hoosiertransplant
All these threads about Concert of Democracy vs. UN, what counts as legitimacy, etc. involve an awful lot of hairsplitting and obsessive parsing. The real issue is what kind of system can we come up with that can identify specific problems/threats and can produce a resolution that is both effective and moral (and I realize moral is a concept that is both vague and loaded, but I reject there is any kind of situation involving people that is completely amoral).

"Although some of us have disagreed with the administration's handling of Iraq policy and others of us have agreed with it, we all join in supporting the military intervention in Iraq. "

So begins the first pronouncement on the Iraq aggression from the Project for a New American Century in March 2003. A document signed by some of the well-known luminaries of the ultra-militaristic wing of the neo-con movement determined to shape the world for American domination in the 21st century as their name loudly proclaims: Carlucci, Kristol, Eliot Cohen, Wil Marshall, Max Boot, Robert Kagan; maybe less well-known are Ivo Daalder and Peter Galbraith. Of course if it is a new voice singing praises to the Concert of Democracies it must be another PNACsupporter, Tod Lindberg,of Weekly Standard fame. We have not yet heard from Dick Cheney but he is coming as a main poster at TPM supporting the Concert any day now. And with such unanimity how can we go wrong; after all the last time so many of these luminaries agreed on anything was beginning the orgy of death, torture, and mayhem that we now have on our table.

Why should we listen carefully to the estimable Mr. Lindberg. Because he has been right so many times before, peddling similar crap. Certainly do not miss the Weekly Standard article on Deterrence and Prevention, "Why a war against Saddam is crucial for the future of deterrence,"
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/162kkofc.asp
Be sure to read the careful reasoning. The intellectual basis of Bushism is provided by Slaughter, Ikenberry, Daalder, Jentlesen, Feinstein, Levi and their cothinkers like Lindberg. As long as security issues are controlled by this club, we will have Bush or Bushlite policies in the new century, American or otherwise.

I appreciate the topic, and am not upset by reading stuff from a PNAC supporter.

What is legitimacy and why do we want it? The utilitarian reason is that enforcement of decisions depend on others accepting the legitimacy of the action. The criminal accepts the legitimacy of a court because he hopes to use that same legitimacy for exoneration. This type of legitimacy is that conferred by Security Council Resolutions--they lead to effective enforcement (hopefully).

The other reason is less concrete--the moral type of legitimacy is not conferred by the Security Council, but by the world as a whole, or by our friends, at least. This has utilitarian value, in a diffuse way, by adding weight to the actions of a state that is judged by the world to have acted morally. A state's example carries an incentive to emulate it if it is moral in the world's eyes. "America Does Good by Being Good" etc.

Given that even dictatorships need some popular support (else revolution ensues) their approval for enforcement purposes is not trivial, and to the extent that a dictatorship can deliver prescribed actions, it is not relevant that they are not a Jeffersonian or other Democracy. So Security Council approval is sufficient for any useful action.

The moral approval that would have been useful for an Iraq intervention would not have been conferred by Security Council action, although that would have led to useful troop commitments, perhaps. It is the view by the world at large that allowed a large coalition to push Saddam back out of Kuwait, and the same world opinion that did not lead to a large coalition for the recent invasion. That opinion is present whether or not there is a Concert of Democracies.

BTW, is there any way we can believe a Concert of Democracies would have approved the Iraq invasion?

There are major problems with Mr Lindberg's reasoning -- starting with the major fallacies within his assumptions.

For one thing, there is no such thing as 'Democracies" -- there are Republics with popular votes in which a small number of people claim to "represent" the views of their constituents --but in fact more often "represent" the desires of their major campaign donors.

Over 2000 years ago, Aristotle and Polybius noted that there is no perfect form of government. Rather, there are three major Forms: Rule of the One (Monarch), Rule of the Few (Aristocracy), and Rule of the Many (Democracy).

Each form has virtue when first established but inevitably degenerates into tyranny as concern for the country is replaced by personal corruption, luxury, and paranoid fear. The benevolent monarch is succeeded by the despicable, perverted,fearful and bloody tyrant. The noble Aristocracy degenerates into a corrupt, self-serving oligarchy. The proud Democracy is replaced by lawless mob rule in which no man is safe
from false accusations and execution by the demagogues. Eventually, the corrupt version of one Form is replaced by the virtuous version of another Form and the cycle continues.

So the USA has no rational argument for why all other nations should become "Democracies". In 7000 years of history, most nations have been monarchies because (a) there's a limit on how much one man wants to steal and (b) a benevolent monarch can protect his people from the greed of a corrupt oligarchy and foreign predators. Saddam Hussein had many flaws but he did not allow the British to continue to steal the oil wealth of Iraq.

The USA has no moral standing to force other countries to become "Democracies". At its creation, the USA may have been a Republic -- in which each member of Congress represented roughly 30,000 people. But the size of Congress has been kept fixed while the
population has exploded. Today, roughly 500 men rule and micromanage 300 MILLION Americans. Those 500+ Members of Congress have to engage in continuous fundraising in order to spend roughly $2 Billion every election.

That Congress recognizes NO constraint on its power,sophistry, and predatory greed -- the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are dismissed as dead letters -- and, when expedient, so is the rest of the Bill of Rights. In short, the USA is NOT a Republic -- it is a deeply corrupt Oligarchy on its way to becoming a de facto Monarchy. There is ,after all, nothing in the Constitution which says that EVERY American has the right to vote.

The judgment of Aristotle still holds today --but in Internet Time. The benevolent Marcus Aurelius is succeeded by the evil Commodus. Certainly , the virtue of George the Elder does not appear in his son George the Younger.

After all, it was not Saddam Hussein who stole $4 Trillion from our Trust Funds for Social Security and Medicare.

"...the Gold Standard of legitimacy is not the unanimous UNSC resolution but the agreement among governments possessing domestic democratic legitimacy that underlies it. Needless to say, China won't accept this view. But is it not, after all, what we really think?"

You're kidding, right?

When I last checked, Chirac and Schroder were legitimately elected, but when their governments rejected the idea of the Iraq War... well you know what happened. Remember also the 2004 election... recall how Dubya rallied his redneck base by saying Kerry would defer to France on foreign policy? It was of course a lie, but I wouldn't for a second argue that it wasn't effective.

Whatever it is you think "we really think"... well, you've got a job persuading me that as a nation we believe in consensus-building with other democracies. And honestly, practically, how the heck does this play out in the real world?

Say we turn to Angela Merkel and say, guess what, you're also democratically elected, and for that reason you know you want to join us on our next military adventure. What kind of a dumb proposition is that? In fact, what price Old Europe says, "Back at you, pardner. Remember Iraq? We sure do, and we're in no mood to be f*cked around again." From another perspective, what if the shoe was on the other foot? Would we take kindly to Chirac making an approach to us on the same basis?

Ps. This is all bullsh*t anyway. I fully expect at some point the UN Charter to be thrown your way, especially the part that forbids wars of aggression. To me, the Charter still sets out the gold standard of legitimacy, and even if many UN members can't live up to their obligations, that's no reason for us to give up on ours.

I agree with you and I think that is so unfortunate. My reason for supporting Ivo's idea is that maybe in 20 years the quote above will no longer be true. I think China will have a corrupting influence on us, the same way Saudi Arabia does now.

It may be unfortunate, DHaines, but it is a fact of life. We all share our lifeboat with a bunch of people we wouldn't otherwise choose to ... um .. share a lifeboat with.

It's impossible to isolate ourselves from all corrupting influences. I personally believe that my daily workaday encounter with American corporate culture has a morally corrupting and dehumanizing influence on me. Unfortunately, I need to support myself and my family and my options are limited.

I understand your view that the creation of a Concert of Democracies might have a beneficial influence over time on the government of China. But might it not also have the opposite influence? It could drive non-democratic countries into a competing bloc to protect their interests against the overbearing power of the Concert of Democracies.

Just how bad a place do you take China to be? Do you think there is anything Americans can learn from our encounter with China? After all they possess a civilization that has been in continuous existence for about 3000 years. Their culture surely must possess some wisdom.

Legitimacy is not an all-or-nothing affair. The US likes to call itself a democracy, but tolerates vast inequalities in wealth which are completely antithetical to democracy. Power flows from wealth, so one can't have equal political power where there is vastly unequal wealth. And nobody believes that George Soros and George the Maintenance Worker have an equal opportunity to shape the course of the US future and the shape of its government. So while we might be self-governing, but some are more self-governing than others. And I never hear the contemporary crowd of democracy promoters proposing to do anything really significant about changing this state of affairs.

America isn't on top by accident.

Actually America is on top by accident. The accidents include finding a wide open space with vast natural resources and no enemies. This allowed several hundred years of growth while avoiding the expense of a strong military or the need to fight wars. This all changed in the 20th Century. The US is now something else than it once was. It is a neo-colonial empire which exploits other nations for its own benefit. This extends back to the beginnings in 1898 with Spanish-American war and our take over of Hawaii and the Philippines, right through the gun boat diplomacy of the banana republics and up to our setting the agendas in Europe and Japan after WWII.

We have now entered a third stage in our history: an empire in decline. We haven't won a war since the end of WWII, nor have we been able to control events in former client states. In the face of our declining international influence we have built up our military to where it now distorts our domestic economic policies. We have cut back on infrastructure investment and lost much of our leadership in manufacturing and are on the verge of losing our leadership in scientific research.

Trying to form coalitions of other western powers to forestall the inevitable decline in our standard of living may work for a short while, but it is just a stopgap.

We need new ideas, the empire is not coming back.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

so saudi arabia is out, venezuela is in - it's a start, i guess

The political analysis of Aristotle and Polybius both show why the USA has succeeded in the past and the danger we face in the future.

The US Founding Fathers designed the US Constitution on the basis of Polybius's analysis. Circa 107 BC, the Greek Polybius asked why the Roman Republic had succeeded where other nations had fallen. Polybius noted that the source of Rome's strength was that its government was a "mixed government" containing all three of Aristotle's Forms (Rule by the One, the Few ,and the Many) but set up so that each Form checked and balanced the excesses of the others. Thus the government maintained sufficient virtue that it retained the allegiance of its citizens.

America was designed on the lines of the Roman Republic -- and has followed a similar historical course. We have gone from being a minor power on the edge of the civilized world to the world's ruling superpower. Early on, Our citizen armies have swept all before them -- the Indians of the western plains and Mexicans of Texas were swept aside as easily as the tribes of Italy.

In the recent past, we have built up enormous military power in the course of a decades long struggle with a rival superpower -- just as Rome grew enormous power in her stuggle with Carthage.

Now, with the collapse of our rival superpower, our ruling elites are moving to create an Empire with their excess military power -- just as Rome did. We face the same disaster that destroyed the Roman Republic.

One problem is that citizens are reluctant to give their lives for Empire. The Consul Marius converted the Roman Legions over to a professional army with long term enlistments around 105 BC -- the US did the same after Vietnam. But professional armies are more easily deployed by the elites --with fewer arguments from the citizenry -- than are armies made up of drafted civilians.

The second problem is that Empire destroys a Republic and makes it into a Dictatorship.
The profits of Empire enrich a powerful few while the enormous costs destroy the middle class. The huge profits of Rome's Empire allowed the rich elite to buy and sell Senators --to grab total political power -- while the costs of paying for the Legions and the influx of cheap goods and cheap foreign labor destroyed the Roman middle class. Social reformers like the Gracchi brothers were assassinated in ancient Rome -- just as Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King ,and Robert Kennedy were killed here.

The British Chieftain Calgacus memorably described the nature of the predatory Empire of Rome:
"Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace."

Calgacus should have seen Iraq.

If the Neocons ever did succeed in their plan of global conquest, it would be as much a disaster for US citizens as for foreign subjects.

The history left to us by the Roman Tacitus tells us that -- that the average citizen in Rome lived under the same oppression as was denounced by the Britain Calgacus.

Today, The Bush Administration shows the same hostility and oppression toward US citizens as it does to people of the Muslim world. In his sophistry, Attorney General Gonzales equally dismisses the rights of US citizens as well as Islamic prisoners.

Edward Gibbon, after surveying 500 years of the Roman Empire, explained why a global empire is a disaster for everyone:
----------
"The division of Europe into a number of independent states, connected, however, with each other, by the general resemblance of religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind.

A modern tyrant who should find no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the advice of allies, and the apprehension of his enemies.

The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge.

But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies.

The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the senate, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. (58)

To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly."

You are joking right? America is not on top by accident. It was not enough to have th conditions you cite. It was necessary to take advantage of them. To building among the English inheritance, to use the resources that were found and acquired.

There is also the fact there is no othe society as multi-ethnic, multi-religious on the planet. While many other split ethnic societies can barely remain together and others function only by near civil war the the United States works rather well every single day.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Re "the maxim isn't that Democracies are peaceful, it is that they don't attack each other"
-------
What about the American Civil War -- the
Confederacy vs the Union?

The War of 1812 --Britain vs the United States? Parliament and the Congress were involved in that, as I recall.

I said Neocon because I saw the claim re Democracies being made by Richard Perle. Since he didn't cite sources, I concluded the idea was his.

I will check the references you give, however.

Libertine,
You wrote:
"we have a proposed CoD which wants to force our type of government on others"

That's like saying EMS workers want to force their pro-life views on people at the scene of an car accident.

Who are these people that want to live under repressive dictatorships? Where are they from?
Is there some race of people somewhere that don't want the freedom to choose their own leaders?

We (the people who support the CoD) want to force the governments that hold people hostage to let those people decide who should govern them.

Libertine

Not to split hairs but it is not clear that the U.S. supported rightwing regimes, some truly monstrous, around the world. Needless to say the belief was from Roosevelt on that the there was no evil greater than the Soviet Union. anything done to stop the Soviets expansion, and in the case of the Reagan Administration to roll it back was an acceptable trade-off.

If I have a issue with your point is the all or nothing aspect of it. The U.S. its fellow democracies are never going to be saints or governed by saints. That should not be the standard.

Voting is only one element of a democracy. The U.S.'s democratic republic is built on 500 years of English history and institutions. One of the things that needs to be considered is the creation of more global liberalism not just elections.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Maybe you didn't read what rdf and I wrote, but we distinguish the happy accident of available resources (relatively uncontested) from the use of them. An especially unusual condition was that the majority of early settlers came by choice; another unusual condition was the open opportunities that brought (by choice) the best and brightest. I mentioned Hamilton as an example, since he did not arrive with a land grant but he did benefit from affirmative action by his hometown in the Islands. Recognizing his talent they felt it would reflect well on them to promote their favorite son.

It is a rare opportunity, to create a nation, and populate it almost entirely of the ambitious and the intelligent. We also benefited from the application of financial resources from Britain. And, of course, we benefited from slave labor. This combination of advantages is unique and not likely to repeat on this planet.

While we were, at first, British in culture, not counting the French and Spanish territories, we were also an unusual mix of classes, not segregated physically as in England. There were Germans present (Franklin wasn't sure about them being human, I hear), non-English like Scots and Irish, the stray Frenchman, etc. These unsettled arrangements also aided the sense of freedom to try new things.

So it is ridiculous to expect a nation with a long history in one place to reform as an American democracy in that same place, with all its baggage of history, cultural inertia, grudges, and unresolved injustices. Now on Mars...

Hmmm. For a start, I've looked at the Wikipedia summary of Spencer Weart's theory and it seems to involve a great deal of vague handwaving.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_at_War
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_possible_exceptions_to_democratic_peace_theory

For example, the USA seems to be considered an oligarchy in some periods and a democracy in others. But how does one tell?

Also, the imposition of violent, bloody dictatorships upon Iran, Guatamala, and Chile by the Democracy of the United States evidently doesn't violate the thesis because the US acted via a coup d'etat and lost less than a 1000 men in each case. But I'm not sure the people in those countries appreciated this distinction.

Exceptions do not disprove a rule, especially when they are few and highly debatable.

For example, I can claim that the Danish people are illiterate and then find hundreds of Danes that can't read to prove my point, but I would still be wrong.

The counter statement "Danes are a literate people" would be accurate regardless of the exceptions.

If you are trying to make the case that Democracies are no different than dictatorships or monarchies, the facts simply do not support that conclusion, regardless of the exceptions.
If you are trying to make the case that democracies are significantly different, the facts certainly do back up that claim.

I think it goes without saying that the maxim is not 100% accurate. I wouldn't debate that. No maxim is 100% accurate.

To get even deeper into an already deep debate, Fareed Zakaria said that there were no democracies before 1900. If you take our modern definition, he is absolutely correct.
America wasn't a democracy until blacks and women were allowed in the club. I would agree with that.
If a country, in 2006, tried to have elections that allowed only white men to vote, we would not consider it a democracy. It certainly wouldn't be allowed in the Concert of Democracies, right?

Needless to say the belief was from Roosevelt on that the there was no evil greater than the Soviet Union. anything done to stop the Soviets expansion [...] was an acceptable trade-off.

Not to split hairs but it is not clear that the U.S. supported rightwing regimes, some truly monstrous, around the world.

Greece is another clearcut case.

Much of South America similarly.

Not only did the U.S. support rightwing regimes, but also the actual overthrowal of democracies and in the process heavy oppression of the defenders of democracy including both terror, torture, extra-judicial assassinations and far-reaching limitations of the citizens' freedoms.

After this you, somewhat surprisingly, conclude:

One of the things that needs to be considered is the creation of more global liberalism not just elections.