Multilateralism is no substitute for U.S. vigilance

The Plain Dealer ^ | Fri, August 27, 2004 | Charles H. Rieper

[AndrewM]

Multilateralism is no substitute for U.S. vigilance

Friday, August 27, 2004

And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." So agonized Hamlet over his duties to both his departed father and his country. If there has been any consistency in Sen. John Kerry's message, it is that his administration will be more committed to multilateralism than the allegedly unilateralist incumbent. Nevertheless, the multilateralism that the senator prescribes for foreign policy can be as feckless as the Melancholy Dane's equivocations.

In theory, multilateralism, or collective security, is laudable, as the efforts by international jurisprudence over the past 3½ centuries to regularize the conduct of nations demonstrate. Regrettably, however, the mechanisms of collective security have faltered during some of civilization's greatest trials. The 1930s are the obvious example, when the League of Nations allowed the revisionist totalitarians to roam unchecked, with disastrous consequences.

Yet recent years also have witnessed lamentable shortcomings of multilateralism. The genocidal catastrophes in Rwanda and in the Balkans were glaring failures of collective security, while the failure to call to account Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and other rogues has had unfortunate repercussions for current policy.

Ultimately, multilateralism works only when one nation, or a tight coalition of nations, makes it work. And, as a rule, such vigor is shown only when threats to real or perceived interests emerge, as the Persian Gulf War and the armed responses in 1995 and 1999 to Serb atrocities attest.

An exclusive dependence upon multilateralism to protect vital security objectives, then, is no proxy for effective and determined leadership. Perhaps unilateralism is not the desideratum in foreign affairs. But, to assert or imply that collective security is in all circumstances morally superior to national vigilance is utterly rash. It is akin to conscience making cowards of us all, as Hamlet soliloquized, to his ultimate regret and misfortune.

Charles H. Rieper

[mylife]

Ultimately, multilateralism works only when one nation, or a tight coalition of nations, makes it work. And, as a rule, such vigor is shown only when threats to real or perceived interests emerge, as the Persian Gulf War and the armed responses in 1995 and 1999 to Serb atrocities attest.

An exclusive dependence upon multilateralism to protect vital security objectives, then, is no proxy for effective and determined leadership. Perhaps unilateralism is not the desideratum in foreign affairs. But, to assert or imply that collective security is in all circumstances morally superior to national vigilance is utterly rash. It is akin to conscience making cowards of us all, as Hamlet soliloquized, to his ultimate regret and misfortune.

Charles gets it, Shakespeare gets it.

Why dont the intellectual left get it?

Its good to see this in the Plain Dealer

[AndrewM]

If one doesn't think that there are guiding hands that want global power over us all, they need to do some studying. All one has to do is look at the EU and their laws that trump their members' constitutions, and to the UN of which treaties we sign trump our own U.S. constitution. Much of our own country's land (mostly out west) is already controlled by UN mandates. The UN wants to take away your military, you guns, your land, your children (if you don't follow their instructions) and even determine if you have children. It's the EU who wants to produce another Tower of Babel, to bring together cultures which have been separated by God due to their own pridefulness. The EU also created a poster for a recent convention which portrayed a centuries-old painting of the Tower of Babel. Fear the UN, FTAA, NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and other globalist organizations. We are entering a brave new world, an ignorant new world.

[Noachian]

For a nation to place its security in the hands of a group of other nations with conflicting foreign policies is a fool's errand. Only a liberal fool would think of doing such a thing.