Foreign Policy Town Meeting Introductory
  Remarks 
   
    It's a great pleasure to be back at Tufts. As I recall that
    day, President DiBiaggio, it was raining that day at
    graduation in 1976. But it's a pleasure to be back here. I
    want to thank you for your very kind introduction and
    welcoming remarks, Dr. DiBiaggio, and I really
    appreciate the openness that you have had toward my
    presence here today. I think you represent a rare
    combination these days in academia and that's an
    abiding commitment to excellence along with an
    understanding of the lives of students and faculty. I think
    this combination has helped make Tufts the enviable
    institution that it is today. 

    I first met General Galvin in the 1980's when he was the
    Southern Commander in Panama responsible for U.S.
    Forces through Central and South America, and I don't
    have to tell you that also General Galvin served with
    distinction as the Supreme Allied Commander in
    Europe before becoming the Dean of the Fletcher
    School. I think his presence here at this University and in
    this position illustrates one of the special unique
    traditions of our American experience, the tradition
    which goes all the way back to our first and perhaps
    greatest soldier/statesman, George Washington. So it is
    an honor to be here. In our Republic old soldiers don't
    fade away, but, like General Galvin, some of the other
    generals, named Marshall and Eisenhower, they
    become great statesmen, and that's because in a
    Democracy like ours, the best soldiers are always
    statesmen from the beginning. I think that is your story. 

    American leadership in the 21st century, perhaps even
    more than in the 20th century, will require just the sort of
    mutual understanding and close teamwork between
    soldiers, statesmen, and scholars that is embodied by
    General Galvin and by the Fletcher School itself
    because the Fletcher School's mission is creating wise
    foreign policy professionals, a mission which we will be
    increasingly grateful for in the complicated world that lies
    ahead. 

    Some of you are probably old enough to remember the
    drills in school where you had to put your head beneath
    your desk in the event of a nuclear strike. None of the
    students here, but some of the professors might
    remember that. I remember when I was about nine or ten
    years old I designed my own bomb shelter and in that
    bomb shelter I identified where I was going to put my cot,
    where I was going to put my favorite books and where I
    was going to put my basketball. The premise was that
    even after nuclear holocaust, there would be basketball. 

    Well, I'm not sure that such precautions would have
    made much difference. But the reason I mention such
    ancient history is that for 50 years after the end of World
    War II and until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, we
    were sure about one thing: We knew where we stood on
    foreign policy. We were against the Soviet Union and all
    that it stood for. We were against Communism,
    Marxist-Leninism, and totalitarianism and repression of
    freedom, and we were right to be. For 50 years in
    America we always knew what we were against, but the
    challenge today is a little different. We need to figure out
    what we are for. In life it's always easier to be against
    something than for something, and we see that in
    politics from time to time. But today when it comes to
    foreign affairs, things are not so clear. The world's a
    more complicated place and it's no longer divided like it
    once was into good and evil, clear enemies, obvious
    friends. The choices are no longer so stark, and stark
    choices are the easy ones. We are at a time where I
    think we need to take stock, a time where we need to
    see around the next corner, a time where we need a new
    vision. 

    The post-Cold War period doesn't even have a name
    yet. In some ways it is still too new to put a handle on this
    era, but in other ways there are things that we see
    happening, patterns and developments that are as clear
    as day. We need leadership that is looking ahead to the
    world that we will be living in rather than behind, like the
    world from which we came. Too often these days our
    policies, even our military, are designed for a world that
    no longer exists. The world today is a very different place
    than it was only 20 years ago. Globalization and
    technological change have brought us all closer
    together. Satellites, cell phones, the Internet, have
    changed the very concept of distance. Borders are more
    imaginary than ever. From a laptop in your living room
    you can rove around the globe in an instant. 

    For example, I have a friend named Chadamra who was
    the Finance Minister of India a few years ago when the
    shift in the Hindu National Party came in, and we were
    having a conversation one day and he was telling me
    about when he was up campaigning in his district in
    Central India, and he was walking up and down the
    street shaking hands with people as politicians do, and
    he walked into a little tea shop and he was served a cup
    of tea by a 13-year-old boy who was obviously the son of
    the proprietor. He asked the son, "What do you want to
    be," like sometimes politicians do. The boy said, "I want
    to go into computers." He said, "Why do you want to go
    into computers?" He said, "So I can be like Billy Gates,
    the richest man in the world." 

    The point there not being wealth, but that whatever was
    happening at Microsoft on the shores of Puget Sound in
    the state of Washington in the United States of America,
    it traveled 14,000 miles around the globe and ignited the
    imagination of that young man in a tea shop in Central
    India. 

    We live in profoundly different times. There are two
    billion more people in the world market today than there
    were only ten years ago. Interest rates right here in
    Boston are set by millions of individual investors all
    around the world that make a judgment about the United
    States every day. We are interconnected in ways that
    even poets never imagined, and in so many ways this
    new world reflects our own values as countries
    everywhere learn that free markets demand free minds. 

    A company that I have admired for the way they think
    about the future is Shell International. What they do in
    thinking about the future is they don't predict the future,
    but what they do is put together disparate talents and try
    to create a story about different futures to see how each
    would interact in those moments. And a few years ago
    they came out with a study and they concluded that there
    was only one economic model in the world and it was a
    model that rewarded prudent fiscal policy and open
    markets, and they asserted there "T" -- there, "I" -- is, "N"
    -- no, "A" -- alternative. "TINA" -- There Is No Alternative. 

    In other words, we live in a world of TINA. And those who
    understand the rules and play by them do very well: the
    United States in the last decade. Those who either resist
    the rules and their authority or ignore the rules don't do
    so well: Indonesia as an example. So this is a world that
    is different than it was 15, 20 years ago, will be
    increasingly different as we move ahead, but it's a world
    in which America can excel. 

    I have come here today to talk about how I see that new
    world and where America and all of you fit in. I have
    been thinking and writing and speaking about foreign
    policy for more than 20 years. I remember in my first
    years in the United States Senate I was assigned to the
    Energy Committee and the Chairman was Scoop
    Jackson who became ind of a mentor for me and he
    gave me the job of thinking through the geopolitics of oil.
    Of course, that was at a time when there was an oil
    disruption, prices were skyrocketing, people were
    waiting in lines for gasoline, anger was high, and we
    were basing our entire policy on dependence on foreign
    oil. And the answer that policymakers came up with was
    to build a massive fuel corporation that would create oil
    through shale and tar sands at great environmental cost.
    In thinking the problem through, it became clear to me
    that it wasn't dependence on foreign oil, Mexican oil,
    Venezuelan oil, it was rather dependence on oil from
    insecure sources such as in the Persian Gulf. And the
    way to deal with the problem was not to build a massive
    fuel plant, but it was to deal with the issue of insecurity.
    And that meant building up the strategic petroleum
    reserve in the United States so when there was a
    disruption, we would be able to continue to function as
    an economy. 

    As I looked into this and found that the oil reserve wasn't
    being built up, I made further inquiries in my position on
    the committee and found that the reason that we weren't
    building the oil supply up was that the Saudi Arabians
    didn't want us to. I thought that was counter to our
    national interests. So I began the process and
    introduced amendments with then Senator Bob Dole to
    increase the amount of oil in the strategic petroleum
    reserve. I also sought to go to Saudi Arabia and sat
    down and had a conversation with the oil minister then,
    Shaysak Numani, and in that conversation I asked him,
    "Is it true that Saudi Arabia does not want the United
    States to fill a strategic petroleum reserve?" He said,
    "That's true." I said, "Well, what will you do if we do fill the
    reserve?" He said, "We're going to have to cut some of
    the oil." I said, "Well, get ready because we're going to
    fill the strategic petroleum reserve." And we came back
    and passed the amendment and now the reserve is
    nearly full, 60 day supply, and we are a more secure
    nation. 

    Out of that early experience as a United States Senator,
    I derived four lessons. One, define the problem right;
    second, decide what to do about the problem, and then
    act decisively; third, seek bipartisan support; and fourth,
    no appeasement. It was a very important lesson for me
    as a young Senator. 

    In the mid 1980's, in another area on the Finance
    Committee, I was asked by the then head of the General
    Agreement on Tarriffs and Trade if I would sit with six
    other people from around the world and essentially
    conceptualize the trade round that became the Uruguay
    Trade Round. We met for a year, year and a half, we
    came up with a program for negotiation that became the
    basis for the Uruguay Trade Round. That was 1983,
    1984 when the report was released. The Uruguay Trade
    Round began and over three administrations and four or
    possibly five Trade representatives, the negotiations
    took place, and the Finance Committee, we interacted
    on a regular basis in terms of overseeing those
    negotiations, and then there was finally an agreement in
    1995 and it was ratified by the United States Senate. 

    Now, that was 12 years of my life devoted to one project.
    So the lesson that came out of there is: Have a clear
    vision of where you want to go; develop the strategy to
    implement that vision; and then stay with it over time.
    Visions aren't realized overnight. It takes time. 

    I, for many years, as I've illustrated, thought about foreign
    policy from the standpoint of the United States Senate.
    Now I'm thinking about it in a different way. A President
    has a singular role when it comes to foreign policy where
    only he can lead. The next President must be able to
    help America and all Americans navigate in this new
    world that I've described. That in itself won't be easy. A
    President also has some very basic and fundamental
    things that he must always manage. You might call it the
    President's job description. He must first protect our
    national security, maintain our leadership in the world,
    and talk honestly with the American people. That is
    always the President's job. 

    But in this new world the next President has an even
    heavier burden, which is to try to create a
    comprehensive framework for peace, security, and
    prosperity that's not only in the interests of America but
    everyone, everywhere. And it's not simply an American
    project nor is it something we can impose on the world
    like we were able to do after World War II. We can help
    mold this new international system and it will emerge
    from international institutions, new and old, from
    partnerships and alliances whose resources and efforts
    are going to be essential. It's not anything we can do by
    ourselves, for its very nature is cooperative. This is one
    of the big and essential jobs of the next President and
    it's one we must do well. 

    This new world that's taking shape is not always clear.
    For example, there's a disturbing paradox. We are more
    powerful than ever before, yet we are also more
    vulnerable to a variety of threats. The great risk of
    nuclear holocaust with the Soviet Union has receded but
    there are a multitude of smaller threats, from a
    troublemaking dictatorship like Iraq to the poorly
    safeguarded nuclear warheads in Russia, to the
    increasingly dangerous situation on the Korean
    peninsula, to transnational terrorists who view the U.S.
    as their number one enemy. 

    As a result, the next President must have a few
    principles to guide him to manage these new threats
    and new opportunities. He must understand how to
    protect our security in response to our growing
    interconnectedness. He must have a policy countering
    small threats so they don't grow into larger ones. He
    must maintain a strategic stability in the world that
    prevents the start of a new and deadly arms race around
    the world. He must gear our policies to the world as it is,
    not the Cold War world that no longer exists. And finally,
    he must understand our deep American attachment to
    human rights and that our values and our interests are
    very often one and the same. Well, that was a whirlwind
    tour of the horizon and I'm sure you're all relieved I'm not
    going to give a large speech amplifying each of these
    points. Instead, I thought it would be a lot more
    interesting for all of us to have a conversation about
    foreign policy. I will answer your questions as candidly
    as I can and tell you what I think, but I also want to hear
    what you think. Too often when it comes to foreign policy
    there's no dialogue. Instead, candidates simply give a
    speech to inoculate themselves on the issue then forget
    about the whole thing. That's not what I want to do. 

    By the way, there's another thing that some of you here
    may remember, and that is that once in America there
    was a consensus in Washington about foreign policy.
    Men and women of good will in both parties joined
    together to do what was in America's best interests.
    There was an old saying that political division stopped at
    the water's edge. Sadly, that consensus has vanished.
    Foreign policy has become more a political football or is
    made through polling or focus groups to score domestic
    political points. I deplore that, and one of the things I will
    try to restore if I become President of the United States
    is a bipartisan foreign policy consensus. That's in all of
    our interests. 

    Indeed, doing what I'm about to do today, answering
    questions on foreign policy, trying to speak plainly and
    honestly with you about foreign policy, is one way of
    moving ourselves toward just such a consensus. For it's
    essential for a President to be able to be frank and
    direct with the American people on foreign policy. To
    lead, the President must have the support of the
    American people, and to get the support, he must
    always be straight with them. While the President sets
    foreign policy goals with his vision of the future, it's all of
    you in this room today and all around this country, as well
    as dedicated foreign service professionals around the
    country and the world, who are going to do the hard work
    of trying to make that vision a reality. You will be on the
    front lines and all America's grateful for that. 

    So without further ado, let's talk about foreign policy.


