Democracies sometimes have a proven track record of working together, as you suggest, but other times can work at cross purposes. France and the US on Iraq? India on Iran? On what issues, specficially, do you think a Concert of Democracies would be cohesive enough to be effective? Also, why would countries like Costa Rica want to join? The Concert would need to offer some club goods, presumably. Is the prestige of internationally recognized democratic legitimacy enough or should we also throw in some economic benefits, etc?

We may have a ways to go before we get a Concert of Democracies; but just judging the way our national security experts deal with world problems we have right now a Symphony of Dopes (and not a moment too soon). What a silly, formal, vacuous approach. Neither the purpose ("further American interests") nor the methods ("all methods, and most especially military ones, are on the table") are discussed except Darfur and Rwanda are dusted off to justify the real goals. (While there have been some pressures applied at the UN to act on Darfur, if anyone thinks it equals efforts by the US to outlaw birth control, they are mistaken. Isn't this a project for our musicians?) As far as "democracies" are concernced, Kazakhstan may be out, but do not rule out too quickly the great democratic states of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Venezuela, (at this point just about all of Latin America) and Iran, and Palestine will not make the cut. Our musician's seem to accept the Bush/neocon line that the world's peace and prosperity are threatened only by the UN's inability to act in concert; I am curious how much time these experts spent studying the problem say of a rogue nation (say, the US, for example) who determines their interests are best served by unilateral, pre-emptive aggression; how does the Concert of Democracies, better than the UN, stop this unacceptable behavior? Expulsion from the club? Presumably if the Concert of Democracies plays poodle like the Brits do, the Concert just goes on fiddling while the world burns. Witness Blair.

From the most recent posts by Ivo and James I could not sort out why a concert of democracies was needed nor how it would be used, so I downloaded the source document which is, apparently, the final paper of the Princeton Project on National Security: Forging a World of Liberty Under Law.

The motivation for this proposal is set out in the following paragraph, which is the first time the idea of a Concert of Democracies is mentioned in the final paper.

“While pushing for reform of the United Nations and other major global institutions, the United States should work with its friends and allies to develop a global “Concert of Democracies” – a new institution designed to strengthen security cooperation among the world’s liberal democracies. This Concert would institutionalize and ratify the ‘democratic peace.’ If the United Nations cannot be reformed, the Concert would provide an alternative forum for liberal democracies to authorize collective action, including the use of force [emphasis added], by a supermajority vote. Its membership would be selective, but self-selected. Members would have to pledge not to use 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 the responsibility to protect.”

It is instructive that the only specific action on the world stage envisioned for the Concert is to supplant the UN as the arbiter of military force. Later in the document, in the Charter for a Concert of Democracies, only one additional use is proposed, the soft goal of promoting liberal democracy as a model of government.

If we agree that the problem is that the UN does not afford sufficient opportunity for the application of military force by the liberal democracies of the world against those nations that are not members of our club, perhaps the Concert of Democracies is the solution.

Now that the US has been shown (again) not to be the superpower it thinks it is those who are unwilling to recognize this fact come up with a new plan. Let's rope in some other countries to help us pursue our imperialist agenda. We can offer them bribes in the form of part of the spoils as we continue to rip off developing countries for their raw materials and forcibly open their markets to our exports.

Who knows, it might even work. Gangs of thieves have some successes before they inevitably turn on each other. Obviously this is a plan to circumvent those who oppose our plans. The UN is too democratic and NATO is too cautious. When will the neo-liberals wake up to the fact that the days of the American empire are over. We can no longer muscle our way to what we want. We haven't won a single major conflict since the end of WWII. We can blow things up, but we still can't make them give us their oil fields.

The US has to start on a path for a sustainable economic model which does not depend upon consuming raw materials at the present rate. This is not "energy independence", this is transforming from runaway consumerism and senseless growth to a society which can live within its means. Today's NY Times has an article summarizing the issues with CO2 emissions. The scenarios they present project a worldwide doubling of energy use and a substantial rise in the level of CO2 by 2100 even in the best case. This is a recipe for disaster.

Another study out today says that within 30 years the polar icecaps will disappear in the summer. This will lead to an even faster rise in global temperatures as the bright ice will be replaced by dark water. To rework a statement from another era:

SUV owners of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

As I commented in Ivo's post, I think the failed neocon projects in Afganistan and Iraq have shown the limitations of military power in "influencing" the world. Yes, we need effective alliances to defend ourselves. Yes, we need some mechanism for threatening rogue nations. But invading other countries that are not directly threatening us does not really work. 

I see globalization as a far more effective means of "influencing" the world. I would like to see reform in the WTO, IMF, and World Bank. These are Western institutions, free of "lowest common denominator" problem you get in the UN. In other words, they can be reformed.  The West should leverage its economic power to force the world's nations to educate their people, use cleaner technologies, and adopt progressive principles.   In return, the world's nations get money and a place at the trading table.

As things stand, the WTO, IMF and World Bank do not do these things.  There are not enough environmental strings attached to IMF loans.  There could be.  There are not enough labor or human rights strings attached to WTO membership.  There could be.  If a Democratic White House sat down with the leaders of the European Union and said: this is what these organizations should require, it would happen.  Unlike the UN, the West controls these institutions. 

The Concert of Democracies idea seems to argue for all the things I advocate for above, with the "added bonus" of military alliances.  And you know what, it might be a good long term goal.  I'm certainly receptive to the idea, since rogue nations and international military disputes aren't going away.  But why run before we can walk?  Reform the economic institutions that already exist...because it is easier and because it would accomplish so many of the goals you are advocating for.  Personally, I think global warming is the perfect wedge issue to drive through all kinds of reforms in these institutions.  

So, we have now tried a couple of different approaches on the field of foreign relations.

International Law can not be upheld against too strong and dominant criminals, as the recent invasion of Iraq most clearly demonstrated.

The United Nations is a flawed concept, at least if compared to the most idealist goals that some people would like to see it achieve. Sometimes, one would wish to concentrate on what UN institutions do good instead of what they do not.

The League of Nations stopped working from the time of the Abyssinia Crisis, and became irrelevant except as a conference site.

The Concert of Europe was effective only from 1815 to 1821.

The Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation) was long-lived but not particularly effective. Maybe one could say that the jury is still out with regard to the European Union, but so far it doesn't look much better than the HRE. Foreign powers, as for instance the U.S., have good opportunities to divide and rule.

One could guess that a Concert of Democracies would be at least similarly fragile with respect to pressure from foreign powers, as for instance Russia or China, which seem to be designated as its adversaries. Smaller nations would constantly have Molotov-Ribbentrop, the Abyssinia Crisis and Tilsit in mind. They would be in dire danger whenever the interests of nearby adversaries and distant influential CoD-governments came in conflict. Take as example Russia versus the non-German countries around the Baltic.

Seems to me as if this is a recipe we've tested already - and we know how it failed.

More generally, I've also questioned how "more democratic nations" would perceive the not quite as democratic members of such a thought Consert.

James

I am somewhat unclear. Is the Concert of Democracies primarily a political, military or economic alliance? Is there to be a blend of all three among them? Oil and the growing economic relationships are playing a role in virtually every other issue. How is the Concert to deal with these issues?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I started to post a mean-spirited reaction to the Concert bubbles this morning when our power went out. Road work many miles away. Bulldozer. Transmission line. Oops! Corporate democratic America at work...

Now that we're back in power here, I see RDF has posted a first-rate response. I'd add that 3/5ths of the permanent members UN Security Council represent democracies which have been notably irresponsible (start with oil-for-food) and good only at blaming others for their failures and behaving arrogantly toward the "third world."

Before we orchestrate a global democratic self-love-fest, I think we'd better make sure a) we have a viable, genuine democracy here, b) we mean democracy not capitalism or "free trade," c) we recommit to international law, and d) the world has stopped looking at us in disbelief and horror. I doubt we'll accomplish all those tasks before the polar ice caps melt, Maybe it's best to forget the "Concert of Democracies," concentrate on getting our environmental act together, and quit worrying about what everyone else is doing that's not up to what we like to think are our (ho-ho) high standards.

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

That all sounds pretty good to me. Perhaps we should try to put all of that into practice and see if it works, before we start forming another high-minded organization, especially before we start forming one whose only aims are to authorize us to attack other countries and to steal the raw materials that belong to other countries.

Hoppy in Sacramento

I think you have a better chance at seeing hell freeze over than getting a simple answer to one of the reasonable questions you posed.

Several commenters have asked what the goal(s) of the Concert of Democracies should be; PW has suggested getting our environmental act in order. Since the climate crisis is a global crisis, might not a concert of democracies, pressured by their increasingly suffering populations, begin the process of getting carbon emissions down in a serious way? Putting issues of the use-of-force aside, saving the Earth as we know it seems pretty worthwhile.

Ben Cronin

"France had its own reason to veto" the approval of a baseless war? They dared to disbelieve Powell, who had the deepest baritone of all our envoys? (It was also reported that Powell felt that his French collegue was rude.)

In another thread they discuss Holocaust denial. What is strange about denying Holocaust if we can so blithely deny what happened on our TV screens mere 3 years ago: we lied, lied, lied and French did not support us FOR THEIR OWN REASONS? Hellooo??!!!

And the pesky French and Belgian belong to NATO as well, so we need to reorganize "democractic countries", basically, to streamline the process of dressing our lies into patina of consensus without some pathetic theatrics on Canary Islands. Bacause some countries that should not count, like France, obstructed our baritone-based diplomacy.

James

Is the idea of a Concert of Democracies ultimately about making sure that the United States stays involved in the world while at the same time restraining it?

NATO, and to a lesser extent SEATO was designed to confront the "communist menace." However they were also about making sure that the United States would shield both Europe and Asia, a great savings of money to both. Lastly, these alliances wer also designed to keep Germany and Japan in check.

The EU plays a similar role. Germany has ahistorical borders. By creating a grand united Europe that France and Germany can domiate Germany is restrained in its actions.

The U.N.'s agencies, if too corrupt, do many used for things. However, in crisis situations the U.N., unless you want to denounce Israel, is useless. Outside of the Cafe how many Amercians want the United States to be beholden to the U.N. before it acts? However, a Concert of Democracies by its nature is going to be dominated by the United States but it will require the U.S. to get and respect the opinions of the other democracies. This, if effective, might make use a Concert very potent.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

piotr

Ahh, if only France's veto had been, as you suggest, a noble attempt at thwarting a great American evil.

Unfortunately, it was not.

In 2003 there were 3 vote-wielding nations at the UN who opposed the American resolution. China and Russia, rather than using their veto, opted to abstain from voting.

France, on the other hand, used its veto not because it was trying to be noble, but for two other reasons altogether.

First, France had lucrative oil contracts with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Chirac knew very well that if Hussein were overthrown, not only would these contracts become null and void, but the U.S. would likely ask even more from its allies by way of further debt forgiveness to Iraq.

Second, in 2003 the European Union, as seen from the eyes of Jacques Chirac's France, was given a great opportunity to stand apart from the ubiquitous United States, which had dominated all things foreign policy for better than 80 years.

Just how serious Chirac was at forming a legitimate U.S. 'alter ego' we may never know. Britain, of course, was behind the U.S. from the start, and Germany and Russia were relatively quick to forgive (if not forget) the invasion.