The William Cohen Lecture: Combining Force and Diplomacy To Secure America's Future

US Department of State Dispatch, Nov, 1999 by Madeleine K. Albright

Secretary Albright

Remarks at the William Cohen Lecture, University of Maine, Bangor, Maine, October 13, 1999.

Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for that introduction and for welcoming me to your home. President Hoff, Chancellor MacTaggart, Dean Brucker, former President Hutchinson, President Miller, faculty and students of the University of Maine, guests and friends: Good morning.

I have long felt a kinship for Maine because of the years I spent working for Senator Ed Muskie, my first boss. He was a plain speaker, who accomplished much and understood deeply the connections between American strength at home and our leadership overseas. Aside from my parents, he remains my greatest hero, and I look forward to going with Secretary Cohen later in the day to visit the Muskie archives.

I am also delighted to be invited to deliver the William Cohen lecture. It is named for someone I deeply admire. For a quarter of a century, Bill Cohen has been one of America's most outstanding and respected public servants.

While others have given their first allegiance to party or to some narrow ideology or even to some special interest, Bill Cohen has devoted himself to Maine and to America. You must be very proud of him, as I am to serve with him.

Another reason I am pleased to be here is that I am a former professor. I love academic surroundings. And on the flight up--or I guess down--to Maine, I was thinking about my own days in school. Even then, I was very interested in foreign policy. Every time I went to a new town or school, I would start an international affairs club--and name myself president.

But it is not only because of my insatiable appetite for power that I became interested in foreign policy. The truth is I couldn't help it. When I was growing up, events overseas shaped almost everything about my life.

I was still a toddler when the Nazis overran my native Czechoslovakia and plunged the world into global conflict. Later, the Holocaust shook our faith in humanity itself. The dawn of the nuclear era called into question the very survival of our race. The Cold War divided the world into two well-armed camps. And periodic crises in Korea, Hungary, Berlin, Cuba, Prague, and Vietnam made us keenly aware of the dangers that existed and the responsibilities that we as Americans had.

Today, all this may seem as relevant as a manual typewriter or a long-playing record. The Soviet Union no longer exists. We are the world's lone superpower.

As a result, it may be tempting to look upon international affairs as just another academic subject, something to read about and debate, but not a determining factor in our lives. And that temptation exists not just for students, but for all of us.

There is grave danger in this, for it may be that we Americans have come to feel safer than we truly are. And it is certainly true that if we were to become complacent, and to take our security, prosperity, and freedom for granted, we would endanger them all.

We cannot simply assume that because the Cold War has ended, the dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction have disappeared; or that because free markets are ascendant, global prosperity is assured; or that because nations communicate more, they will fight less; or that because totalitarianism has been defeated in many places, it is gone everywhere and will not rise again.

The world is shaped not by those who merely inherit but by those who act. And if we discard the cloak of leadership, others who may not share our interests or values will surely pick it up.

Earlier generations of Americans turned the tide in the first global war, defeated the greatest evil the world has known, and defended freedom through decades of Cold War.

Our task is different and seemingly less dramatic but no less important. It is to forge a steadily growing consensus, based on steadily rising standards, that will help bring nations on every continent closer together around basic principles of democracy and open markets, the rule of law, and a commitment to peace.

As a goal, that is as easy to say as it is difficult to achieve. Like freedom itself, it is something we will never fully achieve but can only pursue. And if America is to lead the world in the right direction, as we must, we will have to make good use of every available foreign policy tool.

That means our armed forces must remain the best led, best trained, best equipped, and most respected in the world. And as President Clinton has pledged and Secretary Cohen and our military leaders assure, they will.

But we will also need first-class diplomacy. Because on many occasions, we will rely on diplomacy as our first line of defense--to cement alliances, build coalitions, and find ways to protect our interests without putting our fighting men and women at risk.

At the same time, our diplomacy is stronger because we have the threat of force behind it. In this way, force and diplomacy complement each other. It's like having Pedro Martinez to do your pitching and Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa to bat cleanup. It is by combining force and diplomacy, for example, that we protect Americans from the threat posed by nuclear weapons.