by Lawrence Wittner | Jun 11, 2026 | Global Cooperation
One of the curious ironies of our time is that, although many politicians spout heated nationalist rhetoric, rail against foreign nations, and belittle international cooperation, this approach to international affairs is not at all what most people want.
The climate of aggressive nationalism is clear enough. In nations around the globe, demagogues (usually of a rightwing variety) whip up xenophobia, preach superpatriotism, demand vast military buildups, and―if holding public office―often launch invasions of other nations under the banner of restoring an allegedly glorious national past.
But what is often overlooked is that, across the planet, most people favor a very different way of engaging with the world. In late 2025, Focaldata, a major research company commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, conducted a landmark survey of 36,405 people across 34 countries. The resulting report, Demanding Results: Global Views on International Cooperation, revealed that 55 percent of people worldwide “believe their country should cooperate on global challenges even if it means compromising on national interests.” If international cooperation was proven to solve global problems, public support jumped to 75 percent. Respondents viewed such cooperation as essential for food and water security, jobs, health, trade, and climate.
Other opinion surveys confirm the widespread nature of internationalist sentiment. An Ipsos poll conducted between February and April 2026 found a substantial increase over the previous year in support for global solidarity and cooperation, with net disagreement shifting to net agreement. Among the more than 22,000 adults in the 31 countries surveyed, nearly two-thirds now supported the claim that, “for certain problems, like environmental pollution, international bodies should have the right to enforce solutions.” Some 42 percent (a plurality) agreed with the idea that “my taxes should go towards solving global problems.” And nearly four out of ten respondents (a plurality) endorsed the statement: “I consider myself more a world citizen than a citizen of the country I live in.”
Another measure of the worldwide support for international cooperation is provided by polling on public attitudes toward international organizations. The Rockefeller Foundation-Focaldata study reported that public trust was strong for the United Nations (58 percent) and the World Health Organization (60 percent), although weaker for international financial institutions. The global popularity of the United Nations was also attested to by a Pew Research Center survey that appeared in September 2025. Covering 31,938 adults in 25 countries, it found that a median of 61 percent of adults had a favorable view of the world organization, while only 32 percent had an unfavorable one.
Even proposals for new, avant garde global institutions have attracted more public support than opposition. Commissioned by Democracy Without Borders, Nira Data conducted a global survey in September 2025 of public attitudes toward the election of a citizen-elected world parliament to handle global issues. The survey, released in January 2026, drew upon 117,000 people in 101 countries that held 90 percent of the world’s population. The finding was that 40 percent of respondents approved of the world parliament idea, while only 27 percent opposed it.
But what about the United States? Surely in this flag-waving nation, engulfed in the “America First” rhetoric of the Trump administration and its MAGA supporters, we might expect that the ideals of global solidarity and cooperation would be supported by no more than a small minority.
But that’s not the case at all.
One of the most striking findings of the Rockefeller Foundation-Focaldata survey is that 61 percent of U.S. respondents believed that the United States should cooperate on global challenges even it meant compromising on some national interests.
When it came to the United Nations, the Pew Research Center report revealed that 57 percent of Americans held a positive view of the world organization, as compared to 41 percent with a negative one. Moreover, it found that positive views of the United Nations had increased by 5 percent over the preceding year.
A study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, issued in September 2025, reported an even more favorable public attitude toward the United Nations. Two-thirds of the Americans surveyed, it noted, said that the United States should be more willing to make decisions within the framework of the United Nations, even if this meant that the country would sometimes have to go along with a policy that was not its first choice.
Admittedly, opinion surveys found that the level of support for international cooperation varied significantly from country to country. Thus, for example, the backing for international cooperation when that meant compromising on some national interests was greater in India (81 percent) and South Korea (73 percent), the countries highest on the scale, than in Argentina (41 percent) and Japan (34 percent), the countries at the bottom of the scale.
Furthermore, there was often a political dimension to worldwide public attitudes toward foreign affairs. According to the Pew Research Center, “people who place themselves on the left of the ideological spectrum are more likely than those on the right to have a positive view of the UN.”
This political division was particularly wide in the United States, where, as the Pew report maintained, “81% of liberals―versus 34% of conservatives―have a favorable opinion” of the United Nations. When it came to the issue of support for cooperation with other nations, the surveys by Rockefeller-Focaldata and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs both found substantial differences between the attitudes of Democrats (quite positive) and Republicans (far more negative).
Even so, in most countries, including the United States, support for international solidarity and cooperation is very substantial, and growing. Consequently, political activists and politicians shouldn’t be reluctant to speak out for them. Indeed, given the popularity of this internationalist approach to global affairs, it might even prove a winning political issue.
by Lawrence Wittner | Dec 19, 2025 | Global Cooperation
Pundits frequently remark on the warm and friendly relationship between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. In explanation, some suggest that Putin possesses compromising material on Trump. Others point to their autocratic style and their right-wing agendas.
But another factor plays a role in the Putin-Trump bromance: their embrace of great power imperialism.
For example, their aggressive policies toward Ukraine and Venezuela are remarkably similar. Putin began his takeover of Ukraine by charging that its government was controlled by “fascists” and, moreover, that its closer relations with Western Europe would irreparably damage Russian national security. Similarly, Trump has sought to overturn the Venezuelan government, arguing that it is controlled by drug traffickers and represents a significant menace to U.S. national security.
In fact, both national leaders seem to be driven by more traditional concerns. Before Ukraine’s recent independence, that land, for centuries, had been part of the Russian empire, and, through reconquest, Putin has sought to restore Russia’s imperial glory. As for Trump, the flimsiness of the drug trafficking charges and his obsession with military power and fossil fuels suggest that he is primarily concerned with using military power to oust a stubbornly independent regime and, thereby, gain control of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves, the largest in the world.
Both Putin and Trump began gradually with a display of vast military might, hoping to intimidate these smaller nations and secure their goals. When Ukraine resisted capitulation, a full-scale invasion ensued. The same pattern appears to be playing out in U.S. relations with Venezuela.
Meanwhile, like sophisticated mob bosses, Trump and Putin are attempting to avoid conflict with one another by staking out different territory.
In accord with this approach, the Trump administration’s official National Security Strategy, released on December 4, promotes an arrangement for the two great powers to focus on separate imperial spheres. Avoiding any suggestion that Russia is a threat to the United States, the document instead criticizes European officials for blocking U.S. efforts to end the Ukraine War on terms advanced by Putin. It also prioritizes reestablishing “strategic stability with Russia.” Europeans, it adds disparagingly, face “civilizational erasure” thanks to the immigration of non-white people, and should support Europe’s right-wing, “patriotic” parties, which follow the Russian line on European affairs.
Having more or less abandoned Europe to the Russian imperium, the Trump National Security Strategy allocates Latin America to the United States. Invoking what it calls the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, the document declares that “the United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity―a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.” This assertion, the document explains, includes the use of “lethal force.”
Naturally, the Russian government is pleased by Trump’s new National Security Strategy. “The adjustments we’re seeing…are largely consistent with our vision,” declared the Russian regime’s official spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov. “We consider this a positive step.”
Thus far, the Venezuelan conflict, like its Ukrainian counterpart, is being managed within this collaborative framework. Although the Russian government has provided substantial military aid to the Maduro government in the past, it has rejected Maduro’s more recent and pressing request for military hardware to fend off a U.S. military invasion. Instead, Russian support for the embattled regime has been reduced to statements, by lower-level officials, expressing alarm and concern. “We hope that the Trump administration will refrain from further escalating the situation,” observed Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister on December 7, and “we urge it to do so.”
The tepid nature of this support for Venezuela might reflect Russia’s preoccupation with the demands of its military invasion of Ukraine. But it might also result from Putin’s acceptance of the Trump administration’s proposal that, when it comes to empire, the Western Hemisphere belongs to the United States, while Europe belongs to Russia.
Of course, this relapse into the crude great power imperialism of the past comes as a shock to a world that has witnessed the gradual development of international law and attempts at its enforcement. Are we really condemned to live on a planet where military might makes right?
Not necessarily, for there is an alternative for coping with the stormy world of international relations: democratic global governance.
Nations have been working to develop a less violent, more equitable world for more than a century and, as a result, there are now international institutions in existence that have begun the slow, painstaking process of building it. These include the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Now, given the revival of retrograde behavior, it’s necessary to empower them further.
A key measure along these lines would be to break the disproportionate influence of the great powers in the UN Security Council. Article 109 of the UN Charter provides a procedure for amendments through convening a Charter Review Conference. This conference could democratize international security operations by ending or modifying the veto in the Security Council. Or it could simply abolish the Security Council and transfer its responsibilities to the General Assembly, where majority rule prevails.
Other reform measures include adding a UN Parliamentary Assembly, with representatives chosen by the people rather than by governments, and increasing the jurisdiction and use of the International Court of Justice.
Democratic global governance could also be enhanced by increasing the number of countries ratifying the Rome Statute of the ICC. At present, only 125 nations are parties to the ICC, with some of the most powerful, such as the United States, Russia, China, India, and Israel, remaining holdouts―one additional illustration of how the great powers manage to operate with impunity in the realm of international affairs.
Great power imperialism can be ended. But it will take a major effort on the part of people and nations.
by Lawrence Wittner | Jul 28, 2025 | Global Cooperation
At a time when international cooperation provides the key to preventing a variety of global calamities―including nuclear war, climate catastrophe, and massive starvation―it’s tragic that major nations, ruled by nationalist, rightwing parties, are on a collision course with the organizations that represent the international community.
Chief among these international organizations is the United Nations, with a Charter that bans “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Nevertheless, ignoring this ban, the Russian government has engaged since February 2022 in a massive military invasion and occupation of Ukraine, the Israeli government has continued a brutal occupation and military bombardment of Gaza, and the President of the United States has ordered the bombing of Iran and talked glibly of seizing Gaza, Greenland, and the Panama Canal.
These same nations have refused to comply with or stymied the mandates of numerous key international organizations.
The Russian government has refused to abide by the February 2022 ruling of the International Court of Justice that Russia cease its military invasion of Ukraine immediately, has defied repeated votes by the UN General Assembly condemning its invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukraine, and has rejected compliance with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for his regime’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children. In the UN Security Council, Russia used its veto to frustrate international denunciation of its war on Ukraine and condemnation of Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory.
The Israeli government has spurned vast numbers of UN General Assembly resolutions calling for fair treatment of Palestinians and an end to Israeli occupation of their land or to honor the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes against humanity in Gaza.
For its part, the U.S. government, under the new administration of Donald Trump, belittled the United Nations, pulled the United States out of the World Health Organization, abandoned the UN Human Rights Council, suspended U.S. payment for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and announced a review of its membership in the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It also employed its veto to block passage of a UN Security Council resolution demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
The fervent resistance of these governments to international authority is illustrated by their vehement responses to the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a global juridical entity endorsed by 125 nations. In Russia, the government opened criminal cases against the prosecutor and judges of the court, while former President Dmitry Medvedev publicly threatened to target the court with missile strikes. In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu fiercely denounced the ICC warrant for his arrest as an “antisemitic act” by a corrupt prosecutor and biased judges. In the United States, President Trump issued an executive order in early February 2025 imposing economic and travel sanctions against the ICC prosecutor, establishing a framework for imposing additional sanctions on ICC officials, and directing the U.S. officials to submit the names of other individuals to be targeted.
Indeed, the Trump administration has launched an all-out attack on the work of international institutions, especially the United Nations. In February, Trump ordered a six-month review of U.S. membership in all international organizations, conventions, and treaties with a view toward reducing funding, ending funding, or simply withdrawing from them. This review included a critical examination of the United Nations, with the result that the administration’s 2026 budget proposal reduced UN funding by 87 percent. This draconic UN budget cut will drastically undermine the World Food Program, assistance to children (e.g. UNICEF), refugee, migration, disaster relief, family planning, and economic development programs, the International Court of Justice, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and UN peacekeeping missions, with disastrous consequences. Global starvation, for example, is now widespread, with acute hunger confronting 343 million people in 74 nations.
Meanwhile, in Congress, Republican legislators have introduced bills in the Senate and the House to terminate U.S. membership in the United Nations and affiliated institutions. Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a MAGA stalwart, declared that it was time to dissociate the United States from “this corrupt globalist organization.”
Despite these attacks and a retreat from international responsibility by other nations, it remains possible that international organizations can weather the rightwing, nationalist storm. At the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres has been working to modernize and streamline the UN system’s structure, priorities, and operations to meet the new challenges it faces. Nevertheless, given the need to reduce the UN core budget by 20 percent, his new UN80 reform plan does call for thousands of job cuts.
A more promising solution to the problems created by nationalist ideologues in major nations is for other nations to pick up the slack in supporting international institutions. The European Union (EU) is particularly well positioned to assume this role, for it generally favors multilateral action to address global challenges. And it also possesses substantial financial resources. Together with Britain and some potential non-Western partners, such as Japan and South Korea, the EU could substitute for the United States in bolstering the United Nations and other organizations that now provide the rudiments of cooperative global governance.
In addition, it’s certainly possible that, given the inability of governments with a narrow nationalist approach to effectively address contemporary global problems, they will sooner or later be replaced by governments better able to cope with the modern world.
Of course, the League of Nations and the hope of international cooperation were destroyed in the 1930s thanks to the rise of rightwing, hyper-nationalist regimes, and a comparable process might be unfolding today.
Even so, with the onset of World War II, most people finally realized that narrow nationalism had to give way to global cooperation. Let’s hope that it won’t take another world war or comparable catastrophe to convince people again.
by Allen Pietrobon | Jul 9, 2025 | Global Cooperation
In the aftermath of the U.S. government’s military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it is easy to assume that Iran and the United States will never come to diplomatic terms over Iran’s nuclear future. President Donald Trump reportedly decided to launch the strikes partly because he had become increasingly frustrated with Iran for not responding to the latest proposal for a nuclear deal.
Iran, for its part, claimed that it would never abandon its right to enrich uranium for domestic purposes. But at least they were still talking. Now, in response to the American military attacks, Iran’s top diplomat has said that the United States had “decided to blow up diplomacy,” and the next scheduled round of nuclear talks was canceled.
The prospect of Iran developing a nuclear weapon is a grave danger that, like other nuclear perils, needs to be taken seriously. But history has shown that even in moments of maximum danger, when the world seems perched on the edge of a wider war, diplomatic solutions are possible.
The parallels to another historical moment are telling. Before the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the U.S. government had been negotiating with the Soviet government for over six years to get a nuclear test ban treaty signed that would put major constraints on the testing and development of nuclear weapons.
When the Missile Crisis began, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev called U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s announcement of a naval blockade (technically, an act of war) “outright banditry . . . the folly of degenerate imperialism.” He declared that “the Soviet Union cannot fail to reject the arbitrary demands of the United States.”
Similarly, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has called the attacks on Iran “barbarous” and claimed that the U.S. government had acted in such a way as to make further nuclear talks “meaningless.”
And yet, back in 1962, the U.S. and Soviet Union, despite being just one mistake or miscalculation away from blundering into a global nuclear war, managed to work together to negotiate a diplomatic end to the crisis. Indeed, the year between the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 and the ratification of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in October 1963 witnessed one of the most unexpected reversals in international conflict during the entire Cold War.
The first overture came on December 19, 1962, when Khrushchev, breaking with years of hardline diplomacy, dispatched a letter to Kennedy offering to move forward with a treaty to ban the testing of nuclear weapons. It was the first direct contact between the two leaders in nearly two months.
Hoping to capitalize on this positive diplomatic opening, Kennedy chose an unorthodox route. Instead of turning to his professional diplomats, bound by protocol and official talking points, he chose to dispatch a private citizen, the prominent journalist Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, to personally meet with Khrushchev and help clear up the remaining obstacles to a settlement.
During this meeting, Khrushchev explained to Cousins that he was encountering fierce opposition from within his own government in his pursuit of the test ban and that what he needed from Kennedy was a sign that the U.S. government was serious about negotiating in good faith.
Back in the United States, Cousins convinced Kennedy that the moment was at hand for the most important single speech of his presidency — a speech in which, after years of tension, he should take the leap to extend an olive branch to the Soviets.
This speech, delivered on June 10, 1963, at the American University commencement, asked Americans to re-examine their negative attitudes towards the Soviet Union and toward peace in general. “Too many of us think [peace] is impossible,” Kennedy said. “But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable.”
He urged Americans to “focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace,” rather than on a “grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers.” He asked the American people “not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.”
Although this American University address is now regarded as one of Kennedy’s most famous speeches, at the time his critics attacked this peaceful diplomatic overture to the Soviet Union as “a soft line that will accomplish nothing” and “a dreadful mistake.” Kennedy could have bowed to the pressure of these critics, but instead he chose to break from the aggressive and intransigent rhetoric of the past and redefine the debate.
The speech provided the show of good faith that Khrushchev was waiting for. As a result, despite years of political deadlock, a treaty to ban the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons was signed between the two nations less than two months later.
Today, we find ourselves at a similar impasse, opening the door to a wider military confrontation. Military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities have done nothing more than buy some time. The question is, what do we do with that time? If unilateral military attacks are going to erupt every time a government leader thinks an unfriendly country is developing nuclear weapons, we are entering a very dangerous future, indeed.
Fortunately, history has shown us that, in a moment defined by the overwhelming tensions that nuclear weapons create, sometimes the most powerful weapon of all is the strength of international dialogue and agreement.
by Lawrence Wittner | Mar 6, 2025 | Global Cooperation
The recent whirlwind of the incoming United States (U.S.) administration’s foreign policy measures―many reversing those of the previous administration―illustrates the fact that Americans have sharply different opinions about their relationship to other nations.
The current president’s approach―which he has labeled “America First”―is clear enough. He has blocked U.S. humanitarian assistance abroad by shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development, twice pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, and scrapped numerous nuclear arms control and disarmament accords (including the Iran nuclear agreement, the Open Skies Treaty, and the INF Treaty). Taking a hard line against the foreign-born for their alleged criminality and “poisoning the blood” of Americans, he has suspended refugee asylum in the United States and begun the process of arresting and deporting 11 million migrants.
This vision of America’s role in the world relies upon a vast U.S. military buildup and tariff wars to coerce other nations into line with his aims. Indeed, he has even blatantly championed old-fashioned imperialist expansion by calling for annexing Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, and Gaza―the latter to be purged of its Palestinian population. Not surprisingly, his administration has shown particular contempt for international organizations, promising a crackdown on the United Nations and sanctioning the International Criminal Court and its supporters. Recently, he has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council.
Although it’s doubtful that this mixture of strident nationalism and xenophobia benefits Americans, it does have deep roots in American history. In the nineteenth century, the fledgling U.S. government acquired vast new continental territories thanks to wars and treaties at the expense of indigenous peoples. The largest of these land-grabs included the Mexican War and countless Indian wars. Overseas expansion surged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the U.S. government colonized and annexed the Philippines, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico and, also, militarily intervened in Mexico, the Caribbean nations, South America, and China. Although the rapidly-growing United States remained open to immigrants during its first century, restrictions on Asian immigrants began in the late nineteenth century. And a discriminatory National Origins Quota System―designed to drastically reduce immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe―was put into place in the early twentieth century.
In the aftermath of World War I, what became known as “isolationism” swept through the United States, ultimately leading the U.S. government to reject membership in the League of Nations and the World Court, as well as to adopt a policy of “appeasement” of the fascist nations, then busy conquering portions of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Even after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. government into World War II and produced growing respect for international law, the U.S. government, during the Cold War years, insisted upon maintaining the world’s mightiest military establishment. Pursuing what was termed “the national interest,” it also engaged in numerous unilateral ventures, including toppling foreign government and waging brutal, vastly destructive wars (such as the one in Vietnam).
But this is only part of the story, for there was always another America―one recognizing that it was just and necessary to move nations beyond national selfishness to global cooperation. This tendency might be called “Global Community.”
After all, the U.S. government did play a major role in initiating the League of Nations and, ultimately, in moving beyond isolationism (and its leading advocate, the America First Committee) and defeating the fascist powers. It also played a very significant part in establishing the United Nations, appropriately headquartered in America’s largest city. Just as, in the years before World War II, the American government terminated its occupation regimes in Caribbean nations, so, after the war, it ended its postwar occupation regimes in European and Asian nations. To aid in postwar European recovery, it created the Marshall Plan, a massive economic aid program that played a key role in reviving war-torn Western Europe. After the establishment of the United Nations, the U.S. government became its leading funder, promoting the international organization’s worldwide international security, humanitarian, and health programs.
Nor was this all. In the postwar years, the U.S. government supported the termination of colonial regimes by the European colonial powers that had ruled much of Africa and Asia, thereby dramatically increasing the number of independent nations. Meanwhile, it swept away the previous U.S. discriminatory immigration system, resulting in a more multicultural society. Although the U.S. government continued to engage in great power confrontation during the Cold War, it eventually accepted that conflict’s peaceful termination through international agreements. These included very significant nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties―treaties that did not give primacy to America or any other country. Some years later, the Obama administration followed up by pressing, albeit unsuccessfully, for the creation of a nuclear weapons-free world. Furthermore, determined to tackle the growing global climate crisis, it signed the Paris climate accord.
How did it happen that these two quite different approaches to the world developed in the policies of the same nation?
The answer appears to lie in the fact that America’s relationship to the world has always been contested terrain. From the Know Nothings, to the Ku Klux Klan, to the current nativist movement, the United States has always contained plenty of people hostile to foreigners and celebrating a mythical “Americanism.” And there have also been plenty of people―from the League of Universal Brotherhood, to the United Nations Association, to Citizens for Global Solutions―who have argued that we’re all in this together.
At present, the America Firsters are clearly in control of the U.S. government. But, of course, the future is never predictable. Indeed, it’s quite possible that there will be a revival of the impetus to build a global community—one that can address the world’s problems and even, perhaps, overcome them.
That would be a great day for both America and the world.
by Lawrence Wittner | Nov 22, 2024 | Global Cooperation
The latest rollout of the hyper-nationalist “America First” policy underscores the world’s long-term slide toward catastrophe.
Within nations, when conflicts inevitably erupt, there are laws, as well as police, courts, and governments that enforce the laws.
On the global level, however, governance is quite limited. The UN Security Council, responsible under the UN Charter for maintaining international peace and security, is frequently hamstrung by the veto, which the five great powers of 1945 insisted upon according to themselves. By this April, it had been employed 321 times. Although the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court deliver legally binding judgments, based on international law, such judgments are not always obeyed. The UN General Assembly votes on key international issues as well, but such votes are merely advisory. Consequently, these international organizations issue laudable statements, while the most powerful nations all too frequently defy them and go on their merry, marauding way.
The Russian government is currently continuing its massive military invasion of Ukraine and annexing its territory while ignoring the demands of the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice to end Russia’s aggression and withdraw from Ukraine. Similarly, the Israeli government ignores the demands of these world organizations to end its brutal war upon and occupation of Palestine.
From the overwhelming votes in the UN General Assembly to condemn the Russian and Israeli invasions, we can see what most of the world’s nations want done to address these terrible situations. But there is no implementation of their demand to respect international law―law that lacks effective international enforcement.
Over the course of human history, this international lawlessness has contributed to a might-makes-right approach to world affairs, in which militarily powerful nations play the dominant role. Naturally, then, nations have gravitated toward military buildups, making some very powerful, indeed.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the top military spenders in 2023 (the latest year for which figures are available) are the United States ($916 billion), China ($296 billion), Russia ($109 billion), and India ($84 billion). But others―Israel ($28 billion) and North Korea (amount unknown)―also rank among the big-time military spenders. All told, the nations of the world devoted at least $2,443 billion to war and preparations for war, an increase over the previous year of nearly 7 percent.
Military spending is not the only way to measure militarism. The Global Peace Index 2024, compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, used the level of societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarization to examine 163 independent nations and territories. Not surprisingly, the major military powers ranked low on the scale of peacefulness, including China (88th), India (116th), the United States (132nd), North Korea (152nd), Israel (155th), and Russia (157th).
By contrast to these military behemoths―possessing the mightiest military forces in world history, including arsenals of nuclear weapons―the United Nations has remained a relatively anemic organization, speaking truth but lacking power.
Sometimes, the major military powers cope with the explosive global situation by making deals with one another―although such deals rarely create the basis for a peaceful world. For example, the August 23, 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (better known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact) provided for détente between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, two highly-militarized nations that had previously been at odds. In this secret protocol, Hitler and Stalin agreed to share Poland and give Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and other East European territories to the Soviet Union. On September 1, Germany invaded western Poland, thereby beginning World War II. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union took action to seize its share of the spoils. As early as July 1940, however, the German High Command began planning its invasion of the Soviet Union, which occurred the following June, ending this cozy arrangement.
On other occasions, major military powers have formed alliances. Wary of a military attack by their rivals or eager to bolster their strength for a military attack upon them, these “great powers” have enhanced their military might by creating military alliances with weaker nations. The weaker nations, for their part, sometimes seek alliances with the militarily powerful to guarantee their own security.
But alliances, too, have provided a shaky basis for maintaining international peace. During the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (dominated by the United States) and the Warsaw Pact (dominated by the Soviet Union) engaged in remarkably dangerous nuclear confrontations. Furthermore, both alliances experienced serious internal convulsions. In 1956, Hungary withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, leading to a Soviet invasion that slaughtered 2,500 Hungarians and sent 200,000 fleeing abroad.
Today, the traditional system of every-nation-for-itself is leading to disaster. There are currently 56 active military conflicts in the world, the largest number since the end of World War II. These conflicts are also becoming more internationalized, with 92 nations engaged in a conflict beyond their borders. According to the Global Peace Index, “there has been a significant rise in both conflicts and battle deaths in the past two decades, with battle deaths reaching a thirty-year high.”
Overarching this grim toll lies a revived nuclear arms race, increasingly likely to erupt into a nuclear war that will annihilate most life on Earth.
In this situation, there is a desperate need for effective global governance. Or, to put things differently, the world needs a stronger United Nations―strong enough to resolve conflicts among nations and, thereby, maintain international peace and security.
The task of strengthening global governance is difficult, but not impossible. There are ways to limit the use of the veto in the UN Security Council (as championed by many nations), transfer security issues to the UN General Assembly (where there is majority rule and no veto), and increase the jurisdiction of international judicial bodies. It’s also necessary and possible to provide the UN with an independent source of income to fund an expanded range of activities.
The time has come to transform the United Nations into a federation of nations that can effectively uphold international law―a government for the world. With such a government, we would have a much better chance of restraining outlaw nations and averting the nuclear catastrophe that looms before us.
