Posted by Marc Schulman

The first thing that came to my mind when Dr. Demarche posed the question that’s the title of this post is Bill Clinton’s most famous words: “it depends on what the meaning of is, is.” In this case, of course, it depends on the meaning of “community.”

I looked up “community” in my American Heritage dictionary and, among the several definitions, this one was the most applicable to the task at hand: “a group of people having common interests.” For our purposes, the dictionary definition of “international community” is “a group of countries having common interests.” Note that this doesn’t require that all interests be held in common.

Based on this definition, there can be multiple international communities: Group A has these common interests, Group B has those common interests, etc. This is certainly true. Think of the countries fighting terrorism, the OPEC countries, and the NATO countries.

Alas, the situation is not so cut-and-dried. At the UN and other international fora, “international community” is used to refer to the supposed existence of a community of all nations. So employing “a group of countries having common interests” as our definition won’t do. The question, then, is whether all of the world’s countries have common interests.

What interests do all countries have in common? One thing is for sure: although their methods for doing so differ, the ruling elites of all countries want to stay in power for as long as possible. Not surprisingly, then, all have an interest in sustaining the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which forbade princes from interfering in the internal affairs of other princes’ domains.

Non-interference was the foundational principal of both the League of Nations and the United Nations. Both institutions were created to prevent or respond to aggression, including the use of military force. The League never used, or even threatened to use, force to punish actual or would-be aggressors. The track record of the UN isn’t much better. In only two instances (Korea in 1950, Iraq in 1990) has the Security Council authorized the use of force by member states. In the case of Korea, force was authorized only because the USSR boycotted the meeting at which the authorization was given. Had the Soviets attended, there’s no doubt they would have utilized their veto. So, in reality, in only one instance (Iraq) did the UN’s actions conform to the dictates of its charter.

In the 1990s, adherence to the Westphalia Treaty withered. For instance, during that decade the UN intervened on humanitarian grounds in Bosnia. While the UN unsuccessfully attempted to relieve human suffering in that part of the Balkans, it was unwilling to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. Faced with the certainty of a Russian veto in the Security Council, the NATO countries, without UN authorization, launched a successful bombing campaign against Serbia. Elsewhere—in Rwanda—the UN’s intervention was farcical.

In this decade, the UN’s record is, if anything, worse. Diplomats have been wringing their hands about the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, but have done nothing about it. Despite the obvious dangers that would arise if Iran develops nuclear weapons, it is still far from clear that the Security Council will be willing to authorize economic sanctions against the Tehran regime. UN-authorized military action against Iran is out of the question.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I believe that the concept of a single, all-embracing international community is vacuous. Any community that fails to defend itself against its bad apples who attack other segments of the community (aggression) or their own segment (ethnic cleansing) or violate community-imposed sanctions isn’t a community at all.

If you’re still not convinced, ask yourself this question: Are America (or Israel) in the same community as Iran? There are multiple communities, not one.

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