In his Berlin speech on the "lessons of 1989", Pompeo takes two swipes at France: "NATO suffered France’s departure from its integrated military command in the 1960s"; "We shouldn’t forget that Mitterand and Thatcher didn’t support reunification at first." state.gov/secretary-mich…
And the lesson is about "mankind’s natural longing for freedom":
"There’s a lesson there for those of us who think that authoritarian regimes are destined to live forever. They are not."
"There’s a lesson there for those of us who think that authoritarian regimes are destined to live forever. They are not."
Pompeo also has a take on Russia that is quite different from Macron's:
"Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades its neighbors and slays political opponents. "
"Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades its neighbors and slays political opponents. "
And China? "The Chinese Communist Party uses tactics and methods to suppress its own people that would be horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans."
Conclusion: "We must recognize that free nations are in a competition of values with those unfree nations."
"Our two democracies, the United States and Germany, possess the abundant political and economic capital and the power that can only be garnered by free societies. We have a duty – each of us – to use all we have to defend what was so hard-won in 1776, in 1945, and in 1989."
Moving from poetry to prose, Pompeo says that in order to uphold these values the US is pushing Germany on:
- Nord Stream 2;
- defense spending;
- containing Iran;
- Huawei
- Nord Stream 2;
- defense spending;
- containing Iran;
- Huawei
Pompeo with this speech elegantly tries to build a bridge between the US and Germany by appealing to a joint history and joint values. In other words, to counterbalance his president's disruptive and sometimes hostile rhetoric.
