Aby The Liberal

Dmitri October 3rd, 2007

The human quest for peace is as unending as the human desire for war, evident as both diplomacy and warfare coexisted through the ages. However it is only after the massive loss of lives in the two World Wars and the advent of destructive atomic weapons, did humans come to the realisation that wars will end humankind unless some measures to ensure peaceful co-existence was found. One of such proposals was a World Government backed by imminent thinkers like Albert Einstein, Baha’ullah and Lord Alfred Tennyson.

There were several proposed models of a world government which ranged from a league of nations to the most popular concept, a federal world government with autonomous nation states, not very much unlike Switzerland or United States of today. The league or union of nations are much more of military or political alliances than any serious world government so we will take a federalist type of unified global government into consideration. Although good in theory, a federal world government is highly likely to fail or lead to even further conflicts, due to several ground realities, a couple of them explained below.

The United Nations : Closest one could get to a World Government

One of the biggest roadblocks to a world government is the diversity of humans on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, beliefs, nation and other cultural differences. Proponents of equality would brush off these differences making the universal and often heard statement “all humans are equal”. However reality is evident how far such an ideology goes, all one has to look at are the relentless ethnic, racial or religious conflicts of today. Despite the desire for human equality, the differences cannot be wished away and nor be fought off. They will come in the way when a world government is formed; the diversity of humans will inevitably make some groups feel un-represented or perhaps even victimised, leading to rebellion and conflicts. There will also be ambiguity in judicial and political systems as a system which is acceptable and works for one group may not be so for another. There is good that comes out of a one-size-fits-all approach to legal or political system.

In addition to the limitations arising from unavoidable human differences, a world government would also entail massive administrative difficulties and representation problems, assuming it is a democratic set-up. The larger and more powerful countries like United States, China or Russia will exert their dominance and influence over the under-represented or weaker countries and will usually have their way over them. This will widen the identity gap between races, economic classes and social order which will lead to widespread separatist and rebellion movements as seen in erstwhile Soviet Union. Additionally there will also be administrative difficulties arising from the geographical size of a world nation, which will lead to rampant corruption, violence and social problems in the lesser accessible geographical areas like Africa. Bureaucratic hurdles will increase manifold to keep every group happy which will make the administrative mechanism inefficient and slow.

The above limitations are only a few obvious ones, as experienced at present by countries with large multi-ethnic populations like China, India, Indonesia and erstwhile Soviet Union. In a real World Government, there could be many more unforeseen problems which would crop up which might be even more serious than the above mentioned ones. In such a situation the only way to sustain a world nation would be through suppressing dissent. This will end up reducing a world government to another empire where the powerful rule over the weak. This is one of the primary reasons why no countries had their governments make any serious initiatives or proposals to start a world government. Most of the revolutionaries for world government are driven by unrealistic idealism and sometimes for the sake of radicalism, without much consideration of reality and real implications of a global administration.

The closest we can get to a world government in the present age is United Nations and yet it is hampered by severe drawbacks. Over the years, the UN has turned nothing more than a foreign policy tool for powerful countries, its effectiveness as a world organisation is limited only to weak and powerless countries.

• World Politics , Internationalism , Humanity
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Dmitri September 29th, 2007

As an international political site, we often get accosted by peace lovers for our in-depth analysis on military issues, like the comparison of nuclear and conventional military strengths among rivals. The intentions of most dissidents are entirely honest and for noble reasons, after all who wouldn’t want a peaceful world where growth and human prosperity is not stifled by wars and conflicts? The United Nations was set up with this objective in mind, to promote peace and to act as a platform for nations helping them resolve conflicts using peaceful diplomatic methods. Yet, a peaceful world without wars and conflicts is hardly in sight and the UN seems to be getting more irrelevant day by day. One might ask, what could be the reason for such a trend? One of the answers would be found on the concept of how real geopolitics is decided by military options and economic choices rather than moralist idealism.

A news video showing Russia’s recent vacuum bomb test: Military power games to ensure diplomatic peace

A lot of foreign policy decisions in global realpolitik are decided by the game of exercising options, often dubbed by analysts as the “Game Theory”. Diplomatic solutions in case of conflicting interests works only when both parties have an advantage over the other party so that one cannot use force against the other. Wars are unavoidable between nations and global peace an unattainable dream because of this political reality. A nation that can afford political or military force over opponents without severe fallouts to itself wouldn’t want to bother with the aches and compromises of diplomacy, especially if the gains from wars are high.

A better understanding of the politico-military game theory can be had by using United States and its foreign policy as an example. The US is chosen because of its dynamic and highly active foreign policy which ranges from using diplomatic treaties to coercive military force against nations to achieve its goals. The trends of US foreign policy dealings with Russia/Soviet Union, China and other military adversaries have always been different from that of weaker countries in South East Asia and West Asia (Middle East). While militarily weak countries like Vietnam, Iran, Iraq and Yugoslavia have  been on the receiving end of US aggression; China and Russia enjoyed a lot of freedom in pursuing an actively anti-US military policy without any fallouts.

One notable example of US restraint from using military force against a strong adversary was the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shoot-down by Soviet Union in 1983 which lead to 269 fatalities, several of them American passengers including the US Congressman Lawrence McDonald. The reactions to this incident ranged from political condemnations as ‘crime against humanity’ to increased military exercises. Although there were high tensions, a military strike on Russia was never an American option. If any of the Gulf or weaker Asian countries shot down the aircraft, they would have inevitably faced the wrath of United States in the form of a war or at least a military strike involving indiscriminate carpet bombing of a city. A notable incident of this angle would be the US strike on Tripoli, Libya in 1986 (Operation El Dorado Canyon) which took out an entire city block, caused an estimated 500 casualties. The strike was in response to the Libyan bombing of a Berlin disco and military strikes on a US aircraft carrier close to its territorial waters, which killed 2 US serviceman. While a Soviet shoot down of a civilian aircraft containing a high profile US dignitary, a Senator was met with nothing more than diplomatic outrage, a much smaller Libyan strike met with a severe and larger military response.

The reasons for such contrasting responses is pretty obvious, a military strike on a Russian city would have resulted in Soviet forces retaliate by taking out an entire US city; possibly lead to an escalation to a full scale nuclear war. Libya on the other hand had no such military power to do such a thing, it was left to its ingenuity to strike back, which resulted in the bombing of an American aircraft Pan Am Flight 103, killing all 243 passengers on board. The initial misdirection of the US investigations towards Iran indicated that the US did not expect any serious repercussions for its Libyan air strikes.

Considering how military strengths between nations decide the political strength behind their foreign policy, it would be be naive for an internationalist to avoid the area of military comparisons while analysing international politics. A strong and powerful military acts as a strong motivator against a non-diplomatic attack by external forces. This is not to say that it is right to use a strong military to fighting further wars, as US does (which brings home more unforeseen troubles than solve them). To win peace, one has to have the capacity to win wars or as in the nuclear age - cause at least a strong deterrence against a potential or existing adversary.

• World Politics , Internationalism , Military
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