NATIONS UNITED FOR MUTUAL CONVENIENCE

There are quite a few international organizations around the world today, all of which either were created or are currently maintained for the purpose of mutual convenience of its members. The old British Empire was reasonably successfully converted into a post-imperial British Commonwealth (although its effectiveness is somewhat diluted these days as a result of the world’s over-saturation with other organizations designed for similar purposes). On the other hand, De Gaulle’s famous effort to convert the old French Empire into an analogous international body, La Communauté, did not quite get off the ground, undermined by strong centrifugal forces of local nationalism. Now, why were the British successful, where the French had failed? In my view, the French being the predominant power in their proposed Communauté, the others saw this as a threat to their own sovereignty, whereas the British Commonwealth of Nations included such powerhouses as Canada and Australia, not to mention the emerging (nuclear) giants India and Pakistan and others, and so, with such balanced distribution of power, there was no threat that a single nation, especially so dramatically weakened as the erstwhile invincible Great Britain had been, would be able to dictate its neo-imperialistic rules to the fifty-three others.

There is little to say about such regional international organizations as the Arab League, the African Union (formerly OAU), ASEAN, and OAS, except that their intended design to serve as regional meeting venues has been proven useful, and in the case of OAS has resisted a domination by the United States to the point where the American giant has found itself virtually ostracized by the Latin American brave community of nations.

There is a little more than meets the eye, however, in some other such regional conglomerates like, say, the SCO, co-dominated by Russia and China, or the League of the Caspian Basin States, clearly dominated by Russia, and several others, all made very conspicuous by the absence of the United States in them, and thus all implicitly designed to provide a counterbalance to America’s imperial ambitions.

The CIS organization, loosely binding twelve out of fifteen former Soviet Republics, used to be, and in some minds may still remain, a “portkey”, to use J. K. Rowling’s clever invention, to the former Soviet glory. I do not think, though, that the CIS mission statement corresponds in any way to Russia’s present-day ambitions, and in a way it may even present a hindrance to them, but it does offer a certain technical convenience to its members, and, for such purely technical reasons, it will continue to subsist, although with no propensity for expansion, due to the restrictive qualities of its charter.

A recent attempt to form a new regional organization of the Mediterranean States, promoted by France, has become something of a joke because of the German umbrage at being excluded. Now that Germany, a non-Mediterranean state, is finally in, together with the other non-Mediterranean members of the European Union, the organization, now ambiguously known as the Union for the Mediterranean, has turned into something rather awkward, and even if it may have a future of its own, it will never amount to much, because its raison d’être is now grotesquely obfuscated.

Now where does the EU come into the picture? In its formal organization, it is currently the closest thing to approximate the old futile idea of a “world government,” and a close study of its history and functioning in the twenty-first century reveals why the idea was so appealing to so many, but also what is terminally wrong with it. There is so much internal animosity within the European Union now, ironically, directed in most part from the side of the established great European nations towards the small sneaky rascals of Eastern Europe, such as Poland whose double-dealing on the side, with her bilateral ties to the United States (over the heads of the EU) defeats the purpose of the Union’s creation as an independent world power in the first place. It is my expectation that in a rather short “long run” the European Union will be facing a serious structural crisis whose outcome is hard to predict, but among the alternative solutions one sees the expulsions of undesirable members, angry cancellations of membership on the part of members in good standing, and finally a radical revision of the EU Charter. I do not think, however, that a complete dissolution of the European Union will ever be in the cards, as it is a very useful organization, and the only one to provide Europe with a clear road map to full independence from NATO and the United States. Thus, for as long as the threat of an American domination of Western Europe remains, the nations of Europe will be willing to allow the EU Government to dictate some of the rules, by which they have temporarily agreed to live, and even accept a certain level of German economic and political domination within the EU, which has by now become an obvious reality. (Some new developments have taken place in Poland since the time that this entry was written starting with the crash of the Polish airliner with Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski on board, which are making Poland more Russia-friendly than she has been for the past three decades, but even a noticeable turn toward Russia on the part of several Eastern European countries does not palliate the crisis in the relationship between old and new Europe, which has developed since the beginning of the new century.)

And finally, the so much maligned by some (namely, by the United States and Israel), yet so much praised by others (namely, by everybody else), United Nations, to me, the most excellent organization of all, considering that its inclusion of practically all independent world nations guarantees to each a full and respectable representation, both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council (on the rotating basis), while no single superpower is able to dominate it. The never-ending griping about the UN, coming from the United States, is caused by its incapacity to impose its will on the UN, but the constant calls to “kick the UN out of the USA” are patently stupid and harmful to the American interest, as the United Nations has the highest value of all international organizations, in the eyes of the world’s smaller nations, and all efforts to diminish its worldwide prestige, and even effectiveness, in solving a variety of international problems (granted, quite limited) are viewed by all of them as a personal affront. (Having served as an international civil servant with the UN Secretariat, in 1980-1981, I very well know what I am talking about!)

As I have previously quoted the Constitution of the United States of America, as a lofty example of idealist writing, here are excerpts from the Preamble of the United Nations Charter, written explicitly under the influence of the former document, and expressing a similar idealism with no less fervor:

We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and…

To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small (here is the projection of Hobbes’s homo sapiens beyond the nation-state Commonwealth to the whole community of world nations, which I have previously noted already!), and…
To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and…
To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and…
To practice tolerance and live together in peace and security, and…
To ensure, by the acceptance of principles and institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and…
To employ the international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims…

My last comment in this entry concerns the establishment of a world government. Previously, I referred to this idea as futile, and I obviously still stand by my judgment. There is no way that the centrifugal forces of world nationalism would ever allow a central world government to set the rules of the “common game.” The big nations will not allow the small ones to use their superior numbers to gain the upper hand, and conversely, the small nations will not allow the big nations to use their overwhelming economic, political and military power to establish a numerical minority rule over the disadvantaged, yet ever proud majority.

But the idea of world government does not lose its attraction, and even certain practical worth, just because of its general impracticability. And to ensure that some limited benefits could still be gained from this idea, there is no other international organization in existence (or even in the minds of the best wishful thinkers), better equipped for this purpose than the old, incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, United Nations.