k wrote:
] then for the extended discussions surrounding it around the
] web, and, hopefully, here.

The problem is that he makes a proposal for a system which would directly relate to one of the critical international policy problems of our time, but he does not explain, at least here, the balances that would legitimize that system. On it's face it seems a bit naive.

His G20 sounds a lot like Fukuyama's federation of democracies. The trouble is that the US wants to demonstrate its ability to operate independently of the international system. The right wing has been ignorantly foaming over Kerry's "global test" comment for months... They are essentially challenging the entire western world to demonstrate that there is some value in their opinions.

This wasn't the intent of blowing off the usual channels in invading Iraq. The intent was more to put on a show for the Middle East then for Europe. But the problem is that it has struck a deep chord. It re-enforces the delusions that most Americans have about their power. Most Americans do not believe that they are the most powerful country in the world. They believe, and they have been taught by their school system, that they are the only country in the world that has done anything that mattered since before WWII. There is occasional deference to Russia, but they are bad guys anyway. England is referenced in WWII, but no one else. Americans do not understand the contributions that the rest of the western world has made to the international security situation in the past 60-70 years. They think the reason western allies don't have large militaries is because they are incapable or incompetent. And they've never even heard of new players who are significant.

For quite some time our leadership has managed to keep this hubris under the rug, but thats mostly because they were either old enough or well read enough to know better. Bush is neither, and he has turned the matter into a public political issue with such broad visibility that anyone who now attempted to create a framework for international political legitimacy looks treasonous. The American right thinks the State Department is their enemy!

I really don't see a new international institution being formed in the middle of this koolaid festival other then an irrelevant coalition of the arm twisted. Unfortunately, no amount of information about actual reality is likely to pierce the fox news sphere of denial. These people get bent out of shape if you wish them a Happy Holidays.

If the rest of the world wants to be involved in decisions about International Security they are either going to have to bargain for it by withholding assistance when its really needed, or by increasing their budgets for domestic arms manufacture. Neither of these outcomes is particularly good for anyone, but unfortunately by shedding our existing systems of international law and replacing them with nothing we are asking for an era where do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. We ought to know better, but unfortunately, we've lied to ourselves, and we don't, and I fear we'll pay for it in the end.

RE: Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Worldchanging Interview