Production and distribution of City Club forums and ideastream public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we're devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

Today's Tuesday, October 24th.

I'm Dan Martaban, the chief executive here.

I'm also a proud member of the City Club.

So look for a second, you guys.

We're at a point where it's probably not an exaggeration to say that 100% of us here in this room today are worried about the state of the world.

We're worried about the prospects for peace.

And we're worried about the outlook for democracy.

If I made a mistake in claiming that 100% of us are worried about those things, somebody tell me now, look, our worries and concerns are as much domestic as they are global wars and Ukraine and Israel, both of which could tip into regional conflicts.

Bellicose aggression threatens Taiwan and South Korea.

And if our Congress is an indicator of the strength of the idea of democracy, it's hard to have faith.

At moments like this, though.

You want sound analysis.

You want to hear from people of experience.

You want clarity of vision.

And that's why I'm so glad we have Heather Conley, president of the German Marshall Fund, here with us today.

At its core, the German Marshall Fund strives to champion democratic values and the transatlantic alliance by strengthening civil society, developing a new generation of leaders to tackle global challenges, and forging bold and innovative policy ideas, one of which we're going to hear about in depth today.

You should know, too, that Cleveland has a strong, decades long connection to the German Marshall Fund.

Firstly, the idea for the Marshall Plan was hatched here in Cleveland, Ohio.

True fact you can Google it if Google doesn't come up with it.

Talk to Joe afterwards.

Also, Clevelanders and our city have long been a part of GM's Marshall Memorial Fellowship Program, which invites European and American civic leaders on life changing travel fellowships, exposing them to cities and leaders in those cities with the goal of strengthening our shared commitments to democracy and our shared commitments to the transatlantic relationship.

I say our, by the way, because I was a marshall Memorial Fellow in 2019 and it did change my life.

Yes.

Yes.

Are you.

I also want to recognize the Marshall Memorial Fellows.

There are a number of alum in the audience, but also some Europeans who are traveling and are here with us today.

Please join me in welcoming all of them.

So Heather Connelly is GM's sixth president.

She spent her career working in international relations and government affairs.

She spent 12 years at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as the senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia and the Arctic.

Before that, she was the executive director of the Office of the Chairman of the Board at the American National Red Cross and also the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

Well, first, here's some opening remarks from Heather Connelly and then move into a conversation moderated by our good friend Joe Simplement, president of Global Cleveland.

And then we'll get to the portion of the Q&A portion.

And if you have a question for Heather Connelly, you can text it to 3305415794.

Or you can work your way to the microphone during that time and we'll work it into the second half of the program.

Members and Friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Heather Conley.

Well, thank you very, very much.

And that was an excellent introduction.

You stole a little of my thunder and my.

That's okay.

That's okay.

But I want to tell you, as president of the German Marshall Fund, Cleveland is home.

Thank you for welcoming us home.

It is fantastic to be.

And the weather is great.

And this is an incredible new building.

And dad told me the furniture just arrived yesterday.

Thank you.

You've made the home really nice for us.

Thank you so very much.

So, exactly as it's described today, we meet under some very dark clouds.

And externally, I think it's just important that we take a moment to step back and understand.

We are, if my calculation is correct, in day 608 of the largest land war in Europe since the Second World War, we stand on the cusp potentially of regional conflict breaking out across the Middle East and tensions are now rising very quickly in the Indo-Pacific.

These are probably the most significant and serious times that we've experienced in six or seven decades.

And at the same time, internally, we are deeply polarized.

We are so polarized.

We've now become paralyzed and are unable to rise to meet the challenges that I've just described externally and through our fear, our fear of this uncertain world, our fear of not knowing what future lies ahead, that fear can be transformed into isolationism.

Make it go away.

Pull up those drawbridges.

I don't want to engage in this.

So those are the dark and stormy clouds.

But let's talk about some light.

Light is city club.

Light is global.

Cleveland Light is the Cleveland Foundation.

Light, I will always hope.

And Aspire is the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

So I'm going to talk about GMF.

For those of you who don't know us, I'm going to be very brief and then I'm going to talk about how we can prepare and fly through these dark and stormy clouds and talk about that through a modern Marshall Plan for Ukraine.

A word about the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

We were born as an act of gratitude 51 years ago, and it happened at the 25th anniversary of the Marshall Plan.

Then German Chancellor Philip Ponte in 1972 decided to retrace the steps of George C Marshall when he, in 19, on June 5th of 1947, went to Harvard to deliver an incredibly short but powerful speech that announced the European Recovery Program.

So Chancellor Brandt retraced those steps 25 years later and created the German Marshall Fund as an act of gratitude for the German government.

Wanted to thank the American people for rebuilding them.

What a power that is to come to every issue through an act of gratitude.

So 51 years later, the German Marshall Fund, headquartered in Washington, D.C., has seven offices in Europe, in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Warsaw, Bucharest, Belgrade and Ankara, where the only U.S. organization that has that reach and why?

Because our mission is to make sure that for future generations, the strength of the transit landmark relationship is always the most powerful and put to work in good times.

But most importantly, when times are the most challenging.

We give grants to civil society organizations across the Western Balkans, Central Europe, Ukraine, around the Black Sea and Belarus.

Why?

Because we are helping organization build democracy from the bottom up to fight for strong institutions, accountability to make sure all voices are heard and lifted up.

That's what a democracy does.

We also act a little bit like a think tank and you're like, okay, what's a think tank?

What do you do in Washington again?

I know explaining what I did to my children was the hardest thing I ever did for quite a few years.

Mommy goes on television and she travels.

Okay, what does a think tank do?

A think tank is the part that we do is we bring the people that make decisions, whether they are in government, the private sector, civil society, thought leaders.

We bring them around a table and we talk about tough issues and we focus on solutions.

We we often critique our government, what they're doing, what we think is well or not.

Well.

We provide new policy ideas for policymakers that have run out of gas and are doing the same thing over and over again.

And they're expecting different results.

We give them new ideas, but we put thoughtful people together to get solutions.

And then looking at this incredible table of alumni and the folks that are here now on our current Marcia Memorial Fellows, we are building the next generation of transatlantic leaders because you are stewarding this relationship.

But the relationship will be yours.

It will focus on climate.

It will focus on resolving the tensions that we see in our international community.

It will be working on local solutions because at the end of the day, we we affirm democracy through solving problems.

So that's what the German Marshall Fund does each and every day.

170 wonderful members working transatlantic free to work on those solutions.

So okay, that's a little bit of GMF.

So let's talk about how do we navigate these looming storm clouds.

I'm going to argue what we need to do is return, I think, back to a simple formula.

I called it the three C's.

We need to attack our international problems with clarity, with confidence and with conviction.

And that's been missing, I would argue, transatlantic for a little while, clarity.

So for the United States, clarity is about, as we look at the international scene, what is in U.S. national security interest.

I often hear when people talk about providing assistance to Ukraine, I hear some senior U.S. policymakers saying, where's the gratitude?

Where's the gratitude?

This has nothing to do about gratitude.

This is in America's self-interest.

And I'll talk a little bit about that.

So clarity.

It has to be in our interest.

That is what we do.

Confidence that we have the tools, the means, the partners to accomplish what we must accomplish.

What's in our interest?

Confidence not.

I'm not sure it's going to work.

Maybe confidence.

And the third conviction and this is what I think has been lacking in part because I think we've lacked a little bit of self-confidence about when we've gone in to major challenges.

Certainly, Iraq was not self-confident, resolved.

Afghanistan was not a self-confident result.

But conviction means we achieve results and we seek victory.

Because if we don't seek that victory, the stakes and and quite frankly, the challenges will only grow.

So the conviction that we must succeed now, all of that, those three C's is understandable.

If you know your history about the Marshall Plan.

So I'm going to spend a moment on the history because a lot of people don't remember that wonderful history.

And then let me share with you why I think we can pull that history forward and talk about a marshall Plan for Ukraine.

So let's backtrack back to 1947.

Inflation was very high in the United States.

People had served.

They had done their duty for Europe.

Why why would we do anything more for Europe?

It was a difficult time for the United States.

We wanted to focus on building the United States after the Second World War.

But what did Europe look like at that moment ravaged economically incredibly deprived?

And what was happening?

That hard fought victory from the Second World War was on the cusp of being lost because of that economic loss influences, communist influences were about to topple some key governments.

So everything that we worked hard for would have been lost.

That's an important historic.

Aha.

We won the war.

We had not secured the peace in rebuilding Europe.

We could re we could secure that peace, not only secure that peace, but have our European allies be prosperous and secure, prosperity and security that had enormous benefits for the United States.

It was not an easy sell.

And I love the history here.

They had to have a marshall Plan to sell the Marshall Plan to talk to citizens to say, hear me out.

This is why it was tough.

But you know what one of the magic formulas was?

It was truly bipartisan.

A Democratic president and a Republican leader in the Senate at the time said this was the right thing to do for our country and went out and convinced the American people it was the right thing.

And it was probably one of the most consequential foreign policy initiatives of the 20th century.

Four years later, we had 16 European allies that had economically recovered.

Many of them had become founding members of NATO's, which NATO's will celebrate its 75th anniversary.

So let's take those lessons and apply them to Ukraine today.

Let me start with the three C's clarity.

Clarity is this is in the United States interest to support Ukraine right now.

And now is the most critical time because there are other urgent crises that require our attention.

We have to keep our sense of clarity of why this is important, to keep providing assistance, because can you imagine if Ukraine was not successful?

Can you imagine how much the United States is going to spend in defense spending to ensure its security from a Russia that is imperialistic and very aggressive?

A Russia that is supported by Iran, by North Korea, by China.

This is not just about Ukraine.

It's not just about the European theater.

It's about those global connections.

So the clarity this is in our interest, the confidence that we with our European allies and Europe has now surpassed the United States in providing assistance to Ukraine in financial assistance.

The U.S. leads and military assistance.

But Europe has eclipsed us as of July in providing that assistance.

So we have our allies and partners supporting this.

We have the tools.

We have a great private sector who is eager, eager to embrace.

They need help, more insurance.

They need support from the government.

But I can't begin to tell you how many U.S. companies seem an extraordinary opportunity in Ukraine's I.T.

sector, their energy sector, their agricultural sector.

They see opportunity.

They see that they can prosper as well as the Ukrainian economy, to provide those tools to continue to support Ukraine.

The Ukrainian people, as they rebuild their cities, as they look forward to a better future.

And then finally, it is that conviction we have to ensure victory for Ukraine.

As I said, the the counterargument to that would be enormously costly and I believe if Ronald Reagan were alive today and someone would tell him it's 5% of U.S. defense spending, would completely in many ways decimate the Russian conventional forces up to or involve up to 80%.

That would be the best deal for us economically, despite obviously the extraordinary toll on the Ukrainian military.

This is what I mean about smart arguments with Claire.

Confidence and conviction.

Why a modern Marshall Plan for Ukraine supporting the rebuilding of the Ukraine?

Winning the war.

Securing the peace, ensuring greater prosperity and security for the transatlantic relationship.

That's an argument I'd make every day, all day across this country.

And I look forward to having that conversation with you right now with this guy.

Thank you so much.

We'll have their thank you so much for coming to Cleveland and to our four fellows who are here from the EU.

We're so happy that you are now Clevelanders and that we are we are part of each other's family.

And to the City Club.

Thank you, Dan, for always making these forms possible.

One of the things that you talked a little bit about was the Ukrainian military.

And, you know, in the audience today, we have people from Ukraine, people who fled since the invasion.

And there is a conversation now of hope.

And you spoke of the three seas.

How would a region like Cleveland, which is the sixth highest in receiving Ukrainian refugees and some would say in the top three in terms of Ukrainian diaspora, how would our community civically position itself to be of support to this?

Because clearly there's a lot of interest here and a lot of support for a German Marshall Plan for rebuilding Ukraine, which immediately implies victory.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, first of all, Cleveland, the community has been amazing in their support for the people of Ukraine, providing the immediate humanitarian needs, the solidarity and support.

That is exactly that.

That's the light of GMF and what we do.

It's people to people.

It's understanding the connectivity of where the Cleveland community is directly tied to the Ukrainian community and that we see each others as sources of strength.

We see each other as sources of support.

You know, as we talked about, as Dan referenced, look, we know the topic of Ukraine is deeply politically polarizing right now.

But as I like to say, as I lift up the voices of our our Cleveland community, that's doing extraordinary work in Ukraine.

That's that's American foreign and security policy working every single day.

I think the citizens of Cleveland don't understand that they are on the front lines of U.S. foreign and security policy every day.

And when we build together something important, something lasting and enduring.

I don't want a political I don't want a politician getting in that way.

I want to strengthen that.

I want our political leaders to support and lift up that work.

That's the great American experience.

That spirit that can do spirit, it sometimes that can do spirit drives some of our European colleagues a little crazy.

Sometimes we get a little overoptimistic, we get a little too can do like we can do this.

And sometimes it's like, okay, maybe we're, you know, we stumble a little bit.

But that's exactly the spirit of we can work together.

We can make it happen.

And that we imply that we understand victory is is essential.

And once you put that policy, that optimism, we're doing it.

Get out of our way.

Get behind us.

Let's go.

I as I said, I think that's the spirit that is the spirit within Ukraine.

It's certainly within the American DNA.

We need Polish.

See, that helps lift up, make that easier and continue to support that city to city work, citizen to citizen companies getting engaged.

That's that's again, that's in our self interest.

It makes our community stronger.

Our business is stronger.

So it's so self-interested and it's doing the right thing.

How could we not want to do that?

You spoke a little bit about the clarity and the courage.

And, you know, it's interesting in Ohio, right?

We our governor, Governor DeWine.

Congress, people like Max Miller, Marcy Kaptur, Mayor Bibb and county executive Ronayne are all over in terms of their politics, but united in supporting Ukraine.

What lesson can the rest of the country glean from the fact that, yes, we have a large Ukrainian diaspora, but clearly there's a keen understanding that Ohio and Ukraine have a lot more in common than not.

So I think it's as simple as understanding, you know, what is in your interest and you know what is in the country's interest.

I think sometimes our political leaders don't put the community's interests and the and the country's interests.

Sometimes in Washington.

It's obviously it's extremely political town politics for some different statements and conclusions.

But again, I have a very simple formula.

It's local and it's solution based.

And you're local and you're solution based.

And you have and it's you have international ramifications for what you're doing.

So I would ask I would say, keep this bipartisanship, grow this bipartisanship, demonstrate to other leaders, regardless of political party, why it's important, why it's in our interest.

Be clear.

Be confident and have clear convictions.

And I you know, then they have to sort of deal with that rather than us addressing their partizanship.

Right.

And when you think about we were talking a little bit earlier about, you know, what's at stake in Ukraine.

You know, obviously, it's a real effort for supporting democracy and and then people's right to be free.

Recently, Poland just went through an amazing election.

And, you know, as we're watching, there's often this conversation among the fellows, you know, what do America and the EU have in common?

And the conversation around illiberal democracy and around, you know, what does that mean?

And can you talk about any trend lines now with regard to Poland, even Hungary, and where this is going?

Because it feels like we're having a battlefield conversation about this with Ukraine, but we're having a maybe more difficult information conversation about some of our other allies.

Thank you, Joe.

It's a it's a fantastic question.

And I just and at the end of September, in early October, I traveled to Germany, Finland, Norway, and I ended in Warsaw, Poland, ten days before their historic election.

I had a couple of takeaways from visiting all four countries.

Very unique Norway.

I'll put a little bit of aside for the moment, but what struck me was how much Europe is shifting to the right.

And I think sometimes it doesn't even acknowledge or recognize that.

And it's and it's, you know, it's a confluence of factors.

And I think we have to go back really beginning to 2008.

You don't get there overnight.

You slide there until you wake up and go, whoa, I'm I'm in a different place.

It started, obviously, the 2008 financial crisis, which had very deep impact in Europe.

In fact, some European countries have been extremely slow to even get back to pre 2008 economic levels.

And then just as they were just coming out of the financial crisis, which obviously, you know, released into a debt crisis for many of the European peripheral countries, then they hit the Syrian conflict and the migration crisis.

Of course, 2015 Ukraine obviously the annexation of Crimea.

Then they got hit with an a migration crisis that certainly accelerated shifting politically to the right.

And then I would say on sort of on the third top of of that, it's been this fuel of not having confidence in the future, fearing the future, fearing change, societal change, economic change.

Well, my children have a better life than I have.

I think in Europe you also hear in the US we have a shifting demographic.

In Europe, it's a demographic decline that exacerbates that.

Will my children stay in the country?

Are they going to leave?

Will their my culture, my language survive?

If the demographic picture becomes smaller and smaller?

And this just began to shift that the center now is more center right and European countries struggle with how to address this far right element.

It is certainly anti us.

It's anti EU typically is very pro Russia for China because in fact, I think where some believe that democracy is failing.

You see that in our public opinion polls here for young people.

It's not working for me.

They're not listening to me.

They're not addressing my issues.

And so you have very charismatic political figures that I've got a simple answer for you.

This is what we're going to do, super simple.

And it feels good in a very complex world that doesn't have easy answers to it.

And so, you know, I think obviously the concern and the Polish election was a huge surprise because the Polish government certainly using grievance and history and the trauma of that history.

And look, we're all we all we live our historic traumas differently culturally.

And certainly this full scale war has brought up the most significant cultural traumas for Central Europe, for Western Europe.

And everyone suffered differently for Poland and for the the current government.

They saw an opportunity to transform Polish democratic institutions, the judicial system, transform the media to be much more of a government spokesperson.

And they really.

So there are free elections.

They're just not fair anymore because parties put their finger on the scales and control the media, control the message.

And in fact, the Polish government at the time held a referendum on migration at the same time as the election.

It blew through campaign election funding.

And they're like, This is great.

It'll mobilize everybody.

Everyone's afraid of of immigration.

It backfired in Poland.

This is the most important election since 1989.

And more people came out to vote this election, 74.4%.

Why?

Because I think they understood their future was at stake.

Were they going to transform their democracy to a limited democracy and become more anti-Europe, anti German, specifically and anti Russia?

Or were they going to choose a different path?

But the fact of the matter is, for ten years, Poland's democracy has been under great strain.

Sound familiar?

When democracy has come under great strain and institutions become strained and tested, their resilience gets, you know, bouncing back, takes a little while.

It's very difficult.

So this new government, when it's formed, will it will be challenging.

And you have Hungary that is, you know, closing the liberal increasingly Germany.

If you look at German political polling right now, the largest party is a center right party.

The governing party.

And at 22% of day, which is a far right party, this is now shifting the country.

And I think Germany has a lot of trauma that that's going to be frightening to them.

So what I like to tell everybody.

Democracy is a daily activity.

We take ourselves for granted and we lose that our essence.

We fight for it every day, but we and we fight for it transatlantic.

And that's why it's so important that we work with organizations across Europe to help their organizations.

And we're learning so much and we're now helping American organizations.

We're learning best practices, how we can, how we do things differently.

Culturally, it's fine, but there's so many exciting lessons together.

We fight for this, and as we celebrate next year, it's it's extraordinary.

NATO's 75th anniversary of which we are soon to welcome our 32nd member, Sweden.

We hope things are moving now, thankfully, a little more quickly, we hope.

What a powerful alliance that was designed to protect democracy, the democracy of our our ally, of our allies.

So this is a dangerous moment, but it's a moment that we know what we need to do now.

We have to go fight for it.

It's interesting you talk about this resiliency, right.

And obviously, institutions like the city club, you know, provide that kind of of not only check and balance, but also reminder of of of our are our deepest and best values in order to engage the generation that will is leading and will lead.

And climate change continues to be such a key motivating factor, more so maybe than any other thing.

When you look at some of the polling, how do we look at things in Ukraine, like with the Kharkov Dam and with the whole rebuilding of infrastructure along the lines of the fact that there's a lot of economic development bridges that are possible transatlantic.

We can also keep in mind toward climate justice and engage our next generation of leaders in a way where they may actually find these conversations interesting.

Yeah, it's a great question.

So let me talk about leaders first.

And again, our job is to prepare the next generation to steward this amazing, critical, economically powerful transatlantic relationship.

But it's going to be their agenda, their relationship, and absolutely climate, democracy, making sure that we lift all voices and we support one another, that's going to be part and parcel of their agenda, making sure that we have a diverse and equitable and an inclusive generation to bring this forward.

Absolutely key.

And that's what our Marshall Memorial Fellows and our variety of our other leadership programs were absolutely designed to do.

So the exciting thing about Ukraine is we're not building Ukraine back the way it was.

We're kind of build it to 21st century standards, the most sustainable digital.

It's going to be the envy of Europe for being a modern economy.

And what's so amazing about Ukrainian leaders?

They are hungry and are welcoming this come to Ukraine.

They are a little less on the regulatory side than some of our other EU partners.

Ukraine can be a renewable haven, it can be a green hydrogen.

We can look at that whole climate area.

So there's huge opportunity.

And just a word, I think, and what GMF has been doing for many, many years and I think is just now the most important thing we're doing is how cities engage with cities.

That's where the innovation is.

That's where leaders are working together best practices.

So we have a cities program and we're just about we're hoping.

Can't quite announce it yet, but I'm going to lean into it to do an amazing partnership, a public private partnership that works.

It's a diplomacy lab to work with American cities, European cities and Ukrainian cities to work together, particularly on climate and sustainability.

So as they rebuild their cities, they are modern, they are going to use all the best technology.

That's what I mean about conviction and the power of hope.

And that's what the Marshall Plan was.

It said tomorrow's going to be a better day.

We're going to build it better.

We can do this.

And if we take counsel of naysayers and again, that's what the whispers from the Kremlin that too corrupt.

There's nothing of value there.

If you listen to those whispers, you may start agreeing them, no, the power of hope is that we're going to build something better and we're all going to be able to celebrate in that prosperity and security.

Mm.

We're so happy that you're here.

And, you know, we were reminded, as, you know, other flashpoints occur across the globe.

Cleveland is home to a large number of people from the Balkan communities.

Slovenia in Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian folks coming from all over.

And we know that the Balkans are beginning now to have unrest in the state that named the Dayton Accord, you know, that ended a genocide and end what would have been the largest war until the invasion of Ukraine since World War two.

Your perspective of speaking to a community that is very familiar where Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia are actually on the map now?

Well, thank you for that important question about the Western Balkans.

And in some ways, again, out of extraordinary tragedy of the full scale of Russian invasion of Ukraine, this has unleashed in some ways dislodged where I think the European Union, quite frankly, and the US is a bit complicit in this.

We got stuck in stagnant, we did not have clarity, confidence or conviction when it came to Western Balkans policy and the cost of that stagnation, that policy stagnation, promising them some EU open doors that weren't really open.

And what happened was that stagnation or we call the stable ocracy, we got a little as as some leaders in the Western Balkans learned very quickly that to parrot West the US talking points.

Oh that sounded great.

They talked just and then when the visitors left we can go back and do what we want to do when the patriots and networks and in some ways that everybody was satisfied with that until as you said, violence has now begun to break through Bosnia.

The lack of progress from, the Dayton Accords, it was designed to end the war, but then other reforms need to happen.

And they've been they've been stopped.

And we've they've had too much trans-Atlantic inertia to overcome them.

And, of course, obviously, now we we are very dangerously on a powder keg between Serbia and Kosovo, and particularly in northern Kosovo.

So now is the time for clarity.

We cannot allow these countries to remain outside.

How do we move them more quickly and to a closer relationship with the European Union, just as we want to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union and support our EU partners in doing that.

But we also have to have more intentional US engagement in this area.

We've we basically told ourselves and we told Europe, you've got this, but we need to do it together.

Together we are stronger.

It's not just the US doing this and Europe doing that together.

And so I am hoping this unfortunately the danger that that poses the Western Balkans that we are able to see and do more transatlantic, because in that absence, what do we see growing Russian influence, Chinese influence, others that do not have our interests in heart.

So again, wakeup call we have to with our clear understanding of what us and European interests be confident and have that conviction to move the needle, not just sit back and let.

Well, we had a summit.

Okay, what's next?

What next?

Make sure we are action oriented the whole way through.

But there are some huge challenges.

That's why we're working so hard right now across the Western Balkans to support civil society, independent media, so everyone knows there is hope for a very different and democratic future.

It's interesting because, you know, we spoke a little bit about the Marshall Plan, needed a marshall Plan and it came to Cleveland as we were talking, Dan was sharing with us in January of 1948.

And citizens like the ones who are in this room today came together with the Cleveland Council on World Affairs to basically say, we may not have the intel sheets every morning or no.

You know what?

Army is moving across what border?

But there was a collective sense of something had to be better.

And you mentioned a little bit earlier what I would call the cohort of chaos, specifically with Russian in Iran.

And it feels like there is there are sites that are drawn.

And are you seeing that now?

Is that the trend line?

And who's on our side or whose side are we on?

So we we you sometimes hear from analysts, political leaders, sort of the luxury of we get to choose which theater concerns us the most.

We are the China is the pacing threat.

That's the most concern.

Everything else doesn't matter.

Or, you know, Russia.

Russia.

Now, obviously the challenge.

No, no focus obviously on Iran, the Iran nuclear program, Middle East.

And as I said, I think in some ways the international system is helping us explain this realignment that we are seeing.

And we don't want this environment.

This is not happy about this.

I'm very sad because this is not how we wanted this to be.

But what you're seeing is an emerging two block international system China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and.

The other side is the US and its allies.

And I just like to remind folks on that side of the ledger, the US side, that's not a lot of countries right now.

We have a whole lot of countries sitting in the middle, pretty agnostic like it's I'm not you didn't listen to me and I'm not worried about what this is and when some of those powers that sit in the middle go, Oh, wait, I can get support from the US and Europe, I can get support from Russia and China and this is great.

This is great.

I've worked I've worked this system out a little bit.

So increasingly and I think the Israeli government over the last 14 days has understood they were trying to work out a relationship with Vladimir Putin and some of that was Syria related.

Russia isn't supporting Israel China, isn't supporting Israel right now.

And that should be a wake up call in some respects of what understanding how this two block system is.

But I think between you look back at the Syrian conflict, when Russia, Russian military was bombing hospitals, they used some of those tactics in Ukraine and bombing hospitals.

We see similar tactics as these theaters change.

We know the Iranian drones and missiles are being used in Ukraine.

So this is no longer just one country and violating the territorial integrity of another.

This is now becoming systemic.

So important here is to understand that system, to hold leaders accountable for international humanitarian law, war crimes, of course, and to make sure that we understand what's at stake.

If Ukraine is not successful, if we cannot preserve territorial integrity, that's really essential.

Thank you.

We're about to begin the audience question and answer with clarity, confidence and conviction for our lives.

Always remember those.

Three things I did.

I, I can't stop remembering.

There we go.

Ting, ting, ting.

Our live stream audience are those joining us?

I'm Joe Zimmerman, president of Global Cleveland.

We are very luckily joined today by Heather Conley, the president of the German Marshall Fund.

We welcome questions from everyone, city club members, guests and those joining via our live stream at City Club Talk.

If you would like to test text a question for our speaker, please text it to 3305415794.

That's 3305415794.

And the amazing city club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have our first question, please?

Good afternoon.

My question is, what is the European feelings for a second term of President Trump and how the Ukraine as well as for Europe?

Thank you.

That is the question I get whenever I travel to Europe.

That is the first question that I get.

So obviously, there is enormous concern about the return of the former president and certainly over the last 24, 48 hours, suggestions that should the former president be reelected that he would remove the United States from Naito at the end of the Trump administration, he had sought to withdraw US forces from Germany, who, by the way, those U.S. forces serve central Command, they serve the Middle East, the medical facilities and things like that.

So absolutely there is enormous fear because again and please forgive me, I'll always go back to a little history.

The international system.

post-Second World War was designed to protect the United States security and prosperity.

It was a self interested design that ensured security, stability and prosperity globally.

And I would argue part of the fault lies with all of us that we got to this point where an American president threatened withdrawal from NAITO.

We own a little of that ourselves because we stopped talking about why it was in our interest, what benefit the United States got from it.

We described it as getting free riders and getting ripped off and not pulling their fair share.

And yes, our European need to do more for defense spending, but we get an enormous benefit of making sure, as we are postured externally, we are protecting the United States far from our shores.

It's about protecting the United States, as I'm speaking as an American, to talk to an American audiences and our European partners amplify and enhance our security and their security by being in NATO.

Just looking at if I have this right, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Sweden, Finland, Finland, obviously now our newest NATO's member, Sweden, to become we hope soon after Turkey and Hungary ratify.

There are more f 30 fives outside of the United States in those four countries than in the United States.

They are buying U.S. military equipment.

They are highly interoperable and we're working together.

That's the power of NATO's.

But if we're not explaining that to American citizens, yeah, that's a rip off.

What if what benefit do I get if you talk to the Pennsylvania National Guard?

I'm from Pennsylvania, full disclosure, and they've been working with the Lithuanian National Guard.

They're on the front lines of freedom right now when they're when they're in the Ohio National Guard doing amazing work.

So our citizens are doing and protecting the transatlantic relationship.

But we need to lift their voices up.

We need to tell community leaders why this is important, because if you don't know why, why do you care?

Why do you care?

We need you to care.

As I said, I go back.

I need my children to care about Naito as much as I do for them to understand why it's important for their security.

If I fail to do that, that's my failure.

I we need to help.

That's why this next generation conversation is more important.

Are they prepared for their reelection?

No.

Sometimes it's easier for European leaders to talk about our election than their own.

And as I said, some of the same forces that are happening within their country are happening in ours.

I think what will happen, as we saw from from the the the the Trump administration and we're seeing this more and more this is what makes Cleveland so important.

I'm getting to the Cleveland is so important point because what happened was Washington and they see sort of Washington's broken right now.

You know you talk to someone and you can't get things moving.

Well, I'm going to talk to the governor because I'm going to negotiate something with the state.

The inflation reduction Act.

I'm going to negotiate.

My companies may be coming to Ohio.

I'm going to talk to city leaders because that's where things are happening.

That's where I see opportunity.

So actually what's happened and maybe this is a good thing, we'll have to see this burst of decentralization, talking to governors, state leaders, foreign ministers, the German foreign minister just spent three days in Houston and Austin.

The the former Norwegian foreign minister was in Minnesota.

They're getting outside of Washington.

They're talking to you.

They want you to know how it's important and they want to understand what our conversation is.

But, you know, no one is fully prepared.

European security rests on this decision.

So they you know, sometimes they get pretty intrusive in this because they feel like I don't have a vote.

But this vote actually has huge implications for me, too.

We're in this together.

And, you know, if there's a sudden change in France or in Germany leadership, that would have big ramifications for us.

So it's a really important question.

But I believe what what can I do?

I don't control that part, but I control education.

I can tell and help people understand why NATO's is so important.

Next year, 75th anniversary, we all have to do our part to tell people it's not about what the last 75 years just did.

It's about what the next 75 years are going to do for your children, your grandchildren, and why we have to keep faith in this important alliance.

Before we hear from our next question.

You mentioned France and Germany, and it just made me think a little bit about, you know, to name what it is, the far right of ascending right and whether it's Marine Le Pen in France or Germany with the party that aligns with white supremacy, what message do we have for the people in, the United States, who have been struggling with issues of race, othering, xenophobia as really the common denominator of a liberal democracy are the people who are most negatively impacted or the people who are already most negatively impacted by society.

Yeah, this is it's a massive challenge in some ways.

It's understanding the the problem diagnosing it sometimes it is about, as I said, it's we have to work much more at the community level across Europe as well as the US.

But we have to focus as much on listening as problem solving rather than mobilizing fear and grievance and anger and making that a substitute for improving lives, just improving citizens lives, making sure they are heard.

This is where I think democracy and a lot of the work that we do has become, you know, democracy promotion activities have become very stagnant.

How do you talk to one another?

Can you talk to one another?

Are you so polarized you don't even talk to one another.

How do we work with citizens assemblies rather than, you know, working through different patterns of let's talk and let's get to work on solutions, because the more we just keep pointing the finger at the other person who's not fixing the problem, we're not fixing the problem.

And so I my view is let's let's lift up voices.

Let's give people tools, Democratic tools and leadership tools to fix problems.

But we really are we interested in the problem and solving it?

Are we interested in using the problem for our own purposes to either achieve power or to to limit the voices of others?

That's that's the decision.

And my view is I'm all about let's let's get to the solutions and let's get to the the community leaders that can start making things happen.

And Cleveland is a perfect example of making think, the community leaders taking action and making things happen.

Mr. Meisner.

Good afternoon, my name is Joseph Meisner.

I'm a former legal aid attorney and also Vietnam veteran.

You mentioned earlier examples of light in Cleveland.

You didn't mention the cultural gardens, three miles, 40 different gardens, all dedicated to peace for over 100 years.

I have some people here from Vietnam and they're putting together their Vietnamese garden right now.

There's also a Ukrainian garden there.

And you mentioned the word victory quite often with the Ukraine.

Where does that leave my fellow attorney, Vladimir Putin and Russia and all of this vision that you have?

Thank you.

Well, I'm sorry I didn't mention the Cultural Garden.

Thank you.

Highlight next trip.

Thank you.

Well, you're you're asking a really important question, and that is what has held back a lot of U.S. policy.

Quite frankly, it's been fear.

Fear of what does a defeat for Vladimir Putin look like?

Would he resort to nuclear weapons?

So in many ways, Mr. Putin wants to make sure you are very afraid.

Stay afraid, please.

Don't think you can do this.

And then you will give you will acquiesce to, you know, Ukraine not having agency over its own territory.

It is a tough question.

My own my own analytical sense is that Mr. Putin responds best to strength, not weakness and fear.

When he is presented with strength, he off.

So my example of this is Finland and Sweden joining Naito.

Now for years, Mr. Putin and his foreign minister, Mr. Lavrov and his defense, Mr. Shoigu, said that if Finland would ever decide now again, they share an 880 kilometer border with Russia ever decided to join Naito.

They would use nuclear weapons.

On the day that President Minister of Finland phoned Mr. Putin to inform him that Finland was seeking application to join Naito.

What happened?

Nothing.

He because he didn't my my analytical view was he was presented with a failure and he didn't want to highlight that failure.

And in fact, the board, the Russian border troops that were on the Finnish border actually had been removed a year ago because they were needed to fight in Ukraine.

So I don't want to over do that analogy because we do have to understand the risks of escalation.

But the Ukrainians have hit the Kirsh Bridge twice.

They have flown drones into Ukraine.

The Moscow I mean, nothing.

Nothing.

So I think what we have to do is present Mr. Putin with clarity.

I'm going to use it again.

Confidence and conviction.

Clarity.

This is our policy.

You cross that policy and there will be ramifications.

See, after 2015 and red lines.

They don't believe us anymore fully.

So we do have to be very clear.

We cannot promise something that we are not fully prepared to deliver on.

We have our other allies absolutely unified with us, not showing any weakness or division.

Russia exploits any weakness and division and we always offer that opportunity and we are prepared for a very different future.

If you're prepared for a very different future.

The problem with that third part, we've offered that over and over and over and over and over again.

Mr. Putin is making decisions that that eliminate that.

I my started my career at the State Department providing humanitarian assistance to Saint Petersburg, Russia, when Vladimir Putin was deputy mayor.

I feel like I'm having full circle moment.

I will tell you professionally, there was a very different future offered to Russia and even Vladimir Putin as a very new president had suggested that he to one day wanted Russia to join Naito.

We just have a very different Vladimir Putin today with a very different vision.

He we have to defeat this.

We have to demonstrate that land grabs of neighbors are not acceptable or he's going to keep he won't stop.

So that's why I think there is clarity.

I think we have to be careful.

But I would argue to you, the fear that we felt about escalation has not borne out in results yet.

But what I worry about is cutting undersea cables between Finland and Estonia.

If they would cut the undersea cables between the North Atlantic to the US.

I mean, there are some devastating economic implications they could do, but I do not believe that they would escalate because I don't think they could handle that escalation and Putin knows that.

Thank you.

Heather Connolly and Joe Zimmerman for joining us at the city club today.

Again, clarity, confidence and conviction.

We got it, nailed it, stuck the landing.

And a special thank you as well to Carrie Carpenter for all your work helping us organize this event today.

We would like to also welcome guests at tables hosted by the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, the German Marshall Fund Alumni Group, Global Cleveland Huntington Bank, Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, Third Space Action Lab and and folks from the Ukrainian community as well.

Thank you all for being with us today.

On Thursday, we will be hosting our first youth forum in our new home.

There's a forum organized by local youth, local high school students and who are part of our city club youth Forum Council.

And this month, Professor John Panza of Cuyahoga Community College and librarian Randy Greenfield of Hawkins School will talk about the impact of A.I.

on education.

You don't have to be a young person to come to that event, by the way, but the young people are organizing it for the entire community.

On Friday, October 27th, we're celebrating our grand opening.

Craig Hassall, president, CEO at Playhouse Square, will be with us talking about the intersection of free speech, the arts and the spoken word immediately following the forum, you're invited to join the City Club for a free celebration, kind of an open house from 1:00 to 4 p.m.. We're also doing a ribbon cutting at 1030 in the morning.

If you want to be a part of that, you're to join us for any of that.

Also coming up, you may have heard mention of we have two European ambassadors on the calendar.

Her Excellency Geraldine Byrne Nason of Ireland is coming on the 10th of November and Her Excellency Oksana Makarova is coming on the 17th of November.

So please consider joining us for that.

I know both will be of interest to many of you.

That brings us to the end of our forum today.

Thank you once again to Heather Connolly and Joe Cinnamon.

If you're a current or former member person, please join us on stage for a quick photo right following this.

Thank you.

Members and friends of the City Club.

Our forum is now adjourned.

For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club.

Go to City Club, dawg.