Georgia and Georgia: Aspiring and Settled States

While one Georgia was secure as a member-state in the U.S., another Georgia was finding itself being frozen out of not only accession talks with the E.U., but also being invited as a “NATO partner” to attend the NATO meeting in June, 2026. It is ironic that whereas the first Georgia had delegated some of its sovereignty to the U.S. in 1789, the second Georgia was unhappy remaining fully sovereign outside of the E.U. rather than as one of the semi-sovereign E.U. states. Giving up some governmental sovereignty can be a “step up,” and, with that comes certain requirements in terms of good governance.

Although “Georgia’s ruling party representatives claimed that the [NATO] summit in Ankara did not include the type of meetings Georgia used to attend in the past . . ., Georgian Dream MP Irakli Kirtskhalia told the press in Tbilisi that ‘we have no problem attending the summit, (sic) ask the organizers why we are not represented.’”[1] The party representatives were artfully deflecting, whereas Kirkskhalia was pointing journalists to the real reason for Georgia’s absence. Georgia’s government had not been invited to the NATO meeting, even though other partners of NATO, including Qatar, UAE, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Ukraine, and Australia were. At the root of the problem was a lack of trust.

That Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili “travelled to Tehran to attend the funeral of the late Ayatolla Ali Khamenei” instead did not exactly win Georgia much trust in the West.[2] The signal that such an action sent outdid any positive words of potential partnership with NATO. A political analyst in Georgia, Paata Zakareishvili, “claimed that the absence of NATO’s invitation to its regional security debates represents what he called the loss of trust by Georgia’s partners.”[3] In fact, he went so far as to admit, “Georgia is being ignored.”[4] He added that Georgia had been aspiring to be part of the alliance, and that “Georgia and Ukraine used to move toward NATO membership together.”[5] Considering Russian President Putin’s strident opposition to Ukraine being in the international alliance, Georgia should have had an easier way in. Instead, he said, “Georgia is no longer being considered anywhere.”[6] Anywhere turns out to be important, for, according to Georgia’s former ambassador to NATO Levan Dolidze, “what is far more damaging is Georgia’s absence from discussions within the European Union.”[7] Such discussions pertained to Georgia possibly gaining statehood in the Union; and, yes, statehood does indeed imply the existence of a federal political system.

As is clear from Georgia in the U.S., being a member-state in a political union wherein both the union and states are semi-sovereign is much more significant than being invited as a partner to a meeting of an international alliance. Even though the U.S. Senate and the Council of the E.U. (and the European Council) are founded on principles of international law, neither union can be said to be an international organization. Indeed, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the European Parliament are founded on national rather than international political principles (i.e., citizens rather than polities are represented, and by population). Both unions can be said to be hybrids forged from the hard political compromises made in the U.S. Constitutional Convention, when the arrangement of fully sovereign countries under the Articles of Confederation were dismissed as too suboptimal for political agency.

Although near the end of 2025, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze insisted that Georgia’s accession-path to statehood “remains steady and irreversible” such that becoming a state by 2030 was still “both realistic and attainable,” the E.U. froze Georgia mid-stream in June, 2026 after the Georgian government had passed a “foreign influence” law that the Commission “described as Russian-inspired and authoritarian against the backdrop of massive anti-government protests in Tbilisi.”[8] The trip to the funeral in Tehran in July didn’t exactly help speed Georgia along either. It did not matter, as Kobakhidze claimed, that Georgia was ahead of all other prospective, aspiring states in economic progress indicators; the problem was one of trust, both regarding democratic values at home and the choice of allies abroad. Even though technicians—pedestrians really—were doubtlessly focusing narrowly on whether the accession criteria were being met, it is important not to lose sight of the big picture.

Was the Georgia “Western” enough not merely to join in an international military alliance, but also to become a semi-sovereign state in a political, federal union? Or would the Georgian government be a “Trojan horse” whose strings would be pulled by Russia’s autocratic and militaristically aggressive Putin? Although from the strategic standpoint of the West, bringing in as many former Soviet Republics as possible may seem optimal because such a move would deprive Russia of being able to “bring them home,” filtering by applying the “sufficiently Western” test is better because then neither the Western military alliance nor the European Union (and the United States, indirectly) would be weakened from within. 

The Georgia that has been a member of the U.S. since the beginning of that political union (and, even earlier, when the U.S. had just been a military alliance and then a confederation of sovereign countries), had tried to “Georexit” in 1861 but was subsequently brought back “into the fold.” Would the Georgia that was shut out of the E.U. in 2026 follow in the footsteps of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary at the expense of federal foreign policy and the defense of the E.U. itself from foreign threats, and ultimately even accomplish “Georexit”? Already Britain had seceded from that political union, and the vote in favor of secession was mainly a reaction against the fact that E.U. states are semi-sovereign rather than fully sovereign, which pertains instead to a confederation such as that of the American Articles. No significant difference with E.U. foreign policy was involved in Britain’s decision to secede. Georgia, on the other hand, would need to prove its loyalty not only to rule-of-law democracy, but also to the West (rather than to Russia or Iran), besides being willing to cede some of its sovereignty in order to be considered and ready for statehood in the E.U.

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1. Peter Barabas, “Georgia Left Off NATO Summit Partner List as Critics Decry Isolation,” Euronews.com, 10 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

Ukraine Beseeches the NATO Alliance

On 7 July, 2026, speaking at NATO’s Summit Defense Industry Forum in Turkey, Ukrainian President Zelensky made the case that Ukraine should be in the NATO military alliance even though that country was still being invaded by Russia, so the activation of the alliance’s article 5’s mutual-defense mandate would be dicey to say the least. Accepting an existing “hot spot” into the alliance would be risky not least because of any immediate expectations of having to join a fight already in progress, but also because of what Russia’s President Putin’s reaction might be. Zelensky’s remarks can thus be regarded as partial, or one-sided, from the standpoint of a full geo-political and military-strategic analysis.

Not coincidentally just ahead of the full NATO meeting, Zelensky claimed that the Ukrainian military had become a “source of extraordinary defensive capability” in Europe due to the country’s rapid advance in military technology involving drones.[1] Ukraine had even become a provider of advanced drone technology as Gulf states sought it to intercept Iranian missiles. “We have completely eliminated the very idea of Russia having a strategic rear,” Zelensky said.[2] One day earlier, according to Euronews, “Ukrainian forces carried out  drone strike on an oil refinery in the city of Omsk, hitting the country’s most important fuel production site more than 2,500km from the Russia-Ukraine border.”[3] In his speech, Zelensky said of the successful military strike, “this is not an exception. It’s the new reality and there is no major oil refinery left in Russia that has not been struck by Ukraine.”[4] Indeed, videos of Russians physically fighting at gas stations amid the resulting gas shortage were being shared on social media around the world.

Nevertheless, U.S. President Trump had ruled out Ukraine joining the military alliance, though the interest of Middle Eastern countries in Ukraine’s drone technology to fight against Iran could find a receptive ear in the White House. Even though Trump had a reputation for engaging in transactional rather than transformational leadership, his opposition to Ukraine being in the alliance could stem from concern as to how the sitting Russian president might react. The invasion was at least in part motivated out of concern that Ukraine would bring NATO to Russia’s door step. Were this to become a reality, Putin might decide to reinvigorate his invasion rather than sue for peace. Rather than joining a Western military alliance, Ukraine could strike a good compromise with Russia by becoming a state in the European Union, which is a political union that is economically rather than militarily oriented, unlike the United States. Furthermore, Putin had little to fear in 2026 from a coordinated and concerted E.U. military intervention in Ukraine, given the veto power retained by the states in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. due to the principle of unanimity applying in matters of defense and foreign policy. That the E.U. had outgrown every state government holding a potential veto, the internal resistance to even necessary reform of the E.U. could be counted on to hold the union back from being a united military threat to Russia.

In short, Russia’s President Putin would be more comfortable with the E.U. moving eastward, as the U.S. moved westward in the nineteenth century, than with Ukraine joining an international military alliance. To the extent that President Trump’s objection to Ukraine joining NATO was based on how Putin would be likely to react, and that Ukraine could become an E.U. state instead, Zelensky’s speech can be viewed as one-sided, and thus as vulnerable to its blind side. In fact, if the first President Bush had promised Russia that reunifying Germany would not result in NATO reaching the Russian border, Putin could become especially obstinate were Ukraine to become a member of the Western military alliance because that would mean that the U.S. will have reneged on its promise. It is best not to provoke a bear even with passive aggression. Were NATO to enter Ukrainian territory militarily to fight against the invasion directly, active aggression would be overlaid on the passive aggression that is inherent to reneging unilaterally on a promise without cause. Zelensky’s citing of the utility to NATO that Ukraine could bring to the alliance in terms of military technology “on the cutting edge” can therefore be viewed as missing the big picture in which Ukraine and NATO can be situated even including an historical context. Whereas narrow, “valued added” utility may suffice for a private business, the political domain is much broader.

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1. Sasha Vakulina, “Zelenskyy Renews Call for Ukraine’s NATO Membership Citing Military Might Ahead of Summit,” Euronews.com, 7 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

On America’s Dominance in NATO: The E.U. as a Contributory Factor

Just after the E.U. had successfully negotiated (mostly) free-trade treaties with India and a few South American state-level countries, the E.U. and U.S. were at odds on the ownership and control of Greenland to such an extent that the NATO alliance was strained if not fraught. The resulting power-vacuum with respect to military alliances could be filled by the E.U. strengthening its federal foreign policy and defense powers and forming a military alliance with India and even South America in order to put less reliance and thus pressure on the weakened NATO alliance.  This is not to say that new military alliances would necessarily or even probably form; rather, such alliances would be in line with the dynamics and logic of power itself at the international level. I contend that the unbalanced balance of federal-state power in foreign policy and defense in the E.U. was a major contributory factor of the dominance of the U.S. in NATO.

U.S. President’s politically aggressive threats regarding making Greenland a U.S. territory (but not a state) made the American dominance in NATO suddenly unsavory to the Europeans. At the end of January, 2026, the former European Council president Charles Michel was unusually blunt by European (but not American Midwestern) standards. “NATO chief Mark Rutte should stop being an ‘American agent’ and unite the fraught military alliance in the face of the United States’ ‘hostile rhetoric’ and ‘intimidation’,” Michel told Euronews.[1] Whereas his words, hostile rhetoric and intimidation, applied to President Trump were nothing new; it was the expression, American agent, that stood out. Even though the dominance of the mighty American military power in NATO was hardly news, that Michel said it out loud signaled the depth of the Europeans’ displeasure at Trump’s overt messaging on Greenland. Michel was just as blunt about Rutte himself. “I want to be clear, Mark Rutte is disappointing and I’m losing confidence. . . . I’m not expecting Mark Rutte to be an American agent. I’m expecting Mark to work for unity within NATO,” Michel said.[2]

Rutte’s claim that Trump was the “Daddy” of NATO was admittedly over the top (Trump’s ego hardly needed the accolade of Daddy), but Michel’s criticism is weaker concerning Rutte’s efforts to find “an off-ramp for Trump to climb down on his recent threats to trigger a trade war” with the E.U. over differences on Greenland.[3] Dissipating the related economic and political escalations between countries in NATO served the interests of unity in NATO, so Rutte deserves credit for providing Trump with an off-ramp.

Michel also claimed that the E.U. had been a “very loyal partner” to the U.S. and thus did not deserve Trump’s threats.[4] Instead of going on to analyze the relative validity of the positions of the E.U. and U.S. on which continent should own and control Greenland, the road less travelled by analysts concerns the argument that the E.U. would be more likely to reach a parity of power with the U.S. in NATO were the E.U. states willing to transfer more governmental sovereignty to the federal level in foreign policy and defense. This would include (but not be limited to) moving off reliance on the principle of unanimity to hold votes in the Council by qualified-majority. As the executive branch, the Commission would of course have more shared and exclusive competencies (i.e., enumerated powers) in foreign affairs and militarily (with control over more than the 60,000 troops). As in the U.S., both the states and the Union would have armies, and the Commission could temporarily borrow the state militias as needed. That the state governments have direct power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, whereas the American states are only indirectly represented in the U.S. Senate, means that the E.U. would be less likely to abuse its federal police and even the federal borrowing of state armies as Trump was able to do.

Moreover, that the U.S. had become so violent, in part due to the astounding corruption in local police departments and in part due to the Trump administration is itself a reason why E.U. citizens and their elected representatives have good reason to bolster defense at the federal level. Gone were the days when America stood for the little guys rather than the bullies in the world. Unfortunately, the language that speaks most clearly to Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin is that of counter-force. Were the E.U. not so bottom-heavy militarily (i.e., reliant on the state armies), perhaps a federal force could have gone into Ukraine and Gaza to push the aggressors back. Might-Makes-Right would have suffered a set-back rather than stand to become the default in post post-World War II global order. Therefore, the Europeans could stand to do some navel gazing on why the U.S. has been so dominate in NATO.  

1. Mared G. Jones, “Mark Rutte Should Stop Being an ‘American Agent’ and Unite NATO, Charles Michel Says,” Euronews.com, January 30, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Poised to Take on the U.S. Military: All Five Danish Soldiers in Greenland

Even though Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine was prompting E.U. officials to bolster the union’s defenses in 2025, U.S. President Trump’s statements early in 2026 in favor of the U.S. buying or invading Greenland, an “autonomous” part of the E.U. state of Denmark, triggered defensive rhetoric in that state’s government. I contend that the rhetoric was largely, though not completely, hyperbolic, and that more substantial statements could have come from the E.U.’s foreign minister because the E.U. is, as an empire-scale political union of states, equivalent to the U.S.[1] That the E.U. could in principle take on the U.S. is enough to view the Danish state’s rhetoric as hyperbolic, and thus as not credible enough to dissuade an American invasion of Greenland.

In January, 2026, Denmark’s Defense Ministry, which doubtless would be jealous in giving up even any part of its military powers so the E.U. could “walk with a big stick” rather than mere public statements, felt the need to confirm the 1952 military directive that directs soldiers stationed in Greenland to fire immediately, rather than upon orders issued by superiors, upon any other military invading the island. Danish military personnel would be required to “immediately take up the fight” even if their respective commanders are not aware that Denmark has issued a declaration of war.[2] That public confirmation was triggered by U.S. President Trump having “repeatedly threatened to take control of Greenland by force if necessary, describing the Arctic territory as vital to American national security.”[3] Trump had recently directed his military forces to extract the sitting president of Venezuela to face trial in New York City, so officials in not only Greenland, but also Mexico and even Iran in addition to little Denmark were understandably on edge.[4]

The hyperbole was in the Danish governor’s statement that an attempt to take Greenland by the U.S. would mark the end of NATO.[5] “If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country military,” Mette Frederiksen said, “then everything stops. That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of World War II.”[6] Tellingly, she omitted any mention of the E.U. even though the fact that Denmark was at the time a semi-sovereign state in a political, economic, and social (policy) union is more significant than that Denmark was in an international military alliance. The prime minister’s omission reveals a lot, and is consistent with the anti-federalist ideology in Europe. At the very least, she could have threatened that if NATO would go down, presumably from her insistance alone, she would use her power in the European Council to propose an exclusive competency by which to strengthen the E.U. militarily—something that would displease the sitting American president, who preferred to meet with governors of E.U. states rather than with President Von der Leyen and the President of the Council (the counterpart of the American Vice President, who is the President of the U.S. Senate, which represents the States).

Threatening that an American invasion of an autonomous territory of Denmark would cause NATO to collapse is not something that the U.S. State Department or President Trump would (or should) take very seriously, especially with more than a few NATO countries being in the neighborhood of Putin’s military prowess in Ukraine at the time. The hint or outright claim that Denmark could unilaterally “pull the plug” on a giant military alliance reflects back on the state’s government at the expense of the credibility of its public statements. Such hyperbole can actually make an invasion more likely because weakness often tries to make itself look stronger than it is. In fact, even Denmark's threat of military force to repell an American invasion could be viewed as hyperbolic. Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief-of-staff, told CNN, "Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. . . . We live in a world, in the real world, . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power."[7] Even if Denmark would not cave once the U.S. has gained actual possession of the territory, the odds in terms of military strength were against the small E.U. state.

The E.U.’s case for additional competencies in defense and foreign affairs is actually strengthened when a small state such as Denmark shows signs of such weakness by overplaying its hand in making threats that it cannot keep. It was not just because of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine that such additional competencies should already have been ceded by the state governments in the E.U.; small states especially could benefit from collective action in defense and foreign policy at the federal level, irrespective of the Russian threat to the east. In very practical terms, if government officials at the state level in the E.U. truly want to counter U.S. President Trump, strengthening the E.U.’s enumerated powers (i.e., shared and exclusive competencies) even though that would mean delegating such powers would be a prime way to do it. Like the Schengen Agreement and the Growth and Stability Pact, both of which began outside the E.U.’s framework and then were incorporated within it, not every state need be included. Hungary and Slovakia, for example, could be initially excluded and thus not given the power of obstruction that those states’ respective governors had relished too much. Unlike the U.S., the E.U. is more flexible with regard to the coverage of the enumerated powers, or competencies, that are at the federal level. Every state need not participate, though that every state would presumably benefit from a military-defense at the E.U. level is admittedly an argument for unanimity unless “third-party” externalities (i.e., benefits) are acceptable to the states subject to the coverage.

Regarding the American threatened buyout or invasion of Greenland, E.U. President Von der Leyen should have been the official to respond. At the very least, the leverage of the E.U. was being passed up from within. Such weakness is difficult to respect from abroad. In incorrectly viewing the E.U. as an international organization, President Trump’s assumption is that the strategic interests of the U.S. are strengthened by a weakened—even if just by false categorization—European Union. The American federal president apparently was not deterred by the uncomfortable facts that the European Parliament’s representatives are elected by E.U. citizens, who by the way hold E.U. passports, the European Court of Justice is the E.U.’s federal supreme court, and the Commission counts as an executive branch, whose head stands unofficially as the federal president. In fact, because the head of the executive branch is not the head of the Parliament or the Council, the E.U.’s federal level has the same structure as that of the U.S.’s federal level. In other words, neither Trump nor Von der Leyen could be said to be prime ministers in a legislature. Even making this comparison would run counter to President Trump’s stance on the E.U. in terms of the U.S.’s security and dominance in the world. 

By ceding too much obstructionist power to the Euroskeptics, officials at both the state and the federal levels of the E.U. have been enabling President Trump’s short-sighted view of the geo-political interests of the U.S. with respect to Europe. By implication, the Euroskeptics who have been holding offices in the E.U. have been enabling the dominance of the Americans as well as the overblown hyperbole in Denmark, as if that small state could even conceivably stand up militarily to a union of 50 states. Incidentally, E.U. enlargement to the east by the accession of new states, which the U.S. did in enlarging westward during the nineteenth century, is in the Europeans’ geo-political interest with respect to becoming a counter-weight to the United States in international affairs and in dealing with the American government directly.

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1. Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (2015)
2. Aleksandar Brezar, “Danish Soldiers Would Shoot Back If Invaded, Government Confirms,” Euronews.com, 8 January, 2026.
3. Ibid.
4. My paternal grandmother’s parents came to Wisconsin from Denmark, so I am not trying to insult Denmark by alluding to the fact that it is a small E.U. state; rather, I am trying to emphasize the benefits for such a state of collective action that the E.U. could provide in defense of the state were it not for Euroskeptic, anti-federalist ideology especially in some of the eastern states of the E.U.
5. Aleksandar Brezar, “Danish Soldiers Would Shoot Back If Invaded, Government Confirms,” Euronews.com, 8 January, 2026.
6. Ibid.

7. Chris Cameron, "Miller Says Imperialism Is Justified in Greenland," The New York Times, January 7, 2026.

A Drone Wall for the E.U.: Russian Aggression Assuages Euroskeptic States

Speaking after his meeting with U.S. President Trump in Alaska during the summer of 2025, Russia’s President Putin said that if no agreement is reached with Ukraine, the force of arms would decide the matter. In other words, might makes right, or at least military incursion is a legitimate way to decide political disputes between countries. I would have hoped that such a primitive mentality would be antiquated in the twentieth century, but, alas, human nature evolves only at a glacial pace undetected within the lifespan of a human being. In September, 2025, the United Nations was under attack from within the General Assembly because of the continuance of the veto held by five countries in the Security Council; the U.S. had just vetoed a resolution for an immediate cession of Israeli destruction in Gaza. As a former deputy secretary of the UN had admitted to me during the fall of 2024, the veto itself renders the UN unreformable; a new international organization would have to be established sans vetoes for efficacy to be possible. Even so, absent a real enforcement mechanism, such as a military force, a resolution even of a vetoless organization would merely be parchment. The impotence of the UN is one reason why NATO, a defensive military transatlantic alliance, has been valuable in the face of military threats by Russia. Yet in September 2025, after Russian drones had flown into four E.U. states, E.U. President Von der Leyen felt the need to take the lead by again stressing her proposal for a drone wall along the E.U.’s eastern border; she was not deferring to any international alliance, much less to the United Nations. I submit that Von der Leyen’s initiative is yet another means by which the E.U. can be distinguished from international “blocs,” alliances, and organizations. Unlike the latter three, the E.U. has exclusive competencies and is thus semi-sovereign (and the same goes for the state governments).

After “two or three large drones were spotted at Copenhagen Airport,” which is in the E.U., on September 23, 2025, the E.U.’s Commission “called for a drone wall, a novel initiative first unveiled by President Ursula von der Leyen” in her State of the Union speech.[1] “For those who still doubted the need to have a drone wall in the European Union, well, here we get another example of how important it is,” a spokesman at the Commission said.[2] Why had not the Commission pursued this proposal in time to block the incursions in August and September?

Euroskeptic, or anti-federalist, Europeans, which included at least two governors at the time, loathed the idea of federalizing defense (and foreign policy). Also, just as in the early decades of the U.S., some state governments resisted the federalization of “collective” debt. That the E.U.’s executive branch was “rolling out a €150 billion loan programme to boost defence spending, which could be mobilized to promote domestic production of drones,” represented to some governors a giant leap on the way to a central federal state that would eventually encroach on the state governments.[3] This fear, by the way, is precisely what led several U.S. states to try to exit the U.S. in 1861.

Whereas in the U.S., the state government’s direct power at the federal level had been weakened when state governments no longer appointed delegates to the U.S. Senate, E.U. state governments could wield veto power over a significant number of proposed federal laws and regulations. Whereas the U.S. state governments could no longer adequately protect their turf against federal encroachment, the E.U.’s federal governmental institutions could still be paralyzed by blocs of states or even just one state. So, it is incredible that the Commission was able to act on the incursions of drones once this had been in a north-western state (i.e., Denmark) to create a drone wall and issue significant “collective,” or federal debt. Unlike international organizations, the E.U. has some governmental sovereignty that had been delegated by the states, and this means that it is no surprise that the E.U. rather than NATO or the UN would take action in the face of Putin’s use of force of arms to decide the question of Ukraine. The problem is that the Commission has too often been paralyzed by the state governors, which is particularly damaging because the E.U. is not an international organization, and those that existed as of 2025 could not be relied upon.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “’We Cannot Wait’: EU Calls for Drone Wall to Deter Russia after New Incident in Denmark,” September 23, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Advancing the E.U.’s Strategic Autonomy: Beyond Security by Regulation

Faced with the return of Donald Trump as U.S. president in early 2025, the European Parliament debated on November 13, 2024 how the E.U. should respond and, if needed, protect its strategic interests with respect to Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine. “In their debate, MEPs considered hw to engage with the new administration to address challenges and leverage opportunities for both regions as the E.U. seeks stable transatlantic relations.”[1] The possibility of the incoming U.S. President pulling back on NATO and with respect to contributing military supplies and money to Ukraine, and issuing protectionist tariffs on imports from the E.U. had added urgency for the E.U. to come up with ways of countering those external threats from the West just as Russia’s latest forays into Ukraine were external threats from the East. On the same day, Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s secretary of state/foreign minister/foreign policy “chief” “proposed to formally suspend political dialogue with Israel over the country’s alleged violations of human rights and international law in the Gaza strip.”[2] This alone put the E.U. at odds with Israel’s stanchest defender/enabler, the U.S., and with its incoming president, Donald Trump. From a human rights standpoint alone, both with respect to the governments of Russia and Israel, the trajectory of the E.U. in incrementally increasing its competencies (i.e., enumerated powers delegated by the state governments) in foreign policy and especially in defense (given the new post of Defense Commissioner) was in motion. The question was perhaps whether the E.U.’s typical incrementalism would be enough to protect the E.U.’s strategic interests, which includes protecting human rights at home and abroad. Fortunately, on the very same day, Kaija Shilde, Dean of the Global Studies school at Boston University, spoke at Harvard on the very question that I have just raised. I will present her view, which will lead to my thoughts on how viewing the E.U. inaccurately as a mere alliance harms the E.U.’s role internationally from within. That is to say, the continuance of the self-inflicted wound, or category-mistake on what the E.U. is, was compromising the jump forward in defense that the E.U. needed at the time to more competently address the crisis in Ukraine.

Shilde began by noting the important role that the private sector had been playing within the E.U. with regard to providing Ukraine with military assets. Any state-actor has to harness markets to generate defense items, and the fact that the states were still commanding their respective militias, or armies, does not nullify this federal competency (enumerated power) that has been difficult to fully recognize given the contribution of the private sector. The E.U. and the U.S. both had been regulating their respective markets and thus encouraging their respective military-industrial industries. Therefore, both unions were more important than NATO, which has only been an alliance since its inception, in pushing against Putin who, in 2014 and again in 2022 invaded Ukraine militarily. In 2024, the E.U. was in fact doing things to generate military power. Direct lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine, enhancing defense integration within the E.U., and coordinating a war economy have been just three of the contributions at the federal level since the invasion of 2022. In 2024, the E.U. was the third largest military spender in Europe. Combining financial aid and military allocations, the E.U. allocated more money than did the United States.  

Europeans have been in favor of a role for the E.U. in defense. As of 2024, over 70 percent of Europeans in a poll every year since 1999 have said that the E.U. should have a role—that it shouldn’t be left up to the states. Only around 20 percent disagreed during that interval. Asked which level of governance best addresses defense threats, 43 percent said the federal level, which is to say, the European Union. In fact, the Europeans polled had specific ideas of what a E.U. army should do. Defending the E.U.’s territory was number one on the list. Shilde concluded that there must be something organic about pan-European defense, but would popular opinion be enough for the E.U. to augment its defense competencies (powers) in time to help Ukraine push back the Russian (and North Korean) army?

Since 1950, European integration proceeded by occasionally taking back-steps, and has been pushed forward by external threats. In the 1950s, the European Defense Community was prompted by the Soviet threat. In 1956, during the Suez crisis, France proposed a federal union for Europe rather than the extant Economic Community. Whereas the U.S. began with an emphasis on defense, for obvious reasons, the E.U. took off from an economic core of competencies (i.e., enumerated powers). Federal governmental sovereignty can be at both poles, as well as in the incremental powers that both unions have been able to add at the federal rather than state level. To be sure, starting with defense is more typical of federal levels than with economic regulations, which have traditionally been made at the local, provincial, and state levels.

A plurality of Europe’s military power has been due to the E.U.’s regulatory power; this is a modern way of generating military power—a modern way of exercising governmental sovereignty even if defense competencies are added later. The role of European companies in the E.U.’s shaping of markets to deliver military goods should not be minimized. In 2024, E.U. private firms spent 3 times that of American firms on defense research and development. This is because of E.U. regulations. For example, the E.U. facilitates some infant industries by means of protectionism. To be sure, given the Russian military incursion into Ukraine, the E.U. needed to become a large scale buyer of military goods and it needed a defense industrial policy in 2024, according to Shilde, even if the upcoming U.S. President were to decrease the American military support not only to Ukraine, but even NATO. Should he make a retreating dent in these respects, Shilde predicted that the E.U. would see a sizable enhancement of its role in defense, including in regard to helping Ukraine. It may not make any difference, she said, whether the federal level directly commands any military units; after all, the Confederate States of America relied on the armies of its member-states in the 1861-1865 war between the USA and the CSA.

I contend that the comparison between the E.U. and the CSA is not nearly as accurate as a comparison between the E.U. and U.S., even in 2024, especially if you take account of time, and thus development, by comparing the E.U. of 2024 with the U.S. of 1820—both unions being around 30 years old. Even comparing the E.U. and U.S. as they were in 2023 allows us to exclude the claim that one of the two was merely an alliance or an international organization. Federalism had already come to Europe within the E.U.’s borders, and, like case of the U.S., both the federal and state levels of the E.U. already enjoyed some governmental sovereignty. Hence both unions could be classified as having modern federal systems rather than being confederations, in which the states hold all of the sovereignty.

Importantly, getting the comparison right, and being realistic about what the E.U. was even as of 2024 is important to eliminating the self-inflicted handicap that had held the E.U. back since 1993. Classifying the E.U. as a mere alliance, and thus like that of NATO, has held the E.U. state governments back from agreeing to delegate additional defense competencies to the E.U. so a stronger united and collective defense of Ukraine could possibly tip the scales against Russia’s President Putin. This would be as if to say, with action as well as words: invading another country is no longer allowed. Such a twenty-first-century advance in international relations would truly be a Hamiltonian feat. Perhaps it would also be such a feat to get enough E.U. citizens to admit to themselves that the E.U. had already become a federal system, and thus has not in fact been inherently limited to the roles of an international organization or alliance. To put on a united front with one arm tied up, and to be doing so unwittingly or at the behest of an ideology is a self-infliction that the E.U. could have done without, especially with American isolationism rising in the West and Russian militarization intensifying in the East.

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1. Euronews, “MEPs Debate Future E.U.-U.S. Relations Against Backdrop of U.S. Administration Change,” Euronews.com, November 13, 2024.
2. Shona Murray and Jorge Liboreiro, “Borrel Proposes to Suspend E.U.-Israel Political Talks over Gaza War,” Euronews.com, November 13, 2024.

Resolved: The E.U. Should Join NATO

I contend that the European Union rather than its states should be in NATO. Besides eliminating duplication from the E.U. having a nebulous observer status while the states are formally in the alliance, the increasing role in defense being played by the Commission, including there being a Defense commissioner (secretary/minister), calls for being formally in the alliance. Whereas the U.S. began as a military alliance of sovereign states, the E.U. can trace its beginnings to the European Economic Community. Both unions have since incorporated powers or competencies beyond the respective starting points. For the E.U. this has meant moving beyond economics and trade to include social policy and, last but not least, defense. It is in NATO’s interest to adapt to this change. Lastly, that the E.U. and U.S. are both instances of (early) modern federalism, which at its core has the attribute of dual-sovereignty wherein both the federal and the state levels enjoy at least some governmental sovereignty, whereas NATO, as an international alliance, is confederal in that all of the sovereignty resides in the members of the alliance, justifies the E.U. being a member of NATO rather than being misinterpreted as a comparable international organization as the state-rights Euroskeptics like to believe.

On November 6, 2024, at his confirmation hearing at the European Parliament, the Commission’s nominee to be the union’s first defense commissioner (defense secretary in American parlance), Andrius Kubilius (of the European People’s Party) said, “If we want to defend ourselves, we need to spend at least €10 billion up to 2028.”[1] In addition, €200 billion would be needed over the next decade to update infrastructure and €500 billion to build an air-defence shield. “We need to spend more,” he said, “not because it is a demand of President[-Elect] Trump, but because of Putin”, the President of Russia, who, not coincidentally, was in the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[2] Showing “that we’re able to defend ourselves” would “convince Putin not to start another military campaign” within the E.U.’s territory.[3] Strength comes in numbers, and at the time that meant 27 states united to thwart Putin’s military expansionism.

A united force would carry over into NATO, within which the E.U. would have more clout than any of the 27 E.U. states had ever had in the alliance. Furthermore, were the E.U. to replace its states in NATO, the seven E.U. states that still had not met the commitment to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense would be wiped clean because the only requirement would be that the E.U. spend at least 2% of its GDP on defense, and Kubilius was clearly signaling that the Commission was in favor of doing so.  Of course, whether the Parliament would go along is another story. For NATO, no longer would 27 states in Europe have to be watched as far as defense spending is concerned, and the integration of military infrastructure at the E.U. level would also be easier for NATO to connect to instead of doing so separately to 27 state military forces (militias in American parlance).

Perhaps most important, with the E.U. being a member of the NATO alliance and spending €200 billion over a decade on infrastructure that would integrate the fractured militaries at the state level, the chances would be lower that war would erupt within the E.U. between the states. Nineteenth-century American history reminds us that such a war is possible in an empire-scale federal system wherein the state governments are powerful, and twentieth-century European history contained two world wars that began in what would become the European Union. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it is very much in the interests of the U.S. that the E.U. not only be able to defend itself, and thus rely less on American money for the purpose and be better equipped to fend off Russian expansionism, but also join NATO. Having one voice rather than 27 to speak with would simplify the communicative tasks on both sides of the Atlantic. I suspect that the foremost obstacle to further European integration on the defence front is ideological in nature, and this resistance, not coincidentally, aligns quite well with the personal and short-run political interests of the heads of the state governments in the European Union, for it is human, all too human, to relish being in the spotlight.

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1. Paul Soler, “Boost E.U. Defence Capabilities Against Putin, Future Commissioner Warns,” Euronews.com, November 7, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Decolonializing the Baltic States: Exculpating a “Victim” Identity

On how to decolonize Eastern Europe, its states must disentangle themselves from the history of the U.S.S.R. and even Russia. This is not simply a matter of severing business and political ties; a more intangible disengagement “mentally” must also take place. Because most of us tend to dismiss the “soft” or paradigmatic side of international political economy, highlighting the “real” implications of not attending to this side is beneficial. In short, I have in mind the “victim” cultural identity that can easily stick to former colonies or parts of empires more generally.

During the early months of Russia’s unilateral invasion of Ukraine, the governments of countries in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, sought reassurance from the West of military protection should Russia continue its militaristic advance beyond Ukraine once that country has been subdued and firmly back in the Russian empire. Even Sweden and Finland, which had not been part of the U.S.S.R., quickly sought membership in NATO. Serbia and Georgia sought to expedite accession talks to become E.U. states even though from the E.U.’s standpoint those two states would be relatively pro-Russia along with Hungary in the E.U. and thus dilute its anti-Russian consensus.

All of those efforts could be said to be predicated on a “victim” identity. Running for protection from a bigger power against a former and yet baleful bully is classic “victim” behavior. This creates a dilemma in that running for cover might be in the existential interests of the governments living near such a bully as Russia, and yet doing so can be said to be from a “victim” self-identity.  Lamenting and trying to “work through” past imperial expansion does not seem very helpful to me. Instead, what is needed is to seek protection and then quickly pivot to non-victim policies, such as in taking an active role within the protection. For example, the Baltic states could have taken an active role in E.U. foreign-policy making, such as in capitalizing on their knowledge of Russia to target particular sanctions against certain Russian oligarchs. Internationally, those states could take an active role by agreeing to more of the alliance’s hardware being located in those states. Eastern Europe can thus both seek out the protection of the West and assert a non-victim stance toward Russia. 

Turkey’s President Enables Euroskeptic Ideologues

The European Union is not a military alliance, like NATO or the ancient Spartan League. Nor is the E.U. merely a free-trade agreement like NAFTA. In terms of the history of federalism, the E.U. instantiates “modern federalism,” wherein governmental sovereignty is split between federal and state levels, rather than confederalism, wherein all such sovereignty is retained by the states. Both the U.S. and E.U. instantiate modern federal systems, although ironically the U.S. was originally a confederal system of sovereign states. In likening the E.U. to NATA in 2023, President Erdogan of Turkey unwittingly committed a category mistake. This in turn weakened his attempt to leverage his power in approving Sweden as a country in NATO with his demand that the E.U. admit Turkey as a state.

Just prior to the NATO meeting in June, 2023, Erdogan stated at a news conference, “First, let’s clear Turkey’s way in the European Union, then let’s clear the way for Sweden, just as we paved the way for Finland.”[1] Becoming a state in a political union, whether it is the U.S. or E.U., is qualitatively different than joining a military alliance. Joining the latter does not involve a transfer of some governmental sovereignty to a federal executive branch (e.g., the E.U. Commission), legislative branch (e.g., the Council of the E.U. and the E.U. Parliament), and judicial branch (e.g., the European Court of Justice). A state in such a federal system is qualitatively different than a country being in a military alliance because an alliance itself has no governmental institutions and sovereignty.

To characterize a state in a union and a country in a military alliance both as “member states” is misleading. In fact, efforts to do so may stem from an ideological “state’s rights” (or Euroskeptic) effort to deny that the E.U. is in fact an instance of modern federalism rather than confederalism. In remarking that “almost all NATO member countries are European member countries,” Erdogan unwittingly fell into the trap of the ideologues who refuse to recognize that the E.U. and U.S. fall within the same genre of unions of states (i.e., modern federalism rather than confederalism).[2] Because the term country implies full sovereignty, both E.U. and U.S. members are states in the sense of being semi-sovereign political units in a federal system. The U.S. states are members of the U.S., because they joined the U.S. from being formerly sovereign countries (or assumed to have been of such status) and the members of the U.S. Senate, which is based on international rather than national law. The Council of the E.U. is also founded on international principles, wherein political units rather than citizens are the members.

It follows that the countries that are members of UNESCO, the UN, and other international organizations are not states thereof, and should not be referred to as member states. To do so in an attempt to imply that the E.U., unlike the U.S., is also an international organization flies in the face of the very existence of the E.U. Commission, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. International organizations do not have legislatures and high courts and executive branches to implement law and federal judicial rulings. That the Euroskeptic ideology denies this just shows the downside of ideology in general as being intellectually dishonest as regards empirical facts. To want to remake things as they presently are is one thing; to claim or insinuate that things are already different than they are is quite another. I contend that the Turkish president fell into the trap laid by the intellectually dishonest ideologues in Europe.

1. Hande A. Alam and Christian Edwards, “Erdogan Links Sweden’s NATO Bid to Turkey Joining the EU,” CNN.com, July 10, 2023.
2. Ibid.

Lessons Learned from the Arab Spring

"When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now." The White House issued this written statement five days after Qaddafi had turned in violence on his own people who were protesting unarmed in the street. Nearly three weeks after the first day that Qaddafi had lost legitimacy, President Obama tried to raise the pressure on the Libyan dictator further by talking about “a range of potential options, including potential military options."  Yet by then the politics of such intervention were getting more complicated by the day, according to The New York Times. The paper reported that critics were contending that the White House was too much concerned about perceptions, and that the administration was too squeamish on the military options on account of the preceding administration's invasion of Iraq based on a claim of danger to the United States from Saddam's access to WMD. Even the critics acknowledged that the best outcome militarily would be for the United States to join other nations or international organizations rather than go it alone. About a week after the president's hint of military options, the E.U. decided not to impose a No Fly Zone. A few days later, the Arab League, which, according to The Huffington Post, had already barred Libya's government from taking part in League meetings, issued a statement that Qaddafi's government had "lost its sovereignty." The League decided to establish contacts with the rebels' interim government, the National Libyan Council, and to call on the Security Council of the U.N. to impose a No Fly Zone on Libya.  In a statement, the Arab League asked the "United Nations to shoulder its responsibility ... to impose a no-fly zone over the movement of Libyan military planes and to create safe zones in the places vulnerable to airstrikes." It would not be until March 18th, nearly a month after Qaddafi had first had weapons used against the protesters, that the Security Council would act. According to The New York Times, "After days of often acrimonious debate, played out against a desperate clock, as Colonel Qaddafi’s troops advanced to within 100 miles of the rebel capital of Benghazi, Libya, the Security Council authorized member nations to take “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, diplomatic code words calling for military action." Within days, according to The New York Times, "American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of . . . Qaddafi, unleashing warplanes and missiles in the first round of the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq."

Analysis:

It is tempting to focus on weighing the pros and cons of the military engagement, including how it came to be decided (It took too long), whether the genuine motive was oil or human rights (I suspect oil), and whether we were being consistent, given abuses against protesters going on in Bahrain and Yemen at the time (We were not, and this points back to the motive being to stop or reverse the gas price increase caused by speculators overstating the supply-impact of political instability (see my essay criticizing corporate political risk analysis and its self-fulfilling prophesy).  To be sure, I weave these matters in my analysis, even if merely implicitly in some of their aspects. However, I prefer to bring out dynamics that might otherwise be overlooked by tracking events on the ground. I approach the Libyan case as a learning opportunity that can be placed in a larger framework oriented to the long-term. Hoping for a progression in the way the human race organizes itself, I look at ways in which international organizations can be reformed and principled leadership involved to protect and defend citizens' human right to life against encroachments by their own governments. As a backdrop to my argument, I submit that the matter of whether or not to engage in a military intervention can be thought of in terms of a window of opportunity with respect to human rights. After discussing this matter, I turn to the matters of international organization reform and principled leadership geared to human rights. While this essay is long, I beg the reader's indulgence in my attempt to proffer a substantive treatment of the subject. My aim is not limited to agreement; I hope my thoughts and reasoning, and even the values I presume therein, stimulate (or provoke) the reader to greater thought and proposals than I can muster.

"This is a window of opportunity for the United States," Zahi Mogherbi, an adviser to the Libyan rebels' interim government, had said weeks before the Security Council's vote. The most basic shift that had occurred in the three weeks between Obama's two statements was from a government turning on its own people to a military divided between being loyal to Qaddafi and supporting of the rebels.  Even though the eventual international fire power is not without merit in protecting Libyan civilians, I contend that it is far easier to justify external military intervention against a government that has turned on its own unarmed people because such a basic betrayal involves a complete loss of legitimacy to rule, as the Obama administration noted in its statement five days after Qaddafi's decision to kill protesters.  By the time the conflict had become one between armed rebels and the military loyal to Qaddafi--that is, what the West was calling a civil war--the window to boldly declare with military force that the Libyan government would not be allowed to turn on its own (unarmed) people--had passed. The protesters had been replaced by rebels. Even if successful external military intervention was still possible, the human rights justification had weakened because a government is on firmer ground in fighting armed rebels. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. To be sure, Qaddafi's forces were killing unarmed civilians "without mercy," according to the tyrant himself; the human rights element had not dissolved even if it was extant with contests taking place on the field of military battle.  Even so, just five days after the government of Qaddafi had turned on the people it was to protect, the claim that Qaddafi had lost the right to rule was being overlaid by the observation that Libya was entering a civil war with two armed camps. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango (though dancing alone or in a group seems to be the rule in techno music nightclubs). The transition from a human rights violation to the more ordinary civil war can occur in days in a fast-moving situation on the ground.  Referring to the window that was rapidly closing for military intervention, Zahi Mogherbi observed of the U.S. Government, "They are not taking it or they are taking their time."

Even if military action being delayed a month so diplomatic channels could result in a U.N. resolution could ultimately facilitate or bring about Qaddafi's downfall (hence such action is worthy of support), President Obama missed the window of opportunity in which he could have claimed to be stopping Qaddafi from violently turning on his own people rather than from winning a civil war by going after civilians and rebels in rebel areas. Talking to reporters on March 19th, the first day of the U.S. involvement in the action, Obama said, "we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.” But the president did stand idly by, for roughly a month since Qaddafi's violence on February 21st.

Both the idiosyncratic and bureaucratic features of the diplomatic route that the U.S. and E.U. choose to take point to the need for a new international mechanism if the world wants to protect and defend--in real rather than diplomatic time--the human right of civilians to life when their own respective governments are acting to sever that right. Absent such an expedited mechanism, principled leadership by individual rulers with significant military force are obligated by a universal duty of conscience to fill the gap rather than wait on diplomats to make deals. The basis of such leadership would not be a self-serving desire to be the world's police or to protect some vital resource such as oil; rather, the operative principle would be what David Hume calls the sentiment of moral disapprobation, which all non-sociopath human beings feel at the sight of unjust harm.  I begin with the institutional reform argument, after which I discuss the naturalistic basis of principled leadership.

Governments siding with rebels against a ruler the other rulers don't like is far more familiar in international diplomacy, and thus readily routinized, than is standing on principle with teeth. It is thus no wonder that the politics became more complicated by the day as Obama consulted with allies before the Security Council's vote.  In short, the American president had missed the window when a non-routine idiosycratic decision to stop Qaddafi's violence against the protesters could have been taken in the realm of human rights rather than stopping a civil war. Obama rather quickly faced institutional and diplomatic hurdles involving other countries and international organizations. It could have been predicted, for example, that Hilary Clinton's statement that the matter must be decided by the U.N. would meet with Russia's apparent refusal to go along with even a no fly zone--that is to say, with paralysis until a deal could be made. Such is the nature of routine international relations: both the U.S. and Russia evinced the rigidity and absolutism (my way or the highway) of international diplomacy that eventuates the need for one government to pay off another. In the case involving Libya, the rise in oil prices was undoubtly in the mix motivating a deal; such an inducement, and indeed economic incentives in general, cannot necessarily be relied on to close such deals. Therefore, even if it is successful in particular cases, international diplomacy leading to a Security Council affirmative (i.e., non-vetoed) vote cannot be relied upon even for eventual action. it is certainly not set up to act on the expedited basis that is required to arrest human rights violations in real time. In short, the world needs another mechanism.

Lest it be thought that the Arab League could be consistently relied on to de-recognize a member government's right to sovereignty, the League's decision against Qaddafi in particular was informed by the particular circumstances at the time.  According to The Huffington Post, "Amr el-Shobaki, an Egyptian political analyst, said the decision reflects the upheaval in the Arab world, which also includes serious unrest in Bahrain and Yemen as well as rumblings of anti-government dissent in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. . . . El-Shobaki also said Gadhafi has few real friends among Arab leaders – he has publicly clashed with and insulted many of them, including at Arab League summits." Rather than showing itself as a check on governmental abuse in the Middle East that the world could rely on, the League evinced concern for its members' internal political stability and dislike for a particular ruler. To the extent that the Arab League's request was requisite for the Security Council's vote oking military intervention, not to mention it just being debated, the entire chain of international diplomacy in this case can be seen as highly particular to this case, and therefore not necessarily to be triggered the next time a dictator turns against his or her people.

Therefore, lest mankind be left to the trepidations of indecision at the expense of arresting human rights violations in real time and to the self-interests of rulers as governments around the world and their international organizations hinge on the contingencies particular to the cases, I contend that either a permanent mechanism that involves a transfer of some governmental sovereignty beyond the nation state be designed and instituted, and, in the meantime, that some courageous ruler establishes the precedent of principled leadership to stop an abusive ruler in the act (or at least to divert his attention). While principled leadership would be an advance, it would only be of temporary utility, as leadership is not as long-standing as are institutions. With an accompanying transfer of sufficient governmental sovereignty (while designing a check to prevent abuse), an international institution can act in a timely manner befitting the timeline of human rights violations.

Going through the U.N. as it was initially designed cannot be relied up to stop or mitigate the violation of human rights by rulers unless some governmental sovereignty is transferred to the Security Council (e.g., no vetos). As discussed above, the existence of vetos translates into the need for governments to be essentially paid off, and such deals and the economic clusters conducive to them cannot be relied upon on a consistent basis because they are unique to the parties of the deals and the particular geo-political and economic context (as well as the particular villain). The combination of the vetos in the Security Council and the sheer diversity of opinion that one can expect in body representing over two hundred countries around the world--specifically, the diverse views on the nature and extent of national sovereignty--make it virtually impossible for the U.N. to proffer effective responses with teeth in real time. In dealing with Qaddafi, it took the Security Council about a month, and who knows but the governments themselves what China and Russia got in exchange for their abstentions.

As an alternative or co-reform, NATO could be reformed in its governance such that an expedited procedure could be devised to assess and possibly respond to a human rights violation by a ruler inside or out of NATO. While weighing the options on Libya, President Obama indicated that bureaucrats at NATO headquarters were weighing the options of the alliance attempting a joint military involvement, but NATO decisions take place in the allies' respective capitols rather than by bureaucrats at NATO.  This arrangement of power in the alliance inexorably makes for slow decision-making, even when a window of opportunity is brief. Because the diversity of opinion is likely to be less among NATO members than at the UN Security Council because NATO is on a smaller scale, that alliance is the more suitable agent to gear any military response to a government "gone rogue."  For this to be possible, some governmental sovereignty must shift to the alliance so a council or office holder standing for the entire alliance can make a timely decision. Just as an external military intervention itself implies that national sovereignty (e.g., of Libya) is not absolute, the same qualification must needs be applied to NATO for it to serve as a viable stand-in for the world in "just saying no" to continued governmental betrayal.

Given the staying power of the absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty, principled leadership might be the best the world could hope in the meantime. For example, the U.S. President or E.U. leaders could boldly make a stand against a government turning against its own people and intervene unilaterally or in a joint U.S./E.U. mission. Each of these unions is empire-scale, and thus would carry a lot of weight in standing on principle not just by saying that a ruler is no long legitimate, but also actively stopping him or her in real time. To be sure, to the rest of the world there would be more credibility involved when such an intervention is not limited to one region or two unions. In the Libyan case, the U.S. was indecisive from the outset and the E.U. was too divided and state rights' oriented.

Governors of countries can discern the need to act quickly to respond in real time before a window closes from when an issue should be turned over to diplomatic channels. I suspect that the people of the world have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of the absolute right of national sovereignty is antiquated because it is incompatible not only with there being boundaries to legitimate rule, but also with the defense of human rights from across a political border. That is to say, the absolutism is incompatible with the interconnected world's growing demand that human rights be respected even by those in power.  Hence it should be no surprise that the world was dismayed by the shuffling by the Obama administration and the leaders of the E.U. while a dictator was on his own people.  Had the E.U. (or some of its state governments) and/or the U.S. exercised force based on principled leadership before the window of opportunity had closed, the world would have crossed a threshold through the establishment of a new precedent. Governments abusing their own citizens will have been put on notice rather than enabled like alcoholics by ineptitude and indecision until a possible Security Council resolution could be passed. A coalition of the willing is likely to naturally form in little time after a principled leader has taken a stand in action and not just word. Such a leader would not be delayed from endless debate on his or her country's best strategic interest; rather, he or she would act on principle.

Although nearly a month after Qaddafi first turned on his compatriot protesters, Sarkozy expressed a principled basis for the external military intervention that had begun that day (albeit having waited for the Security Council's action a few days before). Referring to the "murderous madness" of a regime that has "forfeited all its legitimacy," Sarkozy justified the involvement of his airforce fighters as he spoke "in the name of the universal conscience that will not endorse such crimes." A universal conscience is rooted in human nature; such a basis is not conditional on a U.N. resolution. From his state capitol in the fractured E.U., Sarkozy made a principled declaration that resounded like a shot heard round the world--carried almost instantaneously as though by reflex by a mass of humanity "tweeting" through the ether. He asserted that it is our duty to respond to the anguished appeal of civilians.

What Sarkozy neglected to say, however, was that the appeals had begun roughly a month earlier when Qaddafi's henchmen began shooting down funeral mouners in the streets of Tripoli. To be sure, Libyan protesters-turned-rebels who would have been subject to Qaddafi's "no mercy" were surely saying, "better late than never," as they stood on the dictator's ruined tanks after the first bombing campaign of the international coalition. Even so, a bystander could certainly be pardoned for surmising that the duty to respond without standing idly by had been triggered in America and Europe by a desire to lower gas prices or even to keep them from going still higher than they had in the previous two or three weeks--a consumer-driven political response, in other words. A fundamental moral duty, meaning an obligation to act, that comes from "the universal conscience" of human beings, does not 'click in" as soon as political self-interest chimes in. The window for such a duty as the primary and genuine motive closes as time and selfish considerations are allowed to intercede and the immediacy of the felt-conscience fades. To grasp this point, it is necessary to discuss the nature of the duty's basis in human nature.

 The duty, being as universal as is conscience (i.e., excluding socio-paths and Yankee fans), is sourced in a naturally-felt psychological sentiment of misapprobation, which David Hume argued constitutes moral judgement itself. This sentiment is naturally felt in watching or learning of unjust harm, such as from a governor of a country turning against his own unarmed people by wantonly having them killed simply for protesting. Of course, while still active in the case of civilians, this feeling/principle is mitigated when it is armed rebels who are being killed--hence the window of opportunity for a human rights-based principled leadership. It is natural for any human being to be filled with utter disgust at the squalid sight of innocent civilians being shot by government troops. So it is also natural for a person to want to step in and stop the atrocious harm at once. The natural propensity of compassion manifesting in instantaneous word and deed is also evinced in a person who pulls a rapist off a young woman on a city street while people passing watch while quietly conferring with each other on what, if anything, they can or should do before they continue on with their plans. Such bystanders, unfortunately all too common in the world, are mere epigones in the human race; they are hardly natural leaders even if they have gained the power of political office by having woven words of saccarine silk. The person taking it upon himself to pull the rapist off the defenseless victim, on the other hand, is a natural leader in touch with his own humanity; he is thus able to act with humanity. He is not presuming to be his own police force for the city; rather, such a person is instantiating the highest that humanity has to offer: caritas naturalis, seu benevolentia universalis (natural higher human love raised high rather than remaining low in lust for power, money, or sex; that is, love as universal benevolence).

In conclusion, were the world not so focused on Qaddafi during his escapades, we might have used the ferociousness of his violence against civilians to evaluate not only the way other rulers reacted (or failed to react), but also what institutional reforms could have expedited the process befitting the nature of human rights violations and how principled leadership could override political expediency and bureaucratic meandering, even if only in theory yet. To be sure, principled leadership is contingent and short-lived, given the nature of leadership itself. For this reason, even in the event of such leadership manifesting and establishing a precedent, the world would be well advised to continue to work toward an international institutional mechanism that has some real teeth in protecting unarmed citizens from their own rulers. Even in the excitment over the Security Council's sanctioning of "all necessary means" to protect Libyan civilians, the world would be wise to ask: how could the process have been better from the standpoint of defending human rights? The key to the institutional reform, the world would realize, is the same as the rationale for removing a sitting governor: the qualification of national sovereignty from the absolutism advocated by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, respectively. For these two thinkers, only God's law can restrain the power of a human sovereign, and then most probably in the ruler's afterlife. According to Hobbes, for example, the human sovereign--the Leviathan, or king of the proud--has the exclusive right within his kingdom to interpret divine law (even such authority was thought by Hobbes necessary to avert civil war in the contentious seventeenth century in Britain). In any case, political theory in the twenty-first century need not be held hostage by an antiquated theory devised in and for a very different context and distant time. Technology alone has made the world much more interdependent, and thus in need of stronger international agency, albeit with adequate checks and balances to prevent abuse of the added authority.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/middleeast/08policy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Jim Michaels, "Is Libyan 'Window of Opportunity' Closing?," USA Today, March 10, 2011, p. 6A.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/12/arab-league-asks-un-for-libya-no-fly-zone_n_834975.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18nations.html?hp

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/03/19/france.libya.meeting/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/africa/20libya.html?hp

A Syrian Offensive: Taking on International “Enforcement” of Human Rights

In Geneva on November 28, 2011, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented its report, which had been requested by the UN Human Rights Council. According to the report’s summary, the “deteriorating situation in the Syrian Arab Republic prompted The Human Rights Council to establish an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged violations of human rights since March 2011.” The Commission interviewed 223 victims and witnesses. The Commission was able to document “patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, including sexual violence, as well as violations of children’s rights.”One might suppose that the Syrian government would have been seeking to placate the international organization and other governments.

The New York Times reports instead that Sryia’s foreign minister, “(o)utraged at the Arab League’s unprecedented battery of sanctions on Syria,” denounced the Arab League’s “unprecedented sanctions” as instantiating “economic war” by “brethren states.”  Hinting at retaliation, the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, told reporters at a televised news conference in Damascus. “Sanctions are a two-way street. I am not warning here, but we will defend the interests of our people.” It sounds rather like he was actually defending the interests of his government (and his own job). The Commission’s report itself points to evidence that the two interests were not at the time identical.

Because a government receives its legitimacy from other governments on the basis of protecting a people, it is astonishing that officials in the Syrian government thought they were any position to push back. If anything, the international accountability had been extremely lacking. This is astonishing in itself, given the success of the UN-sanctioned NATO effort that facilitated the downfall of Qaddafi in Libya. To be sure, NATO had at the very least stretched its mandate to protect civilians by going on the offensive against Qaddafi’s compound. Even so, given the Syrian government’s documented human rights violations and its utter refusal to recognize its crimes—let alone to hold back from striking out against justified international reactions—international action with teeth was urgently needed as it was wan at best.

Within the E.U.’s “euro zone,” 2011 was a year in which state leaders were coming to grips with the necessary for “ever closer union” on fiscal matters to support the monetary union. Similarly on the international level, I suspect it was dawning on people around the world that mechanisms with teeth are needed to enforce the norm of governmental sovereignty being contingent on a given government protecting rather than attacking its citizens en masse. If it was gaining ground, such a recognition would have challenged the status quo before the downfall of Qaddafi. Specifically, it had been accepted that tyrants having power in the world is an inevitable fact of life, so it is pointless to try to remove one or two of them. This fallacy even allowed U.S. Government aid to brutal dictators. The year 2011 might have shifted the ground under this conservative plank.

In the context of the unrepentant Syrian government, people must surely have been realizing that depending on unions such as the E.U. or U.S. to have strategic interests in line with taking on an independent state or even another empire like China or Russia that is violating its mandate to rule by violating its citizens’ human rights is woefully inadequate. Indeed, looking the other way after the Libyan case could be looked at as criminal in nature. I suspect that although below the radar of the media, this realization was tacitly gaining ground at the grass-roots level around the world. The Arab Spring along with the specific case of Libya may have subtly shifted the ground even as recalcitrant rulers like Assad in Syria looked the other way. The fruit of the Spring would likely take years to mature, being in the form of new international mechanisms with teeth that represent a revised, explicitly conditional, conception of national sovereignty.

Source:

Neil MacFarquhar and Nada Bakri, “Syria Calls Arab League Sanctions ‘Economic War.’” The New York Times, November 28, 2011.