The Washington Declaration concludes with a commitment to inaugurate a new forum for trans-Atlantic cooperation. “As a lasting demonstration of our bilateral relationship and our commitment to the above principles, we are launching a U.S.-German Futures Forum that will fully utilize the expertise and innovative power of our societies and recommend solutions to jointly shape our future.”
While the tenor of the trans-Atlantic relationship might fluctuate in response to the proclivities of the parties in power at any given time, there exists a network of institutional relationships, built up since the end of WWII, that underpins the relationship as well. The presence of the U.S. military in Germany, systems of youth and academic exchange, think tanks such as the German Marshall Fund and other long-standing institutions have provided avenues for a continuous German – American dialogue over the last four decades.
However, as the trans-Atlantic relationship has progressed into a future that is increasingly shaped by the effects of disruptive digital technologies, these traditional avenues of exchange have proven increasingly ill equipped.
“When we started thinking about the forum, we had a look at the landscape of trans-Atlantic think-tanks,” Dr. Emily Haber, the German ambassador to the U.S., who was a central figure in the planning of the new forum, said in her opening remarks. She recounted that they came to realize that those institutions had not been able to adapt their focus to address what she termed the “mega-challenges” of our time.
“We felt that we needed a shift of focus, because it seemed to us that there are these mega-challenges, in particular with regards to technology: digitization, disruptive technologies that will alter our lives, and will have a huge impact on democracies. They will alter diplomacy; they will alter the way we live,” she said.
What Haber and those involved in establishing the new forum realized, is that they themselves, despite their collective experience in diplomacy and geopolitics, were not equipped to properly approach these challenges. “We thought it really made sense to organize a conversation that would include those who understand the trans-Atlantic relationship, about diplomacy and geopolitics, but also those who understand the physics of new technologies, who can help us to ask the right questions,” Haber said.
The forum they then conceived set out to provide many more seats at the table, and to populate them in such a way that the perspectives of those gathered cross both disciplinary and generational boundaries. It took place in the northern city of Münster, familiar to students of European history as the place where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, on November 3rd and 4th this year. Once the forum began, academics of variety of disciplines, technology experts and entrepreneurs, leaders of NGOs and civil society organizations, and members of the diplomatic corps were given time to mingle. They were then promptly put to work.
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As the representatives of the European powers gathered in the northern German town of Münster in the autumn of 1644 to begin negotiating a resolution to the 30 Years War, they could not have known either the result of those talks nor of the far-reaching implications of the document they would come to sign some four years later. The outcome of the diplomacy they engaged in was, as is still the case in modern diplomacy, not entirely foreseeable at the outset.
The Treaty of Westphalia, the document those parties signed in 1648, not only brought an end to one of the most brutal conflicts in European history, but also established the pillars upon which modern international cooperation rests today. The term “Westphalian sovereignty” refers to the principal of international law that each state retains exclusive sovereignty over its territory. We have the principles set out in that treaty to thank that, for the most part, in the modern world nation states meet in diplomatic settings in order to negotiate, as opposed to first reaching for their weapons.
In early November the G7 foreign ministers and their entourages gathered in Münster, a city that today is more closely associated with its prestigious university or the exceedingly high portion of the population riding a bicycle at any given point in time, than as a meeting point for world leaders. It was an instance of diplomatic theater that followed a traditional script – a series of closed-door meetings followed by choreographed public statements made in a setting pregnant with symbolism. The international press was ushered into the historic city hall as the foreign ministers made statements in the same room where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed.
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These workshops proved to be exceedingly productive. Each group came out of the three-hour session with novel policy prescriptions. New, digitally focused public procurement institutions; normative frameworks for corporate accountability; mandating interoperability on technology platforms; allocating funding for digital capacity building in the developing world. These are just a few of the policy recommendations that arose from the confluence of the academic and professional experiences gathered in those conference rooms.
Outside the workshops, the forum created an opportunity for the participants to connect with one another; an informal setting, supported by excellent finger food and an open bar, for professional and personal connections to be made. If the policy recommendations devised in the workshops represent a tangible outcome of the process, then it is these interactions at the personal, informal level that represent the intangible added value that such a forum creates.
“A conference like this in particular does allow us to ideate, to consolidate ideas, and also to share ideas,” Clark Banach, an American participant and Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Economics at the Frei Universität Berlin, said in an interview. “I asked a data security question [during a panel discussion]. The guy came up to me afterwards and gave me a detailed answer about their position. It was something that I wouldn’t have thought of. I’m just one unit, and there are something like 100 of us here, so if that happens five or six times for every person, then you end up having 500-600 idea exchanges that wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” he said.
While it may be difficult to measure the value of those interactions, the rapid and sincere exchange that the forum facilitated, it would be disingenuous to argue that the event did not produce concrete outcomes. The event culminated in a panel discussion between German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. In her remarks, Baerbock reiterated the importance of a collective approach to the challenges posed by the confluence of digitization and democracy.
“This is not only a job for ministers and politicians, and not only a job for digital companies,” she said. “We can only be successful if we work together with researchers, with entrepreneurs, with young people who do have an incredible expertise and innovative ideas. This is why we are here today.”
At the end of their panel discussion the two ministers announced that they would be leaving with a common action item. One of the proposals that came out of the workshops will be put in motion on both sides of the Atlantic: the establishment of an intergovernmental standardization body to ensure the interoperability of public and private software. The U.S. – German Futures Forum already proved itself capable of bearing fruit. It will continue next year, this time on the other side of the Atlantic.