Big Think

Dov Zakheim: Well I think the most important thing is to think about Europe. I’ve seen all too often people take the Europeans for granted. In other words, I’ve been in government. And you have these interagency decisions, so called. So guess what? The State, and Defense, and the NSC and whoever all agree, that’s it! And then we go off to negotiate with whoever and discover that they don’t agree with us. And I’ve seen people look absolutely stunned, as if, “Well, if we all agreed inside the U.S. government, and that was so hard to do, shouldn’t these other guys come along?” So number one is to recognize they all have their national interests. And yes there’s a lot of overlap, but it’s not congruent. You asked me about Israel. Same thing. There’s overlap, but there’s not congruence. Secondly, because we share these values, and because there are now a group of 400 some odd million people who have done something that history hasn’t seen before – bury the hatchet – Germans and French don’t think about killing each other anymore. It wasn’t that long ago that’s all they thought about. They are, or can be, a force to work alongside of us. We do it at times. We spend a lot more talking about it than actually doing it. And when we do it – and again, Afghanistan is a perfect example – it seems to work. The Balkans. It seems to work. When we don’t do it – when we just talk about it – then we wind up, first of all, at each other’s throats. And secondly, we don’t achieve the objectives that we want. But of course, that also means give in a little. A senator once said to me when I was up for confirmation, he said, “Dov, you know how it is around here. You give a little to get a little.” Well guess what? That’s how it is everywhere.

Recorded on: 7/2/07