Getting National Security Right, Part II
In the final report of the Princeton Project on National Security, Anne-Marie Slaughter and I argue that the United States faces a kaleidoscopic array of threats in the 21st century – diffuse, shifting, and uncertain. Accordingly, we think it would be a huge strategic mistake to build national security around one threat -- particularly a conflated and ideologically constructed one like Islamo-Fascism. Terrorist networks are a danger but focusing on Islamo-Fascism as the successor to Nazism and communism is a catastrophic failure of imagination – responding to a 21st century threat with a 20th century mindset – and strengthens the hand of those who wish us ill. If our depiction of this country’s 21st century security environment is correct, America needs a grand strategy that can multi-task.
We do not have the luxury of concentrating on a single well-defined enemy. Rather, we need to build an infrastructure of capacity and cooperation to deal with lots of different threats, challenges, and inevitable but unknown unhappy events. But immediately we have a problem. Over the last five years or more, the global institutions that are critical for coping with globalization, conflict, and violence around the world have been weakening, not least because America itself has neglected these institutions. So a central part of the Princeton Project report is a set of recommendations to reform and rebuild global institutions – and build some new ones. For starters we propose radical reform of the United Nations Security Council and the creation of a Concert of Democracies. Here is our thinking: We start with two general observations. First, the system of international institutions that the United States and its allies built after World War II and steadily expanded over the course of the Cold War is broken. Every major institution – the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and NATO – and countless smaller ones face calls for major reform. This is not surprising. Decision-making procedures that were originally designed for a world of some fifty nations must now operate in a world in which the defeated enemies of World War II are now major powers, in which twenty-five European nations conduct their economic policy and increasingly their foreign policy through the European Union, and in which former colonies are now rising powers themselves. Missions such as stabilizing currencies are now irrelevant in a world of floating exchange rates, while new missions focused on addressing transnational threats have no institutional home. Second, we argue that the United States has a huge stake in getting these global institutions back on track. Precisely because America is so powerful it needs well functioning global institutions that command the respect and support of other countries. The United States cannot just wield power unilaterally and in pursuit of a narrowly drawn definition of the national interest, because such actions breed resentment, fear, and resistance. As FDR said in his final State of the Union address, “in a democratic world, as in a democratic nation, power must be linked with responsibility, and obliged to defend itself within the framework of the general good.” The United States has understood this fact in the past. In the decades after World War II, the United States was the great champion of a liberal international order built around institutions, alliances, and programs like the Marshall Plan. The United States led but listened, gaining by giving, and emerged stronger because its global role was accepted as legitimate. Leading Americans across the spectrum understood that we are far better off if American power is exercised within an institutional framework of cooperation, where others have voice – although not a veto – and nations endeavor to work in concert towards common ends. Such a world is one in which other nations bandwagon with the United States rather than balance against us, and where they seek to facilitate American goals, not to inhibit them. That is the world we must rebuild today. We argue that the agenda of global institutional reform should begin with the United Nations. Indeed, the United Nations is simultaneously in crisis and in demand. The world is looking to the United Nations to find solutions for a swirling array of problems - nuclear weapons in Iran, genocide in Darfur and ensuring that war does not break out again between Israel and Hezbollah. But if the United Nations is ever to live up to our hopes, world leaders should confront the single most important issue that would actually make a difference: reforming the Security Council. We need a Security Council that is both representative and effective. That means expanding its membership to include Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria and at least one Muslim nation such as Egypt or Indonesia, as well as a rotating group of smaller nations. It also means making it possible to actually reach a decision with an expanded Council by abolishing the veto for all Security Council resolutions authorizing direct action in response to a crisis. And it means creating a Concert of Democracies to lobby for effective reform and to create a possible alternative decision-making body if such reform ultimately proves impossible. Expanding the Security Council membership has been on the UN's agenda for more than 15 years, spawning countless working groups and task forces and rounds of diplomatic wrangling. Germany, Japan, India and Brazil have been the most vocal countries in seeking a Security Council seat - they pushed hard in the summer of 2005 but ran into a wall. The United States was only willing to publicly support Japan, and China promptly fomented public demonstrations against Japanese membership. Equally important is membership for at least two African countries, to add perspective and give legitimacy to UN action in places like Darfur. The odd thing is that Germany, Japan, India, Brazil and South Africa, one of the two African states that would join under any of the plans currently circulating for Security Council expansion, are all stable liberal democracies. Why wouldn't this appeal to the Bush administration, which has made democracy promotion its highest foreign- policy priority, and why shouldn't it appeal to America as a whole? The standard answer is that expanding the Security Council will only make a slow and often stalemated decision-making process even worse. Fair enough. But the answer to that is not preserving the status quo, but rather getting rid of the biggest obstacle in the process - the Security Council's permanent member veto. Just imagine the difference in the UN's ability to get action on Darfur or Iran if it did not face the threat of a Russian or Chinese veto. Diplomacy would have genuine chance to work, in which all the nations on the Security Council would count. Permanent members would retain a veto on resolutions to censure nations or declare support for or opposition to particular policies, but resolutions requiring action in the face of international crises would pass by either simple majority or weighted majority vote. Finally, the United States should simultaneously create a new organization for liberal democracies willing to commit themselves to a stringent set of obligations toward one another. Called a Concert of Democracies, this organization would allow its members to work together on issues like UN reform and reform of other 1945 institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Such a body would not be "the West versus the rest," but would instead include countries such as India, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Its creation would also signal that the world is not stuck forever with old institutions if they cannot be reformed for a new world. Our colleague Ivo Daalder and others have enriched our thinking on the various ways that democracies can organize and cooperate. In a later post, we will try to expand on our notion of a Concert of Democracies and discuss some of the other proposals in this area, including ones that Ivo has put forward. Are these pie-in-the-sky ideas? Only because the United States and its allies have not succeeded in summoning the true spirit of 1945. The Bush administration has repeatedly compared the years since 9/11 to the Truman era, equating Islamo-Fascism with Communism and urging Americans to gear up for the Long War. Yet the Truman administration showed imagination and leadership in creating institutions to lock in a set of shared goals and values. The United States should show similar leadership today and make the reform of those institutions its top priority as a necessary precondition for advancing its other goals.
Mr. Ikenberry says:
And he's right, I think. Pose a counter-example, however, remembering that the United States has not been unwilling to exercise its veto or to threaten to exercise it in instances where national interest or internal politics have made that course of action seem wise or necessary (whether or not wise).
I suspect that there is some place on the net where a person can locate a list of all the Security Council vetoes cast in the last fifty-plus years, and tally how many have been cast by "us" and how many cast by "them". This is not to say that the prescription is wrong, but rather that the possibility of the patient actually taking the medicine is minuscule in today's world. I can't imagine a politician here (or in any of the permanent member states) proposing this and gaining power thereby. But then, I didn't imagine the Euro, either. So maybe I'm just imagination-deficient.
Alternate modalities for cooperation, perhaps like the idea of a Concert of Democracies might provide a way to do end runs around Security Council inaction arising from the veto or threat of veto. In effect, isn't that rather the situation now? Yet here, too, are any of the liberal democracies Mr. Ikenberry mentions ready to yield more than a smidgen of their sovereignty to collective decision-making? I'd feel more confident if the United States had ratified the Kyoto protocols, perhaps. And maybe we'll learn that blundering on our own can be so painful that concerted action and concerted decisions leading to it are preferable.
aMike
October 10, 2006 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that the best path for the to take is through international institutions. The point you make about a lack of an a perceived global threat is a good one. And that point is bad for the US because we can easily become that global threat in the eyes of the rest of the world based on the fact we are the last "superpower" left standing and our pursuit of a unilateral foreign policy. It is very easy to envision the rest of the world, not needing the "protection" of the US, lining up against us to protect their best interests. And this would in no way impede the US from pursuing what is in our best interests...trying to find common ground where possible is always a plus.
The reform of the UN and revitalization of other international institutions will be in the US's best interests. It will allow the US to advance our policies while finding common ground with other nations. Reform of The UN Security Council veto power is problematic though. Let's say that, hypothetically, that China and Russia continually veto proposals under consideration by The Security Council yet their vetos are overriden. We could see alliances develop where countries, unhappy with the way their best interests are not being protected, might take provocative/aggressive actions to protect what the believe is in their country's best interests. While the ability to allow individual countries to veto Security Council resolutions can be a hinderence it also serves an important purpose by assuring unanimity, and lessen the chances of any country to undertake globally destabilizing actions, in matters that come before the Security Council.
But despite all the potential pitfalls an overhaul of international institutions to strengthen them would without a doubt be in the US's best interests. Building a global consensus before trying to implement a foreign policy is better then implementing that policy unilaterally then trying to get the rest of the world to agree (in the cases where they don't) with us after the fact...that would require US global leadership through diplomacy.
October 10, 2006 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why does the US have enemies and not Japan? Why does the US have 750+ overseas military bases and not Japan? Why does the US spend more on militarism than the rest of the world combined?
Is Japan starving? Are the people living in poverty? No.
The reason the US has enemies is because we insist in injecting ourselves into everybody else's business. Bin Laden was mad at the US because we had troops in Saudi Arabia and supported a corrupt regime. If we hadn't been there he wouldn't have had the slightest interest in us. Notice that attacks in Indonesia, Egypt, etc. are all over local issues.
The US insists on using an unfair and unsustainable amount of the world's resources. Not only that but we want them at bargain basement prices. This breeds resentment and creates "enemies". What would happen if we just butted out and paid market-based prices? We would be like the EU. Is this so terrible?
Covering up our greed and neo-colonialism via appeals to the promotion of freedom and liberty and talking of the need for strong "defense" (what is meant is the ability to go on the offense) is the result of the unwillingness of the neo-cons, pragmatists, or whatever they are calling themselves this time around, to acknowledge that our behavior is at the root of all the antagonism.
If you want to be a neo-colonial power and extract raw materials and finished goods from the rest of the world then just say so, you will have the backing of the vast majority of the US population. That this is so can be seen by our actions, SUV's, McMansions and a general transition to a more-is-better philosophy.
The only question is can the US military continue to force the rest of the world to comply with our needs. Let's call a spade a spade.
As Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
October 10, 2006 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
John, Anne-Marie
This all conjures up images of diplomats in long tails and stuffed collars congratulating themselves after affixing their signatures to the League of Nations Charter, unaware that the underlying problems had been ignored and the seeds of disaster sown.
Before you and your cohorts take your selves and your work too seriously, please take the time to re-examine your proposals through the eyes of a common person in Mumbai, Luanda, Jakarta, Brasilia, Seoul, Pretoria, Karachi, or Tashkent. If it doesn't make sense to those people you've wasted your time. If your proposed institutions are designed to protect American and European interests, without fully addressing the needs, aspirations and fears of 4/5ths of humanity, then humanity, and history, will just detour around your institutions, and our interests, and go on without us. We like to flatter ourselves with the notion that we are the "indispensible nation". That's nonsense. And the more we believe it the less true it becomes.
Please, as a starting point for a reality check, read over the speeches delivered at the Non-Aligned Nations summit in Havana in mid September. 118 nations representing the bulk of humanity attended that conference and most of the heads of state and diplomats that spoke there moved on directly to NYC to deliver their nation's annual address at the General Assembly. Read those too. But don't read them looking for the outlandish. Don't read them looking for clues as to how a particular nation or leader views the world. Instead read them looking for the common interests expressed time and time again, interests that are shared by everyone outside the Atlantic Alliance. Those interests are enduring and vital, and will find expression and means either through your institutions or in spite of them.
October 10, 2006 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
The next thoughts were inspired by the debate organized by Council On Foreign Relations, on October 3, 2006 for the presentation of the final report of The Princeton National Security Project.
The entire debate on the US post 9/11 grand strategy was generated by the necessity of proposing an alternative strategic worldview to the one articulated by the George W. Bush Administration highly influenced by the so-called the neoconservative moment. The administration’s grand strategy crafted to help America to navigate in a post 9/11 security environment was the neoconservative revolution, and I will try to make a very brief snapshot of it: a neo-con America means basically a discretionary unipolar power liberated from any constraints, check and balances mechanisms; a discretionary Leviathan that enforces a global order that reflects US basic/ontological values; a neo-con America is fundamentally not a status-quo power, but a revolutionary power, an enlightened revisionist power that has the will to use its unipolar assets in order to democratize the world and alter the illiberal status-quo; a neo-con America will use naturally the coalitions of willing and will reject the formal entangling alliances that set constrains on US unipolar power.
I think that the Alternative in crafting the US post 9/11 national security policy consists in mixing the core ideas of the liberal internationalism with the so called doctrine of integration. United States should become a liberal Leviathan (Jonh G. Ikenberry) in the center of a liberal order: an uberpower (Josef Joffe) constrained by a liberal constitutional international order; a friendly-user uberpower constrained by constitutional devices and mechanisms at the interaction with the international system; a liberal Leviathan should devise a grand strategy that intends to build an international order that integrates great powers in a constitutional setting; a constitutional international order will gradually integrate the other great powers that could become responsible stakeholders and pillars of the constitutional order;
I think the greatest task of a Liberal Leviathan should be that of devising some constitutional mechanisms that will govern the post-westphalian world politics by projecting a post-westphalian axiological and procedural consensus on the values, norms and institutions that will manage the post 9/11 international system.
I think that the core idea of a grand strategy built on this conceptual system (liberal internationalism and the doctrine of integration) is that of making the US power acceptable for the international system. Once again United States will become a friendly user, exercising its power through a multidimensional system of networks (alliances and binding institutions) that will impose/create a constitutional system of checks and balances making the US power accountable. The interaction between the US power and the international system will be mediated by this vast array of binding institutions (systems of rules and constitutional devices) that will make the projection of the unipolar power restrained, benign and acceptable.
The United States once again, should pursue an enlightened self-interest by projecting its power in order to provide to the international society an essential public good- a multilateral institutional infrastructure for global governance. This multilateral infrastructure should become the central pillar of a system of consensual rule-based governance.
One of the primary tasks of the liberal order is that of providing an architecture of binding institutions and cooperative mechanisms in order to produce/generate an institutionalized collective response for the management of the post 9/11 security environment. Basically the liberal internationalism is a theory for creating international order by designing/projecting an architecture of binding institutions with the purpose of enforcing a constitutional/a rule-based international order (Ikenberry).
I think that a capital role in building a liberal order should have the doctrine of integration, articulated by the former director of US Department of State’s Policy Planning (from early 2001 to mid 2003) Richard Haass. Basically the doctrine of integration “it would aim to create a cooperative relationship among the world’s major powers, built on a common commitment to promoting certain principles and outcomes“ (Haass) in order to provide a stable framework for the management of the post 9/11 security environment. At this first level the vital step is that of the gradual development of a normative consensus on the values, principles, norms and the rules of the road, in order to develop a common and a stable framework/an international and a cognitive consensus for the conduct of the international relations. According to Haass the world’s major powers should once again forge a global consensus on a certain core issues of the international relations-“to develop understandings, rules of the road about the conduct of the international relations”.(Haass, The Opportunity to define an era,)
In its basic sense the doctrine of integration argues for a global consensus or a global compact that will define the threats and the challenges of the new era and, very important, will define new rules for the management of the international system.
First the new rules regulating the post 9/11 international system should be developed around new core concepts-conditional sovereignty, responsibility to protect, responsibility to prevent, that should become the pillars of a new doctrine of international community responsibility (along the directions developed in the so-called Blair Doctrine articulated in the 22nd April 1999 speech).
At a second level this doctrine “would seek to translate this commitment into effective arrangements and actions”. At this level the doctrine of integration aims to gradually develop a procedural consensus on the institutions and mechanisms designed for the management of the international system. All in all the doctrine of integration aims to provide a stable institutional framework capable of an integrated and concerted response in order to deal with the post 9/11 security challenges. According to Haass the fundamental task for a 21st Concert is that of reforming the multilateral security system in order to provide to international society the necessary tools, means and assets to deal with today security threats and also to create an institutional infrastructure, an institutional acquis that will assume the tactical management of the system. The doctrine of integration intends to promote a coherent strategic response, a concerted approach that will sustain global security arrangements that will manage common risks with a shared responsibility of tackling them. Today’s international security challenges demand collective answers, global arrangements and tools that will project a concerted approach for today's new strategic imperatives. Finally, the practical aim of this strategy should be the pooling of power, institutional capacities and assets in order to create a community of action fulfilling the security tasks of the international society.
I think that the ultimate purpose of a grand strategy built on this conceptual basis (liberal internationalism and doctrine of integration) should be the project of building a functional infrastructure of global governance (James Steinberg, An Elective Partnership: Salvaging Transatlantic Relations, in Survival,Summer 2003,page 130) capable of enforcing a constitutional international order (built around the new rules of responsibility to protect, conditional sovereignty ) and using US power, the Euro-Atlantic community and the concert of democracies as vital assets of the international order.
October 10, 2006 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nigeria? A kleptocratic oil dictatorship? Great idea. And nothing on the Security Council for SE Asia? What are you guys thinking about?
October 10, 2006 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please, as a starting point for a reality check,
It is rather pompous to declare yourself sole arbiter of the real.
read over the speeches delivered at the Non-Aligned Nations summit in Havana in mid September.
Speaking of reality checks...Educate me: what has the Non-Aligned Movement ever accomplished? Besides speeches. I mean, as compared to other multilateral institutions like the EU, the WTO, the UN, NATO, ASEAN, or the African Union, which actually exercise economic, diplomatic, legal and/or military power.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
October 10, 2006 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah yes, the old "brown people should be seen and not heard" approach. Thank you, you've underscored my point.
The very organizations you list are the ones that John and Anne-Marie have called obsolete dinosaurs in need of radical reform or outright abandonment and replacement. Ever hear of a guy named bin Laden, the brown guy who figured out how to get heard whether you like it or not. Either we build new institutions that heard brown voices or we continue to reap their humiliation. We can do this the hard way, or the easy way, the choice is ours, but those are the only two options we get.
The reason I paid particular attention to this summit was because it was the first post-American gathering of world leaders. Everybody there knew that America is no longer in a position to slap the sh*t out of anybody who looks our way cross-eyed. I actually expected far more ranting and raving than they delivered. India and Pakistan agreed to a program to fight terrorism between their states. Unique in the deal is a proposal to define the criminality so a prosecution by either party will be on terms agreed to by the other party. Ahmadinejad actually put possession of fuel processing technology on the negotiating table and in less than 48 hours Bush and Baker were huddled in the halls of the UN building crafting how to open the backchannel negotiations to explore it. There were more than a dozen other deals and breakthroughs, each brokered by sober other members. What was delightful about this summit was to watch how this new generation of leaders grasped the opportunities and responsibilities of a post-American reality. They did good.
October 10, 2006 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hm, just came back and saw this. Guess what? ASEAN and the African Union are composed of "brown people". And when you're the one who raises that term, it makes you look racist, not me.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
February 2, 2007 3:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jeebus. This posting is three months old. What is it? You got a jones for Ikenberry posts or what?
February 2, 2007 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink