What's So Great About Coalitions?

This week the United Kingdom, with the support of the U.S. and France, scrambled -- in vain -- to get the approval of the United Nations Security Council for a military strike on Syria.

I can certainly understand why some see this as a legal or political necessity. International law says that nations should seek approval of the Security Council before attacking other nations. That means if the United States attacks Syria without U.N. approval, President Obama will open himself to the charge from the left of being even more of an international war criminal than George W. Bush, who at least could plausibly claim U.N. Security Council support for the Iraq war.

But if you think such accusations are nonsense -- as I do -- then what's left is the political case. This argument holds that we must placate a poltergeist called "world opinion." But this will-o'-the-wisp is as fickle as it is elusive. Obama has been chasing it in the Middle East for years, and he's less popular there than Bush was in 2008. In Europe, where Obama remains popular on the German and Belgian streets, it's hard to point to an area where popularity has yielded concessions to Obama's agenda.

A related reason, we're told, to seek U.N. approval is that other nations need it if they're going to join our coalition. Fair enough. But there's often a Catch-22 here in that it's hard to get a coalition without U.N. approval, and it's hard to get U.N. approval without a coalition. One way to cut through the Gordian knot is to ask, "What's so great about coalitions?"

Sure, it's always better to have friends and allies pitching in -- many hands make light work and all that. But if something is in America's vital national interest, it doesn't cease to be because Belize or Botswana won't lend a hand. Posses aren't more moral in proportion to the number of white hats who sign up.

Somehow this basic fact was lost in the last decade or so. According to liberals in the Bush years, the essence of wise foreign policy boiled down to: "It's better to be wrong in a big group than to be right alone."

Anyway, what I really don't get is the investment of moral authority in the Security Council or the U.N. generally. The permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are France, Great Britain, the United States, China and Russia. The other nations of the 15-member body rotate on and off the council. They also don't get a veto the way the permanent five do. But for the record they currently are: Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Luxembourg, Morocco, Pakistan, South Korea, Rwanda and Togo.

Now, taking nothing away from the great and glorious accomplishments of the Luxembourgeois, Togoans and Rwandans -- never mind the invaluable insights the Pakistanis have into what constitute America's vital interests -- I am at a near-total loss to see how gaining their approval for a measure makes that measure more worthwhile. If you believe Bill Clinton was right to bomb the Balkans to stop ethnic cleansing (which I do), do you think that action was any less moral or right because he did it without the support of the U.N. and therefore -- according to international law -- illegally? I don't.

And then there are the permanent five. It's worth remembering they have their seats on the council simply by virtue of the fact they were the great powers at the end of World War II. One irony is that the people who routinely insist the U.S. must seek approval from the U.N. are also the sorts of people who blithely opine that "might doesn't make right." Well, the council's authority is derived entirely from the idea that might does make right. More important, by what perverted moral calculus does the approval of Russia (never mind the old Soviet Union) or China confer moral legitimacy? Without reading the full bill of indictment (the gulags, the mass murder, the invasions, etc.), suffice it to say that China and Russia's opinion of what is right and legal counts less than Miley Cyrus's verdict on what is tasteful.

But there is a deliberative body that has significant moral, political and legal authority when it comes to the conduct of American foreign policy. It's called "Congress." You could look it up.

Congress? They would not care if an Impostor
was pRes_ _ent shipping arms to al Qaeda.

Congress is too busy in the House brothel.

It is too busy leaving the US borders open
and making money by making “Laws”
for other Americans (but not themselves).

It is too busy reading NSA loveint.

“But if something is in America’s vital national interest”

The other side of the essay which is in support of the US going alone answers the above question: it is NOT a vital interest of the US, so there is a need to get international approval or coalition. Sorry Kaslin, not supporting you or Goldberg on this matter. We have no interest in this besides making some comments about morality, there is no constitutional reason to engage here and frankly why pick a winner between two of our advasaries.

You do realize that Congress consist of the House of Representatives and the Senate and we only have one, while the rats have the Senate and the White House?

Stop throwing boulders in the road and make sure we'll get a big majority back in the Senate, increase our seats in the House and get the White House back in 2016

What's so great about coalitions you ask?

Simple answer.

Spread the blame.

This argument holds that we must placate a poltergeist called "world opinion." But this will-o'-the-wisp is as fickle as it is elusive. Obama has been chasing it in the Middle East for years, and he's less popular there than Bush was in 2008. In Europe, where Obama remains popular on the German and Belgian streets, it's hard to point to an area where popularity has yielded concessions to Obama's agenda.

World opinion sucks as a reason to decide what to do, but it becomes a lot more important when we have a diminished military might and a "shoot across the bow" swishy-washy National policy/strategy. The Left asked for it and we are all "getting" it. Bend over America - we are being destroyed from within like no foreign enemy has ever managed or hoped to manage in their wildest dreams.

copied from earlier thread:

Coalition in Afghanistan was Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Jordan, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Republic of Macedonia, Tonga, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Georgia, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Australia and Bush got made fun of.

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