The World's Policeman

The use of United States armed forces in the relief effort in Somalia has again raised the question: Should the United States be the world's policeman? The United States armed forces are in Somalia as part of a United Nations relief effort and none of the forces are there to do anything but humanitarian relief. The country was in an active state of anarchy when the United Nations relief forces (U.S. and French) arrived and the conditions have improved somewhat, but much more effort is necessary to relieve the famine nationwide.

The short answer to the question should the United States be the world's policeman is no. No one nation can act as the law enforcement agency for the world. Aside from the enormity of the task, there are far too many legal problems for one sovereign nation to assign to itself the role of policeman for other sovereign nations. Considering the wide variety of problems and the wide variety of necessary solutions, it is silly to think that all the wisdom is located in one nation. The United Nations, however, can and should be the world's policeman. The United Nations Security Council is admirably suited to the task of maintaining the peace and we and every other nation should support them in this activity. It will require each member nation to surrender some of its sovereignty to the multinational peacekeeping function and the big five nations that have veto power will have to use the veto power with restraint for system to work. All member nations should share in the cost of such a force.

It was different when the U.S.S.R and the People's Republic of China were busy instigating insurgencies around the world, because they as the trouble makers also sat with vetoes in the Security Council and could effectively block any action that was directed at them. That was then. This is now. The Confederation of Independent States (Russia et al) are well on their way to democracy, their success depending upon how much the United States Japan and Europe care to help. The People's Republic of China is still a bad case but they seem to be softening a little in the light of successful manufacturing and trade. There is some hope that in the next iteration of their government, when the superannuated leaders die or are replaced, there will be some semblance of democracy and human rights.

If the United States is not going to be the world's policeman, what role should it play? The United States should be the moral leader of the world, if not in fact the moral leader, it should then compete for the job. We should be in the United Nations Security Council beating the table, with our shoe if necessary, to get the attention of the world to see and deal with the immoralities and inequities that abound. We need to get our own house in order so that our rhetoric is backed by experience and example, but we should not shirk from calling attention to the abysmal state of human rights in many parts of the world. Part of getting our house in order is to resurrect our participation in the U.N. human rights conventions that were scrapped by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he assumed the Presidency of the United States and deprived Eleanor Roosevelt of what would have been the crowing achievement of her life—establishing U.S. leadership in the world human rights movement. Our economics and politics should be consistent with our morality. Our morality should not be determined by our politics and economics. The world has seen geopolitics and real politic and is not better for it. What the world needs is simple morals and ethics—truth, honesty, tolerance, and compassion. The establishment of the global economy should provide the basis for a world economy of abundance. We put 500,000 troops and all the equipment and supplies they needed in the Arabian Desert. They were sustained and the won a war. The TV images of Somalia show ships, planes and trucks hauling hundreds of thousands of food could probably move enough grain to Somalia to cover it four feet deep. The technological ecosystem can handle the problem of the movement of materials over the surface of the earth. We need the moral will to provide a safe environment in which this can happen. Anarchy did not develop in Somalia in a day. The world was sleeping at the switch on that one. The war in Bosnia is carried live on CNN. The cameras go with the snipers. The cameras show the apartments exploding on the impact of artillery shells. The world has been immorally tardy in addressing the problem of Bosnia.

To play a proper role as a moral leader of the world we have to make some fundamental changes at home. The most important change is to discard the patronage role and mentality towards our own population in order to not patronize the rest of the world. At home this means finger pointing and name calling have to stop and the government at all levels have to start treating citizens as citizens sovereign not welfare recipients. Our federal government has to make the unalienable rights a reality for all our citizenry and we as a nation have to grow up. Privatizing of the charity function is the root cause of patronizing behavior. Rich people doing something for poor people is the epitome of patronizing behavior. We have to foster democratic principles in all aspects of our government—local, State and Federal, but more importantly we have to treat the electorate as intelligent sentient human capable of decision making, with democratic inclinations. If the people cannot perform these functions, "Inform their discretion," as Thomas Jefferson said, don't take government away from them.

Some economists are already telling Bill Clinton he can not create more factory jobs. He should not listen to them. What they are saying is that in a downsizing manufacturing economy, creating jobs is difficult if not impossible. As the leader of the nation and the free world, Bill Clinton should assemble his advisors and with their help, decide which new industries we as a nation need and set about to get them. We have done this all through our history. For some witch doctor economists to say we can't do it is to deny the good parts of our history. Supply side has produced downsizing, it will take demand side economics to extend our manufacturing base. We can start with the stuff we import. Import replacement is a good mechanism to choose what industries to base in the United States. Increasing the manufacturing base, establishing a strong position in world trade, regenerating infrastructure and extending it into communications, as well as the service industries is the wave of a prosperous and abundant future.

When we have made a good start on extending the unalienable rights to our citizen sovereign, we will be in a good position to extend the same sort of leadership in the rest of the world. We should not become the patrons of poor nations, we should establish partnerships—intellectual, political, commercial, and moral and within the framework of partnerships we should extend aid and assistance to those in need of it. With regard to Russia we should make a massive effort to see that democracy and free enterprize is firmly established in that receptive soil. To break the spell of the supply side illusionists we have to rehabilitate taxes—income, consumer, vat, inheritance, excise taxes, et al. A nation that understands and fosters its abundance will be well fitted to lead the world morally.

The United Nations needs a peace keeping force. The UN peace keeping force should have participation in the first place from the five holders of veto power in the Security Council. That is the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and Russia. The participation of other nations should be optional, but the big five should put up the bulk of the forces since they have the bulk of the power. Each national peace keeping force should be under local control until they are committed by the UN, then they should come under UN control. The United Nations should pay for the support of the forces, the money to come from dues paid by members. The United States should participate by forming a special force comparable to the French Foreign Legion. The U.S. needs an American Peace Keepers Legion consisting of double volunteers, career soldiers and officers from our volunteer armed forces should be allowed to volunteer for the UN peace keeping force. The group should be ready to be deployed anywhere in the world the United Nations Security Council sends them after the appropriate resolutions etc. We sit on the Security Council, we have a veto in that body. If we don't want to go, we can stop the procedure cold. We can not be forced to act against our will. We lose no sovereignty we don't wish to give up.

We have at least four brands of liberty in the United States: (1) the ordered liberty of the Calvinist Pilgrims, (2) the hegemonic liberty of the Virginia planters (3) the Golden Rule of the Quakers, and (4) the individual liberty of the Borderers. Many parts of the world have no form of freedom. We should do whatever it takes to share our abundance of it with the world.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1992
Institute for domestic Tranquility