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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:26
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Am I the only one who thinks that the US is much less powerful in a unipolar world than with the UN? The power that the US has is severely overstated.
Good point. The power that the US has is vastly overrated and the US most often needs or wants to act multilaterally. But the best position for the US to be in is leading small and large coalitions to do certain tasks. The US can tailor its multilateralism and often the UN just gets in the way, if it has any impact.
For instance, for the Iraq operation, we have the US, Australia, New Europe, Kuwait, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and South Korea. This is a quite sufficient coalition. The UN didn't facilitate this coalition.
The War Against Terrorism has some 80 countries as part of the coalition. The UN didn't facilitate this coalition.
The coalition that will confront North Korea will be Japan, South Korea, Australia, and perhaps China and Russia. The UN hasn't facilitated this coalition so far.
Off the top of my head, the only vital US interests that are directly impacted by the UN is the resolution of the Cyprus issue and I guess the UN imprimateur in Korea. True, we do distribute food through the UN, but that's mostly not a vital interest. Maybe you can think of some here and there that I can't.
Compare to France, which is a third-tier power without the UN.
Last edited by DanS on 10-03-2003 at 12:17
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:26
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
Am I the only one who thinks that the US is much less powerful in a unipolar world than with the UN? The power that the US has is severely overstated.
Good point. The power that the US has is vastly overrated and the US most often needs or wants to act multilaterally. But the best position for the US to be in is leading small and large coalitions to do certain tasks. The US can tailor its multilateralism and often the UN just gets in the way, if it has any impact.
For instance, for the Iraq operation, we have the US, Australia, New Europe, Kuwait, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and South Korea. This is a quite sufficient coalition. The UN didn't facilitate this coalition.
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I mostly agree although I think that the US may find that its flouting of the UN makes it harder to persuade other countries to join such enterprises, especially democratic countries since anti-Americanism is now a viable election platform.
Anyway the latest news is that Pakistan will definitely abstain. Remember that the anti-war party needs only seven countries to either abstain or vote against the motion or one of Russia, China or France to veto.
This means the abstainers/opponents are. Russia, China, France, Syria, Germany, and now Pakistan.
I think Chile will also abstain but I don't know about the others. 
So it looks like the resolution is likely to fail without a veto as the pro-war party cannot now afford to drop any one vote.
I hope it fails, because if it does it looks like Blair is toast. 
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Andrew1999
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Pakistan is going to abstain. So that's 6 no-or-abstain votes (Russia, China, France, Pakistan, Syria, Germany.) The resolution needs 9 Yes votes, so at this point an abstention is the same as voting no, and one more no-or-abstain will sink the whole thing. Of course a lot can happen (and a lot of checks can be written) in a day.
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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:26
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"the only reason anyone outside of the Us (even Tony) is able to back this war is because Saddam has done so much against the UN."
Not really. People who oppose Saddam do so because he is a dangerous man who won't disarm and because he is a foul dictator with a nasty human rights record. If Blair's reason for going after Saddam was his failure to comply with the UN he wouldn't be ready to go to war without UN support.
""he must disarm and fulfill his promises to the international community""
The latter part of that is pretext.
"Also, as the US moves to confront NK, it will need the security council. "
No, it won't. Cooperation from China, Japan, SK would all be very valubale, but we don't need French approbal. We will work with other nations to act on this issue.
"May I also add that the NPT, the only thing that makes it techinically illegal for states like NK to make nukes (and hence, the name rogue...), exists basically only under the whole UN system."
Alot of good it has done at stopping states such as NK and Iran from getting Nukes.
"The US is not omnipotent: "
No it's not. I don't mean to suggest we will always be able to act alone, though we should be able to under certain circumstanaces. But the UNSC is a bad framework for international cooperation because certain countries who have vetoes on it such as China are have interests very different from the US. The US is by the far the greatest power in the world and it would be a horrible precedent if third world dictators start to get the idea that we can't hurt them unless Paris, Moscow, and Beijing go along.
"Anyone here think the US could, if it wanted, get involved in a Indo-pakistani war, for example? "
Of course. US intervention on either side would grant that side naval and air superiority.
"The war on iraq is a mistake in my eyes. The long term (10-20 years) consequences on overall US security and the stability of the world order will, in my view, be predominantly negative; the bad consequences of this war will most likely outweight the positive ones. "
I disagree. Right now the region in which it is most important to have the most influence in is the middle east. Installing a friendly government in Iraq will greatly increase our power projection ability in the Mideast, especially given Iraq's central location; if the US occupies Iraq we will have forces bordering some of the countries we are most concerned about right now. We will also be able to withdraw from Saudi Arabia and move our forces into Iraq, thus taking away one of OBL's greatest recruitment mechanisms.
"Moreover, it isn't in a position to compete with a Sino-Russian-European military bloc, quite simply because such a large scale war is not politically feasible except in the dreams of right wing nut cases."
Europe opposes military action against Iraq, that doesn't mean they are about to sign a military alliance with Russia and China. China is content to focus its influence on Asia, and Russia couldn't even stop military action against one of it's closest allies(Serbia)
"The recent election in Germany has shown how powerful anti-American sentiment is and no doubt desperate politicians will indulge it to get elected. "
Even the likes of Schroeder can't really be called anti-American. Germany is still assisting us in Afghanistan. Moreover, anti-Americanism in Europe comes in waves: during Reagan it was especially strong, during Clinton it died down again. Europe is not going to permanetly break with the US, and it most certainly is not going to try actively oppose the USA.
"He'll be eaten alive by:
a) The British public
b) His party
c) The press
if he does. Not that I'm saying he won't do it, but he'll have hell to pay if he does."
Parliamentry elections aren't until 2006. By then the war will have been won and Blair's ratings may actually have been increased, and Iraq won't be a big issue anymore.
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:26
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Shi, great couple of posts. I wasn't aware that Blair didn't face election until '06. That's good news.
What would you consider the likelyhood of a no confidence vote, and when?
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10-03-2003 11:48
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