Choosing Engagement: Uniting the U.N. with U.S. Interests

William H. Luers

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2000

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Summary:  The U.N.'s voluble critics fret that it threatens American sovereignty. In fact, a strengthened U.N. system will both serve America's interests and promote its ideals.

William H. Luers is President and Chairman of the United Nations Association of the United States of America.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has pursued a successful international economic strategy through active engagement in the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Yet it has failed to make similar commitments in the areas of politics, security, and law. It remains deeply ambivalent about the United Nations and resistant to emerging international law for various reasons: its superpower status, its tradition of "American exceptionalism," and its long history of insular attitudes toward other cultures.

Today, the United States considers itself the most powerful and the most democratic of states, committed to peace while standing ready to fight for what is right. As world powers go, it sees itself as the most benign in history. This self-image may be largely justified. Nevertheless, it is increasingly clear that U.S. interests are best served by working with other nations and international bodies to reduce the traditional security challenges. In addition, the United States must tackle the intensifying levels of brutalization against civilian populations, particularly women and children, due to ethnic conflict, mercenary leaders, and criminal gangs. Such civil strife creates millions of refugees and displaced persons and damages the health and economic well-being of many millions more. The gradual spread of these phenomena over ever larger regions will inevitably affect the United States, even if it does not directly seem to hurt American interests now.

The troubled peacekeeping efforts of recent years -- from Kosovo to central Africa -- signal an urgent need to improve our capacity for conflict management. A major obstacle is the current American posture. In most instances, such as Sierra Leone, the United States will not put its troops on the ground. Even worse, it wants to get by on the cheap -- as amply illustrated by congressional resistance to paying the full American share of U.N. peacekeeping efforts. The next president and Congress must commit themselves to strengthening the United Nations system to handle these challenges. At the very least, they must stop scapegoating an institution that the United States is unwilling to support adequately.

FIXABLE FLAWS

First, however, the United Nations must honestly assess its own strengths and weaknesses. Limits on its efficiency partly stem from its multinational character. The 188 member states reduce General Assembly activities to interminable speech-making, while their demands for a quota of U.N. jobs hamper the secretary-general and other agency heads in selecting staff according to merit. But there are signs of genuine reform. A recent report from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) gives high marks to Secretary-General Kofi Annan for improving the quality of staff and putting in place effective management practices.

The U.N.'s financial weakness severely limits its capacity to respond to new challenges and prepare for unanticipated ones. At American congressional insistence, for example, the U.N. Secretariat's budget has been frozen at about $1.3 billion for the past four years. After accounting for inflation and delayed or defaulted payments by the United States and other ...

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