The League of Democracies: McCain’s Foolish and Inneffective Vision for US Foreign Policy

Last night I came across a rather interesting speech that Sen. McCain gave to the Hoover Institution just over a year ago. In it he extols the virtues, the prosperity and the majesty of our country, and moves into how he believes that we can and should share such treasures with the world. We in the U. S. of A. have certainly hit upon something lovely with this whole democracy thing, definitely. I’m just not sure we need to establish a “League of Democracies” to gather all of our super friends so that we can fight international bad-guys together.

McCain has plastered this speech on his campaign website and has brought up the issue several times in recent months. What he aims for with this organization is an alliance of established democracies that would coordinate their foreign policies in order to do good in the world. How idealistic, and strange, for a Republican. Here’s what McCain envisions as potential members in this League:

Our partners must be good allies, too. They must have the will and the ability to act in the common defense of freedom, democracy, and economic prosperity. They must spend the money necessary to build effective militaries that can train and fight alongside ours. They must help us deliver aid to those in need and encourage good governance in fragile states. They must face the threats of our world squarely and not evade their global responsibilities. And they must put an end to the mindless anti-Americanism that today mars international discourse. No alliance can work unless all its members share a basic faith in one another and accept an equal share of the responsibility to build a peace based on freedom.

So basically, an alliance of mini-USAs. To summarize, they must value freedom, democracy, economic prosperity, large military budgets, an interest in intervening in other nations, and a pro-American outlook. Sounds to me like the “Coalition of the Willing,” but never mind that. Once assembled, here’s what McCain wants these mini-Us’s to do:

We should go further and start bringing democratic peoples and nations from around the world into one common organization, a worldwide League of Democracies. This would not be like the universal-membership and failed League of Nations’ of Woodrow Wilson but much more like what Theodore Roosevelt envisioned: like-minded nations working together in the cause of peace. The new League of Democracies would form the core of an international order of peace based on freedom. It could act where the UN fails to act, to relieve human suffering in places like Darfur. It could join to fight the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and fashion better policies to confront the crisis of our environment. It could provide unimpeded market access to t hose who share the values of economic and political freedom, an advantage no state-based system could attain. It could bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow’s and Beijing’s approval. It could unite to impose sanctions on Iran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. It could provide support to struggling democracies in Ukraine and Serbia and help countries like Thailand back on the path to democracy.

Ok, so this is an exclusive club where we make it very clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Democracies who are willing to use their military to spread democratic values around the world are good, and the Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China are bad. Now we start to see where McCain’s logic is forming. This idea of a new League seems to come from the frustrations many express, especially conservatives, with regards to dealing with the United Nations. Particularly in the Security Council, consensus is hard to build when the Russians and Chinese have different world views and different outlooks particularly with regards to national sovereignty and military interventions. So McCain and other proponents of this idea are looking for a new international forum where everyone else agrees with what the US proposes and provide legitimacy to our actions.

Apparently McCain yearns for a return to a simpler era, a time when he doesn’t have to distinguish between Sunni and Shia, nitpick about exact troop numbers or interrupt his own birthday celebration to address a natural disaster. It was easier when we knew that the Nazi’s were the bad guys, or that it was the Commies that were out to get us. We knew where they were, that they worked for Satan and that was the end of it. It was easier.

I jest. Still, this idea remains frightening, as it simply entrenches and institutionalizes the “us vs. them” mentality that has set in during the Bush years. Such an approach to foreign policy functions on criminalizing those states we disagree with as we cut off dialogue, try to isolate their governments and in some cases, enter into armed conflict with them. It would see us rallying our democracy buddies to strike at Iran and North Korea, push for regime change in Myanmar, burn bridges with Beijing and escalate an already bubbling reemergence of an arms race with Russia. I understand that some people believe these to be noble goals, but that is exactly what frightens me most.

Many of those cases are arguable, but I cannot accept our government turning hostile on either Russia or China as both cases would at best exacerbate many of the other problems around the world, and at worst would result in absolute disaster or even open conflict.

The Russian government is embroiled in so many scandals and power shifts I can’t even begin to speculate what’s really going on there. I haven’t studied the place and I haven’t investigated much news coming out of Moscow. What I do know is that they are quite annoyed by our missile defense deployments in Eastern Europe, they control the flow of oil and natural gas into Europe, they have restarted Cold War era patrols of nuclear armed bombers, they have staked territorial claims in the North Pole, they have a heavy hand in trying to splinter the nation of Georgia, and their President turned Prime Minister is one scary looking guy. Just look at him:

To summarize; we should be talking with Russia, not testing their patience. One Cold War was enough, thank you.

Now for China. Oh, dear sweet misunderstood China. They’re big, their military is big, their government is authoritarian and theoretically communist, they hold over a trillion dollars of US debt, their economy is monstrous, they sell us toys with lead in them, they want a lot of oil, they are getting that oil, they are dealing with a lot of nasty governments to get that oil, and dammit, someone decided they could host the Olympics this year. To summarize, China is growing fast and that scares us.

Lucky for us, the PRC isn’t nearly as big a security threat as everyone perceives them to be. I’ll get into why we should be friends with China more later, but for the purposes of this discussion it is just important to note that China’s whole foreign policy now revolves around what the Fourth Generation of leadership has dubbed “good global citizenship”. They just want to buy and sell stuff and make sure no one tries to tell them what to do. The 19th and 20th centuries are marked by instances in which coalitions of Western countries (quite like McCain’s League of Democracies) stuck their noses in China and used military force to humiliate the people in the name of opening up to global markets. How pleasant.

So, back to McCain’s idea. Here is another problem: Not every democracy in the world is like ours. In fact, most aren’t. Not only are they structurally different, but they have many different values and interests than we do. I fail to see how corralling every state dubbed a democracy into one alliance will do anything to make them agree any more than they already do(n’t). The UN doesn’t prevent democracies from discussing anything or from forming a voting bloc. Yet, the coalition formed to enter Iraq wasn’t exactly comprehensive. When it comes to governments, ideals, values and intentions, Sweden does not equal Switzerland does not equal South Korea does not equal India does not equal Mexico does not equal the United States. If McCain thinks because we form a democracy club these countries will be more willing to agree on difficult issues, he’s mistaken. If McCain thinks that if we form a democracy club the US will be able to force these allies into following our lead, he is mistaken.

Outside of crises like World War II or the Cold War, international relations are defined by dialogue and negotiations, not standing alliances. Broad alliances are formed out of mutual interest or dire circumstances, not simply out of common values. The US, UK and USSR did not work together because of shared beliefs, but out of an outstanding need to defeat the Nazi regime. Smaller nations fell into line with either the US or USSR during the Cold War not because they greatly valued one side of the debate or the other, but because they were choosing with patron state they felt would help them out the most.

Today it is international forums like the United Nations, WTO and other IGOs that define global dialogue. As we recall, the UN was created in the aftermath of WWII in order to provide an alternative to this very sort of alliance system. Let’s leave it that way. The US is understandably frustrated with the UN and has been calling for major reforms. We invest more money into the UN than anyone else in the world, and so we should lead the way in the effort to make it function more consistently. We shouldn’t play the old “it’s my ball and you can’t play anymore” trick and try to start something new just for our international buddies. Let’s stick with what is accepted and legitimate in the eyes of the entire world and focus on making it better. If it is democratic values that we seek to embrace here, then let’s do just that by acknowledging peace and open minded dialogue as the best way to approach relationships with other countries.

If McCain camp intends to embrace this idea of a League of Democracies as the rebuttal to Obama’s well-established preference for meeting with foreign governments, friendly and rival, to seek open discussion, I think he is in a world of trouble. Comparisons to NATO and Woodrow Wilson and recitations of George Washington (and Ron Paul) quotes, here we come.

So, League of Democracies: yea or nay?

-Mike