Several years ago, I took a fascinating course at Harvard on the history of dictatorship. Comparisons between many societies in which despotism had arisen had been made to creat the course material.
One of the points made was that societies ruled by an aristocracy generally fall into despotism when the ruling class loses control of the military.
In my opinion, the mamber nations of the UN Security Council unwisely set themselves up after World War II as a kind of “aristocracy” among the nations of the world. It is also clear to me that for the longest time, the US forces have been the main military force of this aristocracy.
Now the UNSC seems to have lost control of its military. Is the US attempting to set itself up as military ruler of the earth?
I’d love to hear anyone’s opinions on this concept.
Well, the ruling class in the US clearly has full control of its own military, and the UN does not in fact have a military of its own, so I would have to answer “huh”?
The UN has neither taxing ability, legislative power nor a military so it never mandated an army, never raised money for one and never actually had one.
Your point also fail to address those armed forces of the USSR and China (just as examples) that had a nasty tendency to wander into other countries and stay. I would assume you would call them facets of the UNSC’s military too?
You are attempting to apply a theory of intranational political development to international political development. On that basis alone, your attempt should fail.
I can think of several examples which belie your fundamental premise (that nations fall victim to despotism when the aristocracy loses control of the military). Seems to me there have been plenty of examples of despotic regimes in which the despot was essentially a tool of the aristocracy.
The UN is the generally agreed deliberative body of the world.
The Security Coucil, in essence is made up of only the nuclear powers of the world, in my opinion, has come to rely mainly upon the US military to carry out the bulk of the military operations that it deems necessary. The Persian Gulf War is an example. While several nations participated, what would the conflict have looked like without the US military? I do not believe that the Chinese and Russian armies have participated in UN actions to anything like the same degree.
The US military is under control of the President of the United States, its supreme commander in chief. In terms of the relations of the US military to the UN security council, the president acts as a kind of generalissimo. The UNSC has now lost the leash on its main agency of enforcement. It can not persuade the generalissimo to heed their desires, and is losing its regulatory power in the world as a result.
Most military strongmen take over the countries from the aristocracy, so my question is, what exactly is the US attempting to do in its current actions?
Like Sua Sponte said, you’re taking an intranational model and applying it to an international situation. The UN isn’t a country, and the Security Council not the leaders of a country, which forces you to try to make some argument by analogy.
I am aware that is what I am doing, but I think the analogy is apt. I will mention that I subscribe to Alvin Toffler’s theory that traditional aristocracies and monarchies derive power from their ability to control land, and that the effective way to control land is to be able to threaten violence on those who would challenge your control.
The permanent members of the UNSC (i.e., the world nuclear powers) have the greatest ability to threaten violence, and therefore form a de facto aristocracy among the nations of the world when viewed this way.
spoke-:
I should have been more specific in my mention of the theories presented in the course I took. The theory goes that there are many ways in which a country falls into despotism, depending on the existing political structure and other factors, but by and large, when a country is ruled by an aristocracy that rules by something other than elections, but more or less has the will of the people behind it, the historical record shows these governments give way to some kind of despotic rule when the ruling class loses control of the military.
My comment has to do with the structure of government BEFORE a dictatorial regime assumes power, not that which occurs after, which I agree can take the shape you describe.
You overstate the role of the United Nations Security Council.
In point of fact, the UNSC is not the deliberative body of the world. The overwhelming number of decisions affecting world and international events are made bilaterally or by groupings of nations outside the UNSC;
That includes military decisions. The UNSC has authorized a mere two military actions in its existence (Korea, Gulf War I). Innumerable other military actions have taken place in that time period, including military actions by all of the permanent members of the UNSC (US - Vietnam; Grenada, Bosnia, etc.; Russia - Chechnya, 1962 border war with China; China - 1962 border war, 1979 war with Vietnam; France - numerous military interventions in Africa; Britain - Falklands War, amongst others).
The US military has not slipped the leash of the UNSC - it was never on that leash. Even in the two instances the US military has fought in a war authorized by the UNSC, the US military did not take direction from the UNSC - both wars were run by Washington to meet the goals and intentions of the US government.
The UNSC is explicitly not the world government. Here is another place the analogy breaks down. The “aristocracy” has to actually rule the society for the rest of your theorem to work, and the UNSC emphatically does not rule the world.
There is another problem with your theory - the US cannot become a “dictator nation” because it lacks the power to do so. The US has the most powerful military in the world, but it is not omnipotent. The US can’t become the dictator because it lacks the power to “dictate” to most of the rest of the world what they can and cannot do.
I agree I am asking a lot, especially since I took the class several years ago, and it is not fresh in my mind. He may even have been paraphrasing some of Aristotle’s political theories. Let me say, at least, that by the end of the semester, during which we examined the histories of Greece, Rome, France, Turkey, Iran (Shah AND Ayatollah), Argentina, Russia and Nazi Germany, I felt he had backed up his point.
Watching world events unfold over the last few months have brought these principles back to mind.
Not a nation, a government. I think the UN is the second attempt (the first was the failed League of Nations) at a cooperative world government. The “nation” is the world, divided into countries. I place it akin to the United States under the Articles of Confederation, in which each state had a great deal of autonomy, and the federal government had no real ability to tax or enforce its will.
The UN is ultimately weak, and will probably eventually fail, but exactly what will take its place and when?
I have read a few analyses of the power structure within the UN that suggest the Security council does essentially rule the power structure in a way similar to an aristocracy, so I’ll stand by this one.
Who does the major military enforcement of the UNSC’s will if not the US military? The UN does not control the US military. We in America are used to an Army that is under direct comand of the Chief Executive, a provision deliberately put into the Constitution to ensure that the US would not fall victim to the same fate as several other countries, where the military was essentially independently run by its generals, not the government. The government had to ask the military to do something, and the military chose to follow the government’s will or not.
What is the great difference between this and the UNSC’s requests to the President to use US forces?
It does indicate what may end up being a permanent change in US relations with the rest of the world. Whether or not it is a permanent change in our policy depends on the outcome of the next election (or lawsuit?).
Point taken. I’m not saying it CAN happen. My question is, are we watching the attempt being made right now?
Your premise still ignores the following (fairly common) situation:
The people of Country X elect a socialistic government.
The aristocracy of Country X, alarmed by the socialistic programs proposed or enacted by the new government, and fearing that their wealth and power is at risk, call upon their allies in the military.
The military conducts a coup, overthrowing the popularly-elected government.
A military despot, aligned with the aristocracy, is installed.
Voila! A despot comes to power with the full backing of the aristocracy, and without the aristocracy ever having lost control over the military.
The operative phrase in your example is ELECT. You are describing a situation in which a democracy is hijacked by a despotic economic upper class oligarchy with military assistance.
I am talking about a situation in which a non-elected aristocracy controls the government with the consent of the people before a dictator takes power.
The classic example of this is the Roman Senate. They were the economic upper class and were not elected to their posts, but appointed. However, they did more or less rule with their subjects’ will behind them. They did not directly command the military, however. They had to ask the generals to carry out their wishes, and if the generals agreed that their course of action was for the best, they did as the Senate asked. The Senate lost power when the army decided to follow Julius Caesar instead.
Said premise being that “societies ruled by an aristocracy generally fall into despotism when the ruling class loses control of the military.”
I’d dispute that. The majority of despotic governments in the world today were created when colonial powers withdrew from their colonies without setting up stable replacement governments.
Other posts have pointed out the differences between the UN and a nation. The most significant for the purposes of this thread is that the member nations of the UN all have their own sovereign governments. Even if somehow the UN “government” collapsed, there would not be a vacumn for a potential military regime to step into.
Again, the differences between the essentially advisory role of the UNSC and the actual power of a national government makes this comparison unworkable.
I presume that the premise of the OP was that an aristocracy can lose its ability to control a government while still nominally remaining in charge. The difference between its real and nominal powers would then tempt other group (ie the military) to take over. However, in terms of that symbolism, the “aristocracy” of the UNSC’s permanent members has not fallen from power. The most powerful countries in the world were chosen as the permanent members and the permanent members are still the most powerful countries. The switch from Nationalist China to Communist China indicates that permanent membership will reflect changes in actual world power.
This I’d say is a case of thinking the tail wags the dog. When the US armed forces act under a UN resolution, it’s because the US initiated it not the reverse.
Pretty much the same as the above. Being as the UN never did control the US armed forces, how could it lose them?
A fallacy in looking back over the last few months events and assuming you’ve reviewed history. The US will turn back to respecting the UN’s “authority” as soon as it decides it’s politically advisable.
A huge flaw in the argument. The original OP is describing how in a situation where the existing regime is faltering, the group that has sole control of military power holds a huge advantage in taking over. The American military, while the strongest in the world, holds no such advantage.
Again, arguing a the world is a nation and one nation is a dictator strains the metaphor past the breaking point. The United States is not going to act as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, or Adolf Hitler. We, as a nation of millions, are never going to speak and act with a single voice.
The UN General Assembly is the largest deliberative body where the nations of the world come to deal with one another. In the interests of the sovereignty of its member nations, it has very little governing power (even to the point of not callin gitslef a government).
I regard this situation as being nearly identical to the period between the beginning of the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the Constitution, where the individual sovereign States of America realized their need for some kind of central organizing body, but did not wish to give it a great deal of power over the individual States, resulting in the extremely weak Congress created under the Articles of Confederation.
Member nations of the UN have overwhelming autonomy. There is the body within the UN however, charged with keeping world peace: The UN Security Council
From their website:
In other words, as a member nation of the UN, you agree to do what the Security Council says, and the really important things the Security Council says are under control of the world nuclear powers circa 1948.
Of course, by design, the UN does not have a lot of power to force its will, but the agreement is there nonetheless. Do you begin to see why I regard them as a (very weak) world government, with the permanent Security Council as the aristocracy?
SuaSponte
The UN:
And the difference between a peace-keeping operation and a military action would be…?
SuaSponte
I will concede that “leash” is too stong a concept. The UNSC is in the position of the Roman Senate, having to ask the commanders-in-chief of armed forces to make part of the obligatory contribution to Security Council resolutions in the form of actual military forces, which are then under control of their own commanders.
The UN , but up until now it could expect the US military (the strongest force potentially at its disposal) to support its decisions, just as the Roman Senate could usually count on the generals to agree with them, or at least, not act in areas where they had been asked not to.
Bush’s administration has now gone a great way toward sundering that relationship. In the past, an individual person co-opted the military to exert his will over the aristocracy. What is the US, as an individual power, trying to do by the same sort of action?
Add the 49 peace keeping operations to the 2 authorized wars, if you wish. You will still find that the UNSC has still authorized the decided minority of military actions that have taken place since the establishment of the UN.
Further, the number of peace keeping operations fatally undercuts your thesis that the US is the military force for the UNSC. The US military almost never participates in UN peace keeping operations.
Looking at what militaries have acted as the force for the UNSC, it is more cogent to argue that the Candian military is the snarling dog that the UNSC keeps on a leash.
I can see I made a great error in not providing more background to the origin of my OP.
Despotic regimes arise through a great number of processes. The process I brought up refers to a specific situation (a ruling non-elected aristocracy with no monarchial figure at its head) that has not often occurred in history. I’ll refer you to my previous posts about the best example of an accepted aristocracy losing power to despotism, the Roman Senate. Of course, if I’ve totally loused up my Roman history, I hope someone will correct me.
I should also say that loss of military control does not automatically spell the death of any government. There have been countless failed military coups throughout history, and nothing is a given.
I also think I am not stepping too far over the line in referring to the UN as a kind of weak world government, even though the very concept of world government is still anathema to many. A precedent for purposefully weak central government exists in our own national history (the Articles of Confederation) so the concept is not new. Also not new is the concept of a government which does not have absolute authority over its military forces. In fact, the United States was one of the first nations to declare the military subservient to the civilian government.
The UN charter, as mentioned in previous posts, demands member nations obey the dictates of the Security Council, which by design is controlled by the few nations with the greatest ability to threaten violence, which I feel IS the equivalent of an aristocracy. Granted, they wield power a lot more in name than they do in fact, but the structure is in place.
I have yet to hear anyone refute my suggestion that the US military, led by the US president, has historically been the UNSC’s main military resource in enforcing its resolutions. I’ll add to that that a ruling aristocracy needs the military NOT to act where the rulers wish it not to in order to maintain their ability to push forward their collective will.
When Bush declared that he and his military were going to act independently of the UNSC’s collective wishes as to how to enforce its resolutions, I couldn’t help but find in that a parallel situation to an aristocracy losing control of its military might.
I do not doubt that the rest of the world (which, yes, of course, has its own military forces of not inconsiderable power) will not stand for a United States that believes the strength of its military should dictate who does what in the world. But do we currently have a commander in chief who realizes this? If not, what price will we pay?
