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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FaultLine who wrote (25193)	4/14/2002 10:02:18 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Despite its power, U.S. can't control its destiny alone SUCCESS DEPENDS ON GLOBAL APPROACH By Joseph S. Nye The San Jose Mercury News Posted on Sun, Apr. 14, 2002 After weeks of mounting pressure from Europe, the Arab world and, increasingly, from within the United States, the Bush administration has intervened directly into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But even this belated exercise of American power has not removed criticism of the administration's foreign policy, which is also accused of excessive unilateralism. Ironically, public opinion polls consistently show the American people favor a multilateral approach. In his 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush said about America: ``If we are an arrogant nation, they'll view us that way, but if we're a humble nation, they'll respect us.'' He was right, but unfortunately many of America's friends saw the first eight months of his administration as arrogantly concerned with narrow American interests, focused on military power, and turning its back on treaties, norms and international negotiations. The administration's peremptory announcement that the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change was ``dead'' contributed to a reaction from other countries that cost the United States its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Sept. 11 was supposed to have changed all that. Congress finally paid our U.N. dues, and the president turned his efforts to building a coalition against terrorism. But the success of the Afghanistan campaign led some in the administration and some commentators to conclude that unilateralism works just fine. Columnist Charles Krauthammer, for example, urges a ``new unilateralism'' where we refuse to play the role of ``docile international citizen'' and unashamedly pursue our own ends. And the Justice Department's initial decision to ignore the Geneva Protocols led even our allies to refuse to extradite terrorist suspects until the president reversed the U.S. position. `New unilateralism' The new unilateralists make a mistake in focusing too heavily on military power alone. There the United States is unequaled, with our military budget equivalent to the next eight countries combined. It is true that America's military power is essential to global stability, and an essential part of the response to terrorism. But the metaphor of war should not blind us to the fact that suppressing terrorism will take years of patient, unspectacular civilian cooperation with other countries. The military success in Afghanistan dealt with the easiest part of the problem. Al-Qaida retains cells in some 50 countries. Rather than proving the unilateralists' point, the partial nature of the success in Afghanistan illustrates the continuing need for cooperation. The problem for Americans in the 21st century is that there are more and more things outside the control of even the most powerful state. Although the United States does well on the traditional measures of power, there is increasingly more going on in the world that those measures fail to capture. Under the influence of the information revolution and globalization, world politics is changing in a way that means Americans cannot achieve all their international goals acting alone. The U.S. lacks both the international and domestic prerequisites to resolve conflicts that are internal to other societies, and to monitor and control transnational transactions that threaten Americans at home. On many of the key issues today, such as international financial stability, drug smuggling, the spread of diseases or global climate change, military power simply cannot produce success, and its use can sometimes be counterproductive. Instead we must mobilize international coalitions to address these shared threats and challenges. No large power can afford to be purely multilateralist, and sometimes we must take the lead by ourselves as we did in Afghanistan. But we should start with multilateralism whenever possible. Granted, multilateralism can be used by smaller states to restrict American freedom of action, but this does not mean that it is not generally in American interests. In many instances, such as nuclear testing, we want to restrict others as well. Moreover, by embedding our policies in multilateral frameworks, the United States can make our disproportionate power more legitimate and acceptable to others. Even well-intentioned Americans are not immune to Lord Acton's famous warning that power can corrupt. Learning to listen to others and to define our national interests broadly to include global interests will be crucial to the longevity of American power and whether others see the American preponderance as benign or not. U.S. challenge The challenge for the United States will be to learn how to work with other countries to better control the non-state actors that will increasingly share the stage with nation-states. That is the real lesson of Sept. 11. America will continue to be the only military superpower, and our military strength remains essential for global stability and as part of the response to terrorism. But the paradox of the 21st century is that the largest power since Rome cannot achieve many of its objectives unilaterally in a global information age. bayarea.com

To: FaultLine who wrote (25193)	4/14/2002 10:49:15 PM
From: skinowski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Is The Glass Half Full? - In search for Optimistic Explanations... ;-) It seems to me that the Euro's - relatively speaking - are making more noise about the Israeli operations in the West Bank then the Arabs. The Arabs – practically unasked – are coming up with proposals to recognize Israel’s right to exist… I think this is very interesting. It would make sense if they felt increasingly worried about their fundamentalist radicals gaining too much power. It would make sense if they want to turn the tide against the radicals… Among other things – if that’s the case - they may welcome some degree of cleaning up of the radical’s breeding ground in Palestine (which would also be a happy turn for the Palestinian people, who are stuck between a rock and a hard place). I realize that this is pure - and very “bullish” - speculation… but I think it’s worth watching out for further evidence in that direction.