The Value of Peace

An excellent Washington Post op-ed by Paul Saunders makes the key point against fashionable schemes for a Concert of Democracies: "Moreover, trying to create a 'Concert of Democracies' inevitably invites a 'Concert of Non-Democracies,' which could be very damaging to American interests and values." Indeed, I would say that it would not just invite but in many ways force the leading non-members to form an alternative club. The nominal rationale for doing this is that autocratic UN members can block humanitarian action, but as Saunders writes:

Nor would the world be safer for democracy. In fact, it would be far harder to promote economic development, political change or human rights in an increasingly divided and unstable world. The great global advance of democracy occurred during the relative peace and prosperity after the end of the Cold War -- not during the struggle between the U.S. and Soviet blocs.

Exactly. It's wildly underappreciated, but far and away the best thing we can do for the spread of democracy and human rights around the world is to do what we can to avoid a return to a situation where developing countries were perennially finding themselves playing the role of staging-ground for superpower proxy wars. For the US and China, or the US and Russia to shift from the current mode of wary peace to actual hostility would be a fiasco much, much greater than any sin of omission that might be caused by deference to international law.

Comments

The strategy employed by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries and other China-admirers, as described by Nazneen Barma and others in The National Interest etc., is to "route around" the US. This is a good metaphor for a successful strategy in the networked age. This isn't the late 19th or early 20th century, and there's little sense in Triple Ententes. Microsoft doesn't try to battle competition from Apple, Google etc. by declaring its implacable hostility to them and declaring all other companies are either with Microsoft or against it. It tries to maximize its presence in different areas of the network and make itself indispensable. For the same reasons, an explicit and exclusionary "concert of democracies" is a dumb idea.

Posted by brooksfoe | August 13, 2007 10:42 AM

There already is a Community of Democracies, and we support it. The CD isn't "exclusionary" though: it has already invited non-democratic countries to previous meetings. In any case, this discussion misses three broader points: 1) neither the world nor we need another international bureaucracy stocked with sinecures; 2) We don't share the same level of interests with all democracies; 3) We don't need another international bureaucracy to facilitate our working with democracies we do share vital interests with (e.g., Japan, Australia, Britain, etc.). The current Proliferation Security Initiative is an example of this cooperation independent of UN- or CD-orchestration.

Posted by Fred | August 13, 2007 11:04 AM

As long as Springsteen plays, I'm there

Posted by mph | August 13, 2007 11:09 AM

I would differ from Sanders in reasoning, if not in conclusions.

There is a story that Mahatma Ghandi was asked what did he think about Western Civilization. "Why, it would be an excellent idea!"

Or to put it in different terms, suppose that Western European Christians would organize a Crusade without any reference where it is suppose to go. You know, all valiant paladins should amass as much of retinues, vassals and allies as they could and gather together, armed and mounted, to share each other values. In the same time, the only value specifically mentioned would be honoring debts incurred while playing dice.

Like playing dice was not uniquely Christian, "intellectual property rights" and "security" are not uniquely democratic.

Posted by piotr | August 13, 2007 11:59 AM

This idea might make sense if a handful of countries that are now dictatorships were democracies. For instance, if Russia and/or China were democracies and if there were a couple of Sunni Arab democracies. There are also so many "maybe" cases whose membership could be argued either way: Venezuela, Taiwan (PRC legitimacy issue), Nigeria, the DRC, Thailand and Bangladesh in the near future, Somolia (or Somoliland), Rwanda and others. Would an elected government that doesn't practice effective control of its own territory count, such as the DRC and Nigeria?

Posted by Reality Man | August 13, 2007 12:13 PM

If they don't make concert, they can always join the marching band.

Posted by Other Ezra | August 13, 2007 1:31 PM

Would an elected government that doesn't practice effective control of its own territory count, such as the DRC and Nigeria?

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean but the Nigerian government does infact control its territory. Comparing Nigeria to the DRC is kinda like comparing Detroit to Chechnya.

But Nigeria does in fact exemplify why the Democracies club is a bad idea. I am hard pressed to think of an international crisis where it would behoove the U.S. to consult with Nigeria but not China.

Posted by WillieStyle | August 13, 2007 1:59 PM

I mostly disagree with this post (which is fairly predictable, since I generally only respond to the posts I disagree with), for a couple reasons.

First is that a "concert of democracies" need not be a primarily military alliance. It could be first and foremost an economic and diplomatic partnership, with free trade, technology exchanges, multilateral pacts on things like global warming, and cross-immigration between member states. In other words, it could be more like ASEAN than NATO. This would serve as a carrot to smaller nations, not a stick - go democratic, and we let you join the club.

Second, the worry that a "concert of non-democracies" will form is moot, since that's already happening. China and Russia, which are loosely allied through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, currently give tacit or explicit backing to the regimes of Sudan, Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Chad, Uzbekistan, and others. What worse would happen in response to a "concert of democracies"?

Posted by Mr. Noah | August 13, 2007 4:21 PM

"regimes like .... Venezuela ...."

Venezuela had a long string of elections without confirmed challenges concerning their fairness.

According to surveys cited by The Economists, Venezuela records the highest level of satisfaction with the functioning of democracy in South America.

The fact that Venezuela is regularly trotted as an example of a "regime" points to one of the weakness of the plan to have Concert of Countries We Think Are Democratic. Just compare the amount of concern for democracy in Venezuela and Pakistan or Egypt.

Posted by piotr | August 13, 2007 6:56 PM