Continue reading »]]> The Transatlantic Relationship matters, maybe more than ever. This is the key message of the Blue Riband Society’s kick-off event on March 20, which was held in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Berlin.

More than 30 participants intensively discussed “The Future of Transatlantic Partnership” in the academy of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. There was incontrovertible agreement on common values like Personal freedom and self-responsibility, democracy and free markets and the moral authority of Western religion and philosophy, which have doubtlessly the potency to bring young conservatives in Europe and America together.

Thanks to the input of our honored guest speakers Roderich Kiesewetter (Member of the German Bundestag) and James Kirchick (Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies), the participants got an encompassing, transatlantic view on which topics will be the most important in the months and years to come. The Blue Riband Society Germany also used its kick-off event to present themselves as well as their work to the young transatlanticists who participated.
Gerrit Kettel, Chairman of the BRS in Germany, as well as his colleagues F. W. Horst and Marc Schütz, invited interested guests in personal conversations to join one of their regular meetings.Anyone interested in joining or supporting the organization is invited to

James Kirchick highlighting future challenges

contact us via email or Facebook anytime. We look forward to our upcoming events, workshops and exchanges that are planned to strengthen the ties across the Atlantic.

Continue reading »]]> We have updated our presence as well as our name and hope you will find the information you are looking for. Please also like us on Facebook, where we will have a more prominent presence from now on.

We invite you to send us feedback on our work, the website as well as articles or blog entries you would like to see published. We will be happy to take them into consideration.

If you are missing any information or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you.

Continue reading »]]> On December 13^th, the Young Transatlantic Conservative Alliance (YTCA) held its founding reception. YTCA founder Robert Helbig, along with Ambassador Paul Bremer, Congressman Jim Kolbe and head of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) in Washington, D.C. Dr. Lars Hänsel, headlined the event. The event had over 40 people in attendance with a wide range of backgrounds, including young professionals, graduate students and senior officials from the US and Europe.

Hänsel opened the event and introduced the KAS, a public policy organization out of the German Christian Democrat Party which leads over 200 projects in 120 countries and is particularly active in the US. His organization supports initiatives like the YTCA to build further dialogue between European and American conservatives.

Helbig spoke about the YTCA’s role in helping to repair the damaged relationships between European and American conservatives. He discussed his ideas for the YTCA going forward, including building a network of future conservative leaders across the Atlantic as well as educational and scholarly initiatives.

Kolbe and Bremer spoke about how their experiences working with European conservatives. They stressed that the transatlantic relationship, which has played a vital role in their careers, needs to be revived through public diplomacy efforts, such as the YTCA, and policy initiatives, such as the transatlantic free trade agreement.

Continue reading »]]> Eftychis John Gregos-Mourginakis:

Washington, D.C., April 13, 2012 - If you believe the pundits over the recent news cycle, Mitt Romney is a political dinosaur thrashing about in some Cold War tar pit. The former Governor made the apparent error of criticizing President Obama’s open microphone faux pas in South Korea, in which the President appeared to promise Russian President Medvedev a conciliatory stance on missile defense issues after the 2012 election. Romney moved aggressively in front of the story. He declared that Russia is “America’s greatest geopolitical foe” and criticized President Obama’s negotiating as shortsighted. By and large, the media, dismissed Governor Romney’s perspective. The Obama administration and its surrogates have mirrored the remarks made by President Medvedev’s who said in response to Governor Romney, “we are in 2012 and not the mid-1970s.”

If we look beyond the veil of Mr. Medvedev’s Statesmanship, as Governor Romney has done, Russia does indeed present itself today as America’s greatest adversary. Since the early 2000s, the Kremlin has been motivated by a neo-mercantilist zero-sum ideology and an associated paranoia that has led it to continually and effectively antagonize the United States and her allies.

Today, Russia presents a relatively unimportant bilateral economic partner for the United States. Indeed, the recent shale gas revolution in the US will likely further decouple North American hydrocarbon commodities from global energy markets over the medium term. This American energy revolution will diminish the importance of Russia’s ‘energy weapons’ in the eyes of American policy makers. Many in DC view Moscow’s remaining influence as little more than the glow from a power for whom the sun has already set. Russia’s growing internal ethnic and political strife, the increasing tensions in its Southern Caucuses, and an ever more uncontrollable border with northern China have made governing an increasingly impossible job for Moscow’s bureaucrats.

The leadership in Moscow, evermore unable to control domestic events beyond the Central Federal District, has become increasingly reactionary and paranoid. The collapse of commodity prices in late 2008 and the associated deflation of United Russia’s political fortunes, has exacerbated the Russian plutocratic worldview that they find themselves encircled by the US, NATO and her Azeri and Georgian allies in a 21^st century ‘great game.’

Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s disastrous reset policy was predicated on an inability for seemingly anyone in the White House to empathize the sentiment of the Russian elite. US attempts at reconciliation fail to take into account that Russian diplomats are convinced that the world is a chessboard on which there can be no win-win relationships.

This pervasive ideological temperament of Russian leadership has led to both Russia’s outspoken diplomatic support of and its impressive economic and material support for the totalitarian regimes in Iran and Syria. Both regimes provide important markets for Russia’s defense industry as well as a counterbalance against America’s Arab allies in the region. President Medvedev also must recognize the correlation between his party’s own political fate and the price of world energy prices, the calculation in Moscow to stoke tensions in the Middle East thereby must be a relatively easy one. Indeed, Russian support for the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela, among other things, provides a means for Russian retribution for America’s support for the Republic of Georgia, a classic cold-war era tit for tat.

Perhaps Moscow’s most disturbing current policy is their continuing to stoke ethnic tension in the 20-year-old Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Russian intentions here are clear: by keeping the conflict alive it provides justification for the Russian airbase in Armenia, a valuable flanking asset for the Kremlin’s war-planners should they instigate another war with the Republic of Georgia; the tensions hinder the construction of more direct pipelines from Azerbaijan through Armenia and into Turkey, making vulnerable Georgian territory the only export channel for Caspian energy resources; by keeping the conflict alive, Russia hinders the ability of Turkey to reassert its prominence across the Turkmen populations of the Caspian basin and beyond historical Asia-Minor, a development that would surely effect the balance of power in the region and one which over time could present an existential threat to Russia’s influence over all of the Black Sea, the Southern Caucuses, and the Caspian; should this latter development occur, Gazprom, Russia’s de facto state gas utility would find itself with little future gas supply as Russia’s own domestic fields run dry over the next two decades.

Turkey does not present the only threat to Russia’s economic fortunes. Fear of an expanding Chinese sphere of influence is the impetus behind Putin’s renewed push for a Central Asian Union. Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have historically provided a buffer between Chinese expansionism and Russian territorial integrity, but today these countries increasingly find China as their major trading partner, thanks to China’s insatiable demand for Central Asian hydrocarbon fuels and rare earth metals. The effect of China’s economic coziness with the Central Asian states has been to diminish the influence of their former Russian masters, making more probable the possibility that within a decade, these states will for the first time since the rise of the Russian Empire, have no need for Russia’s transit routes to western markets.

While the intentions and actions of Russia outlined above can be readily gleamed from public sources, the Obama Administration has evidently ignored their development. Instead of working to check Russian actions that raise the price of commodities, hurt American consumers, and impede global economic growth and security, President Obama has been increasingly conciliatory and apologetic toward the Russian regime.

Disturbingly, instead of working with America’s Chinese partners, who too bear the brunt of Russian belligerence, the President has embraced a policy that is now highly antagonistic toward Beijing. The Obama administration began its tenure with a series of encouraging steps toward Chinese engagement. Yet, now, the President’s recent visit to the Korean DMZ and the Department of Defense’s very public force re-posturing toward the Pacific all indicate that Washington is actively pursuing a policy of containment against an expansive China.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is miscalculating. Indeed, America’s relationship with China is fairly symbiotic, intellectual property issues aside, both nations economic fates are intertwined.  While this may change over time, as it is seen today, the relationship between China and the United States is closer to one of competition and cooperation than it is to belligerence.

One key area of cooperation for both countries may be in a shared understanding that their interests are incompatible with those of Moscow.

To that point, policymakers in Beijing and Washington should pay more attention to the constant stream of anti-American rhetoric and Chinese paranoia on display on the Kremlin’s propaganda mouthpiece, Russia Today. The channel espouses an endless stream of misinformation that would make Tokyo Rose blush.

After a thorough review of Moscow’s actions it is plain that Governor Romney is not off base, he is spot on. Indeed, his comments may have indicated an important breakthrough for his political fortunes, from that of Governor and Candidate to that of a true Statesman worthy of the grand geopolitical stage. Governor Romney’s comments, while horrifying for the apologists in the Obama White House, would make President Reagan proud. Governor Romney, as President Reagan did, recognizes that the regime in Russia can only effectively stir the geopolitical pot when the rest of the world legitimizes their behavior and provides them moral equivalency.

Mr. Medvedev, perhaps it is you who should look at his watch, it is 2012, it is time for your government to should stop acting like it is 1973.

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Eftychis John Gregos-Mourginakis is the Executive Director of the Young Transatlantic Conservative Alliance

Continue reading »]]> Adam Memon:

London, December 17, 2011 - The European Commission has recently proposed the imposition of a Financial Transactions Tax. This is completely the wrong priority and would especially harm the UK. As Conservatives we have an instinctive distrust of higher taxes and this article sets out the theoretical, historical and practical reasons to oppose this tax.

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Growth stalling, confidence plummeting, credit restricted. So what does Europe want to do? Introduce a financial transactions tax that by its own admission could wipe out almost 2% of EU GDP. Plans for such a tax demonstrate either breathtaking naivety, an unbelievable ignorance of basic economics or just plain stupidity. Perhaps most disheartening is that it is Conservative European leaders such as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy who are some its loudest supporters. The plan, which is to introduce a tax on all trades in shares and bonds at a rate of 0.1% and all derivative contracts at a rate of 0.01% may seem, at first sight, to be an equitable way to punish reckless bankers. However, such a superficial analysis is dispelled upon a further consideration.

The European Commission, in proposing this new policy, which of course has already been supported by the tax and regulation obsessed European Parliament, is creating a grotesque self caricature of unaccountable European institutions willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of jobs in the name of “solidarity”. Not only does this policy fly in the face of economic logic and the lessons of history but it is actually a naked and contemptible act of populist short-termism.

This tax is yet another example of unelected bureaucrats thinking they know how to spend our money better than we do ourselves but it is especially pernicious because of the disastrous consequences it could have on lending. Small and medium sized enterprises are, of course, the engines of growth and without sufficient fuel (ie lending) they won’t be able to expand as easily. By reducing the real rate of return on bonds and thereby forcing investors to demand higher interest rates to compensate, this tax would inevitably raise the cost of borrowing. The result of this would be reduced lending and credit creation which would harm our investment and export orientated growth strategy. Moreover, we will suffer from a lower underlying trend rate of economic growth because of less capital investment leading to less scope for productivity improvements. If we make it harder to provide the fuel and more expensive to get, we are risking a sharp breakdown in the middle of the road.

Just about every business survey continues to show, restricted access to credit remains an impediment to business expansion. However, in the context of a global slowdown in growth and widespread concerns about a new credit crunch, the financial transactions tax makes even less sense. The 3-month LIBOR interest rate, (London Inter Bank Offered Rate) which is essentially a measure of confidence between banks has risen sharply to 1.03% which is the highest it has been since July 2009. This reflects an appreciable deterioration in lending conditions reminiscent of the beginning of the Credit Crunch. The European Commission couldn’t have found a worse time to introduce this tax.

The failure of much of the financial sector to cope adequately with the crash has created a large burden on taxpayers and an underlying moral hazard for those businesses still reliant on an implicit or explicit state guarantee. However, desperate politicians in the midst of the seemingly perpetual crisis in the Eurozone, do nothing to relieve this burden by hiding behind growth-sapping measures such as this. Furthermore, the hammer would fall particularly hard on the UK as almost 80% of Europe’s financial services are based in the City of London. Financial services remain one of the UK’s comparative advantages and according to a recent PWC report, it provides a million jobs and generates 11% of all tax receipts. We would be foolish to act in a way which jeopardises those jobs.

Taking a closer look at the UK economy, business confidence is low and falling; the Business Trends Output Index from BDO for November showed output falling to 92.6, a level well below the threshold of 95 which is associated with positive growth and well below 100 which is associated with average trend growth. To put in place a new business tax at such a time would further weaken confidence and exacerbate already fragile willingness to invest. Indeed, the Commission’s own impact assessment suggests an upper bound of a 1.76% permanent reduction of the Continent’s long term real output. Europe’s desire to self-harm is truly disturbing.

The evidence from Sweden (the one country where a real financial transactions tax has been introduced) is utterly unambiguous. It was a total disaster. Initial estimates of the revenue that would be raised were wildly over-optimistic. Not only did government borrowing costs rise and capital gains tax receipts slump but huge swathes of Sweden’s equity, bond and derivatives markets were destroyed, or fled to London. Bond trading fell 85% in the first week, futures trading fell 98% and options trading was entirely eliminated. Sweden abolished the policy and now warns against the current proposals.

The lesson is clear, if such a tax were imposed, it would drive away one of the UK’s most important sectors to less taxed, less regulated places, taking with it, tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in taxes. What is more, any revenue that is eventually raised would not be distributed proportionately which means the UK would face 80% of the pain but receive a much smaller percentage of the revenue. Even if this tax was applied universally, there is a serious danger of it causing greater market illiquidity, reducing transactions and driving up borrowing costs making it harder to raise money and thereby harming us all.

Countries in the European Union don’t have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem. This tax won’t hide the fact that profligate governments have spent taxpayers’ money too freely across Europe for years and that monetary policy rigidities resulting from the single currency have clearly exacerbated the problems in the Eurozone by preventing recovery through devaluation. The EU should be focussing instead on boosting growth by for example taking an axe to the Common Agricultural Policy and reducing some of the perverse incentives that it creates; giving back control of employment, social and financial regulations to national governments to promote greater competition and more flexible labour markets; moving towards a single market in services and energy and pushing for faster and more far-reaching free trade agreements with China, India and other emerging economies.

Despite the UK’s former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s repeated attempts at persuading others of the virtues of a financial transactions tax at various G20 meetings, the current Labour leader Ed Miliband’s enthusiastic cheerleading for it during his leadership campaign and sadly the support it is getting from many European Conservatives, the UK’s Conservative-led Coalition Government has thankfully made clear that it will veto this idea. Whilst it can hopefully be stopped from being introduced in the UK, there is still the danger of it being rolled out across the Eurozone and then imposed on the UK at a later date. There is also the problem of UK banks trading in the Eurozone being subject to the tax and there is also the possibility of London branches of European banks also being subject to it. The financial transactions tax is the wrong tax, for the wrong place, at the wrong time. Conservatives should resist it in every way possible.

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Adam Memon is Economics Vice President at the University College London Economics and Finance Society. The views expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Young Transatlantic Conservative Alliance.

Continue reading »]]> Gerrit Kettel:

Opinion – Berlin, November 22, 2011 - What began as a small gathering of anarchists, bored youngsters, and aging hippies in early September has grown into a worldwide protest movement against everything but the redistribution of wealth: Occupy Wall Street. While it is true that the United States has seen growing social inequalities, falling wages, and a transformation into an active welfare state since the 1980s, this is not a conspiracy of government and Wall Street. It is rather a result of Main Street’s failure to organize effectively and engage the political sphere. After decades of low voter turnout, people suddenly realize that they have no say in decisions. But hey: if you don’t vote, don’t complain about the outcomes! The American system in particular offers numerous opportunities to participate, intervene or contact one’s representative and thus get heard in the decision making process.

While the basic idea of the Occupy Wall Street movement might in some respects be legitimate (working five jobs to make ends meet is not the real deal; government bailouts for banks and corporations must not become the rule), however, the OWS folks will not achieve much with their current modus operandi. First of all, a relative majority of Americans (45% in a recent Public Policy Polling poll) opposes the movement, so claiming to be “the 99%” is pretty misleading. Moreover, according to Gallup, more than six in ten Americans do not really know what OWS is all about, and hence have no idea what they should think about it. The most interesting fact of these polls, however, is that Democrats are overrepresented in the samples, so basically they are not more supportive of the movement than Republicans.

But why is the Occupy movement losing its support? The most obvious answer is that it has never had much support to begin with and it was inflated by early media coverage. Thanks to more objective reporting on the movement,  including social and economic explanations behind the rise of the movement, many Americans may have made up their mind and now tell pollsters what they (do not) like about OWS. A second answer might be last week’s unsuccessful “Day of Action”, when protesters tried to literally “Occupy Wall Street”, but in fact were not even able to get near the New York Stock Exchange. This day has shown that the movement has few clues when it comes to achieving or explaining what they are actually protesting for. While asking to stop government-financed bank bailouts, they also demand student loans and private consumer debts to be bailed out. Anyone else see a contradiction here?! A second point is their protest against banks “taking away homes”. Apparently the protesters forget that many of the so-called 99% had gratefully taken (risky) loans to buy homes, even though they had (or should have) realized that they could hardly repay them. Furthermore, even though they claim to be hit hardest by the current economic situation, most of the protesters actually do have a job and rather prefer to redistribute the wealth in favor of “poor people”, to which they count themselves.

Another important aspect not to be overlooked is that the Occupy Movement is a rather heterogeneous group, of which OWS is only one part and not a national phenomenon. In New York City people might call for tougher regulation of Wall Street, but in other cities across the U.S., protestors have their own agenda, tailored to their specific regional problems: Occupy Oakland focuses more on the perceived unfair treatment of port workers, whereas the more recent “Occupy Infrastructure” organizes itself around the demand of renewing infrastructure in their counties, thereby creating (much-needed) jobs.

Even though the United States has some serious economic – and maybe political – problems, camping and protesting in private-public-spaces, such as Zuccotti Park, does not change much. If the Occupy Wall Street movement actually wanted to change something about “corporate greed”, economic inequality or the excess of banks, they should participate in the political process, rather than continue to bash those who work hard. The 2012 elections might be a worthy start.

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Gerrit Kettel is a graduate student at Freie University Berlin and he is the Communications Director of the YTCA Berlin Committee. The views expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Young Transatlantic Conservative Alliance.

Continue reading »]]> Lucas Wehner:

Riverside, California, October 10, 2011 - Europe and the USA were built on servant leadership that caused freedom, but the countries lack servant leadership today. This article lays out how leadership impacted changes towards freedom, and illustrates how people are unsatisfied with their leadership in modern days. The article defines servant leadership and argues that this form of leadership should be practiced by young conservatives. The reason for this kind of leadership can be found in the example of Jesus Christ in Scripture who also provided people with freedom.

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When I thought of freedom the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 came into my mind. Of course, being a German who was born in the East this was a natural thought when hearing “freedom.” Almost two months ago, on August 13^th, 2011, we commemorated the 50^th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall. It tore apart my family as well. In 1986, my grandparents on my mother’s side bought their freedom from the German Democratic Republic, and moved to West Germany leaving my parents and my mother’s siblings behind. Freedom always had a high price, and could even cost lives. About 4,435 US military personnel had to die, and 6,188 US military personnel had to be wounded, for the United States of America to be free from a colonial crown.[1] This number does not even include civil casualties, or US military personnel who died in captivity, or due to diseases.

At both times, the leadership was very important. In 1777, Benjamin Franklin recruited Prussia‘s Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben for the American Revolution who played an important part in building up the Continental Army, and in 1781, it was the French infantry and fleet commanded by Comte de Rochambeau which aided General George Washington in the final victory for freedom. On June 12^th, 1987, over 200 years after the victory for American freedom, a US president, Ronald Reagan, became popular in Berlin by saying: “Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” These leaders were servant leaders as one would see through the latter definition of servant leadership. Europe and the USA were built on servant leadership that caused freedom, but lacked servant leadership in recent years. Therefore, we needed to build up a new generation that would take values and people into the consideration in order to preserve freedom.

All over Europe and the USA, we have seen movements of protests, left and right, in recent history. Since 2009, the right-wing Tea Party movement has protested against the policies of President Barack Obama whose administration was broadly understood as incompetent and corrupt by the movement.[2] In November, 2010, the movement had a stake in the House becoming Republican again through its massive countrywide mobilization.[3] In 2010, the German Association for Language GfdS voted the word “Wutbürger,” meaning “angry citizens” as the word of the year.[4] This word was a reference to the thousands of residents of the Southern German city of Stuttgart protesting against the demolition of the old central train station, and the planned construction projects across the city to build an underground railway system. This mainly green movement also had a stake in the historic win of the Green Party in the state elections of the State of Baden-Württemberg in March, 2011.[5] It was people who made politics by utilizing the freedom they had by going on the streets and publicizing freely in order to maintain certain freedoms.

Leadership always played an important role in these political changes. Often political changes occurred because the leadership ignored the common people’s opinions, and taking away people’s freedom. Leaders ignoring people led to a path of bondage. While the former Minister President of the German State of Baden-Württemberg Stefan Mappus (CDU) used massive  police force – whether justified or not – to keep the protesters away from construction sites, his opponent, Green Party candidate Winfried Kretschmann, walked with the protesters and listened to them. In the end, Kretschmann became the first Green minister president of a state in Germany.

Thus, the question was how we, conservative leaders, could enhance the freedom of people, and therefore, encourage people to elect us as their leaders. First, we would have to transform from being managers to leaders which raised the question about the difference. According to Bennis, there was a great significance in the difference: “To survive in the twenty-first century, we are going to need a new generation of leaders—leaders, not managers. The distinction is an important one. Leaders conquer the context—the volatile, turbulent, ambiguous surroundings that sometimes seem to conspire against us and will surely suffocate us if we let them—while managers surrender to it” (as cited in Luthans, 2011, p. 414).[6]

We would need more servant leaders among our rows. Sendjaya, Sarros, and Santora (2011) stated that servant leaders naturally tended to care more for marginalized people.[7] This became very important considering the increasing pluralism within societies leading automatically to more marginalized people. Second, the researchers claimed that servant leaders led followers for the followers’ own ultimate good, and thus, establishing a priority of followers first, organizations second and own needs and desires last.8 Therefore, change would always originate in the followers because the servant leader first examined what the followers’ needs were, and could then state his or her own needs.[8] In this regard, success would also be defined differently: “Success is measured by growth in the people served and the positive effects on the least privileged in society.” 9

Although George Washington lost more battles than he won, he still was a great leader because he held his army together.[9] He cared for soldiers as individuals and made sure that each one of them would go to church on a regular basis.[10] Of course, freedom for all of his “organization,” his country, was important, but he more so cared for the individual freedom of his followers. Over 200 years later, it was two German pastors, Christian Führer and Christoph Wonneberger, who started the prayers for peace and prayer walks in the city of Leipzig in the 1980s to protest against the East German regime limiting its citizens in their freedom. These pastors listened to the people about their needs, and became servant leaders in making these needs their own needs.

As conservatives, we would often associate ourselves with Christian values and Christianity. Therefore, we should know what our King and Savior Jesus Christ taught. Jesus was an example of servant leadership. When reading how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, one should immediately think of Jesus as servant leader, and would understand this even more so when following John 13:13-17:

“You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (ESV).

Servant leadership motivated followers to do what their leaders did. It was an advanced Golden Rule. However, even more so, Jesus Christ brought freedom to people as it was written in John 8:36: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (ESV). Nevertheless, not even the best servant leader would ever be able to bring the kind of freedom which Jesus could bring. A servant leader could create a freedom though that released people from the feeling of being ignored, from the feeling of constantly needing to run after money, and from the feeling of needing to work at all times.

This kind of leadership could create a “re-newed” generation of politicians, business people, and scientists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean like we used to have with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Ronald Reagan, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Comte de Rochambeau, and pastors like Christian Führer and Christoph Wonneberger. It could become a leadership that would understand that politics and business was not about following the stockholders, the money, and the power. Erik Händeler stated in his book Kondratieffs Welt that in the future, the stock market would grant favor to those companies which re-invented themselves towards “soft factors” meaning investing in people.[11] Servant leadership would provide employees and voters with freedom in the form of inner peace through investing in them as people would be listened to again. In Realpolitik or market ethics, that was not always the most popular thing to say or write because the rules said that it was all about the “more.” However, it was managers who followed the “more” standard as they “did things right.” In contrast, it was leaders who followed a Biblical ethics as they “did the right thing.” These were two different perspectives that could have two different impacts on people’s freedom. For instance, while Barabbas tried to fight against Roman occupation in order to achieve freedom for people, Jesus also tried to achieve freedom for people by healing, encouraging, and serving them. Manager tried to change the external environment while leaders changed the internal environments. Just as Christ brought eternal freedom to mankind we, as conservatives, could also bring freedom to people by creating a new culture of listening, acknowledging, healing, and serving.

[1] Leland, A., & Oboroceanu, M.-J. (2010). American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.

The author, Lucas Wehner, holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Management) and Political Science (International Relations) from California Baptist University in Riverside, California. At CBU, he is a Graduate Assistant for the Office of International Student Services. He currently is aiming to get his Master of Business Administration from CBU as well. In the past, he had experience with the Public Diplomacy unit at the German Embassy Washington, DC and with the Foreign Policy Task Force of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag in Berlin. His fields of interest are social entrepreneurship, value-centered policies, foreign policy, and human rights. The views expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Young Transatlantic Conservative Alliance.

Continue reading »]]> Stephen Christensen:

Prague, Czech Republic, September 29, 2011 - After four dramatic years of failed missile defense negotiations between the U.S. and Czech Republic, the bilateral agenda still lacks the substantial centerpiece the Czech government yearns for. Instead, the future of U.S.-Czech relations must be comfortable with stagnation, but reexamine the existing, yet meaningful areas of cooperation such as increased cooperation on Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan.

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The traditionally stable U.S.-Czech relationship has proved to be quite volatile as of late. Czech Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra announced in June the Czech government would not cooperate with the United States on the proposed early warning data center associated with the amended bilateral missile defense agreement, originally executed in 2007.

While this announcement caught many by surprise, the decision to publicize the information is worth pondering. Both the U.S. Embassy in Prague and the Czech government have been intentionally quiet on this topic since U.S. Ambassador Norman Eisen’s arrival in January, suggesting each party coveted a new centerpiece to the bilateral relationship.

Negotiations between the two parties should have continued behind closed doors accordingly, out of the media, but the announcement reintroduced this controversial issue back into the headlines. With any luck, the declaration should place this contentious issue to rest and designate the long overdue post-missile defense era in U.S.-Czech relations.

After nearly four tumultuous years of bilateral missile defense dealings, the U.S.-Czech alliance is in desperate need of a new identity. Unfortunately, the future of U.S.-Czech cooperation on substantial projects is grim. Furthermore, items on the current agenda are trivial.

In early June, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Karl Schwarzenberg met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C. to discuss U.S.-Czech relations. A normally insignificant meet-and-greet became prescient when Secretary Clinton grabbed everyone’s attention by “putting everybody on notice both in the State Department and in the rest of the United States Government, that this is a very high priority.”

Secretary Clinton made reference to the antiquated U.S.-Czech Bilateral Investment Treaty, which dates back to 1991. However, the task of renegotiating this treaty is not the new cornerstone of U.S.-Czech relations.

Furthermore, Secretary Clinton’s prioritization of the Bilateral Investment Treaty was dangerous, especially in light of the fact that the U.S. already rejected one request by the Czech government to renegotiate earlier this year. If discussions ultimately fail, or begin to resemble the same dead-end path missile defense traveled, the future of U.S.-Czech relations could become fractured beyond repair.

The CEZ Temelin tender is not the new cornerstone of U.S.-Czech relations either. First, U.S.-based Westinghouse is competing with both France’s Areva SA and Russia’s Atomstroyexport for the contract. Second, and more importantly, the tender will not be awarded until 2013. With the 2012 Presidential elections in the United States looming, as well as the need for Ambassador Eisen to receive yet another U.S. Senate confirmation at year’s end to return to Prague as ambassador, the U.S. government personnel working on this issue could be entirely different by 2013. Although, awarding the tender to Westinghouse would significantly steer U.S.-Czech relations in the right direction despite this being a private sector deal.

One position worth pursuing more aggressively is the amplification of the Czech Provincial Reconstruction Team efforts in Logar, Afghanistan. These joint civilian-military teams are designed to improve provincial security, strengthen the institutional capacity of local governance thereby extending the reach of the Afghan government by providing basic goods and services to civil society.

President Obama’s recent announcement of forthcoming troop reductions in Afghanistan illustrates an eventual shift to a more sophisticated, non-militarized strategy in Afghanistan. More importantly, troop reductions represent a critical transition point in U.S. and NATO strategy in Afghanistan. Furthering the broad based support for the Afghan government after the removal of U.S. and NATO troops is critical, and provincial reconstruction teams serve this need.

The Czech Provincial Reconstruction Team in Logar has long been considered successful in its mission to facilitate stability through reconstruction in priority provinces. The joint military-civilian team extends the legitimacy and reach of the Afghan government through small infrastructure projects such as establishing a clean water supply, rehabilitating schools, medical clinics and government buildings, as well as community irrigation systems. These efforts are an essential variable to the Afghan government eventually standing on its own.

Regrettably, financial shortcomings stand in the way of expanding the Czech PRT mission. The Czech Republic has been unable to meet its financial commitment to NATO – 2% of GDP spending annually – since 2004. Additionally, the defense budget has been reduced nearly 20% in the last two years. These developments have NATO concerned with Czech contribution to the alliance.

Because the Czech PRT unit has years of valuable experience in provincial reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, it is worthy of an increased investment from the U.S. and NATO. The knowledge transfer Czech PRT units are capable of should be a high priority to the U.S. as it moves forward with its eventual non-military strategy in Afghanistan. NATO and the U.S. should take immediate actions with the Czech government to ensure the Czech PRT mandate is extended beyond its 2012-2013 deadline.

Extending the Czech PRT mission is not the new cornerstone of U.S.-Czech relations. In fact, the likelihood a new centerpiece on the U.S.-Czech agenda will emerge is doubtful. But in an era of supposed U.S. retrenchment, significant bilateral cooperation with the U.S. can only occur when the cooperating country is capable of contributing substantially and conveniently to U.S. interests. In the case of Czech PRT, and in light of an eventual non-military shift in U.S. and NATO strategy in Afghanistan, the Czech government’s PRT initiative is a measure that serves U.S. interests, and will continue to do so for the coming years.

There is no conclusive way to predict the future of U.S.-Czech relations. Recent history illustrates an eager approach by the Czech government to cooperate significantly on a bilateral level with the U.S. Unfortunately, this eagerness resulted in empty rhetoric and wasted political capital on overly ambitious bilateral projects that have jeopardized the normally strong foundation this relationship rests on. In the era of post-missile defense U.S.-Czech relations, it is in the best interest of the Czech government to accept bilateral cooperation with the U.S. will consist of inconsequential projects at best.

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Stephen Christensen is a Resident Fellow at the Prague Security Studies Institute. You can follow him on Twitter @SRCdaily. The views expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Young Transatlantic Conservative Alliance.