The United Nations--It's Time For A Change

From time to time the United Nations has been a useful fig leaf covering American policy genitalia. That was the case back in 1950 when North Korea invaded the South and fortuitously the veto-wielding Soviet Union was absent in a snit over the who-will-represent-China problem. Forty years later the UN served the same modesty-protecting role when the US resolved that war and war alone would both restore Kuwait to the ranks of independent states and take Saddam Hussein down a few pegs.

Sporadically the UN has been a fine propaganda forum for the US. Certainly this was the case during the Kennedy Administration when the US scored many, many points against the Soviet Union. We replayed that game during the Reagan years with a greatly diminished audience. Times had changes so there were not that many hearts and minds in need of winning. And, the "virtuous" Americans had been shown often wearing, if not black at least very grey hats.

Other than those occasional benefits the UN General Assembly and Security Council have been venues for Yankee bashing contests. As the decades rolled along, as more and more "nation-states" were admitted to the organization the Great Game of Kicking Uncle Sam became more popular and much more of a full-contact sport.

The Geek was not given to embracing the Kick-The-Ungrateful-Bunch-Out notions of such statesmen as the late Senator Jesse Helms. A slender case could be made for contending that the UN did somewhat less harm than good. The fact that the US paid a disproportionate share of both the organization's operating expenses (currently 22%) and peacekeeping budget (currently 25%) as a form of noblesse oblige.

In short the Geek saw the UN, or at least the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretariat rather as one might see the dotty uncle at the family reunion--annoying, even highly irritating, but ultimately far more foolish than harmful.

Not any more. Not for some years. To make a confession: The Geek has rather admired the cavalier fashion in which George W. Bush and his jolly crew of neocon ninnies have ignored the UN, rejected a slew of zany UN proposals (most of which were greatly beloved by the High Minded here and abroad) and generally speaking flipped the bird at the Hudson River Folly.

The UN has earned the Geek's disapprobation not because so many of its members engage in the Kick Uncle Sam game. Nor has the Geek's attitude shifted from one of wary bemusement to one of frank hostility because of the financial burden imposed on the United States. None of the usual, superficial reasons for viewing the UN negatively apply.

The reason is actually quite simple. The UN is no longer worthy of the thoughtful respect and consideration which it once may have merited.

The UN has become a vast, bloated assemblage of over 190 countries, many of them without an authentic reason for existence, but rather accidents of geography, demography and colonial pretensions of past centuries. Many of the member states today do not share any basic structure of values with the United States, or the countries called the "West." Many are authoritarian. Some are infected with the zeal of dogma, either secular or religious. There are more than a few which are both.

Quite a few of the UN's enormous membership are anti-democratic. They are opposed to the basic freedoms and rights which characterise a decent regard for humanity. More than a handful of these UN members are despotic, corrupt, repressive, and ambitious to a fault. They are, in short, an unedifying pastiche of the worst features of the social/political/economic landscape.

Overall the collection of bad actors represented in the Hudson River Folly is such that it would be legitimate to ask of countries ranging worldwide from Norway to New Zealand, "What's a nice nation like you doing in a dive like this?"

There is another reason for thinking ill of the UN. It does not work. It is ultimately doomed to being chronically ineffectual. As a mechanism for bloviaton it is unsurpassed. As an instrument for promoting the collective interests of the human race it is a failure.

(The Geek feels the High Minded ginning themselves up for a fast burn through the tropopause.)
There is a justification for this harsh assessment. The UN was founded upon a set of ideals--not ideas, but ideals--which were marginally tenable sixty plus years ago when the organisation established itself in San Francisco. (A venue justly famed as the home of the vigilantes, the beatniks and the Summer of Love among its long line of zany and colorful human creations.)

The ideals underlying the creation of the UN have slipped over the edge to total irrelevance with the proliferation of pretenders to statehood now littering its membership roster.

The ideals foundered on a reef of reality. Here it is. Get a grip on it. Any state, which is to say any government, hopeful of prolonging its existence works on narrow, self-defined self-interest. Self-interest should--must--be understood to include not only the material considerations of territorial integrity and economic sufficiency but also the values on which the government rests whether these arose organically from the soil of historical experience or exploded from some ideology.

Authoritarian, ideologically driven governments are (or, to err on the side of accuracy, historically have been) inherently insecure. Insecure governments are the least likely to accept, let alone operate by the ideals of mutuality and cooperation which resided at the center of the creation of the UN from the framework of the wartime United Nations.

To put it bluntly but not inaccurately, such states are driven to approach any form of multilateral entity with a totally what's-in-it-for-me mentality. No genuine form of collaboration for a common good is possible with actors possessed of such a worldview. Indeed, it is impossible even to gain consensual agreement on what a "common good" might be.

The concept of the commonweal can only exist among individuals (be they humans or states) sharing a common set of values and a common understanding of fundamental precepts and basic principles. There is little, if any, set of commonalities present today in the UN General Assembly or even the comparatively speaking miniature Security Council.

Nor, the experience of recent years demonstrates convincingly, is it possible to fabricate an artifact of commonality from the raw materials of such supposedly "global" problems as pollution, anthropogenic climate change, agricultural shortfalls, and economic collapse. Most assuredly we humans are not, as bumper sticker understandings of international politics hold, "passengers on spaceship Earth."

Pace the High Minded among us, but the best course of action for the United States, the course of action which will do both us and the world the most good is to closely, critically and realistically examine what best suits our self-understood, self-defined national and strategic interests both today and into the future. Realism as to what the US needs to see in the world in order to not only survive but to flourish will lead to the best outcome for Americans, and, arguably the world as a whole.

As an illustration, consider this wording from Senate Bill 2433, the Global Poverty Act which has already been passed by the House with the guidance of vice-president-elect Joe Biden and having as its chief Senate sponsor president-elect Obama.

poverty reduction will take place along with the other internationally recognized Millennium Development Goals, including eradicating extreme hunger and reducing hunger and malnutrition, achieving universal education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating the spread of preventable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, increasing access to potable water and basic sanitation, ensuring environmental sustainability, and achieving significant improvement in the lives of at least 100,000,000 slum dwellers.

These are a series of laudable ambitions. Worthy and lofty goals.

Here is the critical question. It is a question which must be answered fully and honestly before e United States commits itself to joining with others through the UN in seeking the achievement of these ends.

Are these goals, each of which is worthy, in and of themselves an American national or strategic interest? Yes, gaining these ends, or any of them, would be nice. But is the achievement of all or any addressing an authentic American national interest? Strategic interest?

Achieving the UN articulated Millennium Development Goals--or any of them--would be nice. Would make us feel good.

Ask yourself this: Does a nation continue to exist, to thrive on a politics of feeling good or acting realistically? Ask yourself: Do feeling good and the realistic pursuit of national interest overlap much, or at all?

On the answers much depends. Our collective present and future depend on them.