Peaceful Coercion

Summary

The U.S. has become the world’s cop — a thankless role — because of the failure of the United Nations to achieve any of the goals for which it was formed. It would benefit the United States to disband the U.N. But then what?

• We can organize other democratic nations to share world diplomacy by offering reciprocal access to our large economic market.
• A democratic organization can control rogue nations by exerting economic pressure without the use of force.
• This coalition of democratic nations can exist without crippling bureaucracy by regularly rotating hosting responsibilities

Article

Why does the rest of the world turn to the United States when they need a cop or a bully boy? We got this job because we are the world’s most powerful nation, but that does not mean it is beneficial for America. In fact, the role of world cop requires that we fight costly wars on foreign soil, overtax our armed forces, and sacrifice the lives and limbs of our troops, all while garnering global enmity. But we do it because the group that really should be doing it—the United Nations—has failed.

In the 67 years since the United Nations was formed, it has not achieved any of the goals for which it was founded: enforcing international peace and security; insuring human rights; and supporting international law. Instead, this dysfunctional organization is a huge bureaucratic morass, a monetary sinkhole mired in corruption. The UN is so entrenched in its internal politics that even if its most basic flaw—allowing the Security Council of only five countries to maintain veto power--were corrected, there is little hope that it will ever effectively reach its objectives.

History shows that other nations are more than willing to let the U.S. police the globe for them. We should entice other democracies to join us in maintaining world peace by offering them reciprocal access to the world’s largest market, free of tariffs and any subsidization. Morgan Stanley estimates that in 2007, American consumers spent $9.5 trillion, which doesn’t account for the purchases by businesses and industries during that same period.

The authentic democratic countries are estimated to comprise between 65 and 75 percent of the world’s market. (This does not include pseudo-democracies like Russia, Venezuela, and Pakistan.) Democratic countries’ buying power and enormous markets can be used to obliterate the terrorist movement and export democracy globally. This method of combating terrorism will eliminate the need for expensive wars and their calamitous effects.

An organization of democracies would be by invitation only. Unlike the United Nations, this democratic organization would function by majority rule. The requirements for a membership would be a nation with a valid democracy – open elections, human rights, unrestricted media, equality, freedom of religion, and the like. The advantages of this organization would be free trade among the membership, an equal vote on all issues, and mutual military protection against any attacks.

Every democratic country would be eager to join because of free access to the immense market, especially if a commitment for armed forces wasn’t a requirement. Majority rule would prevent individual nations from pre-empting strict economic sanctions against renegade countries in spite of their own direct trade with them. Countries like France and Germany would comply with a majority rule requiring strong measures against Iran and North Korea rather than lose their membership in this powerful and prestigious organization. Then, these aforementioned rogue nations would acquiesce to the unified democratic world powers because of the economic and financial pressure exerted.

To avoid the problems of large institutions such as the UN, these democracies could be organized so there is no need for bureaucrats and costly buildings. Instead, the heads of these democracies would meet, on a regular and rotating basis, in each nation’s capital. There would be constant communications among the countries, as well as the capability to call special meetings in emergencies.

This establishment would be every democratic citizen’s delight because peace through economic coercion rather than military force would control the miscreant nations of the world. Belonging to this co-op would be so advantageous that citizens within non-democratic countries would be emboldened to overturn dictatorships and theocracies. Dictators and tyrants would hesitate to do anything reprehensible for fear of economic reprisal and world condemnation.

What an ideal world this could be with terrorist nations either eliminated or controlled, and massacres and genocides a thing of the past.

LET'S REUNITE OUR POLARIZED NATION