I never thought I’d offer thanks to the UN for a job well done, but at long last they’ve finally come through. The shiny new, reformed and revitalized Human Rights Council of the United Nations has greatly simplified my life. Once upon a time, when my friends and associates asked me why I despised the UN so completely, I had to point to a real hodge-podge of stupidity, incompetence, and corruption. Frequent drug sales in the UN parking garage here, regular sex slavery of starving children by UN peacekeepers there, easy enough to find—but tedious to gather together.
But those days are past. Now I can simply point to the Human Rights Council: a council created to replace a discredited commission manned and chaired by human rights violators; a council whose members are elected by world regions; a council which has sworn to redeem the past through its hard-headed and direct assault on human rights abuses; and, above all, a council run by human rights violators for human rights violators. The elected membership reads like a Who’s Who of human rights violators: Algeria, Belarus, China, Cuba, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka. In classic UN tradition, these are “balanced” by other, saner nations. But perhaps allowing some of the craftiest, cruelest foxes to guard the henhouse wasn’t the brightest notion.
Still, nobody can dispute the bold leadership showed by the Council. After a year of deliberation, and numerous sessions, special meetings, discussions, presentations, and all the rest, it has issued three thunderous decisions:
- Cuba and Belarus are no longer a concern, and we can just stop sending people to find out about human rights abuses there.
- Israel is very, very bad—far worse than all the rest of the offenders put together—and will be until the last dirty Jew, er, Israeli withdraws from the otherwise peaceful prosperous lands of Palestine.
- Jews who dare to criticize the Council are very, very bad and should not be invited back. (Contrast this with acceptable speeches.)
Yup, that’s right. Of the 41 nations on the “watch list” for naughtiness, the great decision of the council was to remove two of them because they’re better now. I hope someone is able to sneak in and break the news to the journalists and professors jailed in Castro’s prisons, since I’m sure they’d love to hear the news.
And those wicked, wicked Israelis! It’s important to single them out for special attention because after all they are, well, Jews—and you know what they’re like. No matter that Israel doesn’t stand back as its fanatic settlers make raid after raid into Gaza every week (as Sudan does with its fanatic Janjaweeds). Irrelevant that Israel makes at least some effort to target individuals when it retaliates (unlike Russia which simply leveled Grozny and slaughtered its populace). Unimportant that Israel’s high court has required them to assist those fleeing the violence in Gaza (unlike China which ships those fleeing North Korea back to Pyongyang to face execution). None of that can obscure the fact that Israel is just far worse than anyone else because…well, just because.
Good to know that the UN Human Rights Council is on the case, making sure those nasty Jews don’t succeed at their mad, though oddly delayed and very slow, plans to annihilate the Palestinians! Even if it seems to be distracting the Council from the somewhat more rapid annihilations occurring in Sudan, Kashmir, and Sri Lanka. And good news on the reform of Belarus and Cuba: apparently Cuba’s membership on the council has led to an invisible (but obviously real and impressive) improvement in its human rights record. I can only expect that each year additional nations represented on the Council will experience the same oddly subtle (but apparent to the Council) rehabilitation.
Does anyone actually believe this tripe? Are even the mindless defenders of the United Nations this stupid? We’ve traded one worthless, dirty, despicable “human rights” body for another. In session after session, this Council has singled out Israel, while giving a complete pass to every other offender. I have no problem with pointing out the real abuses in Israel, or the US, or anywhere. But any report which argues that Israel is a worse offender than Cuba has lost all touch with reality.
But what do you expect from a Council that remains far, far too much a Council by murderers, for murderers, and of murderers? A Council that issues a “consensus” statement that at least one member never agreed to, and then votes to officially rule that that member did agree, over its objections? We can expect no more, I’m afraid, than we can ever expect from the United Nations: the world’s most exclusive club for repressive regimes, brutal dictators and bloody-handed tyrants.
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June 23, 2007 at 11:08 am
(Bit of perspective from a former UN contract employee, for what it’s worth.)
While I will definitely agree that the UN leaves MUCH to be desired, in the end I have to say we are better off with them than without. The organization (if I can use that word at all, given how amazingly decentralized it is) has a lot of different branches, some of which are much more effective than others.
The Human Rights Council has become a total joke. However, the regional offices have done some pretty solid work in this area, including the surprisingly strong Arab Human Development Report: http://hdr.undp.org/reports/detail_reports.cfm?view=600, which was forgotten in the post-Iraq War era. Following the Middle East office’s lead, the Latin America and Caribbean Office (UNDP-RBLAC) also did some research in this area, http://www.undp.org/democracy_report_latin_america/. This too was pretty prescient in noting the trend of the growth of the radical left in Latin America (of the ilk of Ugo Chavez) and the thinness of support for democracy that doesn’t deliver on development. (I feel relatively firm about this since my contract work was to the research branches. While I had issues with the way they do business stemming from my “scientist” mindset as opposed to their “politician” minsets, I understand why things worked the way they did and in the end the product wasn’t even all that watered down. Though the lead person I worked for spent A LOT of time arguing his case, he did, in the end, prevail. My understanding of other areas is only from reading the media.)
Other organizations like WHO and FAO have also been historically more effective (which is not to say perfect, but USAID and the like have far from perfect records). I suspect that much more focused missions like health and agriculture are just less divisive and thus subject to manipulation from the member nations for political reasons. I’m sure there is plenty of graft in it, but, again, the US government has plenty of black marks in this area too.
The UN as an enforcement group just doesn’t work out so well, though, particularly because the command and control is ludicrously weak. For instance, peacekeeping troops are subject to the discipline of their home country. If said home country doesn’t bother to enforce discipline, well….
The UN system is definitely showing the strain of moving from a start of 51 countries in 1945 to 192 now. It’s obviously ripe for a major institutional reform, but absent a giant transformative crisis of the likes of World War II I doubt one will materialize and so it will totter along. Let’s hope it continues to totter along, since I think no one wants the giant crisis…. 🙂
June 23, 2007 at 2:11 pm
The only aspect of this I can speak to is the role of UN Peacekeeping troops. It really puts us into a bind, we have effectively 2 chains of command, 2 sets of laws/codes of conduct, and sometimes even 2 sets of ROE. One can not serve two masters.
In fact it is ludicrous to think that soldiers of nation A, serving under command of nation B, deployed to keep nations C and D from fighting each other, will have any motivation to the task, understanding of what is expected of them, or loyalty to the mission.
Not sure what the solution is, but the current model is so bad, it would have been difficult to design another system that would generate a cadre of forces that would be less obedient, disciplined, or enthusiastic.
June 24, 2007 at 12:17 am
mildlypiquedacademician said:
“While I will definitely agree that the UN leaves MUCH to be desired, in the end I have to say we are better off with them than without.”
This is questionable. In many ways we’re fooling ourselves if we think allowing dictatorships to manage issues of human rights and such will ever make a difference. We need a drastic overhaul of the institution (as mildlypiquedacademician also noted), but we can’t wait until another world war. Specifically we need:
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org
I’m open if anyone has a better solution.
gary
June 24, 2007 at 10:49 am
Gary wrote in response to me:
###This is questionable. In many ways we’re fooling ourselves if we think allowing dictatorships to manage issues of human rights and such will ever make a difference.###
Uh, I basically said the human rights commission should be dumped so on that score, we agree.
It’s important to remember that the UN is a giant umbrella organization (like most other very large scale groups) that does A LOT of things. Much of what they do is solid work that no one else does that you don’t hear about. It’s important not to let the best be the enemy of the good here—in international relations the good is as good as it gets, usually it’s mediocre or the suck.
Without making any pretense to moral equivalence here (a dubious exercise at best), a lot of the criticism of the UN is similar to recent criticism of the US military. Sure they’ve done some really bad stuff (Abu Ghraib) and, sure, they have serious administrative issues, and should be held accountable for their flaws, but much of what the organization does is valuable and really couldn’t be done by someone else.
I looked very briefly at the web page you posted. It’s interesting in that “on the net” kind of way but very much unworkable in the current system IMO. The UN system was built by people who understood that getting states to surrender their sovereignty was *extraordinarily* hard and they did as well as they could, but it didn’t really work out in the end.
As AFL pointed out with respect to peacekeeping, troops in that environment operate under impossible dual command authority that is basically guaranteed to lose control of discipline and not do anything useful. General Rupert Smith, who was a peacekeeping commander during the Bosnian war, just wrote a book titled The Utility of Force. Interesting read in general but he points out some of the private conversations he had during that time with the people above him, noting that 20K troops with silly rules of engagement and no clear chain of command are more of a liability than a benefit. I suspect AFL would agree. Unfortunately many of these missions are PR stunts for domestic consumption akin to the way international development works (as we discussed earlier).
Looking back at my comment I’m not sure what I said made any overall sense even if I stand by each paragraph, but I guess my overall point is this: the UN is a deeply flawed system, that’s dying under the weight of interstate democracy. It’s NOT the “great white hope” for world government and foreign policy idealists aren’t going to be happy with it. However, much of what goes on under the UN flag needs to be done and won’t be by individual nations.
June 24, 2007 at 11:32 am
The only thing the U.N. has accomplished is keeping us from WW III, it has basically failed at everything else…
June 24, 2007 at 11:35 am
mildlypiquedacademician, I’m just not seeing the successes of the UN you keep mentioning. Is there a Darfur that they have reversed? Is nuclear proliferation increasing or decreasing? And if you have any belief in the concept of democracy, how could you possibly support a structure where, for example, France has a population that is 20th and has a permanent seat on the security council, but India, the 2nd most populous democracy has no such position? My point is that we can do so much better.
You mentioned that it’s hard to get states to surrender their sovereignty. Just for the record I’m proposing no such thing. To the contrary I don’t think the UN should have a standing army. I’m not for a “world government”. Too much potential for abuse.
So obviousl I have serious issues with the UN. And you seem to have some issues with the UN as well. If you could make one single reform proposal for the UN, what would it be? Given your first hand experience, I would be very interested in your insight.
gary
June 24, 2007 at 2:16 pm
kip152 wrote:
###The only thing the U.N. has accomplished is keeping us from WW III, it has basically failed at everything else…###
I respectfully submit that anyone who doesn’t think this is a pretty good thing is smoking crack. 🙂
Gary wrote:
###I’m just not seeing the successes of the UN you keep mentioning.###
As I said in my first comment, the successes I’m talking about are primarily in areas outside of security policy, which is definitely going to be the WORST area since it asks states to surrender sovereignty directly. The list of failures you’re talking about are primarily IN the area of security policy. Groups like the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization have participated in some pretty impressive stuff that has made the lives of billions of people better. It is certainly true they could be better, but it’s important to remember the progress that has been made isn’t chump change. This is the stuff that I know about from personal experience, of about nine months of contract work for one of the regional bureaus of the UNDP, so take it for what that’s worth (aka “not much but a more than armchair experts who’ve read a few books and web pages”).
The system is definitely dying under the strain of badly constructed democracy that’s become overburdened by the massive growth of states in the international system over the last fifty years. It was the democracy that could be constructed at the end of World War II; the option was no formal international institutions or even weaker ones like the League of Nations. I am not so arrogant as to think *I* know the solution but *more* democracy of the kind that exists in the UN now is probably not it.
The whole structure of the Security Council with its vetoes is a good illustration. I do not know of a politically feasible solution that wouldn’t require a major crisis to make it happen. Consensus organizations just DON’T change without a giant, giant shakeup, if at all, because consensus is INCREDIBLY conservative. It’s certainly not in the interest of any of the veto powers to give that up—they wouldn’t have acceded to the Security Council in the first place without the veto—-and if there were more veto powers, things would get worse. Permanent seats for non-veto countries like India and Brazil make a ton of sense to me but you won’t see most of the little shit countries agreeing to that because it makes them even weaker. In fact, when such a deal was in the offing a few years back, it was the smaller countries that ultimately torpedoed it IIRC.
The fundamental problem is that democracy is based on the system of states, which can work well if the underlying political cultures are similar enough, though not without substantial strain as US political history or the political history of any other federal state shows well enough (states are usually federal because that’s what was possible when they were built). When you’re trying to make an organization minimally acceptable to political cultures of the US, the USSR, European countries—all made much more realistic by the recent conclusion of a catastrophic war—it’s tough. Now we’re trying to incorporate a bunch of tinpot kleptocracies, theocracies, states in name only, and so on.
The wonderful thing about a dancing bear is not how well he dances, but that he dances at all.
June 24, 2007 at 9:23 pm
mildlypiquedacademician,
I will take your word for it that the UN has had successes in areas besides security, but that’s a hell of a big “BUT”. I also see the move of all countries towards democracy as a major goal that impacts people in so many ways. So I still say we urgently need reform within the United Nations, foremost being to throw out the dictatorships. I still haven’t heard a reply from you as to what you think the priority should be in regards to reform. Surely you have an opinion on this…
gary
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org
June 24, 2007 at 10:01 pm
When you walked through the streets of Brooklyn and saw a policeman, you knew two things: If you needed him he would be there for you, and if you fucked with him you were going to have a really bad day.
Perhaps the US should grow up and accept the mantle of the sole surviving superpower. Have other countries pay us a tribute instead of funding 80% of the UN. Build up the military and use them to enforce some minimal sanity: Thou shall not machete thy neighbor. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s oil. You get the drift.
Now I freely admit that this begs the question of standards, and God knows those idiots in Washington DC would distort them to very tramatic ends. On the other hand, the US has done the right thing more than 51% of the time which is about as good as it gets in the corporate world as decisions go. And by keeping the minimum standards really minimum and rigorously enforcing them, some overall good might arise.
The rest of the world believes the US is a hegemony anyway. It is heartwarming to see the Aceh guerillas and Indonsesian national forces back off to let the US Army and Navy UH-60s and CH-47 drop off food, clothing and medical supplies to a tsunami wrecked village in Sumatera. Really confuses them to see such an evil hegemony assisting — when you need him you can count on him.
And Darfur: well the other part applies there as well.
June 24, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Gary, you don’t have to take his word for it, the facts are out there for you to look into.
I’d suggest looking at their efforts to eradicate Polio, and other diseases.
June 24, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Gary says:
###I will take your word for it that the UN has had successes in areas besides security, but that’s a hell of a big “BUT”. ###
It is, though I suspect the much less sexy causes of disease and famine kill way more people than violence, though of course the Four Horsemen do ride together…. Famine and disease are still VERY bad, but they are MUCH better than they were even fifty years ago in a lot of countries.
You wanted my suggestions and I basically indicated above that I think a solution to collective provision of security under the current situation is impossible. Big and powerful states don’t want to give up their privileges in the system. Small states don’t want to give up their privileges. Until something happens that concentrates their minds, I bet nothing will change. It’s a “you can’t get there from here” moment.
I do not know how one would get rid of the dictatorships without tossing centuries of international law and, believe me, we DON’T want to do that. Dumping the HRC seems sensible, though, as the lunatics have taken over the asylum. But that is one thing, not the whole thing.
So I go back to calling the UN a dancing bear. It fails to live up to our modern ever-growing expectations, but as a system primarily designed primarily to help avoid or at least moderate great power war and to operate as an umbrella for world bodies such as the FAO, WHO, etc., it works. More modest goals to be sure, though only perhaps because we’ve forgotten just how UNBELIEVABLY BAD great power war is. The fact that it can’t handle problems it was never designed to do and that its political system—never strong to start with—is breaking under the strain of the dramatic and largely unexpected increase in the number of member states over the last several decades which complicates decision making even more should surprise no one.
If you want a persuasive-sounding “one stop shop” solution, I fear that is beyond me—I don’t have one. I guess I would say that concentrating on things the UN does do well would be a good start, and thus encouraging much of the security stuff to be handled by regional actors, be it NATO, OAS, etc.
Getting the US and other Western democracies to stop acting like loudmouth paternalistic assholes—mostly for our moralistic publics’ consumption—would be a good start, but that’s not something the UN can change and I fear it’s deeply embedded in our national characters. For instance, I cannot provide details due to confidentiality reasons, but I know of at least one very sensible regional initiative with a lot of potential that has been kept on the DL so as to avoid having it hijacked by the US government. The participants believe (rightly IMO) that once the US government starts spouting off about it domestic opposition will increase, killing the chances for a home grown solution.
June 25, 2007 at 8:50 am
Wow, if I’d known that becoming a cyber-hermit for the whole weekend would result in a comment exchange of this length and quality, I’d start doing it regularly! 🙂
Thanks to MPA for sharing his first-hand experience and pointing out, rightly, that the UN is a huge decentralized bunch of organizations with only the vaguest overall hierarchy. (I’m tempted to say “mess” instead of “bunch”, but I’m trying to be nice here.)
As, MPA and AM point out, the UN has done a lot of good in areas outside of security and (for lack of a better word) accountability. Considering the way it’s structured, as a club of representatives of national executives, that makes sense. You can’t expect good results in security or accountability when many of the inspectors work for the lawbreakers!
But while that provides a lot of grist for my anti-UN mill, it doesn’t negate the good work that several UN groups have done or the hard work of lots of well-intentioned folks. Despite my dislike of its current operation, I don’t want to see the UN destroyed but reformed—though how to do reform when the likes of Castro and Chavez get standing ovations is a bit tricky…
And, for the record, I really have to agree with MPA: if all the UN has done is helped to prevent WWIII, then that alone is worth all the past, present, and future expense and frustration. After all, as any good economist would tell you, no matter how much the cost, avoiding WWIII was pretty good ROI. 🙂
June 25, 2007 at 9:05 am
As MPA says, a lot of the problem with the UN is structural. Remember that the term United Nations doesn’t originate with the organization. It was the official name for the Allies in WWII.
The UN was designed to perpetuate that alliance and use it to prevent future wars. That’s why the Security Council permanent members are England, France, the US, Russia, and China—because they were the major allied powers. (Well, China and France not so much, but they were in principle if not in ability.)
While this arrangement did have the unforeseen benefit of providing rough balance between the Communist and Free worlds in the Cold War (once the PRC was finally recognized), it is less than ideal.
My own suggestion, for what very little it’s worth, would be to grant “permanent” membership and veto power to the nations with the top N militaries (where N is some one digit number). Further, I’d allow regional alliances to declare themselves one “nation” for this purpose. So the EU could keep one seat easily. China would get a seat almost by accident. And the US and Russia would keep theirs. India and others could get a seat if they wanted to commit the resources to secure a top spot (if they haven’t already).
Another Y nations (where Y is some other number) would be rotating members without veto, as they are now.
Basically this would mean that the Security Council represents those nations in the world that can actually do something effective (positively or negatively) militarily, which seems as reasonable a criteria as any for the Security Council.
Of course, I’d also look at making a tripartite General Assembly with one “house” with one vote per nation, one with votes based on population, one with votes based on economic strength. That way, nations with large populations or large economies get clout, but small and poor nations can band together in the first house as well. For all its faults I think the US Congress is a good model for a body of united states—where we want to balance the power and influence of large states and small ones.
It shouldn’t surprise that the US model isn’t a bad one for the UN, because the US was essentially almost an alliance of little nations, after all. A fractious bunch, at the very least.
June 25, 2007 at 3:36 pm
AOC has provided a number of proposals. I’m going to criticize them not because I dislike them personally but because I don’t think they’re going to work. In other words, this is my head talking, not my heart (before you all think I’m simply a heartless bastard, as opposed to a political Realist—which, I suppose, for an idealist is the same thing).
More democracy is, I fear, not the answer—assuming the question is how to make the UN more effective and efficient—as much as we might want it to be. In fact, more democracy will probably make things *worse* not better.
(Note: I’m going on memory from time in a field I haven’t been actively involved in for several years after a career shift.) In a very real sense democracy requires fundamental agreement on the system as a precursor. In the international system this isn’t present. Many states, an increasing number as we are now solidly in the “third retrograde” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_of_Democratization has a VERY sketchy outline), do not view democracy as construed by the western democracies as a good thing. The historical US states were diverse but had the big, IMO essential, benefit of coming from roughly similar political cultures, all of which thought that representative rule was appropriate, and had had a very recent reminder of the consequences of not uniting. This isn’t remotely true with the international system.
The problem is that democracy also requires the players to act with self-restraint and not undermine the system. Things like accepting the loss of a vote for the system’s sake are important. There’s an excellent monograph by political sociologist Juan Linz (http://www.yale.edu/sociology/faculty/pages/linz/), which would be in university libraries and possibly used book stores: Linz, Juan J. (1978). The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Reequilibration. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Linz outlines different kinds of actors in a system: loyalists (supporters of the current government and political regime), loyal opposition (opponents of the current government but supporters of the regime), disloyal opposition (people who don’t agree with the regime as constituted at all, e.g., separatists, or people who want to change the fundamental character of the regime, though ones happy enough to use the structures of the regime against it). In between the loyal and disloyal opposition lie a large, hard to identify group Linz terms the semi-loyal opposition. These people can be pulled in either direction. The real battle is between system loyalists and disloyalists over the semi-loyal opposition. These are the “independents,” as it were. Depending on which direction they go in, the system maintains itself or dies. (See also http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1119&context=csd for an examination of interwar Europe using this framework.) Right now, the international system is crowded with a huge number of semi-loyalists over whom the loyalists and disloyal opposition are fighting. In sum, for democratic instutions to maintain themselves, the players in the system have to accept the rules even, no, ESPECIALLY, when the rules work against their immediate interests, and I do not see this in the international system today. Many players are happy to use democracy when it suits their purposes but opt out when it doesn’t, which pretty much guarantees that democracy at the international level will be very weak.
Given the crazy diversity of countries in the UN, I just don’t see adding *more* democracy, with *more* veto points as making for more effective policy. This is a recipe for paralysis, which is, of course exactly what many of the players *want*. The HRC is poster child example of what happens when the disloyal opposition takes over an institution of the regime. Now Linz was talking about within a nation so it’s important not to push his logic too far, but I think the basic idea has merit, and says a lot about why we should expect very modest outcomes from international institutions. That doesn’t mean UN reform is a bad idea—especially if it bolsters legitimacy in big powers—or that we would be better off without the system entirely, even if it frequently does lead to icky outcomes. It does mean that expectations of institutions like the UN are best kept modest and that multifaceted efforts be made involving bilateral, multilateral, regional and truly international efforts. Unfortunately the way policies are sold to the public and the reasons the policies were instituted in the first place are often at odds.
June 25, 2007 at 11:52 pm
mildlypiquedacademician,
So if the non-security divisions of the UN are worthwhile investments, perhaps we only need to redo the security council division. I would again apply all the same logic to this division….keep it democratic and get rid of the dictators.
You seem to think that this is a “you can’t get there from here” situation. You may be right. But it will only take one or two terrorist nuclear bomb detonations to completely change the situation overnight. So I would say let’s come up with alternatives for the security council now.
“I do not know how one would get rid of the dictatorships without tossing centuries of international law” What? Honestly if there are “laws” that support keeping dictators around, it’s time for them to go! Immediately.
“Getting the US and other Western democracies to stop acting like loudmouth paternalistic assholes” Just for the record I’m not just out to remove dictatorships, but to improve the remaining democratic nations as well. And what better way to do that than to quantify democracy. Free press, no censorship, etc. Google’s censorship of the internet should be illegal in a just world.
“More democracy is, I fear, not the answer—assuming the question is how to make the UN more effective and efficient—as much as we might want it to be. In fact, more democracy will probably make things *worse* not better.”
Clearly we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. Yet another good democracy quote…
“All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.” — Author: Alfred E Smith
If you have that little faith in democracy, why not boot it altogether?
As I read more of your reply, I think you really do have your doubts about democracy. I suspect you believe that some countries don’t need it. And you seem concerned that more democracy in the UN would lead to paralysis. Really? I would say this is exactly what we have now.
gary
——————————————
Angry Overeducated Catholic,
“While this arrangement did have the unforeseen benefit of providing rough balance between the Communist and Free worlds in the Cold War, it is less than ideal.”
It’s even worse than that. It sends a clear message to the rest of the world that democracy is great…just as long as it only includes us. This historic arrangement works against UN legitimacy today.
Grant permanent membership to the most militaristic countries? Don’t you think this would just reinforce the arms race problem? Isn’t this like saying that if the bank robbers are better armed than the guards, it’s legal for them to take the money? I think this is a terrible suggestion.
“Basically this would mean that the Security Council represents those nations in the world that can actually do something effective (positively or negatively) militarily, which seems as reasonable a criteria as any for the Security Council.”
So you draw absolutely no distinction between dictators and democracies? Bad idea. Unless of course you don’t have a problem with dictatorships.
“It shouldn’t surprise that the US model isn’t a bad one for the UN, because the US was essentially almost an alliance of little nations, after all.”
Point of clarification…an alliance of VOTING nations.
gary
June 26, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Sure democracy is better, and it’d be great if you could include only the best democracies in the Security Council and make it work. But we have to ask ourselves what the Security Council does and what we want it to do.
While MPA worries about gridlock, I personally view gridlock as desirable at certain levels in the UN, especially in the Security Council. Invading a nation, or even deploying troops in it with its “permission” is not something to do lightly. And if it’s going to happen under UN auspices, certainly it makes sense for the major military powers to at least not want to block the action.
If a nation either cannot or will not invest the enormous resources required to become a military power, what right does it have to a Security Council veto? If it has invested those resources, do we really want to encourage it to flex its military muscle outside of the Council?
I’d much prefer a world in which the free nations had such an overwhelming military advantage that we could exclude the dictators by fiat. But we’re not quite there yet. I would point out that of the top current or likely near-future militaries in the world most are already democracies (US, UK, France, EU, Israel, India, South Korea, Japan) and only one avoids any pretense of democracy (China).
So, in some ways, you may well get your wish. Few dictatorships have the economic muscle to achieve the top rank—they may have large numbers of troops but their ability to project power is usually poor.
June 26, 2007 at 2:52 pm
(In what is undoubtedly an uncharacteristic move, I’m going to keep my reply short.)
Gary wrote:
###As I read more of your reply, I think you really do have your doubts about democracy.###
I have doubts about everything. I’m definitely a nitpicky skeptic, which is why I would call myself a realist, though I definitely prefer the notions of what is referred to as the “British school, or “liberal realism” to hard-core realpolitik.
It’s always important to ask questions about the things we hold most dear, and democracy shouldn’t be immune. IMO democracy is a great social invention and would not want to live in a dictatorship myself and feel for the people who do live in dictatorships. But it’s HARD and requires a lot of preconditions that are missing in countries. In any event, we’re talking about democracy among states in the international system, which is a rather different thing than democracy of individuals. I’m all for democracy within a nation (provided it doesn’t lead to civil war, as it has many times) but am much less convinced at the international level.
###I suspect you believe that some countries don’t need it. And you seem concerned that more democracy in the UN would lead to paralysis. Really? I would say this is exactly what we have now.###
You’re the one who wants a more effective UN in the security arena (I wouldn’t mind it but don’t expect it to happen). My point is that *more* democracy in the UN, i.e., more say for more countries, more veto powers, etc., will not get you more performance, it will get you less. This is especially true given the fact that the vast majority of countries are ruled by kleptocratic strongmen who will definitely use the tools provided to them to make sure that their gravy train stays secure.
### (first quote is me) “I do not know how one would get rid of the dictatorships without tossing centuries of international law” What? Honestly if there are “laws” that support keeping dictators around, it’s time for them to go! Immediately.###
If you pull the lid off a boiling pot suddenly, do not be surprised if you get burned badly. And, yes, longstanding principles of international law do not allow “We dislike your form of government” as a casus belli. It’s one of the reasons why the 2003 invasion of Iraq was so controversial, after all.
However, I did not express my original, much more specific, idea well. I was referring to the dictatorships in the UN and other international bodies. They were allowed in as members. How do you kick them out? Should you kick them out? Who decides what’s a dictatorship and what isn’t? If they are not members of international bodies, how do democracies maintain dialog with them. All of these questions need to be answered and they are very hard questions.
AOC wrote:
###While MPA worries about gridlock […]###
I didn’t say I worried about gridlock, simply that “more effective” and “gridlock” don’t go together. I think the gridlock is exactly what is to be expected given the institutional design of the UN and the configuration of desires of members. If one wants decisive action on stuff like Darfur from the UN, gridlock’s got to go. Adding yet more veto powers to the Security Council will get more gridlock, not less.
June 26, 2007 at 10:38 pm
To both of you:
Restricting the organization to contries that meet a minimum standard of democracy will probably mean less gridlock, not more. After all, much of the current gridlock comes because dictators disagree with democracies.
You also keep assuming that this new organization would carry on like the current one…invasions, maintaining a military presence in countries. Just to clarify I specifically state that my UDN would NOT have a standing army. Many would worry that a UDN would become a global government, a worry which I share, hence the no army clause. So how would it deal with dictators like North Korea? I would pipe in free internet, try any officials who commit crimes against humanity in absentia, arresting them whenever the opportunity arises, and if military action is required, those UDN members able to assist, will. I realize that last part seems very close to having a UDN army, but the distinction is still important.
Would the UDN deal ever deal with dictators? Yes, but only when it benefits the citizens in the dictatorship and not the dictator. So supplying aid during famine or medical assistance after an earthquake, but only in a way that it can’t be converted to funds for the dictator. No direct financial aid.
AOC said: “If a nation either cannot or will not invest the enormous resources required to become a military power, what right does it have to a Security Council veto?”
Every right. Encouraging nuclear proliferation shouldn’t be a consequence of the process. The analogy for a local election would be to only let people vote if they had at least a 18″ bicep.
“I’d much prefer a world in which the free nations had such an overwhelming military advantage…”
I’d much prefer a world where military resources are no longer needed. You may say it’s impossible. I say that’s a self fulfilling prophecy. After all we did manage to kick the tree climbing habit…
“So, in some ways, you may well get your wish. Few dictatorships have the economic muscle to achieve the top rank”
Very true. Fortunately dictatorships are a very inefficient system. China has become much more efficient, but only because they have embraced capitalism. And fortunately for us, democracy is generally not far behind. Especially if we don’t work against the process (like allowing google to censor the internet).
mildlypiquedacademician, “It’s always important to ask questions about the things we hold most dear, and democracy shouldn’t be immune.”
I agree. Democracy is not really a destination but a journey. The UDN as I describe is still not truly democratic. That can only happen when every human gets a vote in the “security council”.
(BTW both of you keep assuming that the new security council equivalent would still use the veto process. I don’t. I prefer the ‘majority rules’ form of democracy.)
“kleptocratic strongmen”? Are you so sure that countries ruled by strongmen would even make the grade? Perhaps you should give an example. I suspect just the opposite. And I already addressed the issue of more vs less performance. Without the dictators, you would have more agreement, not less.
Your point about international law supporting dictatorships eludes me. Perhaps you can give an example of one of these laws.
“How do you kick them out?” Easy, just show them the door. Actually, I wouldn’t even kick them out…I just wouldn’t let them cast a vote. In a truly democratic world we really have no choice but to only count the votes where they are backed up by citizen representation. The alternative is the mess we have now.
“how do democracies maintain dialog with them” You always maintain dialog. The more dialog, the more likely they will fall to democracy. Communications works to our advantage.
gary
June 27, 2007 at 10:54 am
To Gary:
If only the world of international relations were as simple as changing one’s underwear or coming up with yet another utopian scheme on the internet.
You don’t just *make* a new organization, it comes out of what’s there already. My points are all about what *exists* now, which represents the baseline from which changes will be made. You’re living in fantasy land.
One example should suffice. Most nations of the world *are* ruled by kleptocratic strongmen who are good at one thing: protecting their gravy train. Massive reform of the UN will bump up against them. Giant grandiose schemes that sound good to the public looking for Action! Now!!!! will, IMO, ultimately go nowhere… like they always do.
“Instant democracy, just add water” is ludicrous but there are ways to make reform happen in nations. It requires canny leadership and a solid opening. The Mexican transition to democracy from almost a century of PRI rule is a great example—I suggest reading up on it to see what’s actually possible when savvy domestic leadership and international diplomacy combined with the solid opening represented by the collapse of the peso. The net result was a free election in 2000 which saw a peaceful transition, followed by another in 2006 (which had a bit more trouble and an attempt at a reversion). Mexico—for all its faults—was already pretty well along the democracy path. The civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s is another very good example.
Actually, I’m glad it isn’t so easy to change the world as you think because while your vision isn’t bad, there is a HUGE pile of evil assholes around who’d like to change the world to make their lives better, and don’t give two squirts about the rest of us.
June 27, 2007 at 1:35 pm
One more point I didn’t make because I got interrupted by an important phone call:
IMO pressuring the UN is unlikely to work for the reasons I outlined, but it will at least do little harm, so go for it. Just try to keep the pressure (and expectations) realistic and work on stuff that can happen, not at trying to rewrite the whole thing.
Collective security seems to me much more likely to work at a regional level, though there are some examples of UN security missions working, for instance, the peacekeeping operation between Egypt and Israel. But in no small part this worked because Egypt and Israel wanted it to work; the peacekeepers acted as arbiters between the two adversaries. It’s like couples counseling, it only works if the spouses want to change….
June 27, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Yeah, that’s all true. And there’s certainly a role for the UN in providing resources for nations which want to change. And for assistance and monitoring wherever it can be done in a credible and relatively objective manner.
I guess my outrage is based on the supposed high moral ground that many UN-philes, and the organization itself, try to claim for the UN. As a world government, or world conscience, it’s a dismal failure. As a more limited method to organize discussions about serious issues, it can be a success. Though, even there, only when we keep the moral posturing and politicking down to a minimum.
The HRC, of course, is a splendid example of the moral posturing and political hijacking at its worst—and hence draws my ire.
June 27, 2007 at 2:42 pm
mildlypiquedacademician,
“If only the world of international relations were as simple as…”
Never said it was easy.
“You don’t just *make* a new organization, it comes out of what’s there already.”
Sure you can. But I’m equally fine if it comes from an existing organization. Here’s one possibility…
http://www.demcoalition.org/
“You’re living in fantasy land.”
Could be. As I see it, it’s worth the risk. Perhaps someone in power will latch onto the concept…you never know.
“One example should suffice.”
You didn’t give a SINGLE example. Name the country.
“Just try to keep the pressure (and expectations) realistic”
Sorry, no can do. I prefer idealistic. If you shoot high, you might still get somewhere acceptable.
AOC, you keep blowing off my points. I compared your “only the powerful can vote” theory to only allowing people with large biceps to vote. You just blew me off again.
gary
June 27, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Gary, the reason why letting those with power vote, is that those with power can cause nuclear war.
The UN’s greatest achievement was providing a forum for the USSR and the USA to exchange blows and balance against each other without resorting to a nuclear exchange. THAT is why you let big militaries get a veto.
The UN isn’t about running a world gov’t, it is about a forum for balancing and diplomacy among super powers (while letting the little countries play too).
June 28, 2007 at 12:11 am
Angry Midwesterner,
If the criteria for voting is having lots of weapons, doesn’t that encourage nuclear proliferation? Wouldn’t you prefer a system that works against having an arms race, rather than encouraging it?
gary
June 28, 2007 at 7:17 am
Arms have already proliferated, and quite frankly MAD is a fairly stable equilibrium. Would I prefer that everyone put away their weapons and played nice?
Yes. But it ain’t gonna happen. Pandora’s Box is open, you can’t ever close it again.
June 28, 2007 at 9:06 am
AM is correct, unfortunately the Nuclear Genie is not going back in the bottle. We are stuck dealing with it in the here and now, I am first on line for the high minded idealism train to fanatasy land (its a much nicer place to live) but not in the realm of Nukes. Pragmatism is required there!
June 28, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Gary wrote:
###“One example should suffice.”
You didn’t give a SINGLE example. Name the country.###
I was talking about the issue (kleptocratic strongmen) not a specific country, but the recent issues over membership of the HRC is a good example. The reason why countries like Libya, Cuba, Sudan, etc., want positions on the HRC is *precisely* because they have crummy human rights records and want to make sure they don’t get criticized for it. This is an example of the lunatics sitting on the asylum’s board of directors. It’s a feature of sovereignty in the international system, though, and we want to be REALLY careful before we throw that principle away.
A lot of developing countries like money from China because the Chinese don’t ask too many questions about annoying intangibles like transparency, democracy, etc.:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11428653
###“Just try to keep the pressure (and expectations) realistic”
Sorry, no can do. I prefer idealistic. If you shoot high, you might still get somewhere acceptable.###
There’s something to shooting high but when it leads to severe disappointment due to impossible expectations not being met, that’s bad. Severe disenchantment tends to result and often leads to a backlash. I suggest reading up on the failure of Wilson to get Senate consent to the League of Nations treaty in 1918, which lead straight to the isolationism of the 1920s and 1930s.
Unfortunately a lot of what people want these days simply isn’t attainable. So you can have your Wilsonian fantasies and I’ll keep my realist bias. Sometimes you guys prove us wrong…. 🙂
June 28, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I’ll make one more stab. Why should we let those big mean militaristic countries have more weight on the Security Council? Because it’s the Security Council.
What does it do? It seems to have two functions: first to prevent or deter large inter-state wars; and second to mandate armed intervention by member states in other member states. So we need to coop the nations most able to hinder or aid these missions, and we need to offer them an incentive to work with us rather than simply do stuff on their own.
As an example of what happens when a militarily strong nation feels that the Security Council won’t adequately respond, consider the US invasion of Iraq or the Russian invasion of Chechnya. Whatever the merits of each unilateral move, each was a decision flowing out of a view that the Security Council could not adequately respond to legitimate concerns.
Is this like letting those with large biceps have more votes? Maybe. But if you lived in a town where there was no law and no police force, and the only armed response came from strong citizens, you might have no recourse but to give those strong citizens more of a say in who gets arrested and what policies get enforced.
Worse, in the nuclear age, some of those citizens are not only strong, but they have heavy mortars in their backyards. How do you convince them to stand aside and let your elected cops do their job?
June 28, 2007 at 3:22 pm
An excerpt from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. on the dangers of “doughface progressivism” which represents—in far better words than I can express—my general view. While a fair bit of what he says is now dated, his hard-headed liberalism is still pretty darn solid today.
http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/vital-center.html
June 28, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Security successes (or at least not unqualified failures like Darfur):
UN mission to Cyprus, which helped prevent a shooting war between Greece and Turkey.
Already mentioned the UN missions in the Golan and Sinai, which has managed to maintain a cold peace between Israel and Syria and Israel and Egypt.
UN monitors to Kashmir. Again, not an unqualified success but given the fact that India and Pakistan fought a sequence of wars over Kashmir from 1947 on, the UN mission helped prevent a larger general war between them.
June 28, 2007 at 9:56 pm
“UN mission to Cyprus, which helped prevent a shooting war between Greece and Turkey.”
Um point on this, some of us might find this a failure, as it allowed an evil bully to get away scott free. A shooting war would have forced that bully to face the consequences for their actions. War is not always a bad thing, if it is stopping oppression and tyranny.
June 29, 2007 at 7:50 am
All,
What I’m hearing from everyone is that what we have is as good as it gets. Even though we’ve climbed out of the trees and no longer pick fleas off each other, even though the world is no longer dominated by the likes of Gengis Khan and Alexander the Great who saw invasion and genocide as standard operating procedure, we will always have nuclear proliferation. Even though we’ve managed to split the atom, walk on the moon, and map the human genome, the science of governance is at a dead end. There is no system that will prevent dictators and strongmen from dominating the system. And while democracy works well within the borders of some countries, it somehow stops working at the global level.
I feel differently. I am absolutely confident that, large meteorite strikes notwithstanding, we will make dictatorships an obsolete concept. We will achieve the “peace dividend”. We will completely solve the energy and climate problems. We will stop and even reverse global overpopulation. Instead of focusing vast sums of our resources on the science of war, we will instead explore other worlds. We will establish a system which prevents human rights abuses.
Ultimately the world is entirely what we make of it. We build bombs and allow dictators to run rampant all by choice. The UN currently embraces dictatorships. They are treated equal with democratic nations. I’ve thrown out one proposal for doing otherwise, the UDN. If you agree that dictatorships are counterproductive, I would like to hear YOUR proposals on how to move in a better direction. Stop telling everyone what doesn’t work. Be creative and tell us what WILL work. Otherwise all our analysis is a waste of pixels.
gary
June 29, 2007 at 8:55 am
Gary,
Let me say that I have a lot of agreement with the concept of a UDN. It would allow us to do many things better than we can now (hold human rights abusers to task, ponder rational development policy, intervene to prevent genocide, defend small democracies against aggressors, etc.)
But it’s not without risk. US withdrawal from the UN means the end of the UN, and that means that the dictatorships (which can’t join the UDN) either go it alone or form their own counter-UDN. Given Cuba’s and Venezuela’s propaganda successes among Western progressives (who should know better), such a counter-UDN (called perhaps the Union of Developing Democratic Nations) might well be able to paint the UDN as an elitist club of capitalist imperialists dedicated to keeping the poor nations down.
But even if it can’t it does mean that we risk a return to two-power or multi-power Cold War. Especially since China and Russia can hardly join the UDN, raising the chances of their drawing closer. The Chinese would much prefer us to the Russians, but if we freeze them out—especially in a way calculated to offend their since of honor and importance—they may feel they have little choice.
My alternative is to instead eliminate from the UN functions that it cannot effectively do. Don’t have a UN human rights council. Bar nations whose soldiers have terrible records from peacekeeping operations. Make UN sponsored science more like grant-supported work from the NSF and less directly tied to UN bodies or personnel. Focus on what the UN does well, or at least tolerably.
For those things which you’ve had to abandon in the UN, something like your UDN proposal, but less formal, is a great idea. Build bodies of nations dedicated to human rights, and make the barrier of entry high but clear. Shame the larger nations (us included) into ponying up more peacekeepers to take up the slack from those nations we’ve had to bar. Collectively force the Security Council to give command of those forces to a trusted officer from a trusted nation.
None of this is sexy or sweeping, but sweeping change isn’t likely to happen immediately. You cite many examples of improvement, but many of those were gradual (over decades, centuries, or even tens of thousands of years). Sudden, rapid change is usually followed by or preceded by periods of chaos and general war. Given our current capacity such an age must be prevented if possible, because we now have the ability to destroy our ecosystem in such a general war.
Sure, reaching for the stars is admirable, but remember that sometimes reaching too far leads to terrible results. Consider WWI, Russian and Chinese Communism, Nazi Germany, WII, Cuba, and Iran—all of which resulted in large part from well-intentioned attempts at radical transformation (eliminating war for WWI and WWII, eliminating want for Communism, recovering from economic and social distress for Germany, and removing vicious dictators for Cuba and Iran).
While it may draw derision from idealists, caution and realism have their place as well. Better slow, incremental progress that satisfies nobody than a great, sweeping, idealistic change that accidentally brings everything crashing down.
June 29, 2007 at 11:06 am
AOC, great points. I’m not too worried about another cold war as I’m not proposing a military buildup (no standing army with the UDN). Also, strongmen tend to have such large egos that they can’t cooperate with each other anyway. Finally, thanks to the internet more and more people in the world are wanting the freedoms associated with democracy. I have no doubt that China will be a democracy in my lifetime…enormous upside potential. They are, thanks to embracing capitalism, heading in the right direction.
gary