In the decade after the end of the cold war
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CAPABILITY THEORY AND THE UNITED NATIONS IN THE DECADE AFTER THE END OF THE COLD WAR By Dr. Mark Anderson and Dr. Jack E. Vincent Introduction The United Nations, and its various parts, is the one international body created in the post-World War II era by the international community to support dialogue and communication amongst nations. Mechanisms were created for the peaceful resolution of disputes so as to maintain “international peace and security”.1 In addition, the use of force, sanctioned by the international community, to maintain “international peace and security” was created and put into force under Chapter 7 dealing with the rights and duties of the Security Council under Article 42 of the Charter of the United Nations.2 A theoretical foundation for the relationship between nations can first be found amongst the way one person relates to another person since nations are made up individuals. Hobbes’ “state of nature depicts a state of anarchy that is most disagreeable. Thomas Hobbes famously argues in Leviathan (1651) that the state of nature is a state of “warre, as is of every man, against every man”. In such a condition, man not only lives in “continuall feare, and danger of violent death” but even his potentially short life is utterly miserable because without security there is no industry, agriculture, commerce, science or arts. In sum, the life of man is “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes 1991: ch 13, 88-893 Scholars of international relations debate the reasons why people or nations fight with one another. Hobbes lists three reasons for conflict. In chapter 13 of Leviathan Hobbes summarizes his explanation of conflict in state of nature as follows: “So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffiedence; Thirdly, Glory. The first, maketh men invade for Gain; the second, for Safety, and the Third, For Reputation.” (ch13, 88)4 A sovereign world government is not present as the nation-state system created after the Treaty of Westphalia still exists today. Yes, there are many international bodies that work together in economic, social, monetary policy, and trade policy, and peacekeeping efforts.5 The world is much smaller place today and the world economy is much more integrated than ever before. There are regional organizations like the European Union that integrates the economies, legal systems, currency6, and the rights of many nations and peoples of Europe together. With the creation of the United Nations and the five permanent members of the Security Council that have the “double” veto to make sure that the major powers retain their sovereignty in their foreign and domestic affairs, one can see that the world is far from having true world government. One critique of the United Nations is that it does not solve conflict situations per se. It is only when the nations involved in an international dispute which turns into armed conflict calculate that peace, or rather a short respite from armed conflict is beneficial to the national interest are international peacekeepers allowed to enter. In other words, the cost of continuing the armed conflict is too high for both sides and that is when the UN peacekeepers can intervene. Scholars of international relations, with proper statistical modeling, will be able to predict how nations, and the UN delegates of various types of nations, vote in bodies such as the General Assembly. Attitudes of those UN delegates to bodies such as the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Secretariat can be measured over time and studied. Differences between more capable nations, in terms of wealth and power, and less capable nations in voting behavior in the General Assembly and/or attitudes about various UN organs can be measured and analyzed. Such subjects as how those UN organs are structured and how much power those organs have, how nations are selected for those bodies, and what type of voting system (weighted or not; permanent member with veto power v. non-permanent member without veto) are all issues where differences can occur and sharp contrasts can be drawn between various groups in dynamic and static terms. Being able to predict how nations (from the attitudes and viewpoints of their delegates at the United Nations) will vote, or whom they will align themselves with, is an integral part in understanding world politics. For all its limitations, the United Nations is an institution that matters. President Kennedy had U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, present the photographic evidence to the world about Soviet missiles in Cuba. Institutions, to a certain extent, do matter. This research is important because one needs to know whether highly capable nations, all members of the United Nations, favor or oppose the one over-arching world body. If the highly capable nations do not like (negative attitudes toward) the United Nations then one can say that the UN might be heading toward irrelevance. It can be argued that the incredible power differential between the United States and the rest of the permanent members of the Security Council put the UN in a precarious position. One could argue that the United States was going to invade Iraq in 2003 no matter what the Security Council. At worst, if the Security Council supports the U.S. led invasion then the United Nations and the Security Council look like rubber stamp of American foreign policy. In addition, such a support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the Security Council would also violate its own laws in Article 2, Section 4 of the Charter of the United Nations.7 Not much better is the other option, which happened, when the Security Council, led by permanent member France, did not approve of the proposed U.S. led invasion of Iraq. The George W. Bush administration ignored the decision of the Security Council and its desire to let the inspectors continue their search for weapons of mass destruction and attacked anyway. Thus, the Security Council looked impotent and foolish. The only global superpower attacked Iraq anyway despite near universal opposition from major powers (with the exception of Great Britain) and the world community in general. Real world power overwhelmed institutional structures (France’s veto in the Security Council). Policy-makers can use these predictive models to map out strategies in relation to coalition building in the General Assembly. In addition, these decision-makers will be able to look at General Assembly voting records and attitudes towards the various organs of the United Nations and realize that changes have occurred in the world community in terms of power, wealth, political systems, cooperation, and conflict. These changes, in turn, help determine how voting patterns and attitudes towards the United Nations and its various organs have changed over time. Developed nations have different goals and objectives, within the context of the United Nations, than developing nations. For example, there are a lot more “less capable” (in terms of power and wealth) nations in the General Assembly than “more capable” nations. Thus, one can often find the General Assembly and the Security Council at odds as their membership mix is so different. One leading scholar on the United Nations, Dr. Vincent, has hypothesized that “less capable” nations will try to use the United Nations to increase their power and wealth and influence by supporting more and more redistribution of wealth from the industrialized wealthy developed nations of the North to developing nations of the South. The “more capable” nations, will, to some degree, resist such actions and try to keep the transfer of their resources to others to a minimum. Thus, according to Vincent, the highly capable nations will have a negative association towards the United Nations since they see the organization, the United Nations, as more closely meeting the needs of the less developed states. Vincent posits these differences in attitudes and actions between the highly capable and the less capable nations towards the United Nations to realism. The hypothesis, as developed, can be seen as an extension of “realism” which emphasizes the concept of relentless struggle between nations as a most likely component of international relations (Crabb, 1972, Morgenthau, 1972, Sullivan, 1976, Wright 1965). Weaker nations, in this application (Vincent, 1978) attempt to use the United Nations to augment their power, relative to stronger nations. Stronger nations, on the other hand, have little need for such an augmentation to accomplish political/military objectives. In addition, more capable states because, of their lower affect toward the organization, will tend to “see” things in “static” terms, ie., tend to be more satisfied with voting and membership arrangements but less inclined to “see” change as likely such areas. In general, then, the most capable international actors have a kind of anti-UN orientation, compared to the less capable actors. It is important, therefore, to find if this theory is supported by data.8 Models can predict general trends though there is always room for individual leadership that can transform a nation. Individual leaders can make a difference in world affairs. Churchill’s leadership was crucial in Britain’s success in World War II. Hitler’s obsession to run everything and “never retreat” cost Germany millions of lives and led to Germany splitting their armies and never getting to Moscow. Lincoln was the right man for the Union in the Civil War. Would President Pierce or Buchanan speak or even write Gettysburg Address and issue the Emancipation Proclamation?9 |
