14–1997∗). In this view, NATO expansion serves to lock into place democratic gains in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, and to contain ethnic conflicts (Ruggie 1997: 117). This line of reasoning seems to imply that NATOmembership is in principle available to any country in Europe that is considered sufficiently democratic: ‘... every European democracy that is interested in membership is eligible for membership, regardless of its history or geography.’ (Albright, Brussels, 12–16–97∗). It is Albright’s explicit dismissal of geography that is of particular interest, precisely because geographic factors figure so prominently in the arguments of many observers and critics on both sides of the issue. Thus, Kissinger is in favor of NATO expansion because it is said to solve the problem of a sort of security vacuum in East Central Europe, what he called a ‘no-man’s land’ (Kissinger 1993, p. A17; Ruggie, 1997, p. 116). Along similar lines, Brzezinski argued that: “Today the challenge is to find a formula that consolidates Germany in a wider Europe and facilitates a cooperative relationship with the new Russia – while eliminating any potentially disruptive geopolitical vacuum between the wider Europe and the new Russia.” (Brzezinski, 1995, p. 29–30). Whereas Albright maintained that candidacy for NATO membership is not determined by a country’s place on the map, Brzezinski identified ‘geographical contiguity to the alliance’ as one of the basic criteria for accession (Brzezinski, 1995, p. 32). Clearly, both Kissinger and Brzezinski view NATO’s primary purpose as a deterrent against a possible Russian threat. Brzezinski, especially, has repeatedly emphasized the danger of a Russian ‘imperial restoration’ (e.g., Brzezinski, 1993, pp. 155–166). According to some critics, Albright’s (and the Clinton Administration’s) ‘liberal’ version of enlargement of NATO is disguised realpolitik, aimed at Russia, and in effect at moving Europe’s dividing line to the east (e.g., Kupchan, 1997; Pushkov, 1997). These observers argue that Russia presently poses no threat to anyone, but that NATO expansion is likely to provoke Russian aggression. It is in this context, that George Kennan (1997) labeled NATO expansion “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” In arguments against NATO expansion, geography plays a key role as well. Most commonly, the assumption is that Russian security interests are fundamentally defined in terms of proximity. Hence, in order for the Russians to secure their strategic interests they need a sphere of influence contiguous to their national borders. This is the frontier region sometimes referred to as the ‘near abroad’ in the Russian strategic literature. NATO expansion into East Europe would violate such a sphere of influence and would in effect increase Russia’s insecurity. Furthermore, critics argue, the anti-Russian sentiments (concealed or not) in NATO and especially among prospective East European member states will preclude any serious participation of Russia itself in NATO and the result will be a new dividing line in Europe that has shifted to the East since the ending of the Cold War. In the words of one (European) commentator: ‘... in the final analysis, no prospective Russian government is seen as having much say in the matter of NATO ... Geography has already decided that.’ (Walker, 1997, p. 4). Opponents of NATO expansion point to the complications that will arise in successive rounds of expansion. Albright has often alluded to the prospect of subsequent rounds of expansion, although it is unclear which countries would be involved. The reason for such complication, the critics say, is that successive rounds would involve countries further to the East and closer to Russia, and that expansion in such circumstances would be many times more sensitive and dangerous than has been the case with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Against this background, some question the sincerity of this promise by Albright of successive rounds of expansion: “... the protective arm of ‘Europe’ will surely not extend beyond the old Habsburg center (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland), making of it a sort of depressed Euro-suburb beyond which ‘Byzantine’ Europe (from Latvia to Bulgaria) will be left to fend for itself, too close to Russia and Russian interests for it to be prudent for the West to make an aggressive show of absorption and engagement.” (Tony Judt, 1996, p. 8). Albright has occasionally responded to such criticism, but her argumentation has not been very persuasive: “For example, there is the common perspective that we are moving NATO, its tanks and bombers, and even its nuclear weapons right up to Russia’s borders, and that therefore Russia has a reason to be threatened by a larger NATO. The reality is quite different. Proximity is not the issue.” (Albright, Washington DC, 2–24–1998∗). In the same speech, while defending the current round of expansion, she remarked that “Hungary and the Czech Republic, meanwhile, are closer to France than they are to the nearest corner or Russian soil.” Here, geography creeps into Albright’s logic through the back door: apparently, proximity does matter after all. Similar inconsistencies abound in Albright’s policy declarations, for example with regard to external threats versus internal threats as the prime rationale behind NATO expansion. Compare the following two statements: “By adding Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to the alliance, we will expand the area within Europe where wars simply do not happen.” (italics added) (Albright, Washington DC, 2–25–1998∗). 276 “The rationale for the next round of NATO enlargement is exactly the same as the rationale for the first: it will help deter external threats to the transatlantic community.” (italics added) (Albright, Brussels, 12–16–1997∗). A geopolitical debate on the subject of NATO expansion centers in large part on Russia, and enlargement tends to be viewed as either pre-emptive of Russian aggression (e.g., Kissinger, Brzezinski) or as provocative of Russian aggression (e.g., Kennan, Judt). Neither side in this debate provides an appealing policy stand for Albright and the Clinton Administration. Perhaps that is the most important explanation behind Albright’s emphatic denial of geopolitics and behind her efforts to stay away from the geopolitical debate altogether. Albright’s remark in Brussels, quoted above, certainly seems to point to the possibility of a Russian threat, despite her claims to the contrary. Perhaps, then, there is some validity to the contention that Albright’s and Clinton’s policies are little more than disguised realpolitik. Seen from a different angle, one can argue that the current round of NATO expansion is not really about these three East European countries to begin with. Instead, it is about the future of American leadership in Europe, where NATO expansion serves as a means to continue US hegemony in Europe. In this view, the fact that it concerns Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, is almost coincidental. As Ronald Steel pointed out: “But the current problem confronting Washington ... is not that Eastern Europe is in a state of danger, but that NATO itself is.” (Steel, 1998, p. 22). This line of reasoning implies that US leadership in Europe requires NATO; that NATO requires a new mission to stay alive after the Cold War; that this mission is found in enlargement (no matter how vaguely the purpose of enlargement is defined); and, finally, that the three EastCentral European countries are the most likely and least risky candidates for enlargement. This view also explains why NATO enlargement has outpaced plans for expansion of the European Union. It is known that a number of member states of the EU have been reluctant to accept East European countries in their midst, but allegations that the West Europeans have successfully cajoled the Americans in providing the East Europeans with the consolation prize of NATO membership are off the mark. NATO expansion serves a critical American strategic interest in Europe, an interest that could not be protected in any way through the European Union. As Albright responded, when asked about the alternative of enlargement of the EU in lieu of NATO expansion: “We are a leader in NATO; we’re not even members of the EU.” (Albright, Washington DC, 2–9–1998∗). But even if NATO expansion is important to continued American leadership in Europe, this does not in any way reduce the significance of ideology and idealism in Madeleine Albright’s approach to the issue. Albright’s views, as expressed in her many speeches on the subject, are reminiscent of Wilsonian rhetoric in the wake of World War I (then, too, American interests in terms of Idealism and Realism appeared to coincide). Albright’s policies may serve essential American interests, but they also reflect her sincere interest, at times passionately so, in the fate of East-Central Europe. Her affinity with the region is firmly rooted in its recent history, and she seems to view NATO expansion as a solution to the problems that have befallen East-Central Europe during the 20th century. More specifically, NATO expansion is supposed to achieve what the post-war reconstructions in 1945 and 1918 failed to do: “It means security in Europe will not stop at its Cold War dividing lines. It means Europe’s new democracies will not be consigned to a buffer zone of excluded states.” (Albright, Prague, 7–14–1997∗). From a historical perspective, NATO expansion constitutes the third attempt in this century at a geopolitical solution to the instability of East-Central Europe. Madeleine Albright seems determined to make Europe’s Cold War division undone, and to avoid another Versailles. Against this background, it is all the more striking that in her quest to include her native region in the Atlantic community of democracies, she has systematically refused to discuss the relevance of the region’s conspicuous political geography. 8. Conclusion: Madeleine Albright’s ‘Munich mind set’ “I call it ‘the war,’ the Second World War.” (Albright, Addis Ababa, 12–9–1997∗) Madeleine Albright represents a peculiar blend of ‘American’ and ‘European’ foreign policy traditions: she combines ‘European’ internationalism and a strong affinity with European politics with ‘American’ idealism. The result is what The Economist (8–16–1997, p. 21) has called ‘a Castlereagh with a conscience.’ This is, of course, where Albright is so different from Henry Kissinger. Certainly, Albright’s highermindedness sits more easily on the American mind than Kissinger’s realpolitik. In a sense, the lessons of ‘Munich’ that Albright bears so close to her heart are particularly American lessons of a particularly European historical event. After all, the European way of doing things, whether it was in the 1930s or in the present decade of the 1990s (e.g., with regard to Bosnia) was grounded in realpolitik, i.e., a high degree of internationalism but a strong reluctance to interventionism. American foreign policy, whenever active, has traditionally been opposed to appeasement: it was either isolationist and entirely disengaged or active and interventionist. Albright is a foreign policy enthusiast with a strong sense of the inescapable task of an active foreign policy, with powerful emotional ties to the European region, and with an unshakeable belief in the United States as the indispensable nation. Her mind set is clearly influenced by the European history that shaped her own life: to Madeleine Albright, ‘Munich’ does not merely represent the abstract principle of the risks and wrongs of appeasement but rather a very real episode of European history in which she herself participated. 277 Politically speaking, Albright’s dual American-European identity has thus far proven very effective in selling the policy of NATO expansion, in the United States and in Europe. In the first round of expansion, Idealist and Realist rationales seemed to converge. This allowed Albright to appeal to the self-interests of the United States and at the same time make passionate and persuasive pleas from the heart to bring freedom, democracy, and peace to the longing people of East-Central Europe: “...there is no contradiction here between realism and idealism, between pragmatism and principle, between security and justice.” (Albright, Prague, 7–14–1997∗). As debates evolved in the Spring of 1998, opposition to the inclusion of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary seemed to dissipate. The problem, so it now appears, lies in what comes after. Subsequent rounds of expansion, as promised by Albright, will involve countries closer to Russia and further from the West. As discussed above, there are many reasons why support among NATO member states for inclusion of, for example, the Baltic states, will be minimal (Asmus and Nurick, 1996). From a geopolitical point of view, it seems inevitable that either promises will have to be broken or considerable risks will be taken in the relationship of NATO countries with Russia. Neither scenario would benefit stability in the East European region. Thus, one way of characterizing Albright’s policy with regard to NATO expansion – as seen from a European perspective – is as ‘naive’ in a typical ‘American’ way. One could argue that, if US foreign policy ever needed a geopolitical perspective, it is in the case of NATO expansion yet it has never been quite so conspicuously absent. On the other hand, there is of course a refreshing quality to Albright’s approach: there is indeed little appeal in passively accepting the shackles of geographic determinism and in condemning East-Central Europe to an indefinite future as a ‘shatterbelt’ or ‘crushzone’ between West and East. It is hard not to feel some sympathy for her zeal and passion in trying to fix once and for all the political and strategic problems that beset East-Central Europe in past times. It is the kind of passion beholden to a native, but one accustomed to the American foreign policy tradition and impressed with American ideals and the American world view. If East-Central Europe suffers from a geopolitical predicament, it seems, Madeleine Albright is the last person who wants to know. 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