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The Future of International Order [1]

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Date: 2023-02-11  

The effort to draw down the number of nuclear weapons in the world has been at least a partial success.

There were 50,000 nukes in the world in the 1960’s and there are 4,000 to 6,000 today, as stated by writer Kary Love in his story “Nuclear Weapons, Reducing Nukes.” Citizen action has played a role in the progress we’ve made. Martin Luther King and AJ Muste both worked for peace and contributed to this arms control progress. Congressional Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) has introduced a Resolution to the House of Representatives called “Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” McGovern stated: “whereas since the height of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have dismantled more than 50,000 nuclear warheads, but 14,500 of these weapons still exist and pose an intolerable risk to human survival.” A growing list of cities, counties, and states are passing similar resolutions, said Love. The “Back from the Brink” movement is working with local grassroots efforts to get state and federal politicians to sign on.

There are several international developments that can keep quality arms control from happening. We’ve seen the ways of lawbreakers like Russia under Vladimir Putin who invaded a sovereign country, Ukraine. Then there’s the belligerent talk and actions of China. The country might invade Taiwan. A recent diplomatic push on the part of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went up in smoke due to an incident with a Chinese balloon designed for spying. The consistent rhetoric of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un also makes up portion of the deadly brew. There are some connections in the countries in question. China and Russia are both in the Shanghai Cooperation organization, and North Korea is in China’s orbit, as it creates problems for China’s adversaries, the US and its allies.

Then there are some countries, like India, that are staying unaligned in the contest. India was a part of a non-aligned block the in first Cold War. However, the reality is different in this Cold War. There isn’t a bi-polar world. There are multiple poles of influence. India might be able to help some developing countries move forward. It must be added that India is under the sway of authoritarianism via their leader Narendra Modi, and anyone who has watched world affairs knows that authoritarianism is growing around the world. The economic ties between China and the United States mean that there are fewer opportunities for power balancing the US Block or the China block by promoting one side or the other through trade. There’s a growing debt crisis (Involving the International Monetary Fund) with several countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. This will limit the ability for a group on countries to create something like the non-aligned block in the first Cold War.

Sadly, any sign of order in the world is shrinking in all the geopolitical conflict. It’s plum depressing if one considers the lethality of various country’s arsenals, covered in the early portion of this story. During World War II President Franklin Roosevelt planned the United Nations as the four policemen. He thought the world’s geopolitical powers could cooperate to police the world and prevent another world war from happening. His internationalism had certain simple goals, something not understood by many. Who were the four policemen? They were the four major allies of World War II – the US, China, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. Each nation would be able to police its sphere of influence; the US would police the Western Hemisphere, China would police East Asia and the Western Pacific, the UK would police Western Europe, and the Soviet Union would police Eastern Europe and the Eurasian landmass. As a prevention measure against future wars, lesser powers would downsize their militaries. Only the four policemen would have anything more powerful than a rifle.

This internationalism was destroyed when Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin took over Eastern Europe and then came the Cold War. Keep in mind, only two countries in this alliance were democratic – the US and UK, and the UK was only democratic within the country itself. It still held an empire at the time. If all the main powers cooperated, then they wouldn’t have to balance each other, therefore saving on security costs. I mentioned earlier that this was a simple form of internationalism. How so? The four policemen were to keep something like World War II from happening again by prohibiting the invasion of sovereign states and preventing countries from invading other countries and engaging in ethnic cleansing. However, the original vision didn’t prohibit leaders from ethnically cleansing in their own borders, as it was considered too difficult of a task. The four policemen would have concentrated on certain simple forms of international law.

Internationalists should keep the four policemen in mind for a future international organization, or a reformed UN. How do we arrive at this goal? Hopefully, we’ll understand enough about our future and history to find a way. The map will be tough, but let’s hope we can arrive at the right place over the course of several years.

Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer for the Peace Economy Project

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