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On
January 1 South Korea's Foreign Minister
Ban Ki-moon will formally replace Kofi
Annan to become the eighth Secretary-General
of the United Nations. As Mr. Ban takes
office, the United States and the rest
of the world are in a position to renew
commitments to multilateralism and the
United Nations. For the United States
this moment presents remarkable opportunities
that should be capitalized on.
During
Secretary Rice's tenure as Secretary of
State, she has provided critical support
to the United Nations within the United
States government. In recent international
crises in Lebanon and North Korea, she
reinforced America's commitment to the
United Nations, declaring the world body
to be the best hope for peaceful solutions
to these global emergencies. Indeed, over
the past twelve months, the United States
has increasingly sought to harness the
support of its allies around the world
to help manage global conflict and maintain
global stability.
The
United Nations has become a crucial platform
through which the United States has engaged
the conflict in Lebanon, the genocide
in Darfur, the nuclear ambitions of North
Korea and Iran, and many other challenges
around the world. Some have suggested
that this shift is an inevitable consequence
of the tremendous military and economic
resources that the U.S. government has
devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. But,
whatever the reason, a renewed focus on
multilateralism is a welcome step for
the United States. Global engagement --
far from restricting the U.S. government's
ability to steer events around the globe
-- can produce outcomes favorable to global
peace and security and, therefore, favorable
to the United States. How the United States
chooses to approach this opportunity for
international cooperation will set the
course of global events for the foreseeable
future.
Trying
times lie ahead. As public opinion polls
have shown, Americans want to share the
costs and burdens of peace and are concerned
about America's reputation in the world.
It is therefore essential that the U.S.
does its utmost to foster an environment
at the United Nations that lends itself
to cooperation and problem solving. This
can only be achieved through a recommitment
to diplomacy as the central tenet of American
foreign policy, building on Secretary
Rice's efforts. Moreover, it is imperative
that that diplomacy be subtle and constructive,
not strident and polarizing.
To
be sure, there are a few nations in the
General Assembly who frequently use anti-American
rhetoric. But most are focused on finding
practical answers to international problems.
As the U.S. looks to multilateral solutions,
it will become increasingly important
to help marshal a broad coalition of Member
States focused on the latter approach.
In this respect, resistance to American
leadership is not just the problem of
those who harbor resentment or ill will
toward the United States, but is a problem
for the United States as well. Working
in tandem with America's strongest allies,
making red-lines clear during negotiations,
not after, and practicing firm, yet deft,
negotiating tactics will do much to avoid
the kind of polarization that has gripped
the General Assembly for the past year.
As was reinforced by the recent voting
for the Latin America seat on the Security
Council, practical solutions and measured
diplomacy are the natural tendency of
the General Assembly. Many observers have
noted that the sharp presentation of Venezuela's
president didn't go over well. And, in
the end, a consensus candidate was given
a seat on the Security Council.
As
the United States continues to focus on
the conflict in Iraq, curbing nuclear
proliferation, combating the spread of
violence in the Middle East and Africa,
and responding to various international
crises, intense international cooperation
will be indispensable. To that end, the
Security Council will assume a key role
in American foreign policy. It is therefore
of critical importance that, when the
U.S. engages issues at the Security Council,
it does everything it can to set up the
Council for success. The rewards for such
engagement would be far-reaching and would
include immediate and significant support
for U.S. objectives on nuclear proliferation,
general security, and making the United
Nations as efficient and effective as
possible.
It
is clear that the current approach to
nuclear proliferation, with single nations
and small groups engaged in makeshift
strategies, is yielding little in the
way of tangible progress. The United States
deserves credit for its leadership efforts,
but nobody believes that the tide has
been, or can be, sufficiently stemmed
under the current scheme. It's time for
a different approach. The international
community must stop addressing each new
nuclear crisis in an ad hoc manner
through the Security Council, and instead
fortify existing and, where necessary,
create new global frameworks that can
be used to marshal broad international
support for resolute pressure against
rogue regimes. Each new act of proliferation
would be treated as an offense against
the global consensus, not a crisis with
new rules and challenges. The beginning
of Mr. Ban's term presents a perfect opportunity
for the United States to commit to such
a shift.
Sharing the costs and risks of securing
peace is a second opportunity for the
future. International peacekeeping has
taken off in recent years. For example,
in 20 days in August the Security Council
voted for three new peacekeeping missions
in Lebanon, Darfur, and East Timor. The
new Secretary-General now faces the daunting
task of rallying member states to contribute
peacekeepers and financial resources for
these missions while maintaining contributions
for important ongoing missions in places
like the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Liberia, and Haiti. As a permanent member
of the Security Council, the United States
could have vetoed each of these new missions
(which, if fully implemented, would increase
the number of peacekeepers in the world
by 50 percent). But the U.S., wisely,
did not. Now it is incumbent that the
United States support Mr. Ban by making
the full payment of peacekeeping dues
-- yesterday's unpaid bills, as well as
today's -- a top priority.
To
that end, the Administration should reach
out to the new Congress to help encourage
legislation that will curb American peacekeeping
backlogs and remove the cap on peacekeeping
expenditures that precludes full payment.
As it is, when Mr. Ban takes residence
at the UN in January, the United States
could be as much as $600 million in arrears.
Such a sizeable debt threatens to deter
troop-contributing nations, who suffer
the most from peacekeeping arrears, from
continuing to put their soldiers at risk
so that the United States doesn't have
to. Ensuring that future and ongoing peacekeeping
missions -- deployed to over a dozen hotspots
around the world -- are fully funded and
adequately manned will be indispensable
to the security and prosperity of the
United States.
United Nations reform will continue into
Mr. Ban's term and is a third possible
accomplishment in the near future. With
American backing, the outgoing Secretary-General
set a course for UN reform that includes
managerial reform, more robust ethics
and oversight mechanisms, a review of
UN mandates, and other important measures
to streamline UN operations. But, as with
significant reform in any large organization,
the process can be arduous and demands
persistent, constructive engagement. In
Spring 2006, for instance, a climate of
mistrust stymied a push for important
managerial reforms. With the new Secretary
General comes an opportunity to rebuild
an atmosphere more favorable to change
at the United Nations. And in this important
work, Mr. Ban will need the United States
to help re-focus the UN reform discussion
so that "reform" is not framed
simply as a debate about how to save money
or constrain the promise of the UN, but
about how to make the United Nations a
stronger platform for global problem solving,
humanitarian support, and world development.
If this is successful, the United Nations
would be in a much stronger position to
focus on the global initiatives that promise
to aid all nations, including promoting
democracy, peacekeeping, accomplishing
the Millennium Development Goals, providing
a more robust response to humanitarian
disasters, and fighting world health epidemics.
The
start of the new Secretary-General's term
means that the United States can approach
its top priorities at the United Nations
with renewed resolve. The three-part agenda
detailed above won't solve all of the
world's problems, but, if accomplished,
it would lay the groundwork for a centrist
foreign policy that would best serve America
as it moves forward to face new and increasingly
complex challenges. The best opportunity
to launch this agenda and to set the stage
for effective diplomacy at the United
Nations may be the transition to a new
Secretary-General. For the sake of the
United States and world, the U.S. government
must seize this moment.
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