Granting legitimacy

I can’t say that I’m getting as hot under the collar at United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s valedictory remarks as some seem to be. Under the circumstances i thought the statement was rather bland.

The SG’s frame of reference is just too different from mine. I don’t think that the participation of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations makes the institution more democratic nor do I believe that the participation of Sierra Leone (for example) makes it more legitimate. Like it or not the active participation of the members of the Security Council grants the institution whatever legitimacy it has.

As the wealthiest and most powerful member member of the Security Council the United States gains no additional legitimacy in its actions by participation in the UN.

6 comments… add one
  • About the only positive one can make about this Jimmy Carter-wannabe is that he was not as obnoxious and stupid as Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

    But this second-rater is going to talk about how some other organization or government is incompetent after his own tenure has been marked by corruption, scandal, and crime by his colleagues and “peacekeepers?”

    Thank God this ridiculous specimen of bureaucratic excretion generated by the UN is departing. He should head back to his “homeland” where they’re still butchering each other in the streets because of tribal vendettas.

    But the American MSM will suck up the nonesense and defecate it right onto the broadcast/cabal sewage system.

  • I am continiously puzzled by the utterly incoherent American hostility to the UN (as evidenced by the above ill informed frothing at the mouth and ill placed attack on Annan).

    However, the bald statement As the wealthiest and most powerful member member of the Security Council the United States gains no additional legitimacy in its actions by participation in the UN. is almost beautiful in its navel gazing idiocy.

    No additional legitimacy from itself you mean, mate.

    But then if you bloody well don’t give a fuck about the failure of American influence in trying to play “my rules or take me ball home” games, well that makes sense. Else it is a profoundly stupid statement. Truly profoundly stupid.

    Rather along the lines of the above comment frothing at the mouth.

    American exceptionalism and all that I suppose.

  • I agree that “of itself” would be better diction.

    Lounsbury, I’m not opposed to American participation in international institutions per se but I am skeptical about how American interests can be preserved by whole-hearted support of international institutions in which a majority of the participants see their own best interests as opposition to America.

    My belief is that the UN has more to gain by America’s whole-hearted participation than the other way around. As always I’m open to evidence that I’m wrong. You certainly should know by now that I genuinely do my best to keep an open mind. I’m not unpersuadeable.

  • Process, mate, process.

    As the Iraq fiasco amply demonstrates, go-it-alone self-gratifying perceptions of legitimacy have costs – to US interests.

    Your objection, I may add, is utterly nonsensical: in which a majority of the participants see their own best interests as opposition to America.: Were the majority of the world of the perception American interests were aligned with theirs, then you would not have much need of a body like the UN.

    It is precisely because of the perception in much of the world that US interests -as an 800 lb gorilla – threaten theirs that the UN is useful for
    (i) attenuating the perception of threat by creating the appearance and sometimes the fact of dialogue and negotiation,
    (ii) providing a useful forum to observe formal reaction of various parties, and thus be able to take the temperature and work to pro-actively attenuate opposition,
    (iii) lower transaction cost for policies by a formal imprimature on coalitions, taking some – sometimes much, sometimes less – of the appearance of the Imperial Bully off of pro-active action,
    (iv) formal forum for piggy-backing on positive allied or merely not-opponent initiatives, again distributing the costs of achieving various policies.

    Abolishing or abandoning the UN removes none of the operating costs of FP, and none of the idiotic whinging objections to UN forum opposition, drive by a simple minded “awww the rest of the world misunderstands us” reaction (again see first comment supra).

    The real (largely US right) issue you and your commentator have is that contra self-perception, much of the world (both at national elite levels and at popular levels) percieves the US as threatening (sometimes maliciously threatening, sometimes more in the well-meaning but ignorant idiot sense). That does not go away magically by not working with the UN, rather it gets worse.

    “Freedom of action” is a naive myth – one every bit as bad as the naive universalism of the idiot Left that sees in the UN some kind of doing-gooding proto-world government serving its Left populist agenda.

    The US and other major powers are best served using the UN from a cold realist persepctive as a negotiating forum useful for reducing risk and negotiating costs for achieving policy – as well as a useful place to check own perception against at least formal official reaction, as naively blundering about like a child presuming everyone perceives you exactley as you percieve you leads to moronic, childish mistakes and misjudgements as to others reactions.

    Rather simple really, your objections have fuck-all to do with UN as such, and are a mere whinging cry against general hostility – a general hostility that at present is very much fed by the blundering application of the myth of ‘freedom of action’ that ignored the transaction costs of appearing too threatening (and one should note that very obviously in such things there is always a trade-off, at some point reduction of opposition / attenuating opposition does indeed result in less achieved than non attenuating, so it is not an absolute good, but rather a cost-benefit continuim that has to be sharply judged – judgement that is easier to achieve if one has a forum in which to check the trade-offs in).

  • You’ve given me a lot to think about, Lounsbury. I agree completely with this:

    The US and other major powers are best served using the UN from a cold realist persepctive as a negotiating forum useful for reducing risk and negotiating costs for achieving policy – as well as a useful place to check own perception against at least formal official reaction, as naively blundering about like a child presuming everyone perceives you exactley as you percieve you leads to moronic, childish mistakes and misjudgements as to others reactions.

    I also think I agree with (ii) and (iv). (i) and (iii) I’m not as sure of. My intuition is that (i) is futile: some of our actions inevitably confirm the supposition of our malice, some of our actions stupidly confirm that supposition. Our actions that are benign and positive tend to be taken as inevitable (or the results viewed as disconnected from our actions) so that the first two observations overwhelm the latter. I think that the U. S. will be viewed by much of the world as dangerous and malicious or stupid and injurious by much of the world whatever we do.

    I find (iii) the most interesting. I don’t find it as obvious as you do that’s actually the case. I’ll reflect on it.

    I continue to think that you’re projecting attitudes and positions onto me that I don’t actually hold. I’m actually a reasonable, temperate person who’s often chagrined that his country so frequently acts like a bull in a china shop and then is upset that the china doesn’t restore some control over the situation.

  • I only can judge what I read, since I don’t know you at all.

    One can be reasonable and temperate and still have objections to the UN that utterly misunderstand the problem.

    As to (i) you’re again presuming (i) is an absolute. Of course US actions will always generate in some quarters a perception of threat. Any large power always appears threatening – even as an ally – to smaller powers. That’s a bloody given and perhaps one day the US will finally understand it’s naive (and self serving) self-perception as the absolute do-gooder simply is no basis for understanding how other national elites and leaderships can perceive even well-meant action as threatening. It is not a question of right or wrong perception, but understanding negotiating dynamics.

    Attenuating the perception of threat is not futile at all, rather it is an issue of a cost benefit continium, where obviously at some point the benefit of attenuation achieved with X parties over policy Y is no longer worth the cost.

    If you’d stop thinking in absolute terms (threat / no threat perception) and look at it terms of attenuating reaction (mild threat perceived among Party X, e.g. is likely to provoke less response – as in anti-US coalition building [see Iraq] – than major threat perceived), again in the context of a cost-benefit continium, where for some parties you reach diminishing returns rapidly, others not.

    It’s really not difficult if you stop thinking about absolutes. Rather like negotiating a transaction, in the end – if you no longer think of it in moral absolute terms.

    Claro?

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