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Sunday, February 27, 2005

Bush in Europe

One article, which doesn't seem particularly good, but I'll link because the writer is willing to attach his name to it. No email address, but a name isn't bad.

What you need to know:
Bush is over in Europe to gain some popularity for America and himself, and intends to say little or nothing publicly about anything that Europe and the US disagree on. Thus, the public "diplomacy sessions" between Bush and whatever counterpart he's meeting with will focus on "warm and fuzzy"-type issues, such as ending poverty, ending hunger, ending HIV, and keeping the ozone layer. There may also be some talk about more trade, but it is almost certain to be a bit ambiguous and will jump around many of the things that actually are important to free trade (like removing corrupt dictatorships).
In private diplomacy sessions, or over the telephone, Bush will talk about the real issues. Mainly terrorism, policy with Iran, policy with North Korea, spreading democracy across the world, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and all those international issues that spark arguments. Sudan, Columbia (good country), Venezuela (bad country, or at least bad leader), China, Russia, India and Pakistan, and Cuba might come up as well, though they will be assigned less importance.
Every bit of diplomacy done publicly is a popularity stunt; half an hour of public diplomacy is probably planned within 10 minutes of an actual diplomatic meeting. In actual diplomacy, things that most people don't know about are discussed quite freely; for example, during the Yom Kippur War, Henry Kissinger talked with his Soviet counterpart about the resupply/reinforcement efforts that each country was conducting, they argued mainly about the introduction of new technologies, rather than the replacement of lost equipment (near the end of the war, the US replaced about 130% of destroyed Israeli equipment). Additionally, representatives from each country have a tendency to express views that are quite different from what they display publicly.
It appears that the US media has no clue about how diplomacy is actually conducted, while I have some slight idea, or at least I think I do.

So, I'll take a few guesses at what Bush is actually discussing with European leaders. He told Putin that he'll overlook the poisoning of Yuschenko if Russia work closer with the US on North Korea, and hopefully to stop weapon and technology trade with Iran and Syria. With France, Bush probably brought up France's support for and work with China to request that France not support China's claim on Taiwan and tried to prevent or limit the removal of trade barriers on China, and keeping terrorism out of Europe certainly used a good amount of time. Additionally, Bush likely discussed democracy in eastern Europe, mid-east issues like Syria and Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Iran, and perhaps mentioned the end of the India-Pakistan conflict. There may also have been some discussion about Europe's hint at weakening sanctions on Cuba, doing something with Sudan, and Central/South American policy. Bush is probably discussing the same with Britain and Germany, with the exception of working with China. For the Netherlands; terrorism, UN and its actions/inactions, moral support for the US or US's close allies in Iraq and North Korea, a bit about Russia's movement a bit closer to dictatorship, and probably a bit about policy with the Americas. I expect Bush also mentioned copyright laws, as the Netherlands is a hub of copyright violations, and maybe about China's blatant disregard for copyrights altogether.

Those are my guesses, very little fact to back them up, but those should be the important issues that the US and Europe face. Thus, they are what the US and Europe really talk about.

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