Colin Powell Replies to George Carey

That is, the US Secretary of State replies to the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Providing the context of the widely quoted remark.

At the World Economic Forum, Davo, Switzerland, January 26, 2003:

.... QUESTION: Mr. Secretary of State, I'm George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm now happily retired and here at the World Economic Forum. And I thank you very much indeed for your address and for all that you are personally doing to improve the state of the world.

Mr. Secretary of State, at this conference, among the language that has been used has been a phrase, the difference between hard power and soft power: hard power and military power, and perhaps expressed in America as the only superpower with a grave responsibility to create and help to forward the cause of peace in the world; and then soft power, soft power which binds us all, which has something to do with values, human values and all the things that you and I passionately believe in.

Here at WEF, we are thinking of creating a Council of 100 which includes business leaders, politicians, religious leaders -- trying to cross all of the boundaries of media and so on. That may be something that you may wish to give your support to in the days ahead.

But I've got two questions, if I may. The first one: Do you feel that in the present situation, and I'm following on my colleague who just spoke, and regarding Iraq but also Palestine as well, that we are doing enough in drawing upon the common values expressed by soft power in uniting what is called West and the Middle East in Islam and Christianity, in Judaism and other religions?

And would you not agree, as a very significant political figure in the United States, Colin, that America, at the present time, is in danger of relying too much upon the hard power and not enough upon building the trust from which the soft values, which of course all of our family life that actually at the bottom, when the bottom line is reached, is what makes human life valuable? (Applause.)

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It's why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world. (Applause.)

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

We have seen these sorts of evil leaders before. We have seen them throughout history. And they are still alive today. There are still leaders around who will say, "You do not have the will to prevail over my evil." And I think we are facing one of those times now.

We have done everything. President Bush carefully analyzed the situation with respect to Iraq. We have felt strongly for years that they must be disarmed. The previous administration felt just as strongly. This isn't something that just arrived when the Bush Administration came in. The previous administration had the same concerns. It's been a problem for us for the last 11 years, for the international community.

And so finally, we decided it is time to deal with it. And we rallied the international community. President Bush came before the Security Council on the 12th of September and put down a powerful indictment. I worked very hard, I can assure you, seven weeks, to satisfy the concerns that people had about what kind of a resolution should be put forward.

A resolution was put forward. It's a resolution that puts the burden on Iraq, not on the inspectors. And it is not the United States, it is not the international community, it is not the United Nations that is the source of the problem. The source of the problem is Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime and their use of the treasures of the Iraqi people to develop weapons of mass destruction.

And let there be no doubt that the intent to do so is still there, as the inspectors are trying to do their job.

My heart grieves when I think about the situation in the Middle East. I've worked very hard on this for two years, and for years before that. But trust is broken down. We have to do everything we can in our power -- all of us, the United States, the European Union, any other nation that has the ability to influence the situation in the Middle East -- to work with the Palestinians to put in place a leadership that is responsible, with representative institutions of government that will clamp down on terrorism, that will say to its people, "Terrorism is not getting us anywhere. It is not producing what we want: a Palestinian state. It is keeping us away from a Palestinian state."

And we also have to say to our Israeli friends that you have to do more to deal with the humanitarian concerns of the Palestinian people, and you have to understand that a Palestinian state, when it's created, must be a real state, not a phony state that's diced into a thousand different pieces.

And that's what we're going to be concentrating on in the months ahead with the roadmap that's been created. (Applause.) ....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/07/03 12:25:59 PM
Categorized as International & Most Notable & Speeches and Suchlike.