Reporter’s Podcast: Key European Allies Warn U.S. of Regional Threats

A group of former Central and Eastern European leaders have sent an open letter to the Obama administration warning of growing unease in the region over Russia, the effects of the economic crisis and a weaker NATO.

One of the signers, former Czech Republic foreign minister and senator Alexandr Vondra, and Charles Gati, a specialist on Europe, discuss the letter’s key points.

MICHAEL MOSETTIG: This is Michael Mosettig, senior producer for foreign affairs and defense for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and the Online NewsHour.

From abroad, another warning shot has been fired across the bow of the Obama administration. And it comes from a least-expected place — the countries considered the most steadfast of U.S. allies in Central and Eastern Europe, 20 years after they liberated themselves from Soviet communism.

A letter to President Obama received little attention in the U.S. press, but 20 one-time leaders and officials from Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland’s Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel of the former Czechoslovakia, warned of a growing sense of nervousness in their region — that Russia is acting like a revisionist power, that the economic crisis could propel nationalism, extremism and anti-Semitism in the area, that NATO is growing weaker. The letter even invoked the most emotional word of the Cold War — Yalta — that symbolizes the great powers bargaining over the heads of Central and Eastern Europeans.

To discuss the letter and its political fallout, we are joined from Prague by one of the signers, former Czech Republic Foreign Minister and Senator Alexandr Vondra. He was also Czech ambassador to the United States.

And with us here is Charles Gati, a historian and senior adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was born in Hungary and is now a U.S. citizen.

Starting with Senator Vondra — the tone of this letter is quite alarming. What provoked you to send a letter like this at this time to the president of the United States?

ALEXANDR VONDRA, former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of the Czech Republic: Let me start with this. I want to underline one thing. This letter, and the purpose of this is by no means to criticize the current U.S. administration, not at all. The purpose as we see it is to alarm the bell because of a few things.

First, 20 years has passed since this major revolution in Central and Eastern Europe, and we have a generation change on both sides of the Atlantic, so there is a new administration coming with the people who did not have the personal experience with struggling during the Cold War and with the various totalitarian and communist regimes, as well as those who are building this strong transatlantic link on one hand. And on the other hand there is also a generation change in our country.

So we wanted to underline this great achievement — what has been built in the past 20 years when most of Central and Eastern Europe was becoming part of the Western and transatlantic world — that the Americans should not take it for granted or something what this building in stone forever. And it requires care.

And then the second purpose, I think, relates more with Russia. This is not a democracy yet of the Western or European style. It’s an assertive country, and I think we have to be careful here.

MICHAEL MOSETTIG: Charles Gati, let’s say you start with the situation with Russia. How warranted is the concern if you were in Central and Eastern Europe with the situation in Russia now?

CHARLES GATI, senior adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: Well, if the concern is that Russia is planning to or would start a Georgia-like or even a Ukraine-like series of activities against the 10 new NATO and EU members in Central and Eastern Europe, I am not concerned.

I am concerned about economic efforts, business ties that are often very corrupt, and some other similar activities. Russia is a humiliated country. And it is, I agree with Ambassador Vondra, it is a dictatorship. All you have to do is read Freedom House’s description to understand that thing’s are not going well for democracy in that country.

So I am concerned about Russia but not because Georgia is some sort of watershed as their statement suggests. I don’t believe that the sovereignty of the Central and East European countries is at stake.

The other issue is, yes, I am concerned about tendencies in the region, which are not exactly in the direction of full-fledged democracy. I’ll just mention two or three little things — there is growing anti-capitalism in the region, there are strong nationalist sentiments, and frequently as in the Czech Republic itself, that of course Sasha Vondra knows a lot better than I do, there is political deadlock.

But I believe these things need to be remedied locally. The U.S. can help, and I hope we will get more active, but we cannot solve these problems.

MICHAEL MOSETTIG: Senator Vondra, one of the specific things that’s mentioned in the letter is missile defense. The underlying fear here seems to be that the United States in order to push the reset with Russia to get us a new strategic arms limitation deal might bargain on missile defense and particularly the installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Is this the underlying fear that’s driving this — another fear of a grand bargain between the great powers at the expense of the smaller countries?

ALEXANDR VONDRA: Well, the short answer is to a certain extent, yes. Of course, you know, we did not write the letter just because of missile defense. But I think everybody should understand one thing. In the last 10 years, we were bombed by — I mean literally — by the various U.S. policy-makers’ intelligence services and others that the Atlantic alliance has the means how to defend itself against the various threats. Iran was the key among those threats — both their ballistic missile capacities as well as their nuclear program.

And we as — I mean the Czechs and the Poles — when once we were approached with that kind of request, so we as good allies in a positive and constructive manner. And the Russians, they were always opposing, although everybody understood rationally that this defense system could not constitute any kind of a threat to Russia itself. And that the true meaning of the Russian opposition was still the Russian tendencies to keep the influence in the countries around.

So I can understand that the Americans should make some adjustments in this system because of the technical reasons, because of the level of the threats, like Iran, although I do not see any serious change here. The regime is still the same as it was just a year ago.

But just to give up here as a concession to this unjustified Russian pressure, of course that would be interpreted in a very bad way in Central and Eastern Europe.

MICHAEL MOSETTIG: Charles Gati, isn’t there a point here that the United States has put Poland and the Czech Republic a bit out on a limb on this missile defense, and that they now face a threat of it being sawed off?

CHARLES GATI: Yes, very much so, and I hope the Obama administration will come through with remedial action in effect, because you cannot go there for 10 years or so and say would you help us in this for the common cause. And at considerable political expense, they did.

Keep in mind that some 60, 70 percent of Czechs and Poles, too, oppose the missile defense thing, and some very good pro-American politicians and statesmen like Ambassador Vondra, they have fought for us. And so you cannot just pull out. While I happen not to support the missile defense program, because I believe that it’s not workable and it’s too expensive, but you cannot simply turn around and leave these pro-American elites exposed to a nationalist criticism and even ridicule.

MICHAEL MOSETTIG: Well, I think we have certainly touched on issues that are not going away, so I think we’re going to be hearing a lot about this in the coming times. And we appreciate both Ambassador Senator Vondra and Charles Gati for doing this podcast with us. And this is Michael Mosettig of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.