Renewing Washington’s Multilateral Leadership

Abstract

NEW YEAR'S DAY 2012 WAS THE SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF A SIGNIFICANT achievement in US foreign policy, although most Americans were probably more aware of a hangover from a late party than of this commemorative event. Undoubtedly, more were aware of Mohamed Ali's or Stephen Hawking's seventieth birthdays in January 2012 than of signing ceremony in Washington, DC, on 1 January 1942 by twenty-six countries allied to fight World War II. Later that month, The Economist presciently described Declaration by United Nations as the most comprehensive system of international association world has yet seen. The students of post-war leagues and federations would do well to study it. (1) This student insists that combined Allied military efforts and a strategic vision of a postwar multilateral order were both fundamental components of United Nations. Pundits who denigrate world body betray their ignorance about strategic thinking behind institutionalized cooperation. Scorn for UN is hardly new, of course, including 1960 dismissal by Charles de Gaulle of le machin (the thing) in referring to multilateral efforts in Congo. Like contemporary critics, he conveniently overlooked extent to which unprecedented multilateralism saved France, defeated fascism, and laid foundations for immensely successful postwar security cooperation and for sustained economic growth in West. A made-in-the-USA version of scorn was illustrated by Congress in October 2011. In retaliation for admission of Palestine, US Congress invoked a 1994 law to cut off funding (about a quarter of budget) for UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2) The governing bodies of other specialized agencies are subject to similar retaliation over Palestinian membership. In United Nations, US veto in Security Council obviates financial retaliation. With Iran's nuclear politics and Syria's nascent civil war having displaced Palestine as preoccupations, a more widespread funding crisis for multilateralism appears to have been postponed for moment. However, myopia is never in short supply in Washington. An issue ignored during primaries and presidential campaign must return for next administration: value of multilateralism in US foreign policy. In spite of raucous domestic applause virtually guaranteed for Washington's favorite sport, UN-bashing undermines US leadership and effective pursuit of country's foreign policy goals. Congressional forays in mindless chauvinism are not only way in which US government goes about diminishing its capability to advance global interests of United States. Although not for most part as noisily and consistently hostile to institutionalized multilateralism, successive occupants of White House--George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama--have conspicuously failed, each in his own way, to exploit opportunity opened by end of Cold War to reshape multilateral institutions to better address contemporary challenges to interests that United States shares with most other states. Missing multilateral moment has been, in other words, a bicameral and bipartisan achievement. The missed opportunities of past two decades are in a sense obverse of country's World War II successes. Leading, from Ahead and from Behind Understanding how international organizations provide strategic leverage requires an appreciation for both nature of US interests in a globalizing world and exercise of US power. Realists erroneously claim that international organizations merely reflect global distribution of power and therefore offer countries a redundant way to legitimize policies that their power affords them. When states create institutions and willingly constrain their own freedom of action, they not only reassure others but also acknowledge that power advantages do not last forever. …