People forget that the UN has repeatedly blessed our Iraq mission even if we didn't get a second resolution during 2003 (on top of the unfulfilled resolutions of 19990 and 1991):
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq for one year, a move that Iraq's prime minister said would be his nation's "final request" for help.
Yet despite the blessings of the international community, our Left insists we are in a unilateral mission.
And speaking of the blessings of the international community, how's the international community doing on that UN-sanctioned and NATO-authorized Afghanistan mission?
The U.S. is upset that NATO countries have failed to deliver three infantry battalions, 3,000 trainers and 20 transport and attack helicopters they promised to send. The reasons are part political (the Afghan operations are unpopular in Europe) and partly practical (the Cold War era forces most NATO nations have are not organized or equipped situations like Afghanistan. ... To further complicate matters, Holland announced that they were withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan in 2010, no matter what. Many Europeans believe that if they just ignore Afghanistan, there will be no problem. Americans are more inclined to see the country becoming another base for international terrorism if the Islamic radicals are not neutralized (one way or another.)
I'm not feeling the love. Nor am I feeling the value of the international community's support. Indeed, Europeans seem to oppose our "good" war nearly as much as our "bad" war.
Many blame President Bush for the growing distance between us and our European allies. But when you see our alliances with Japan, India, and Australia strengthened in the same period, is it us? It is equally tempting to blame Europe for not spending enough on their own defense. This is true, but it was also true during the Cold War.
Remember, Europe was central to our defense alliance in the Cold War not because they would go wherever needed globally to fight with us, but because Europe was the potential theater of war. War would come to Europe if the Soviet Union went to war no matter what Europe spent. Europe had no choice but to fight at our side.
Now, by contrast, Europe must travel to the war and if they don't spend enough they can't get to the war--not even the miniscule effort in Afghanistan is easily sustainable based on their capabilities and willpower. Maybe it is more accurate to simply blame the times we live in for our trans-Atlantic divide:
Alliances require predictability: of threat, outlook and obligations. But it is precisely this characteristic that is likely to be in short supply in a world defined by shifting threats, differing perceptions and societies with widely divergent readiness to maintain and use military force. The 21st-century world is far more dynamic and fluid than the relatively stable and predictable period of the cold war.
This is in no way meant to defend or advocate unilateralism. But it is a recognition that many in Europe disagree with some US objectives, with how the US goes about realising them, or both. As a result, the US often will be unable to count on the support of its traditional allies. Also weakening Europe’s centrality to US foreign policy is that its capacity for global intervention is diminishing, especially in the military field. That is true even for occasions in which it does find itself inclined to act with, or in support of, the US. Afghanistan is becoming a case in point. The strengthening of European Union foreign policy institutions will help but will not be enough to reverse this trend.
Instead, we now face a future of “selective co-operation”. We are entering an era of foreign policy and international relations where countries are neither automatically predictable adversaries nor allies. They may be active partners on one issue on one day and largely inactive observers on another issue the next. Or they may carry out alternative or opposing policies.
Which is true enough, though I hardly see the fluctuating common interests leading to war with allies. But it is true that our Western alliance may be beyond the control of any president. In peace it may look fine, but in war our alliances may mean little. And if our alliance partners are this unreliable, how will we get the international community to agree with us? We'll be forced to craft an alliance of the willing (call it "selective co-operation" if you must to avoid giving Bush any credit, but it is the same thing) for most everything we might want to do.
And funny enough, we are closer to winning our "bad" war with only Iraqis fighting at our side and a dwindling coalition of the willing helping us than we are in Afghanistan with the official blessings of the UN and NATO that haven't provided very much actual combat power.
But as long as our Congress does its job by appropriating the needed money, we'll do fine with our wars without the blessings of the sainted international community by cobbling together willing allies for specific missions--just as we have done these last six years.
Ultimately, we have to fight our wars with our own efforts without hoping allies will do the heavy lifting for us. Hoping for more from the international community may not be realistic no matter what foreign policy realists believe.
