The (Ex) Washington Realist

Senator John McCain unveiled his idea for a League of Democracies and pledges that, if elected to the presidency, he will call a summit of the world's democracies within his first year of office.

The Senator observes:

"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 those 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."

If you build it, they will come. The problem, of course, is that nothing has prevented an ad hoc coalition of democracies (or even democracies and non-democracies) from already acting on any of these issues. We saw how an informal "democratic entente" of the United States, Japan, India and Australia responded in the aftermath of the tsunami.

What McCain lays out sounds like a talking shop--a place for democracies to consult and discuss about problems and solutions. This is already happening. If we are not seeing more effective action on Darfur, it is not because there is no League of Democracies but because states are using the UN as cover for their own reluctance to get involved.

How or why would this proposal improve upon the Community of Democracies which has not really fulfilled its promise to be the global coordinating council? FDR improved on the League of Nations to create the UN; what is new here to prevent the LoD from duplicating the CoD?

Is the League going to have a collective security component? How will it coordinate joint action? What do you do about a democracy like India which is also an observer at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization?

Finally, how does the Senator get past the point that Paul Saunders made in the last issue of The National Interest (and which so many people seem reluctant to want to engage with him on)--that the test of any League or Concert or Community of Democracies is the Franco-American relationship? Are the world's major democratic powers interested in this idea? I've never heard support for this idea from any major European democratic power (from people in government). And if you take John Lee's assessment of what's going on in the ASEAN region (in the current issue of TNI), I don't see the major ASEAN democracies jumping on board. Or is this going to be another "coalition of the willing"?

NATO served specific strategic interests (and it had non-democratic members); the U.S. alliances in east Asia were based on strategic considerations. Alliances that start on the basis of supposed shared values are always stillborn.

Finally, on the east European/Eurasian points. I have never seen evidence that the Kremlin particuarly cares whether governments on its periphery are democratic, autocratic or some mix of the two. What they do care about is whether their interests are safeguarded. Witness the good relations Russia has with states like Hungary and Bulgaria. To the extent that nationalism in Russia's neighbors tends to be anti-Russian, then democracy will produce anti-Russian governments and authoritarian rulers will also use anti-Russian sentiments to prop up their own governments (e.g. Turkmenistan under Niyazov).

One final note: there has been a major sea-change in Republican thinking. McCain says the U.S. is safer when the world is more democratic. Perhaps democratic here is meant in a looser sense, of governments that rule with the consent of the governed or for the benefits of their populations. But that was not the traditional American stance. The traditional stance was the world was safe when every country was free to make its own choices free from the pressure or interference of others. If other countries wanted to choose our form of government, wanted to follow our example, wanted our help in making the transition, that was one thing; but we defined international peace and security via self-determination and through "peaceful competition" of different social systems. Americans didn't feel until quite recently that the existence of other forms of governance undermined our own republican system or delegitimized its appeal. This is a profound shift--and seems to reflect a certain insecurity about America's ability to continue as a global leader.