THE COUNCIL OF DEMOCRACIES

First floated (I think) in the blogosphere, the idea that once the UN proves itself an inadequate peacekeeper, the democracies of the world will have to form a new club seems to be picking up steam. From Canada, comes this piece, which is mostly praise for Sec of State Powell's testimony before the UNSC this week. But buried in it is the COD meme:

If the Security Council doesn't give approval, or if it denies support for the U.S. effort, it basically means the UN is finished as a significant political body that mediates war and peace.

If America, Britain, Australia and a passel of hitherto lukewarm allies go it alone against Saddam without UN approval, it opens the way for an alliance led by English-speaking countries to set rules for rogue regimes.

That idea is right, as I've said myself that should the UN fail this single test it votes itself into irrelevance and becomes nothing more than an international charity with an extremely high overhead cost. But the Council of Democracies--this is a profoundly good idea, but it doesn't have to be limited to English-speaking countries. There are a few--too few, sadly--nations that could take part because they do hold to some extent to the ideals of liberty and equality and justice that the English-speaking world lives by and spreads. We can pretty much leave the bulk of Europe out of the equation, but Japan surely represents a healthy if economically stagnant democracy. Once the present semi-fanatical regime in India gives way to something a little less nationalistic, it too may find reason to join a Council of Democracies, and its presence may be useful to such a group. Membership in a Council could help Russia stay the course and entice several other infant democracies to keep growing. The Czech Republic, Poland and the other former communist bloc states, now thriving democracies with real committments to freedom, would be natural fits. And there may be a few others out there in a decade or two that can show stability, a serious committment to blind justice and free and open access to all their citizens and therefore deserve inclusion.

But before we start tallying up who would be in the club, it's probably worth figuring out if the club itself is necessary. After all, with the possible exception of the UK, American military might is more than able to handle any single enemy by itself, and with a modest build-up can probably take on a multitude of threats at the same time. Other militaries would be a drag on us, if you think about it. But a Council of Democracies, properly constructed, would probably be useful in the way that NATO was useful in fending off the Soviet threat. Because of NATO, the USSR knew that should it send its mechanized forces past the Iron Curtain states, it would face not just the weakened European states it happened to invade, and not on individual terms, but all of the European states combined, acting as one, with America leading the way from the safety of the other side of the Atlantic. NATO made conventional war unwinnable for the USSR, mutually assured destruction made nuclear war unthinkable, and so acted to freeze the world into a state of cold war for a few decades. A Council of Democracies could do similar things to relations with China, for starters. Suppose Taiwan's nascent democracy stays strong, and it joins the COD. Or more likely, suppose China decides that it will use its proxies in North Korea to intimidate Japan. The Council, unconstrained by the likes of Libya, could act in concert to counter the threat and avert all-out war. Or prosecute and win all-out war against any opponent. The point is, the idea has its charms.

But it also has its weaknesses. What would it do with a member state that suffers a coup and turns into a dictatorship, such as what appears to be taking place in Venezuela? How would it handle a dispute between two member states that escalates to war? How could it avoid the charge that it's inherently racist, as most member states would likely be majority white, English-speaking nations? Besides, we could find ourselves dealing with another France, a double-crossing, uncooperative "ally" that uses its position in the Council to inflate its own influence at our expense. Canada is a likely bet to take on that role--must be the French influence.

The UN really is a relic. It is based entirely on the aftermath of World War II, and places far too much stock in the opinions of tyrants. Whether it ultimately enforces its own resolutions against Iraq is in some ways a moot point now. The very fact that it has taken a decade, and continues to drag its feet, in taking on its most flagrant violator testifies to its uselessness in more ambiguous cases. The UN should die, and we should think about forming a purely democratic body to replace it.