A piece related to this article, in which whistleblower Michael Soussan reflects on the UN's failings, can beread here.
YES
Phillip Bobbitt
NO
David Hannay
Dear David
3rd September 2008
The idea of an "alliance of democracies" is sufficiently vague that both its appeal and its dangers can be superimposed by the beholder. I know you have written and spoken eloquently—latterly in the House of Lords—of the shortcomings of such an idea, and I look forward to learning from your objections to my particular arguments. For I, too, have a certain sort of alliance in mind.
The provenance of any proposal is no reason for its adoption—or rejection—but I would note that Madeleine Albright was an advocate of an alliance of democracies in the 1990s, and since 9/11 its principal authors have been Ivo Daalder, a senior adviser to Barack Obama, James Lindsay, a former NSC official in the Clinton administration, the Republican nominee for the presidency, John McCain and one of his senior advisers, Robert Kagan. This bipartisan support may be simply a function of different conceptions of the same concept, but it is indicative at least of the broad interest in such an idea in the US.
What is the source of this interest? Initially, it was the impotence of the UN security council whose efforts to enforce its own resolutions vis-à-vis Iraq and Iran, and to protect civilians in Kosovo, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and elsewhere were frustrated by the unanimity rule of the council. It was clear that some alternative architecture was required in order to avoid the listless inaction that has characterised the post-Gulf war council. At first this shifted interest towards Nato but ultimately this shift also gave momentum to the alliance of democracies notion, for Nato was conceived to address a regional problem and although it has performed manfully in out-of-area theatres like Afghanistan it is clear that our problems are no longer principally confined to Europe, that they are global in nature and require global institutions. As it became clear that the UN security council would not be enlarged to include Japan, India, Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa and other great states this too increased interest in a forum in which these states could be members if they chose. Finally, although some of us hoped Russia might become a member of Nato after the end of the cold war, this is no longer on the cards; but Russia is a democracy and those of us who wish to integrate Russia into global institutions must consider an Alliance of Democracies as one option—unlike EU membership, which is not a realistic possibility—that might be made sufficiently attractive to Russia and strengthen the constituency there for democracy.
What would such an alliance look like? Would it resemble the North Atlantic Council and would all members be pledged to treat "an attack upon one as an attack upon all"? Who would be a member and, correlatively, how would "democracy" be defined? Would Nigeria or Pakistan or other democracies still finding their footing qualify? How would such an alliance handle the difficult issue of Taiwan, an undisputed democracy but one whose admission to international institutions is fraught owing to the sensitivities of China or Macedonia to whom Greece is allergic? Why would democratic states that are generally hostile to humanitarian intervention like India and South Africa, or states such as Russia that want to define themselves in opposition to the US and thus are wary of American initiatives, wish to join? Let me briefly touch on each of these questions, acknowledging that in the design of a multilateral, international institution the preferences of an American law professor are not likely to be terribly influential, even if he had all the right answers—which I surely do not.
An alliance of democracies would not be a military alliance that assures collective security; rather it would be a forum for assembling action—diplomatic, military, economic, and political—when the UN security council found itself unable to act. Nor would it operate on the basis of unanimity, as does the North Atlantic Council. Thus such a forum would allow for the assemblage of the now-tarnished but ultimately indispensable "coalitions of the willing."
Membership would be a matter for the members to determine according to the political realities, but the definition of a democratic state should not be too difficult to agree upon, though there are always hard cases. At a minimum, such a state must affirm a commitment to the provisions of the charter of the UN, and to the rule of law, free and fair elections, and human rights (including property rights) subscribed to in the Helsinki final act, the Moscow and Copenhagen declarations, and the Charter of Paris. Such a state must guarantee the rights of ethnic and national groups and minorities in a manner analogous to the commitments required by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OECD). It must respect the inviolability of all frontiers and agree that these may be changed only by peaceful means and mutual agreement. It must accept the relevant commitments with respect to the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and uphold the current undertakings of UN members that they neither harbour nor arm terrorists. Membership would confer preferential access to the markets of all member states, some protection from regional bullies, and create an informal congress within which coalitions to protect civilians—from genocide and ethnic cleansing, but also from the consequences of epidemics, earthquakes and other catastrophes—could be formed.
What would happen if such an alliance existed? Would we get intervention, at last, in Darfur? It would be easier but not assured. Would the humanitarian interventions of the coalitions formed within the umbrella of the alliance have greater legitimacy? Somewhat, I would surmise, but not so great as that conferred by the UN security council. Would states, particularly small ones, enjoy protection from coercion? To some degree, but nothing like that assured by Nato membership. Would there be greater cost-sharing? Perhaps a bit, but the greatest burdens would still be born by the US. Would the formation of such an alliance undermine the UN? My judgment, such as it is—I am much aware that I am corresponding with a greatly-admired former ambassador to the UN—is that this alliance would be the salvation of the UN. Support for the UN will continue to ebb so long as it is simply missing in action during the great crises of the day—the breakup of Yugoslavia, the African genocides, Palestinian statelessness, the invasion and virtual annexation of Georgian provinces, the clandestine market in nuclear weapons, and, I fear in the future, the refusal of certain states to allow treatment of their own peoples when these are struck by communicable, infectious epidemics. This is compounded by the fact that the membership of the security council is a relic of the second world war and excludes so many great states. It is no good to say that some day we will get action on these problems, or that some day membership will be expanded. "Some day" is a temporising claim that inevitably stretches into "never." No one who recalls the sighs and excuses over Bosnia can hear such claims without wincing. Owing to this history, the US is likely to continue to be increasingly detached from international institutions, no matter who wins the election on 4th November—without something like an alliance of the democracies.
Let me make one last point. No international architecture that excludes Russia and China can be the fundamental organising basis for global problems. A G8 that includes China, a WTO that includes Russia, an alliance of democracies that in good time will include both these states must be our aim. In the meantime, such an alliance is only one tool among many we will need to tackle 21st-century problems. It is not a replacement for Nato or the UN but a supplement to strengthen both. It should begin with counties that have entrenched democratic traditions, such as the US and Canada, the states of the EU, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia, India and Israel, Botswana and South Africa, Brazil, Costa Rica and Colombia.
Perhaps they would not join. Let us see. Perhaps once having joined, because there is no unanimity rule, some states would resign if they felt their views were given insufficient weight; some of these states, like India and South Africa, are opposed to the "translucent sovereignty" that permits humanitarian intervention. Let us see if our common interests, including our economic interests, do not allow us to surmount these differences. Perhaps the US would reject any commitments that tether it to transparent doctrines defining in what circumstances it can lawfully intervene. Let us try.
Yours
Philip Bobbitt
***
5th September 2008
I greatly enjoyed our first joust at the end of July on what was then known as a "league of democracies" (I note that you have now named it an alliance, thus, I suspect, reducing even further its potential negotiability). The bipartisan support for the idea in the US is indeed a reason to take it seriously, and to debate the pros and the cons now, before such a divisive and, in my view, flawed concept gets into the formal diplomatic arena.
I share your frustration with the UN security council. The Russian and Chinese vetoes on Zimbabwe were particularly gratuitous. But the security council does not, as you suggest, take its decisions by unanimity; nor do I see the US being prepared to surrender its veto, which underpins those of the other permanent members, in the foreseeable future. And while, like you, I supported the enlargement of the security council, which would have strengthened its legitimacy and representativity, it is an illusion to suppose that an enlarged council would prove more rapidly decisive than the present one, probably the contrary. Look how South Africa voted on Zimbabwe.
I feel you have skated very lightly over the complexities of eligibility for your proposed alliance. What would you do about Saudi Arabia and our other undemocratic allies in the middle east (no doubt hopping mad to find Israel in and themselves out)? As for Russia, while I entirely share your wish to integrate that country into global institutions—and incidentally deplore suggestions that it should be expelled from the G8 or prevented from joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO)—I do think the aftermath of its recent heavily manipulated parliamentary and presidential elections and of its disproportionate and brutal treatment of Georgia would make inclusion in the alliance a pretty hard sell, not least in Washington. What about countries which regress from democracy after they've joined? And, if major democracies like India, Indonesia and Brazil were to decline to join, what would that do for the concept's credibility and legitimacy?
I admire the way you have upped the ante even further by adding preferential trade access to the benefits of membership; but, following the standoff between the US and India over the Doha round, is that not a trifle quixotic? And would it make any sense to import a democracy criterion into a WTO which has never before been politicised in that way?
All these, you may say, are a former diplomat's quibbles. But my doubts about the alliance are a good deal more fundamental than that. Is this really the moment, relatively soon after the ending of the cold war, for us to be systematising a division of the world between democratic sheep and undemocratic goats? Would that not simply play into the hands of the hardliners in Moscow and Beijing (and perhaps also in Washington) who want nothing more than a return to the frozen certainties of the cold war; not to speak of the non-aligned who will once more play one camp off against the other? Will not such a new division make it even harder to build a consensus for the handling of the great global challenges which face us all—trade, climate change, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation? And what legitimacy, let alone legality, would a self-selected grouping such as this really hope to achieve if it were to move from simply being a talking shop to action?
You will see that I have not put the weakening or strengthening effect on the UN very high amongst my considerations. I do not in fact share your view that an alliance of democracies would strengthen the UN. Far more likely, as during the cold war, it would condemn the UN to reverting to a kind of debating society where the two sides would exchange polemical speeches and frustrate each other's projects. Since I believe the scope for adapting and reforming the UN to make it more fit for the purposes laid down for it in the charter is far from exhausted, I would deeply regret that, as I believe would many others among the US's friends and allies, both in Europe and more widely.
I know this sounds a bit negative. But it is precisely because I believe that the arrival of a new US president in the White House presents a real opportunity to turn over a new page, to make the international institutions we already have work better and to find effective global responses to the challenges already crowding in upon us, that I would deplore it if the first few months of 2009 were to be given over to a somewhat arcane institutional debate about an alliance of democracies. I know the existing institutions are often pretty frustrating and even dysfunctional. But impatience has got us all into a lot of pickles already in these last few years. I would far rather myself see those critical months at the beginning of 2009 given over to hammering out the widest possible consensus on the policies we need to meet these challenges. If we cannot agree on the broad policy mix required, then no amount of institutional tinkering will do the trick.
Yours
David Hannay
***
Dear David
8th September 2008
I see I shall have to be very careful in dealing with such a wily diplomat. I did not mean to suggest that the security council takes its decisions by unanimity, but rather that the five permanent members must be unanimous for action to be taken—a fact of which I assume everyone to be aware. Nor did I mean to imply that I expected the US to surrender its veto (the veto simply being another word for a unanimity requirement)—far from it. Indeed, the obvious fact that they will not is one of the strongest arguments for an alliance of democracies—or league if you prefer. Similarly, I am surprised that you think I would expect an enlarged council to act with more decisiveness than the present one; on the contrary, the current inability to act in the security council is so manifest, that without alternative institutions, it will never be enlarged.
But the shortcomings and problems of the UN are not the only reasons I support an alliance of democracies. Nato, too, has a unanimity requirement; so does the EU. These regional institutions, as important as they are, cannot provide a global framework for global action. Nor do I know quite where you got the idea that I would replace the WTO with the alliance. The WTO is, and should be, open to all without regard to their domestic constitutional arrangements; an alliance for democracies is rather different. Just because such an alliance could offer trade incentives to its members is no reason why these arrangement must be exclusive. As I stressed, an alliance for democracies is not the be-all and end-all of global arrangements.
Yes, there are complexities in creating any new organisation, and chief among these is its membership. However, the atmosphere of ennui, of it-all-being-too-hard, of enervation, that broods about what you call your "quibbles" is in fact precisely the ambiance that pervades the UN at present, as it did at the time of the atrocities in Bosnia.
The heart of your reservations is not the organisational difficulties of starting up such an alliance, though these are doubtless formidable. Rather, I believe, it is your "sheep and goats" objection. Is this the right time to draw lines between democratic states and non-democracies? Won't it play into the hands of the least constructive elements in our politics? And won't it make it harder to get concerted action on global problems of great urgency?
The first point to be determined is whether, at present, our institutions are making the kind of progress these problems require. For only the second time since the founding of the UN, a member state has been invaded and its territory annexed by another member state. It must give you pause to recognise that Russia was not deterred from taking such a step by the world's current arrangements. Perhaps you may believe that the invasion of Georgia was really the fault of Nato's enlargement and that an alliance for democracies would only increase the paranoia in the Kremlin and lead to further confrontations. This is a very old argument between friends; apparently even the end of the cold war has not ended it. It is my hope that an alliance for democracies will include Russia, which already has undertaken most of the commitments outlined in my first letter. In the world I envisage, sheep can become goats with the right incentives—but there are other possible worlds, in which the reverse is true.
The second point is whether legitimacy comes from the design of institutions, irrespective of their success, or whether new institutions that break new ground in their design can—if they succeed—achieve legitimacy by virtue of their success, offering incentives for growing integration and consensus in a way that our current institutions have failed to do. I, too, believe in the potential for the UN to adapt and reform. But I do not see—nor do I believe you have shown me—exactly how this is going to happen in our current circumstances. Your ringing call for making "the international institutions we already have work better and to find effective global response to the challenges already crowding upon us" sounds like so many speeches you and I have both heard for so many years. Exactly what has to happen—in Darfur, in Zimbabwe, in Myanmar, in Iran, in Palestine—for you to say the time for innovation has come? Impatience can get us in trouble, I know—though if, as I surmise, this is a veiled reference to Iraq, then I rather doubt that over a decade of frustration with the non-enforcement of UN resolutions is a powerful example of "impatience": rather the opposite. But patience, too, especially where the suffering of the least powerful or the accommodation of the most threatening is concerned, can be just as destructive and far more insidious, because the patience we are really asking for is invariably someone else's.
Yours
Philip
***
Dear Philip
9th September 2008
I do not think all that much separates us over the functioning of the security council, or its all too frequent failure to function. It is not the case, however, that "the five permanent members must be unanimous for action to be taken." A permanent member can abstain, thus permitting the majority to take a decision. That happened, to the Bush administration's great credit, when the US abstained on the decision to extend the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction to cover Sudan (a non-signatory of the Rome statute which set up the court). Unfortunately, there is a macho culture among the permanent members which often pushes them to veto rather than to abstain; hence those rafts of US vetoes on non-binding resolutions criticising Israel. One way of getting the security council to function better would be for the permanent members to agree amongst themselves not to veto resolutions designed to deal with threatened genocide or other serious breaches of international humanitarian law.
I did not for one minute think that you were suggesting replacing the WTO with the alliance of democracies. But, for members of the alliance to give each other preferential trade treatment they would have to remove barriers to "substantially all trade" between them. Democracy does not enter into that calculation and, if it did, then the WTO would be effectively dead. Do you really think an India which has just imposed a large number of barriers on its food exports and which insisted on the right to take unilateral emergency action against food imports is ready to meet that criterion? Or that the US or the EU is either?
Your reply simply did not address what I regard as a major conversation-stopper to the alliance project—the visceral dislike of most of the developing world's great democracies (India, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia, for example) for any form of intervention, even when regimes as odious as those in Burma and Zimbabwe are involved. I fear your version of the alliance would be all too likely to become "the west versus the rest," surely about the worst of all configurations when it comes to dealing with the global challenges we all face. As to Russian membership of the alliance, I think you are indulging in wishful thinking if you seriously believe that the Medvedev-Putin duo is on course to qualify any time soon; and, if Russia does not qualify at the outset, then the risk of accelerating the slide back towards a cold war becomes very real.
I plead not guilty to ennui, enervation or an excess of patience (the last of which I have never before been accused). What I am pleading for is that the new US administration concentrates, with its allies, the Europeans in particular, on working out the policies we need to deal with those global challenges like trade, the environment and nuclear proliferation, and not to disappear down a long, dark institutional tunnel called the alliance of democracies in the hope of finding some light at the end of it.
By the way, sheep are "white hats" in biblical parlance and goats are "black hats." And no, I do not accept that institutions achieve legitimacy by virtue of their success. On that criterion, Hitler's New European Order would have achieved a high degree of legitimacy by 1942; and the Warsaw Pact ditto by 1968. What we need are international institutions which are effective, rules-based and equitable. At the moment we have a set which are indispensable but often ineffective, and I believe the challenge remains to reform and adapt them by consent.
Yours
David
***
Dear David
10th September 2008
I am inclined to think that if all five members of the security council act in concert—either by abstention or by a positive vote, in either case by refraining from a veto—that they are in effect acting unanimously. Your call for the US to simply abstain from (rather than veto) the resolutions condemning Israel shows how bizarre your proposed distinction is (certainly the US would believe it was collaborating in Israel's condemnation were it to simply abstain). But however the word "unanimity" is used, the point remains the same: that it is rather easy to frustrate action at the council. As with your gloss on the word "unanimous," I am not attracted by the distinction between the security council voting on a particular resolution condemning, say, Sudan for genocide and your proposal that the permanent members agree among themselves to abstain when resolutions "designed to deal with threatened genocide or other serious breaches of international law." Is it really likelier that you will get assent to the general case but not the specific one when the former governs all instances of the latter?
I don't know what steps the members of an alliance of democracies would be willing to take to strengthen such an alliance through trade concessions, and neither do you. Nor do I know whether the developing democracies will forever continue to cultivate their allergies to humanitarian intervention, as these are in large measure the reaction to colonialism (though India did in fact invade Pakistan chiefly on humanitarian grounds in 1971). That is one reason why the unanimity point is important: as I have emphasised, an alliance of democracies—as I envision it—would not have a unanimity requirement.
It is my expectation that such an alliance would from the outset include many non-western states—but whether I am right or wrong about this, I do not agree that a "western" alliance that includes states like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Nigeria, Colombia, Costa Rica and Botswana; states that have supported humanitarian interventions, would be the "worst of all configurations when it comes to dealing with… global challenges." That status must be reserved for an ineffectual configuration, one of which we have now.
It must be an open question, at this point, whether an alliance of democracies that offered membership to Russia based on the criteria of the Moscow and Copenhagen declarations, and the Charter of Paris—to all of which Russia is a signatory—would accelerate the risk of a new cold war to a greater degree than continuing on our current path. I usually favor incentives to condemnation; beyond condemnation, David, just how do you plan to deal with Russia's attack on Georgia?
Which brings me to the legitimacy point. I do not think that legitimacy is achieved solely by success, and I did not say so. I do believe that success is indispensable to creating legitimacy and that while, once achieved, legitimacy can be maintained in the face of decades of failure, it will inevitably desert those institutions that are ineffective. If it is to achive legitmacy, an alliance for democracies must be successful in treating problems our current institutional structures have neglected. I think it can, but of course I may be wrong. I do not see, however, why the discussion of such an alliance amongst its potential members means that the new US administration cannot work with its allies, the Europeans in particular, to deal with global challenges. It was, after all, the Danish prime minister who recently called for an alliance of democracies.
There is one last point to be made. Whichever candidate wins the White House, it may well be that an alliance of democracies will be on his agenda. Nato is not global, but our problems are; the UN is ineffective as a security instrument for reasons that also frustrate its institutional reform. Should an alliance of democracies be proposed—or an expanded portfolio for the G8, another suggestion—the US will need its allies to participate in the design from the outset. I hope that we shall be able to enlist men and women of the stature and abilities of my skeptical friend, Lord Hannay. We shall need your skepticism just as much as your ability for, after all, we may well be wrong and must be persuaded. But we shall also need some energy and initiative, whatever the ultimate reforms that are put forward.
Yours
Philip
***
Dear Philip
11th September 2008
I really think that we need to get away from the decision-making procedures of the security council or we will risk boring the readers. I agree with you that the way things are going is unsatisfactory; and I think you agree with me that if, a big if I concede, the five permanent members could be persuaded to abstain on rather than veto more of the resolutions which they could not support, that would be a major help.
But I would like to get back to the substance. Many of the challenges we all face—over the environment, trade, nuclear proliferation, terrorism—are ones that actually require global solutions if they are to be mastered at all. Are we really likely to advance the identification and negotiation of these solutions if we begin by dividing the world between sheep and goats, and then proceed to cook up "sheep-friendly" outcomes among ourselves? Does it make sense to exclude China—a country strangely absent from our debate so far—from the outset and for the foreseeable future? It is considerations such as these which lead me to favour a quite different institutional change from the alliance of democracies—namely the expansion of the present G8 to include the main economies of the developing world as full members: China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa. Among other benefits, that would meet your wholly admirable preference for offering incentives and inclusion rather than condemnation and exclusion.
The next president of the US will surely enjoy something of a honeymoon period, albeit probably a pretty short one, given the way so many sensitive international issues will be pressing in on him for early decisions. I would argue that that period would be best put to use by concentrating on the policy responses to these issues, and aiming to break out of the deadlocks which currently characterise them: by relaunching a process of multilateral nuclear disarmament, by reviving the Doha round of trade negotiations, by ensuring a successful outcome to the end of the 2009 Copenhagen conference on climate change and, in addition, by seeking to remedy some of the weaknesses of our existing international institutions. Naturally, the incoming president will want to make clear that if his initial constructive approach were to be rebuffed or to be run into the sands by prevarication and obstruction, then alternatives would have to be considered, including institutional alternatives. But I just cannot believe that stirring the establishment of an alliance of democracies into this already rich stew of complex issues would be likely to result in anything other than confusion and dispersal of effort.
Of course you are right to say that, if the new president does put an alliance of democracies formally onto the international agenda, we will all have to take it very seriously. And experience tells us that there will be no rush, among his allies in particular, to hand him the black spot, however lukewarm they might be about the whole idea. So a lot of time and effort will be consumed before the conclusion is reached—and I am pretty confident it will be reached—that the game is not worth the candle. That is why I am so enthusiastic about debating all these considerations before the die is cast.
Yours
David
