The U.S. and the United Nations
The United States is, arguably, the single remaining superpower in the world. When there were strong states and weak states, it might have made some sort of sense for the strong ones to impose their will-whether a supposedly benign will such as the U.S. claims for itself, or an 'evil' one such as Nazi Germany displayed-on the other, weaker nations. In the simpler black-and-white world, a world in which national boundaries were as good as written in stone, there could be a clear winner and a clear loser. That is not so today. In the increasingly global world, most nations have some strengths and some weaknesses. Interdependence is the hallmark of international relations. In this climate, for one nation to impose its ways on another is very much like a guest at a dinner party hogging the conversation and, moreover, tying down the listeners...and beyond that, forcing them to agree with his words and comply with his requests. In short, it is bullyism in its most naked incarnation. The United States is currently the boorish guest at the world banquet. It has steadfastly refused to obey 'house' rules if one considers the United Nations the 'house,' the global community of all nations representing the family of man.
Considering the stubborn insistence of the Bush administration on carrying out unilateral world events, it is unlikely the United States can, at present, adopt a policy that would support the United Nations and improve the security of the United States. Quite simply, everyone wants to take out a bully. However, if there were to be a policy change, it would need to involve not only paying more than lip-service to the United Nations protocols, but, as well, reinstating U.S. membership in the World Court, and finding some way of gracefully exiting from Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, supporting a fully operational, fully committed United Nations solution-military at first and ten whatever is needed-in Iraq would conceivably improve U.S. security and strengthen the United Nations. It would do the former by, in essence, apologizing for the death and destruction the U.S. has wrought there, and it would do that latter by finally admitting that the nations of the globe are too interdependent for any one nation to elect itself Policeman for the World and expect any good to come of it. That the leadership of the U.S. is not ready for any sort of role in world peace/UN support was made abundantly clear in George W. Bush's second inaugural address, in which he spoke of "America's mission to bring freedom in place of tyranny to the world" (Blair 2005). That statement assumes, of course, that the United States is the only nation whose idea of freedom is acceptable; it also conveys clearly that image of the United States as a solitary White Knight, hell bent on 'saving' those in distress, even if the distressed party has not cried out in need. All those 'fixes' assume, however, that the United States is the only living superpower. In fact, the complications arise because Europe has, frankly, risen. This means that the United States cannot single-handedly save the United Nations; it must first gain the support of its peers in the world community, and then perhaps it can lobby successfully for multilateral peacekeeping efforts. Times have changed: In fact, playing hard-ball politics at the UN would seem to be the antidote to another criticism of the UN: That it was the brainchild of "treason and conspiracy" because its charter was drafted by Alger Hiss, a much-reviled U.S. traitor (Jasper 2002). The United States, if one wished to follow that analogy, was also chartered by traitors. To the British Crown, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson et al were certainly treasonous and certainly they engaged in conspiracy. The difference is that the Unites States successfully founded a new government; the United Nations has not done so. If the United States put more effort into supporting the United Nations, however, is it possible that it could form a workable world government, enhancing peace through cooperation and mutual support, rather than single-minded attempts to export the beliefs and doctrines of one nation to make them the law of another? One critic of that policy referred to the UN as "a conspiracy" and a "vehicle constructed and promoted by a conspiracy to concentrate world power in the hands of an oligarchy-all in the name of global democracy" (Jasper 2002). Even if that were so, the reasonable response is the one made by Lee Hamilton, former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee: "We should be working the [UN's] back rooms very hard to promote the democracy
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2307
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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