I found the editors of Bloomberg’s editorial on the vital role of the United Nations alternatively delusional and confusing. First, the confusing. The published title of the editorial is “The U.S. and the World Need a UN That Works” but the original title that did not make the editor’s cut was apparently “United Nations General Assembly Faces Global, U. S. Challenges”. The General Assembly is barely mentioned at all. The editorial concentrates on the Security Council.
Let’s start with the General Assembly. Go ahead, I’m listening. Why do we need a General Assembly at all? Jeanne Kirkpatrick once called it a “Third World debating society” which IMO is sadly apt.
Let’s turn to the Security Council. What would a Security Council that “worked” look like? Is it one that would approve the U. S. invasion of Iraq or one in which the United States wouldn’t invade Iraq because the Security Council didn’t approve it? How, precisely, would either of those contingencies come about?
And this is just plain delusional:
In the end, though, the effectiveness of the UN will depend on the desire of its member governments, and especially that of the U.S., to make it succeed. The U.S. needs to show it again understands what it used to regard as obvious.
If Trump wanted to do that, it wouldn’t be hard. If he wanted to ease divisions, strengthen U.S. influence and bolster the UN at a single stroke, he’d reverse his stance on the Paris accord on climate change — an existential challenge that geopolitical rivals such as China have embraced as a basis for global cooperation. Of late, the U.S. government’s posture on this fateful question has been a failure on every level.
It made me want to take the bong away. What does the Paris Agreement have to do with the United Nations? Whatever you think of the Paris Agreement, China has never, ever supported any move that prevented its doing exactly what it wanted to do. While people hail the Chinese government’s announcement that they won’t be building 100 coal-fired power plants, Chinese companies maintain their plans to build 700 over the next decade. Said another way, the Chinese authorities write a heckuva press release.
The UN is useful as a way for countries to air grievances and to take political action together. Yes, it usually doesn’t amount to much, but it’s an opportunity to jaw-jaw before escalating to non-diplomatic means.
The UN occasionally does really good stuff, like with the Ebola response which was pretty amazing. It also does useless stuff. Overall, it probably has value, just need to decide if the ROI is adequate.
Steve
Multilateral institutions (the UN, WTO, WHO, IMF, World Bank) are useful. If they didn’t exist now we would invent them.
But their usefulness lies in them being the vehicle for action when there is universal or near universal agreement on the need and course of action to take. That type of agreement is rare but it does happen (like disease surveillance, a forum for diplomacy, a forum to discuss trade disputes).
The confusion lies in twisting them for purposes beyond that. They are not meant to be a world legislature, a world judiciary, or a world executive.
If there is one cogent security council reform; it is that the Security Council reflected the balance of power in 1945 and not today. It is time to consider if India and Brazil should be permanent members.
I’ve been making that same argument for decades. To India and Brazil I would probably add Nigeria.
If the United Kingdom remains in the EU, France and the United Kingdom should relinquish their permanent Security Council memberships in favor of a single permanent membership for the EU.
I will repeat myself. The General Assembly is useful as a debating society and a negotiating forum. What we do NOT need is the Security Council, which repeatedly causes problems for us/US and everyone else.
People who favor the Security Council and its expansive powers and ambitions actually are supporting One World Government, which would of necessity be Stalinist, and which would suppress the American Bill of Rights, which no other country has.