World in Danger. Wolfgang Ischinger
that time, China was barely present on the geopolitical map. The Middle Kingdom was in the midst of an economic boom, but hardly anyone imagined that it might also become a political rival of the largest economic power yet, the United States. Many believed instead that China (as my old friend Robert Zoellick, the former World Bank president, put it) could become a “responsible stakeholder” if integrated into international organizations and, above all, the global economic architecture—and would thus assimilate into the existing liberal world order as a reliable partner.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development had been held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This is where Agenda 21, which defined common goals for sustainable development, was passed. The conference was the starting point for a whole series of important global initiatives on environmental and climate protection. In Rio the vision of functioning global governance to solve global problems suddenly seemed within reach.
People spoke of the “peace dividend” and hoped that money which had previously been poured into equipping armed forces in both the East and the West could now serve other purposes. Countries including Kazakhstan and Ukraine even voluntarily gave up the nuclear weapons stored on their territory. The Cold War was a thing of the past; the future promised disarmament and cooperation.
In the 1990s, Europeans saw Russia as a partner and as a country that was modernizing and would develop toward real democracy. The CSCE became the OSCE: Although only one letter changed, from that point on the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe became the Organization for this purpose. But behind this new name was a visionary idea, as Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev formulated it at the time, of a “Common European Home” where the West and the East would live together.
Overall, Europe was focused on cooperation. After decades during which a small but growing group of European countries were cooperating more closely on economics and policy, in 1992 the European Economic Community (EEC) became the European Union. Its membership has increased considerably since then, from 12 in 1992 to 28 today. Back then, nearly everyone believed that expansion and deepening of the EU were two sides of the same coin, and that we Europeans, as the founders had formulated, would inexorably proceed further along the path to an “ever closer union.”
The United States supported the Europeans—not always unconditionally, but certainly in principle—in deepening their cooperation and endorsed the steps to enlarge the EU, accompanied by the integration of Central and Eastern European countries into NATO. After the end of the Cold War, it seemed that these countries were finally taking their place in the West. In the United States, President George H. W. Bush expressed his wish for a “Europe whole, free, and at peace.” While the country substantially reduced its military personnel stationed in Europe, no one seriously doubted that the United States would continue to be engaged in Europe and would thus remain a “European power.”
For us Germans, these developments were a godsend. With the turning point in 1989–1991, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the end of the Soviet Union, the core objectives of West German policy had been fulfilled. Germany was reunited and now “surrounded by friends.” It was integrated into important international organizations, from the United Nations to the EU and NATO, and had once again become a respected member of the international community. No threat to its national security was in sight.
THE GOOD NEWS: IT IS NOT ALL BAD
Although some of these hopes for peace, democracy, human rights, and free trade have been shattered, from the historical perspective there are certainly grounds for optimism. Therefore, it would be wrong to paint only an apocalyptic picture. If we occasionally distance ourselves from the latest news of the day and try to look at the larger view, we can see a picture of humanity that is—in the historical perspective—not only more peaceful than ever, but also more healthy and prosperous. This picture, as Harvard professor Steven Pinker has emphasized over and over again in a number of publications, shows that we are moving in the right direction overall.
Some important current figures support Pinker’s optimism. Despite how often wars and their victims are in the news, the fact is the number of victims has dropped significantly in the decades since World War II. And global poverty, as we are reminded time and time again, has also been reduced. Billions of people, many of them in in China, have risen out of extreme poverty to form a new global middle class. Between 2005 and 2010 alone, the number of people who had to live on less than US$1.25 a day was reduced by half a billion.
In 1950, only about every third person in the world could read and write (36 percent). In 2010 the literacy rate had risen to around four out of every five people in the world (83 percent).
Further, we have succeeded in conquering many serious diseases that regularly cost the lives of countless people just a few decades ago. The distribution of vaccines resulted in the number of measles victims dropping by 84 percent between 2000 and 2016. Polio cases have fallen by 99 percent since 1988. Child mortality has been reduced in most countries. According to the World Health Organization, 20,000 fewer children died each day in 2016 than in 1990.
Even death is less menacing. It still comes, but not quite so fast: The average global life expectancy climbed from about 46 years in 1950 to 72 in 2017.
All of this sounds quite gratifying—and it certainly is! All the same, wars, crises, and instability in the world regularly thwart this general upswing and sometimes even roll it back. One major war, and the number of victims climbs back up. A single deadly epidemic, and the life expectancy drops. This is why it would be a fatal mistake to sit back and let the world take its course, believing that everything always gets better.
Considering the many victims of war and violence, it would be more than cynical to tell them, “Too bad for you, but you are simply the exceptions on the path to peace and justice.”
Every single victim who could have been saved is one too many.
REASONS FOR HOPE AND OPTIMISM
When I was born, after the end of the World War II, Germany was in ruins and the guilt-ridden nation seemed irrevocably brought to its knees—deindustrialized, occupied by the victorious powers, and shortly thereafter, sawed into two parts. Who would have wagered even a penny that by 2018 this country would be reunified, a politically stable democracy, and one of the leading economies in the world? I share this experience with many of my generation, and only those under age thirty can possibly believe that Germany had been on the sunny side of history “all along.”
And in my professional life as a diplomat, first in Bonn and later in Berlin and various foreign postings, I was able to witness political events that nobody would have thought possible.
My colleagues and I held our breath when Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher walked out on the balcony of the German embassy in Prague on the evening of September 30, 1989, and declared to hundreds of East German refugees that they would be allowed to emigrate by train to West Germany the very next day. I accompanied one of the later trains, representing the West German government. I will never forget the scent of cold sweat, of fear, in the crowded compartments of the night train, nor the rejoicing upon our arrival in the West the following morning. More on this in a later chapter.
I sat behind the German chancellor as a member of the German delegation in Paris, when the heads of state and government of thirty-two European countries as well as the United States and Canada declared the end of the division of Europe on November 21, 1990, and signed the final document of the CSCE summit, committing to democracy as the only form of government and promising their populations to guarantee human rights. The day on which the Charter of Paris for a New Europe was signed heralded the end of the Cold War, which had been a threat for the entire world until that day.
I was the chief German negotiator during the talks in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995, when the bloody war that raged for years in Yugoslavia was ended after weeks of arduous negotiations. A peace treaty was later signed by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, and the chairman of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović—three men who were such bitter enemies that they had refused even to sit at the same table before this event. What I learned from this was that, for the sake of peace, one has to negotiate