Archive | October, 2009

The Obama UN speeches and appearances last week have caused some comment among conservatives along the lines of President Obama simply wanting the US to be one among the guys of nations. Andrew Ferguson picks up this notion in his Weekly Standard commentary this week, and it’s been around other places, too. I think it’s basically right, and is one of the basic motivations behind US protestations of “multilateralism” – to lay down the burdens, mouth the same words as everyone else, and quit having to bear the costs of providing the essentials of the global security system.

I’ve been talking about this for quite a while, in alas unread academic papers that languish in unread corners of the internet, so you’ll just have to forgive me for quoting myself. Note to everyone: the full papers are also well worth reading! Also, though, in an excellent literary review, La Revista de Libros which, while very well circulated and publisher of some of the finest literary prose in the contemporary Spanish language, does, however, publish out of Madrid and in Spanish:

Be wary, O Europe, above all, of liberal internationalist Americans bearing gifts of multilateralism. An America that does not assert, rudely and brusquely, its own interests and views first through Nato and elsewhere, an America that sings sweet songs of multilateral interdependence is, surely, a superpower that has decided to simply go along with what everyone else does, which is another way of saying it has tired of supporting the free riders, which is another way of saying that it, too, says one thing but might do another, and what it might do is not show up when the big battalions are finally needed. Prudent Europeans fear and do not trust, above all, an America that does not put its own interests first and carry the rest along in train. Re-read Raymond Aron. Europe will soon enough face an Iranian nuclear weapon along with its massive dependence upon Russian natural gas, even as its military strength declines yearly – hourly – and in important respects it is today at least arguably more dependent on the American security guarantee, not less, than at any time since 1990.

The broader point being that for all the talk about UN collective security, the reason anyone even talks about it is that it is, for much of the world, a fifth wheel on a broad, US security guarantee. If you are European states, you can talk about UN collective security because you don’t need it and it isn’t truly your security guarantor.