If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
I argue today in the Wall Street Journal's review section that the ability of international courts and United Nations bodies to stop civil wars and humanitarian crises is severely limited. In fact, they work to undermine the real guardian of international peace and security: the willingness of the great powers, especially the United States, to intervene in messy Third World conflicts. The more that foreign governments and the international intelligentsia attack the United States for protecting itself after 9-11 or fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya, the less likely Washington will send its military to stop the next Rwanda or Kosovo.
National sovereignty, however, presents a great threat to the network of activists, human-rights groups and governments behind the International Criminal Court. They hope to build a better world by submerging national interests and differences in dreams of world courts and global governance. But their agenda contains the seeds of greater folly.
If national sovereignty declines, the United States will be less able to maintain a minimum of international peace and security. We will be less willing to risk our lives, fortunes and sacred honor to spread political and economic freedom, as we have—haltingly but steadily—for a century. The many people in the world oppressed by authoritarian dictatorships, or threatened by ethnic and religious civil wars, will find little succor in the arms of an international bureaucracy. They will find it instead—if we choose our path to the future wisely—in the strength of the United States and the will of its people.
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Sep '10
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
The ability to stop civil wars and humanitarian crisis by anyone including the US is severely limited. The only question is when will the chicken hawks in the US discover this fact.
Dec '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
There will always be another Rwanda. There is no end to it. But there is an end to our resources and an end to the American people's willingness to have their sons and daughters die on behalf of people who can't sort out their own differences without bloodshed.
As for Kosovo, ask the Christians there how our good intentions worked out for them.
Jan '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
Can anyone judge your self-interest better than you? Except for a parent making decisions on a child's behalf, individuals are best positioned to calculate their own preferences - because preferences are subjective and personal. That's why an individual is best positioned to judge his own self-interests. You know yourself better than anyone else.
Now if government is designed (as it is in the genius of the American system) to be a common convenience to protect and support the self-interests of its citizens, then the citizens themselves judge how well government performs, based on the criteria that only those citizens can measure for themselves. Government's authority comes from the consent of the governed.
Politics is, in other words, subjective.
Courts, however, can't work that way. Courts can't be subjective. A court's authority to resolve a dispute between two parties can only be based on something objective ... something fixed and common ... that both parties agreed to support before the dispute arose.
The objective authority of law derives from a subjective political process.
No international court, therefore, has authority to trump national sovereignty, because there is no common political process that establishes that authority.
Jul '10
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
But the more likely the US will free up that parcel of real estate at Turtle Bay for productive use. The muslim speech law racket is just the latest straw. The camel's back has been broken for a long time.
Given the brilliant work we've done in those hallmarks of liberty right next door, in Cuba and Mexico, it has never been clear to me why we need to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to nation build. Except, of course, empowering Sharia with 21st Century arms, comms, and equipment. Seventh Century values with 21st Century tools. Sweet.
Apr '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
I know that this is tangential to your point, but I thought it worth noting that the citizen being best informed about their own self-interest depends somewhat on the country being minimally free. While I'm not in favor of government paternalism, I do think it's worth noting that those North Korean peasants who are shocked, on reaching the PRC, to discover that the PRC isn't massively poorer than their homeland, are probably not as well equipped to make decisions about their self-interest as Secs. Clinton and Panetta are. The Shi'ite victims of Saddamite genocide did have some sense of the need for improvement, but lacked necessary resources for implementation, with many of them consequently adopting ideologies that helped them cope with the psychological horror of their abuse, rather than clear sightedly adopting John Stewart-Mill.
Apr '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
The murkier the metrics, the more criticism is available. Since Americans seem unusually (but not totally) impervious to the sorts of errors thereby induced, we are truly blessed that our policeman is uncle Sam.
Intriguingly, though, the French often seem much better at interventions, partly due to a willingness to embrace less savory ROE, and get much less flack for it. The movement against American foreign policy should not be analyzed too separately from movement against America in general.
Jan '12
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
John Yoo, I respect much of your work for the Bush administration. However, there is too much overreach here, too many ways to grow our government for no national-security purpose.
I think you are wrong to place "keeping the peace" above American interests or national sovereignty. When we were a nation of energy producers and traders, keeping the peace made sense for us. Our purpose was a great boon -- in most ways -- to many nations of the world.
That era is gone. Our "treasure" is gone and others can afford to pay their own way.
It is not our job to "to maintain a minimum of international peace and security". That effort has failed, not because of us, but because of the failure of 1) leftist U.N., World Court, unelected bureaucracies, NGOs; and 2) "Islam" to come into modernity. The idea that "we" can create a democracy in countries where thre ideology-religion-government is authoritarian (or failed) from top to bottom is one of the worst fantasies in which we have indulged.
Our job is not evangelical: "to spread political and economic freedom, as we have...for a century." "Spreading" and "protecting" are two very different concepts.
Jan '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
Point taken - yes, I certainly agree.
Aug '10
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
How many of y'all think it would have been a good idea for a European "superpower", or an international body of European diplomats, to "stop" the US Civil War? Should a French/English coalition have attempted to "occupy" the US, using the "duty to protect civilians" as justification?
How about the English Civil War of 1642? Should a French/Spanish coalition have attempted to "occupy" England, using the "duty to protect civilians" as justification?
Sometimes, civil wars are (for want of a better word) necessary.
Edited on Jan 8 at 11:06amOct '10
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
Prof. Yoo writes in the WSJ:
Could the good professor of law please cite where in the U.S. Constitution the federal government is empowered to “maintain a minimum of international peace and security”? I recall the part in Article I, Section 8 about:
but I fail to see how this authorises intervening in savage native machete battles in territories of no strategic interest whatsoever to the United States or any other civilised nation. I can see sending the Marines to evacuate diplomatic staff and citizens, but beyond that any intervention seems extraconstitutional and a squandering of “lives, fortunes and sacred honor”.
Nov '10
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
KC Mulville:
Courts, however, can't work that way. Courts can't be subjective. A court's authority to resolve a dispute between two parties can only be based on something objective ... something fixed and common ... that both parties agreed to support before the dispute arose.
Suppose, as a criminal, I do not agree to support the law. I get the feeling the courts will nonetheless not honour my subjective view.
Jan '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
Your politics are subjective. Creating the law is subjective.
Once it's in place, it's not subjective anymore. It's the law of the land. It's objective, whether you agree with it or not. That's where the courts come in.
Aug '10
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
Aodhan
KC Mulville:
Courts, however, can't work that way. Courts can't be subjective. A court's authority to resolve a dispute between two parties can only be based on something objective ... something fixed and common ... that both parties agreed to support before the dispute arose.
Suppose, as a criminal, I do not agree to support the law. I get the feeling the courts will nonetheless not honour my subjective view. · Jan 8 at 11:57am
A criminal, in theory, has the ability to move away from a jurisdiction if he/she disagrees with the laws in that jurisdiction.
A country does not have the option of leaving the planet.
Jul '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
John Walker: Prof. Yoo writes in the WSJ:
Could the good professor of law please cite where in the U.S. Constitution the federal government is empowered to “maintain a minimum of international peace and security”? I recall the part in Article I, Section 8 about:
It can be easily argued that the federal government was empowered to maintain a minimum of international peace and security during and immediately after WW2 - because it's in the national long-term interest to do so. The Constitution doesn't say anything about the Panama Canal either, but that was (and still is to a more limited degree) something that is in the national interest.
While I dislike the idea of a malleable Constitution, the reality of the world means that shipping in the Straights of Hormuz is in the national interest - and so goes, in part, our blood and treasure.
Jun '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
The problem with trying to read the militia clause in art 1, section 8 as a restraint on war making authority is that provision applies only to the militia, not the army. The militia was a kind of paramilitary force that does not have an exact parallel in the modern world. The declare war clause has to limitations attached to it. Congress, can it seems, declare war for any reason or no reason. The power to declare war is purely political and can be done, constitutionally, for any reason congress thinks proper.
Dec '10
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
John, it is imperative that you read my post "Understanding Perpetual Peace" (Jan 2 4:39am on the Main Feed).
The most powerful philosopher Western Civilization has ever produced does not endorse a Cosmopolitan Super State. On the contrary he specifically states that Actual Perpetual Peace is impossible only an Approximation is possible. He specifically states that the Cosmopolitan Super State will fail!
Please read my article, not just because I wrote it, but because it is so relevant to what you are discussing here.
Regards,
Jim
Jan '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
Sounds a lot like Thomas PM Barnett where he pushes for the international courts to authorize our involvement in failed states and humanitarian efforts. It formalizes/legitimizes our police role in the world. Although the concept moves us away from every military intervention being a "national security" to more of a "judge issues a warrant for a bad guy, we pick him up and send him to the international courts" police role. I think the concept has merit but definitely needs some clear boundaries. Here is Thomas PM Barnett: http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace.html
Jul '11
Re: If Not the U.S., Who Will Keep the Peace?
Note that we seem to be doing quite well as the world's policeman in the form of unmanned aerial drones. I suggest we up the "cop" factor and introduce the Ed209 Series of law enforcement drones. If we hurry, we can subsidize their power sources through a solar power grant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrXfh4hENKs