What Needs to Be Done

 

Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

NATO's current membership.

In the face of general American retreat from global responsibility, something needs to be done. Someone or something must fill the power vacuum that is developing. The American recessional may be temporary. It may be based on Barack Obama’s broad assumption that all that is needed for world peace and happiness is for the US to pull back everywhere. This seems insanely naïve, but it is a sentiment actually commonly heard on the US and on the international left. If so, things may change with the next administration. But it also seems entirely possible that this is a permanent bug out. The US is by instinct isolationist; it is hard to care much about the world outside when you have the world’s two largest oceans on either side. Your local championship can easily look like the “World Series.” If there is a further world beyond these shores, who cares?

So long as they saw a clear and present danger, first from Hitler and then the Communists, Americans could be made to care up to a point. Now that is gone. Russia is, as Obama says, a “regional power.” So is Iran, or China.

But do the rest of us want Iran and China and Russia to fill the coming void? If not, given that nobody else is strong enough to replace the US, there is an obvious alternative. It is called collective security. 

NATO, which already includes most of the big democratic players, needs to expand into a worldwide military alliance. The alliance needs to c all in, most notably, Japan, who is said to want in, and India, if they can be made interested. Singapore might not be able to provide much military might itself, but is a sound democracy and has obvious value as a naval and air post controlling the crucial shipping lanes between Europe and Japan. Australia is not so insignificant a power. The general rule ought to be, if you’re a stable democracy, you’re in.

Besides the general advantage of said collective security for existing democracies, this would promote the future of democracy by making it a more attractive option to currently non-democratic governments. Go democratic, and your borders are assured. 

A free trade agreement would also be nice. That looks as if it is likely to happen anyway. 

This world-wide democratic alliance would then be able to act in the interest of democracy where the UN is paralyzed or unreliable, due to its inclusion of everyone, including the nasties.

There's more than one point to this compass rose.