Yumiko Agudo

America's Destiny Is to Police the

World
The intransigence of France, China and Russia last week makes it unlikely
that the United Nations Security Council will pass another resolution
authorising a war in Iraq. But even if it did, everyone realises this would be
only a fig leaf for US-led action. If the US does not step forward, nothing will
happen - not even weapons inspections. In other words, America is once
again forced to play Globocop.
This stirs up opposition on both the left and right, at home and abroad. Why
should America take on the thankless task of policing the globe, critics
wonder? To answer that question, start by asking, does the world need a
constable? That is like asking whether London or New York needs a police
force. As long as evil exists, someone will have to protect peaceful people
from predators. The international system is no different in this regard from
your own neighbourhood, except that predators abroad are far more
dangerous than ordinary robbers, rapists and murderers. They are, if given
half a chance, mass robbers, mass rapists and mass murderers.
There are, to be sure, lots of international laws on the books prohibiting
genocide, land mines, biological weapons and other nasty things. But without
enforcement mechanisms, they are as meaningless as the Kellogg-Briand
Pact of 1928, which outlawed war as an instrument of national policy.
The hope of idealistic liberals for more than a century has been that some
international organisation would punish the wicked. But the League of
Nations was a dismal failure, and the UN is not much better. It is hard to take
seriously a body whose human rights commission is chaired by Libya and
whose disarmament commission will soon be chaired by Iraq.

The UN provides a useful forum for palaver, but as an effective police force it
is a joke, as shown by its failure to stop bloodlettings in Bosnia, Rwanda and
elsewhere. It is almost impossible to get a consensus among the UN's
member states, even when it comes to a threat as well documented as that
posed by Saddam Hussein.
The best multilateral alternative is probably Nato. Unlike the UN, Nato has
the advantage of being composed exclusively of democracies that share a
common heritage and, presumably, common interests (though the French,
Belgians and Germans seem to have forgotten this for the time being). But
even before the current contretemps over Turkey, it was already obvious that
the alliance is too large and unwieldy to take effective military action. As
Kosovo showed, targeting by committee does not work very well. The
European Union is even less effective, since it can neither field an effective
military force nor agree on a common foreign policy.
So who does that leave to be the world's policeman? Belgium? Bolivia?
Burkina Faso? Bangladesh? The answer is pretty obvious. It is the country
with the most vibrant economy, the most fervent devotion to liberty and the
most powerful military. In the 19th century Britain battled the "enemies of all
mankind", such as slave traders and pirates, and kept the world's seas open
to free trade. Today the only nation capable of playing an equivalent role is
the US. Allies will be needed but America is, as Madeleine Albright said, "the
indispensable nation".
Sceptics will reply that America has an isolationist past and no desire to play
Globocop. Congressman Jimmy Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, complained
recently: "It is a traditional conservative position not to want the United
States to be the policeman of the world."
But rumours of American isolationism are much exaggerated. Since the
earliest days of the Republic, American traders, missionaries and soldiers

have penetrated the farthest corners of the world. America even has a long
history of military action abroad. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt
declared: "Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general
loosening of the ties of civilised society, may ultimately require intervention
by some civilised nation, and in the western hemisphere the adherence of
the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States,
however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to
the exercise of an international police power."
When Roosevelt wrote those words, the western hemisphere was the only
place where the US exercised military hegemony. In the rest of the world,
America could count on the Royal Navy to defend "civilised society". Today,
America exercises almost as much power everywhere around the world as it
once had only in the Caribbean. In fact, it has more power in both relative
and absolute terms than any other state in history. Thus, by Roosevelt's
logic, the US is obliged to stop "chronic wrongdoing", for the simple reason
that nobody else will do the job. That is what the US has been doing for the
past decade in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and now Iraq.
Unfortunately a cop's work is never done. Even after Mr Hussein is gone,
other tyrannies, such as North Korea and Iran, will continue to threaten world
peace. Taking on all of them is a big commitment, but as Kipling warned
America, "Ye dare not stoop to less."

The writer is Olin senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author
of "The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power."

Should America Be the World's Policeman?

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States became the
world's sole superpower. At the time, some commentators foresaw "the end
of history." Democracy and peace, they predicted, would sweep across the
globe. It didn't turn out that way, of course, and some say that's because the
U.S. is shirking its responsibilities.
Should the U.S., with its enormous military might, act as a global sheriff,
policing the world's trouble spots?
That question was posed recently to a panel of experts in an Oxford-style
debate, part of the series Intelligence Squared U.S. The debates are modeled
on a program begun in London in 2002: They are lively and, at times,
contentious.

In the latest debate, held on Feb. 12, the formal proposition was: "America
Should Be the World's Policeman." The debate was held at Asia Society and
Museum in New York City and moderated by Morley Safer, correspondent for
CBS' 60 Minutes. Three experts argued in favor of the proposition and three
argued against.
In a vote before the debate, 24 percent of audience members voted for the
resolution, 44 percent against and a sizable 32 percent were undecided. By
the end of the evening, considerably more people had shifted in favor of the
motion, though the final vote was very close: 47 percent of the audience
favored the proposition that "America Should Be the World's Policeman" and
48 percent opposed it. (Five percent remained undecided.)
Highlights from the debate:
Max Boot, a fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations, says: "As long as evil exists, someone will have to protect peaceful
people from predators. The international system is no different in this regard
from your own neighborhood, except that predators abroad are far more
dangerous than ordinary robbers, rapists and murderers. ... Without an
effective police force, the world community would fall apart faster, and more
completely, than New York City did in the 1970s. ... On balance, the NYPD
still does far more good than harm, and so does the United States of
America. In fact, America has been the greatest force for good in the world in

the past century. Just think of what happened when we did not act as globocop."

Michael Mandelbaum, professor of American foreign policy at the Johns

Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, says: "The
international society needs governance and the United States provides it.
The United States provides to other countries some, although not all, of the
services that governments provide within the countries that they govern. ...
The United States is not present everywhere and doesn't act perfectly... but
neither does any police force. Every police force is subject to criticism,
legitimate criticism. But criticizing a police force is not the same thing as
arguing that there should not be one."
Douglas Murray, director of the Center for Social Cohesion, says: "When we
talk about the world's policeman, a lot of people summon up the idea of
force, and that you have the right to do it because you're powerful. I don't
think that is what the reason is, that America has the right to be and should
continue to be, as it currently is, the world's policeman. It's not your force as
a nation which I think allows you that right; it's America's virtues that allow it
that right. ... But, to clear up some of the mistakes from the other side
already, just because you're the world's policeman doesn't mean you don't
have allies. It doesn't mean you don't have friends and others who will do the
job, who'll join you in the job."
Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, says: "I don't
think we have the political will in this country, I don't think we have the
political capital in this country, and I think trying to argue that we do risks a
growth of anti-Americanism abroad. But more importantly and more
dangerously, it risks a rise of protectionism in the United States; it risks a rise
of neo-isolationism in the United States. Look at the Pew polls; look at how
Americans increasingly feel about support for free trade. ... Part of the reason
they don't, I suspect, is because folks in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans don't
feel like they're doing as well as they should. And they don't necessary like
the idea of giving billions of dollars in aid after a tsunami in Indonesia when
we can't build our own homes in New Orleans."
Ellen Laipson, president and CEO of the Henry L. Stimson Center, says: "If
we step up to the role of the world's policeman, we would be committing to
act and to put our soldiers and police and our citizens in harm's way where
U.S. interests may be very modest. Do we want to assume responsibility to

go anywhere, anytime? ... Are we capable of doing the job? Can we be the
beat cop...? Do we know the neighborhood? Do we speak the language? Do
we know the culture so that we can diffuse conflict before it breaks into
violence? I'm not so sure about that."
Matthew Parris, former British member of Parliament, says: "Where are the
armies? Where are the fleets? Where are the treasure chests to finish this
job, let alone embark on new coercions? ... America won't police the world. I
don't believe it is the will of the American people. ... I know a bit about
America and Americans. And I think there's something different about you. I
think that even if you could police the world, I don't think that Americans
want to police the world."