Community of Democracies

Over at TPM Cafe, they're discussing the Princeton Project of National Security's final report. In his trenchant critiques I think Stephen Walt makes a few good points, but is also being somewhat unfair and John Ikenberry's reply is pretty convincing. The real problem I have with the PPNS report is its idea of a Community of Democracies. I could imagine supporting versions of this idea but the PPNS has some suggestions that I think are seriously pernicious. In particular, Appendix A of the report suggests that "Action pursuant to article four and consistent with the purposes of the United Nations, including the use of military force, may be approved by a two-thirds majority of the parties." Article 4, meanwhile, says "The Parties recognize that sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their own citizens from avoidable catastrophe – mass murder and rape, ethnic cleansing by forcible expulsion and terror, and deliberative starvation and exposure to disease – but that when they are unwilling or unable to do so, that responsibility must be borne by the international community."

To many liberals, this is going to sound nice. Nevertheless, it's going to play as an anti-Chinese, anti-Arab, anti-Russian military alliance and we can expect the excluded countries to respond accordingly. This goes back to what I was saying yesterday about priorities. The problem this is designed to address, presumably, is that authoritarian countries, especially Russia and China, can use their power at the UN to block authorization for humanitarian military interventions. Without denying that this is a problem in the world, I don't think that it makes sense to think of it as the problem.

On much more pressing issues for American security, we could really, really use the cooperation of Russia, China, and the Arab states. Issues like nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and trying to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict. If we want cooperation from these states on our top priorities, that's going to mean we need to defer to them on issues that are less important to us. The Community of Democracies, in this formulation, is the exact reverse, creating a new fault-line in the international community and essentially saying that we regard these countries as second-class members of the world order who would be smart to obstruct our designs.

Comments

Good points. An exclusionary C of D could be another faultline. Bear in mind, however, that there already is a Community of Democracies - it's a caucus within the UN. There have been three meetings ("ministerials") and invitations will soon be issued for the next one. The problems with it so far, which are related, are (inevitably) unclear mission and the fact that it is overly inclusive in an attempt to avoid the polarization you discuss. Countries that have been invited as "observers" - a merit badge that supposedly reflects progress toward democracy - include Egypt and...Russia. Much like with the human rights council, the most active lobbyists for inclusion are the countries that arguably deserve it least. When exception has been taken to previous invitations, members of groups involved in the recommendation process start to worry immediately that rescinding previous invites would "send the wrong message" (I have firsthand knowledge here). This a long way of saying that the forum also matters. The UN is the obvious one but so far the C of D idea looks unpromising.

Posted by jd | October 12, 2006 1:10 PM

The delusion is that "democracies", as such, have identical interests. There was some (oversimplified) truth to this in the Cold War. But it is plainly nonsense now, and will be even more plainly nonsense as more countries become democracies.

Posted by Pithlord | October 12, 2006 1:17 PM

Regardless, the main problem with the idea is that a Community of Democracies already exists, and, indeed, is called the Community of Democracies. Frank Fukuyama in America at the Crossroads at least had the decency to acknowledge its existence. Perhaps Ikenberry and Slaughter think that the current CoD is too weak, in which case they, like Fukuyama, should have argued for strengthening it. But it's more likely that they didn't even bother to google their idea to see if it had been used before. I really like their work, and the PPNS' report, but this is shoddy scholarship.

Posted by Minipundit | October 12, 2006 4:11 PM

Good discussion here. Love the site. Just a couple of quick points that might be helpful.

Minipundit: In the PPNS it is not called a Community of Democracies, it is called a Concert of Democracies. The report recognizes the already existing "Community" but says that that the concert will be more stringent in terms of membership. I fail to see how one could just strengthen the "community" if a necessary reform is kicking out many of the members who are not actually democracies.

Matt: NATO exists; is it a faultline that inhibits cooperation on other issues? The difference between NATO and the Concert is in large part that instead of only white western democracies having a say when the UN fails, all liberal democracies, whereever they are and whatever their ethnicity, have influence.

Of course Russian and Chinese cooperation is important on a whole range of things but that doesn't mean we must fall in line with them on overlooking genoicide or crimes against humanity. And, one final point, the article you identify in the appendix concerning the use of force only kicks in if UN reform completely fails; so in a sense Russia and China have a choice-- work to reform what they're in or live with the consequences of alternative organizations springing up. In another way, the threat of a concert may advance the prospects of UNSC reform.

Posted by TW | October 12, 2006 9:35 PM