Isn't it nice how with the wrong assumptions a group of seemingly intelligent people can come up with yet another document of political pablum.

The basic objective of U.S. strategy must be to protect the American people and the American way of life.

The "American Way of life" is based upon cheap raw materials and finished good supplied under conditions more favorable to us then our trading partners. In addition with 6% of the world population we use 40% of the resources. Why should the rest of the world be willing to continue to put up with this? The truth of the matter is they won't, which is why the entire posture of the military establishment has been directed at creating a presence which can force others to deliver what we wish. Just today Bush announced a space policy designed to allow us to weaponize space and use this capability for global intimidation.

Arguments that the rest of the world (especialy the developing world) can improve their standard of living so that we won't have to lower ours are also based upon false assumptions. There isn't enough "stuff" to achieve anything like a western level of economy for the third world. Anti-poverty measures are aimed at raising those earning below $1 per day to $2 per day. Even this modest effort has so far failed since it would cost in excess of $1 billion per day to implement.

Perhaps the US can bludgeon the rest of the world into submission, but climate change, raw material limitations and over population pressures don't stop at the borders.

Let me know when one of these pointless exercises starts with the premise that the world has limited resources and that we must transition to a sustainable economy.

It is one thing for politicans to pander to the public and promise a rosy future, but academics don't need to be elected, so such shoddy work is especially disturbing. If you want to promote neo-colonialism, fine, but don't disguise it in terms of bringing freedom and democracy to the heathens.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

the rest of the world wants the American way of life.

Is the American way of life any different from the British, Spanish, Italian, French, Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, German, Irish, Danish, Dutch, or Belgian way of life?

Just wondering.

Not significantly. The use of "protect the American way of life" is clearly a rhetorical tool to make an internationalist agenda palatable to those Americans with more nativist instincts. I see nothing wrong with it. A logical security and diplomatic policy should not be held hostage to environmentalist concerns, though those are equally important. Anyone who, after 5.5 years of Bush jingoism, has developed an allergic reaction to the phrase "the American way of life" should simply substitute "a comfortable advanced post-industrial way of life in a secular nation with effective modern institutions of governance" -- of, as noblesseoblige suggests, "the French way of life".

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

"America must dust off and update doctrines of deterrence."

What about universal nuclear disarmament? I know the academics won't touch something like this because it cuts off their access to government influence, but the asymmetry in the division of nuclear weapons clearly causes the have-nots to want nuclear capability. Without serious moves towards disarmament, a nuclear arms race inevitably results from the need to insulate oneself if not from the actual threat of nuclear devastation, at least from the one sided bullying employed by the countries with nuclear weapons.

Dean Slaughter,  that is an excellent overview of what our national foreign policy should be based on.  I look forward to the second part. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

My beef with the "End of History" crowd has never been that the positive elements of Liberal Democracy do not represent the most advanced social/political arrangements seen today or, perhaps even historically.

My point has never been that the positive elements of Liberal Democracy as we see them--in concreto--are essentially parasitic on the accidents of history which conferred disproportionate power (both economic and military) on us and our western allies. Liberal Democracy has intrinsic appeal over and beyond these "realpolitik" considerations.

My point was always that it is way too premature to proclaim Liberal Democracy the categorically best way of life for Mankind.

Are we operating under the assumption of Man as Rousseau saw him/her or Hobbes, and does it matter? Also, what is the "end point" of mankind anyway? Isn't it true that if we abandon theological teleology, there simply is none? And if so, are we going to say that maximum freedom for individual expression (or group expression for that matter) IS now some erzatz teleology? I don't think so.

Others here rightly pointed out the DOWNSIDE of the maximal admixture of freedom and power. There is much to despair about The American Way of Life and I would be cautious in making it a template for the rest of the world.

The notion that the darker side of human nature can be kept at bay by rule of law in a maximally "free" world, is, in my opinion, overly optimistic.

There are plenty of worthwhile proposals packed into this report, but I have one very serious reservation about its recommendations. It strikes me that there is a deep unresolved ambivalence and tension running through the report, born of two irreconcilably competing approaches to global and US security.

One such approach is based on a vision of a modest and realistic global internationalism aimed at countering major threats to peace and security and fostering broad-based cooperative action on problems of universal global concern. This approach requires, among other things, strengthening and reforming the UN Security Council, and giving the UN more teeth in security matters. It also involves recommitting the US to the pursuit of a variety of bilateral and multilateral treaties and covenants. The anchors of this security order would include all of the world's major power centers, ideologically diverse though they may be.

While the ambitions are global in scope, they are correspondingly more modest, given the ideological diversity and rivalries among the major players in the international community, and would be limited to those aims which are more or less universal among developed and developing nations: promoting prosperity and financial security; protecting the environment; preventing disease and other human catastrophes; avoiding war and minimizing the costly preparations for war; limiting the proliferation of weapons - particularly nuclear weapons; checking runaway defense spending; defusing strategic competition and tactical struggles for control of vital regions; securing and managing energy supplies and supplies of other vital resources, etc.

This global internationalist agenda struggles in the report against a more ideologically assertive and parochial multinationalism, based on the promotion of a powerful and ideologically exclusive alliance. This is the "Concert of Democracies" idea. The latter focuses not on and the creation and careful maintenance of a global security regime among ideologically diverse countries, but aims at a global democratic revolution carried forth by a broad and ideologically united alliance bent on ratifying and expanding the "democratic peace".

Although the report is co-authored, and is allegedly based on input from a large body of consulting experts, the Concert of Democracies idea seems to be Professor Ikenberry's particular hobby horse, and most of the language used in describing it comes from his previous writings.

My belief is that the tension between these two approaches is not merely a creative tension between compatible proposals, but a fatal tension between competing agendas. There is simply no way that a reformed and rededicated UN-based international system can provide the anchor for global security in the presence of a competing security system built on an expanded, strengthened and more activist NATO.

The authors recognize that the UN-based system is in trouble and needs repair. But they fail to recognize that to move forward with the Concert of Democracies is to hasten the end of the UN system they claim to want to repair. They also fail to recognize that despite an abundance of good intentions, the Concert would ultimately be destabilizing. Liberal ideologues and enthusiasts like Professor Ikenberry, full of conviction in the profound goodness of the liberal democratic cause, and unable to conceive that others may perceive the march of militarily organized righteousness as simply a threat of ideologically or geostrategically inspired violence, fail to anticipate that the creation of a Concert of Democracies would likely be the first move in a new Cold War, and would almost certainly lead to the formation of a countervaling alliance. It would likely push several diverse American rivals into an outright alliance of American enemies, and would in the end diminish our security.

Professor Ikenberry has been unable to let go of some version of the "Concert of Democracies" since it first captured the imaginations of many people in the the triumphalist early nineties. The picture seems to involve a sort of NATO-isation of the world, with NATO or the European Union or both expanding through the gradual addition of more countries. One sees the attachment to this picture in the enthusiasm for the various "color revolutions", by which CIA-sponsored efforts to poach countries away from the Russian sphere of influence are viewed romantically as "liberations", rather than mere geostrategic rivalry. One also sees it in the reaction Professor Ikenberry showed to the decision by Europe to slow down it integration and temporarily halt its expansion. One would have thought the world was coming to an end simply because Europeans were not agressively bent on rapidly expanding their union until the whole world had become "Europe".

The "Concert of Democracies" thinking sometimes reminds me of the distinction in Islamic thought between the House of War and the House of Peace. Only within Islam can their be peace, according to its adherents, and thus it is imperative that those who are already united inside the Islamic House of Peace work to spread Islam until it encompasses the whole world. Ikenberry seems to believe that all of the political systems that stand outside the mythologized "liberal order" are incapable of achieving enduring peace and security. Instead of Muhammad and the Quran, there is Kant and Perpetual Peace. But it is otherwise a very similar picture.

We need to break free of this nostalgic need to rebuild and reanimate the Cold War "free world" coalition. One Cold War was quite enough. We will have to choose between Global Internationalism and Parochial Multinationalism, and I opt for Internationalism..

The "Concert of Democracies" idea is certainly compelling on a superficial level. However, as described by Prof. Slaughter, the present version is deeply flawed for exactly the same reasons the League of Nations was flawed: States, even democratic states, do not have common interests.

Take for example, environmental policy. All the democracies one might expect to see in this 'Concert of Democracies' have ratified the Kyoto protocol bar two: The United States and Australia. How might the Concert deal with these two recalcitrant states? More generally, would this Concert have the power to compel a minority of states to conform with the majority? If so, powerful states will be compelled to leave the Concert in order to protect their national interests (ala the the League). If not, then the Concert is nothing but a toothless tiger, no better than the United Nations.

One glaring omission in the current vision is the lack of democracy in the 'Concert of Democracies' organisation itself. For example, can I, as citizen of a democratic state, directly elect my representative to this 'Concert'? Can I make personal petitions? Will my rights be protected by this organisation, even against my national government? Put simply, will the organisation recognise me, personally, as an actor, or will it only recognise my national government? If yes, then I may be interested. If not, then what we have here is not a 'Concert of Democracies' but a 'Concert of Governments' that happen to be (more or less) democractically elected. Which is what we have - more or less - right now with the United Nations.

Perhaps the United Nations, like the now antiquated trains of thought being employed, needs to be laid to rest in lieu of a new international alliance system which more adeptly governs the modern world.

Certainly possible: maybe the current UN system can't be salvaged through reform, and needs to be scrapped altogether and replaced with something else. My point is this: whichever approach we take to building an effective international security arrangement, that approach must be founded on the recognition of the vital need to facilitate and organize security cooperation among the world's major power centers, in the world that actually exists, not the world we might wish existed.

It is vital to US security and global security that we and our democratic allies work closely with the world's other major powers. China and Russia are two of these powers, although it is likely neither would be invited to join the Concert of Democracies given their current domestic political arrangements. The Concert of Democracies is bound to interfere with and undermine any attempt, via UN reform or otherwise, to organize a more effective global security system, one with the teeth and commitment to preserve the peace among great powers, and counter threats to the peace elsewhere. That is because the very existence of the Concert is bound to provoke intensified geostrategic rivalry between the members of the concert on the one hand, and those outside the concert on the other. China and Russia and Iran are facts - we simply have to deal with them as they are if we are serious about preserving peace and protecting ourselves and our descendants from the scourge of global war.

Inherent in the Concert of Democracies idea is a threat. Although allegedly not constituted for military purposes or as a new alliance, the authors propose two amendments to be added to their proposed charter for the Concert should UN Security Council reform fail "before the end of the decade":

7. Action pursuant to article four and consistent with the purposes of the United Nations,including the use of military force, may be approved by a two-thirds majority of the parties.

8. Action to enforce the purposes of the United Nations in the wake of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, may be approved by a two-thirds majority of the parties.

The whole idea is to coerce the UN into action in conformity with the will of the overwhelmingly militarily potent Concert by threatening to act alone should the UN fail to act. This is not a serious plan for strengthening the UN. It is a scam designed to further weaken it, and turn it into a poodle obedient to the whims of the "liberal order". And perhaps I have forgotten how to count, but following the election of a Democratic US president, the "end of the decade" is only one or two years away! (Whether one or two depends on how one counts decades.)

The only difference between the author's anti-internationalist approach and the assertive US nationalism promulgated by the Bush administration is that the Privileged Circle is to be expanded somewhat. They criticize the Bush administration for advertising a commitment to US military primacy only to replace that aim with a commitment to the military primacy of "liberal democracies" - strangely arguing that aspiring for such primacy is necessary in order to prevent great power rivalry. Instead of relying on the notion that the peace is best preserved by a balance of power sustained by coopertation among all the major powers in the global system, they seem more in tune with Condi Rice's notion of a "balance of power that favors freedom." Of course this Rice doubletalk is not a recipe for a balance of power at all, but for a preponderance of power on one particular side of a rivalry.

And then behind the Concert is to stand a revivified NATO. The actual military mission of this renewed alliance is not spelled out in other than the vaguest of terms. Apparently we are to build a strengthened military alliance without a clear military mission! But the idea seems to be to create a further Atlanticist military backstop and tool for military activism to give backbone to the somewhat broader Concert of Democracies. So we really end up with a stratefied global liberal aristocracy: Europe and the US lording it over a Concert of Democracies, which in turn lords it over the UN.

One reason we can't get effective, broad-based international policing in response to crises such as Darfur is that these crises have side implications for great power strategic rivalries. No one wants to let US forces into Africa, for example, if they believe the result will be more US military bases there, and a staked US claim to that increasingly important region. The Concert of Democracies and the new centrality of NATO are bound to intensify suspicion, rivalry and strategic competition between non-democratic powers on the one hand, and the "liberal order" on the other, and will make broad-based intervention in humanitarian crises even more difficult to achieve.

The authors say:

Membership would be predicated not on an abstract definition of liberal democracy or on the labels attached by states to other states, but rather by the obligations that members are willing to take on themselves. Members would have to: pledge not to use force or plan to use force against one another; commit to holding multiparty, free-and-fair elections at regular intervals; guarantee civil and political rights for their citizens enforceable by an independent judiciary; and accept that states have a “responsibility to protect” their citizens from avoidable catastrophe and that the international community has a right to act if they fail to uphold it.

But ultimately some states are going to have to decide whether the degree democracy present in an applicant country is good enough for membership. Iran has regular elections - is Iran enough of a democracy? Is Turkey? It would be better to have a more broad-based organization with minimal, more objectively determinable conditions for membership.

Dan

Good points. It certainly would be a touchy subject were a Concert of Democracies to become a reality. As we saw after World War II, the other powers not included would almost be forced to create their own Concert, akin to the NATO/Warsaw Pact dichotomy.

I agree with you that using the newly formed Concert of Democracies to "force" United Nations reform is not only a bad idea, but sounds an awful lot like something John Bolton would heartily approve of.

The key, it seems, is to convince various nations that they should 'want' to be a part of the newly formed Concert. Perhaps some sort of economic incentive(s) could be offered to member nations involving trade or a reduction in tariffs.

I do like the report's recommendation that the Security Council veto be eradicated in lieu of a 2/3 majority vote. As we have seen in the recent past, France and the U.S. are only too eager to employ their vetoes when their interests are at risk (or threaten to use the veto). This grossly undermines the legitimacy of the Security Council to accomplish anything substantive.

As you say, any UN reform or new Concert of Democracies MUST be willing to enforce their resolutions without prejudice.

Perhaps another key would be requiring all member nations to provide a certain military allocation so as major members like the U.S. and Britain are not forced to provide the vast majority of the personell.

Interesting questions.

Agreed. The veto, when it comes right down to it, is nothing other than the 'major' players making sure the scales are tipped ever-so-subtly in their favor while working with other nations.

It is precisely this sort of favoritism that undermines international alliances in the first place. It's a matter of trust.