Replacing the United Nations

September 29, 2002

by Bruce Walker

President Bush hit a home run again when he set sensible expectations for the United Nations, placing this silly organization on the hot seat. Whatever the Security Council or General Assembly do, however, will be simply frills. The United States will do the heavy lifting.

Toughness by benign powers always preserves peace. During the Nineteenth Century, Pax Britannia was imposed by the Royal Navy and the by moral seriousness of the Victorians. This worked, even in the Middle East, and the "Trucial States" on the southern coast of Arabia derived their odd name from the "truce" imposed by British gunboats.

After the Second World War, Pax America imposed by the world’s only economic, naval and aeronautical and aerospace superpower. There were wars, of course, but limited wars that we could always win or afford to lose. The failure of Communism to win by force led to its ultimate disintegration in the Soviet Union.

Can international organizations promote? Yes, if properly constructed. President Taft proposed a League of Nations long before Woodrow William’s grant failure. When Taft proposed a League, it made sense. Japan, the rising Asian power, was looking for acceptance as a great power. China had just become a republic. The conflicts within Europe were not rigid alliances but solvable problems. The end of those two great multi-national empires, Russia and Austria, could be accomplished with finesse and cooperation.

The later League of Nation of Woodrow Wilson was doomed at birth. The Treaty of Versailles, guaranteed resentment in Germany, Russia, Italy and Japan, and the inclusion of small nations as equals to large nations created an artificial equality among nations. The ultimate results were, of course, global catastrophe.

The United Nations has been a bigger joke. The name derived from the alliance of nations against the Axis, and that included the Soviet Union, whose hands were anything but clean. When the formal international structure was set in place at San Francisco in 1948, Alger Hiss, an American Communist traitor, was its first Secretary General. When Arkady Shevchenko, Under-Secretary of the United Nations, abandoned the Soviet Union in 1978, he noted that the entire purpose was espionage against the United States.

The morality of the General Assembly reflects the venom of bitter despots who terrorize their own citizens in "nations" which are little more than mafia territories like Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Somalia. The only rationale for granting this thugocracies any voice in international politics is Realpolitik.

Event from the standpoint of Realpolitik, the Security Council is pathetic. The five permanent members included the United States, Russia, Communist China, France and the United Kingdom. Japan and Germany, democracies with the third and fourth largest economies in the world, are not included. India, the worlds’ largest democracy, is absent. A valid Security Council would include these three nations, and probably Italy, Brazil and Canada.

These are the very nations with whom America is consulting to build support for our policies. China is the only one does not genuinely want peace the way that we do. So be it! Do not require that this Security Council make unanimous decisions, and do allow its constituent nations to fight side by side against aggressive nations. The key is that nations with military and economic muscle stand side by side to fight the bad guys.

This replacement for the United Nations should not accept as associate members any pipsqueak nation that wants membership, and it should not accept nations that engage in terror, aggressive war and internal repression. So long North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Somalia. China would be publicly asked to meet certain objective criteria: (1) Can the press and the people speak freely? (2) Can people leave? (3) Do you claim as "your territory" lands within another nation’s borders? (4) Are public opposition groups allowed to organize and demonstrate?

The bar should not be too high, but the bar should be clear and absolutely enforced. People protected in some freedoms will tend to acquire more over time. Peace also promotes prosperity, which in turn undermines Marxist thugs. The United Nations will fail (it always does when it is needed most). What better time for the President to propose a better, more limited, and more practical organization for keeping us all safe and moving toward freedom? If anyone can make the case, President Bush can. And there is no better time than after Saddam is out of power.

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Bruce Walker has been a dyed in the wool conservative since, as a sixth grader, he campaigned door to door for Barry Goldwater. Bruce has had almost two hundred published articles have appeared in the Oklahoma Bar Journal, Law & Order, Legal Secretary Today, The Single Parent, Enter Stage Right, Citizen's View, The American Partisan, Port of Call, and several other professional and political periodicals.

Send the author an E mail at Walker@ConservativeTruth.org.

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