Michael Gerson Weighs In
Almost as if he's been reading our exchange, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson weights in with a column on how to define the international architecture of the 21st century. It's a great example, I think, of the shoddy logic behind unilateralism. Gerson recognizes that a McCain-style "concert of democracies" scheme is unrealistic, complains that the U.N. Security Council doesn't magically solve problems when member states' will is lacking and (worse!) is sensitive to the interests of countries that aren't even America, and thus concludes that "a coalition of the willing, led by America" will be the only "realistic option . . . when the next genocide commences or the next proliferation threat arrives."
What's missing here is simply the fact that a world order with no rules, in which the United States arbitrarily chooses when, where, and why to intervene while trying to slap together a "coalition of the willing" to join us isn't a realistic option at all. We've just tried it, after all, and what's it gotten us?
Less than nothing -- a trillion spent, thousands dead, tens of thousands wounded, and no progress whatsoever on global non-proliferation or counterterrorism efforts. Meanwhile, Gerson asserts that "global nonproliferation efforts are about to shatter like a glass hammer on Iranian nuclear ambitions." The real problem with the global nonproliferation regime is that under the Bush administration the leading stakeholder in the regime, the United States of America, has gone about deliberately subverting it. Strangely enough, during the decades when we tried to make multilateral non-proliferation work, it worked pretty well. When a new administration came in, decided to stop ratifying treaties, to start tearing up some old ones, and to start violating key elements of the NPT, all the while dreaming that a new era of preventive war and missile shields could render the point moot, suddenly it stopped working. Now the right wants to use the failures they've generated as a pretext for further shredding the international system.
It is sad to think that people like Gerson still think that American Exceptionalism is a workable theory...
Personally, I do believe America is special, and should be a "beacon of Freedom" for the world. But we have so much work to do before we can go throwing that kind of moral authority around again.
April 25, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
We've just tried ["a world order with no rules, in which the United States arbitrarily chooses when, where, and why to intervene"], after all, and what's it gotten us?
Actually, that's not what we tried. What we did try was ---
Regime change by invasion and under-occupation of a cobbled-together country in an unstable area implemented by military and civilian personnel who did not understand (or could not deal with) that country's social and historical strains.
That the policy was based on ideals which we disagree with is unimportant -- indeed, uninteresting. It was that policy's lack of realism which doomed it.
April 25, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was that policy's lack of realism which doomed it.
Yes, but...
The main point upon which realism was lacking, was the impossibility of post regime pacification in the absence of legitimacy of the enterprise ab initio
And how do we get legitimacy, for an aggressive war?
From, (and only from) the Security Council.
That *failure even to vote on the second resolution was all she wrote. (Especially after all the international law posturing that had gone on previously..."Saddam is a dirty resolution flaunter!"
("Everone's gonna lay down th'r hand, y'see")
April 25, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but ---
"Legitimacy" -- whatever that may call for, procedurally -- never made a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Perhaps, you mean that if you throw up enough roadblocks in the way of your average, everyday idealist, he can be stopped from embarking on his attempt to actualize his fantasies (I know; he calls them ideals).
In order to keep the Ship of Fools from sailing, I'd rather depend upon realistic assessments of the costs and benefits of solving a problem (even if unilaterally undertaken) than depend upon procedural niceties.
April 25, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
procedural niceties.
But procedural niceties are all we have available from which to bootstrap the migration upward of sovereignty from nation-states to transnational organizations.
The reason we are groping towards some system or other of collective security is because we have experienced (and continue so to do)the blowback to an individual state which arrogates unilateral authority to "enforce" the will of the international community.
Moreover, with Chinese and American carbon drowning Bangladeshis ten years on, we confront (increasingly) world size problems that will demand world sized government.
April 25, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . all we have . . . .
I dunno, jollyroger.
I've seen too many decision makers toss the procedures aside and go straight for the substance -- the whole while patting themselves on the back for their willingness to dispense with those niggling rules.
I think we're better off looking for ways to make those ultimate "deciders" answerable for their decisions* -- admittedly, something we Americans seem loathe to do.
* “The prospect of the gallows concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully.”
April 25, 2008 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno, jollyroger
The real solution (for us) is America-First non-interventionism
I fear that I have been too coy--I agree with both of you.
It is precisely because, as per Ellen any objective (ie, not informed by some sort of messianic insane vision) assessment of the application of armed force between states teaches us that (as ably put by President Achmadinadjad) "You cannot get there from here " (actually he said that the goals of armed intervention cannot be achieved by armed intervention).
Moreover, per Glaivester, only the wicked or foolish undertake to be the world cop without asking who is going to pay the cop's salary and cost of operation? The cop (agent of sovereignty) has to be paid for by the objects (population under the monopoly of force vital to police function) of that soveignty.
Hence, world government.
Because:
I get too bummed out when I see Darfur and Rwanda and when I see women being splashed with acid and when I see girls getting their clitoris cut off.
There are, in this world, crimes against humanity
Someone has to do something about it.
No country can.
Even an exceptional country.
Even a city on a fuckin' hill.
Ergo,
Even though we have the imperfect vehicle of the UN (created to be an agency of and "legitimizer" of United States projection of power), other than starting from scratch, it's all we have.
It must change, just as the Confederated Colonies changed.
April 26, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
"World government."
Do you think that will ever fly in America?
Unless we experience a cataclysm which forces it on us?
April 26, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
fly n america?
cataclysm which forces it on us
The correct answer is:
"b"
April 26, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
resolution flaunter
Bush hits usage trifecta:
"We will punish Saddam for flaunting our anti-nucular resolutions irregardless of any council vote"
April 25, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
But procedural niceties are all we have available from which to bootstrap the migration upward of sovereignty from nation-states to transnational organizations.
Uh - assuming that is your goal. It isn't mine.
In any case, the issue Ellen was pointing out is that the lack of procedural niceties was not why the war in Iraq failed. It was because the war was a stupid idea based on stupid misconceptions of what was possible and about who the Iraqi people were, what they wanted, and how they would react to us and to the overthrow of Saddam. As Ellen points out, the only benefit to the procedural niceties is that they might have stopped the war in the first place; not because they were smarter than us, just because they can't get anything done. Indeed, the one redeeming fact about the U.N. is that it can't get anything done. Were that this were true of more governments.
And how do we get legitimacy, for an aggressive war?
From, (and only from) the Security Council.
I doubt that a U.N. okay would make me more likely to consider an aggressive war legitimate.
The real solution (for us) is America-First non-interventionism. If you are not from the U.S. but from another country (we'll call it country X), the solution is Country-X First non-interventionism.
April 25, 2008 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
the only benefit to the procedural niceties is that they might have stopped the war
precisely.
And Bush, having put in play the "procedural niceties" issue by going to the Council for the first resolution, was forced (in a wierd sort of way) to acknowledge the power of these "niceties" by ducking the second vote, because, they might have stopped the war
not because the Council vote could constrain Bush as commander in chief (we have learned how little constraint there is in that department) but it would have given him problems vis-a-vis the propaganda effort necessary to fulfill the Goebbals instructions for taking a democracy to a war of aggression.
The UN Charter outlaws aggressive (ie, not *self defensive) military action in the absence of a Security Council Resolution.
*subject to lots of slippage in defining; Part of the Bush propaganda case turned on the elements of self defense-threat, reasonableness of response, duty, if any, to "flee" before killing the other, etc.)
April 26, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The hubris of empire guarantees the failure of fiascoes like Bush's adventures in Iraq. It is also the hubris of empire that denies this reality and dooms us to repeat the same stupid blundering that will ensure our defeat.
Jefferson got it right 207 years ago when in his first in his first inaugural address:
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.... We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country..."
Regrettably this is not a lesson understood by King George, past or present.
April 25, 2008 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Gerson "watched President Bush ask NATO leaders to come to Darfur's rescue only to see his request roundly ignored."
Where was Michael Gerson when NATO leaders rushed to the mutual defense of the United States, only to be rebuffed by the same President Bush who failed to prevent 9/11?
Bush's "coalition of the willing" is about as good as his "voluntary regulations." It's a totally meaningless catch phrase. A couple of bit players sign on for the free publicity, while American taxpayers hold the bag.
April 26, 2008 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
American taxpayers hold the bag.
oops; I think I was responding to this when I attributed to G. a disinclination to pick up the (very considerable, as it turns out...) tab for policing the world.
Anent which, given the "cnn effect" (atrocities which can be seen cannot be endured) which has permanently (I think we will agree for the better) changed the threshold for how indifferent we will allow ourselves to be about shit we can actually see happening to other people, wouldn't it make sense to have a world government that at least could reap the financial benefits of keeping the peace. (peace is better for business than war)
April 26, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink