But while trust can be built up only gradually and with effort over years, the opposite is not the case: It is easy to suddenly destroy trust overnight. In this sense, too, the same principles apply to diplomacy as to personal relationships.
I saw how trust could be gambled away from another experience. There was not even any malicious intent involved; neither party was trying to fool the other. There was merely an unfortunate sequence of several misunderstandings.
A few hours after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, I sent a message to Berlin, feeling it necessary to fulfill my duties as ambassador by assessing the political mood in the United States. My telegram included the sentence, “Doubtlessly, the U.S. will expect complete political and practical solidarity from us and its other close allies.”
Those were the words. Later, the telegram was published; anyone can look it up. It did not say, “We recommend that we show complete solidarity.” It merely stated that the American government expected such complete solidarity. Two days later, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder stated in a government address: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have expressed the deepest sympathies of the entire German nation to the American president. I also assured him of Germany’s unlimited—I emphasize, unlimited—solidarity. I am certain that all of our thoughts are with the victims and their families. Our sympathy goes to them, our heartfelt condolences.”1
Even at the time, some of us had a queasy feeling that this wording might be going a bit too far. Solidarity without the word “unlimited” might have been enough. But after 9/11, Germany stood firmly alongside the United States. And George W. Bush took the sentence seriously; Washington was impressed.
That statement resulted in misunderstandings and even led to a serious crisis of confidence. The following is how it unfolded.
In the fall of 2001, there were rumors that the Bush administration was not only considering fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, but also contemplating taking action against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
In late January 2002, Chancellor Schröder attended the World Economic Forum, which was not held in Davos that year, but at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, in order to express solidarity with the city devastated by the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The chancellor took this opportunity to make a short side trip to Washington. After a discussion about the situation in the Middle East during dinner with President Bush at the White House, Chancellor Schröder said, “If action has to be taken, then quickly and without hesitation!”
It was a casual comment and certainly not a commitment that Germany would go along with the United States in the case of military action in Iraq. But taken in the context of the “unlimited solidarity” promised in September 2001, and mingled with the Americans’ own wishes and expectations, it could be interpreted as an indirect promise by Schröder to stand side by side with the United States in the case of Iraq.
That is how it was—incorrectly—interpreted by the United States. Bush later felt he had been deceived when Schröder withheld his support.
THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE BETWEEN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES
In May 2002 the American president paid a return visit to Berlin. I was present for a conversation in which the two leaders discussed all kinds of topics. Before they headed to the subsequent press conference, Schröder said, “We may get some questions about the issue of Iraq.”
And Bush replied, “Then we will tell the press, truthfully, that we did not talk about that. There is nothing to talk about, anyway. I have not decided anything, and when I do, I will let you know.”
No sooner said than done, the press conference proceeded uneventfully. And Chancellor Schröder believed that he would be informed by the White House whenever a decision on Iraq was in the making. But the notification from Washington never came. We know today that Bush was already working on plans to invade Iraq in the summer of 2002. We were not informed at all.
First, in late summer of 2002, there was a rather aggressive speech by Vice President Dick Cheney against Iraq, which set off all the warning bells in Germany. Then there was a scandal concerning Federal Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin, who had supposedly compared Bush with Hitler. As ambassador, I received a special summons to the White House: The president felt he had been personally attacked and would henceforth meticulously track everything coming out of Germany.
As for Schröder, during the German election campaign, he ran on an anti-Iraq-war platform that ultimately ensured his reelection. As a result of all this, the mood between Berlin and Washington continued to deteriorate. In order to rebuild the seriously damaged trust between the two countries, I arranged with National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice—on the basis of Bush’s promise back in May—that I would come by her office every six weeks or so to hear whether there was any news on the issue of Iraq. And I did exactly that from late summer until Christmas 2002. Every time I was told no, there’s nothing new! This was the information I then passed on to Berlin.
In January 2003 there were UN Security Council sessions in which it became ever clearer that something was in the offing. But still, we received no official information from the United States; we could only speculate. The French, who were also quick to express their opposition to intervention in Iraq, were even more suspicious than we were. In March 2003, Iraq was invaded. The promise made in May 2002 to notify us beforehand had not been kept. Schröder regarded this, justifiably, as a breach of trust.
Much, much later, I asked my American partners why they had left us in the dark. After all, I reminded them, we were NATO allies, close partners, quite apart from the fact that Bush had promised Schröder to involve him before the decision was made.
The answer was sobering and spoke volumes about the state of relations between Germany and United States at the time: “We deliberately did not initiate you into our plans because we knew that there was close coordination between Berlin and Paris. We assumed that if we were to inform you, the French would find out the very same minute. And if the French found out, Saddam Hussein would know one minute later. That was to be avoided at all costs.”
It was shocking to learn that the White House did not trust the German government to handle secret information properly. It was equally shocking that the Americans thought that their NATO partner France was capable of passing such information on to their adversary in Iraq. The United States’s decision not to inform its allies Germany and France was a drastic proclamation of distrust.
It was understandable that Schröder had every reason to be angry. The trust between Germany and the United States was in tatters for a long time. Both sides did not trust each other, and each side believed the other capable of just about anything.
This example shows the vast potential for misunderstandings, despite interpreters, minutes of meetings, and expert advisors. Each side believes it understands what the other is saying but takes it the wrong way or places it in a context of which the other is not aware. And that is all it takes to cause a deep crisis of confidence. This is why classic diplomacy and professional diplomats are not superfluous even today. Good foreign policy is, unfortunately, very complicated. Experience and competence help. The essence of diplomacy, the responsibility for war or peace, has probably never been summarized more poetically than by W. H. Auden2:
As evening fell the day’s oppression lifted:
Far peaks came into focus; it had rained:
Across wide lawns and cultured flowers drifted
The conversation of the highly trained.
Two gardeners watched them pass and priced their shoes:
A chauffeur waited, reading in the drive,
For them to finish their exchange of views;
It seemed a