Helpless Multilateralism

Our global problems require new international cooperation. That won’t happen because of a lack of leadership and the fact that western industrialized countries aren’t ready to cede power to new world players such as China.

Currently, 192 countries are members of the United Nations. And as it is with flesh-and-blood individuals, so goes it for the UN: One can sing to all 192 but hardly deal with them unless one group takes on the leadership role and there are common institutions and policies in place.

American neo-conservatives think this view is yesterday’s rubbish and trust only in America’s strengths. This is called unilateralism and it hasn’t exactly proven to be a model of success. On the contrary, it has proven to be an extraordinarily effective method of self-debilitation.

The lesson to be learned here is that even such a power as the United States, far and away the greatest power in history, is unilaterally too weak and has insufficient international authority to manage the conflicts and crises of these 192 nations, let alone to solve them. This realization has moved George W. Bush back to policies of international cooperation, also called multilateralism.

Given our current age of globalization, are there any serious alternatives to multilateralism at all? No. Can multilateralism function without leadership accepted by all and without rules and institutions capable of action? Likewise, no. That’s exactly the source of the present dilemma caused by a fractured world alignment. The sense that there are no alternatives to multilateralism has grown; the capability to act multilaterally, however, has noticeably shrunk.

The latest G-8 meeting in Japan – that is, the world’s seven most important and wealthy nations, plus Russia – ruthlessly exposed the crisis of a multilateral system. Surrounded by a gigantic media summit circus, the G-8 decided to decide nothing!

The days in which western nations could expect to make a difference exclusively among themselves are probably over forever. The national and governmental leaders that attended the G-8 summit appeared to realize that themselves.

The G-8 has the same problem as the UN Security Council. They no longer reflect the economic and political realities of today’s world, they only represent the distribution of power of times past. Italy and Canada belong to this club while China, Brazil and Mexico must wait outside the door. What decisions do they want to make? What decisions are they even capable of making? It’s small wonder then that this meeting is taken seriously in old Europe where one can at least play at being a world power for the home audience. And that was about it.

The G-8 has become meaningless because it is barely capable of contributing to the guidance of global economics and politics. What this group of nations is missing, meanwhile, is simply the ability and the political will. The last summits in Germany and Japan only produced promises that were cheaper by the dozen. When it came to the serious stuff such as climate protection and aid to developing nations, it became apparent what little value the promises of the G-8 held. The group hasn’t been willing to broach really difficult economic decisions for a long time.

The situation is actually schizophrenic: on one side there are numerous global problems that require the leadership of the most important countries. There are problems of high energy and food prices, under-development, global warming, the dangers of a global recession, the integration of the emerging powers, nuclear proliferation and the possible failure of on-going negotiations aimed at liberalizing world trade, just to name a few examples.

On the other side, the G-8 is by no means eager to make a decision to expand the group to encompass developing nations because there are simply no apparent common interests. An expansion would only make sense if the wealthy nations of the northern hemisphere offered a realistic coordination of interests to the southern and eastern nations. Apart from promises, however, such a compromise is yet to be seen.

Climate protection is a good example: If discussions ever get serious, the old G-8 nations – Germany included – tenaciously defend the status quo and thereby their preeminence. They aren’t prepared to make drastic cuts in emissions in order to allow the emerging economic giants room for growth. Without a waiver by the G-8 nations, however, the new economic powers can’t be subjected to emissions regulations. The upshot is apparent: pollutant emissions will continue to increase and the earth’s atmosphere will continue to heat up.

Instead of a G-8, a G-14 or a G-16 would make much more sense. But without a new global status quo it couldn’t function either, and unfortunately the depressing lesson of both G-8 summits in Germany and Japan is that the industrialized nations of the west aren’t ready for any such global concessions.

The G-8 has become meaningless. If western governments lack the power to negotiate collectively or to construct a new status quo, it would be more honest to simply close down the empty summit circus rather than to continue allowing it to be a laughing stock. But even this won’t happen because the determination and power to close the door is missing. Despite this inability to act, however, the world is not standing still. What governments don’t dare do of their own volition will be done by the progress of history, and the costs will be far greater.