Bob Wolfe asks an important questions, what is new in the new multilateralism. One of his answers has to do with how the term is currently being used by different governments and different ends of the political spectrum. The tack I take here is to try to present an analytic answer which has to do with the altered international environment.

Multilateralism reflects a basic reality of international politics, the distribution of power. Modern multilateralism, consisting largely of the international institutions developed over the course of the last 150 years, has emerged in quite different settings. The first wave emerged during a multipolar age, when there were a number of great powers. The ability to fashion arrangements for such a setting was critical. Thus, the standard criticism that the League of Nations failed in part Continue reading →

Multilateralism and unilateralism constitute attitudes towards the external world.  It is interesting to see how these fit with other characterizations.  Jeff Legro presented a paper at UCLA’s international relations workshop and he distinguished three types of states: trustees, hermits, and rebels.  Rebels are states interested in upending the established order (a revolutionary Soviet Union was one example).  Hermits are isolationists interested in separating themselves from the world (Tokugawa Japan, for example).   Trustees are states who are neither hermit nor rebels, but are integrated into the international community and upholders of the existing order.

How does Legro’s typology map onto the multilateralism/unilateralism dichotomy?  Hermits are certainly not multilateralists, but isolationism would not qualify as unilateralist if the latter presumes some degree of involvement in Continue reading →

1) multilateralism does not imply the non-use of force. One can imagine circumstances in which one expects either universal agreement or the use of force being foreclosed as an option. But there are too many issues that matter to many members of the international community that include states that act as renegades and where the option of force to obtain compliance is clearly on the table. Multilateralism implies a cooperative enterprise among a set of countries but not necessarily all countries. And in some cases, force will be one of the options. Joint humanitarian intervention is a cooperative venture among the interveners but is clearly conflictual towards the miscreant country. To foreswear force Continue reading →

In the war in Iraq, known in official US documents as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the US has carried the bulk of the military effort. More than 130,000 US soldiers have been in Iraq throughout the period since the early days of the war. The United Kingdom has contributed fewer than 10,000 soldiers. No other country contributed more than 5,000 soldiers, and only South Korea, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Spain, and Ukraine provided more than 1000. Romania, Japan, Denmark, Bulgaria contributed between 500 and 1000; Georgia, Australia, El Salvador, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Norway, Dominican Republic, Thailand, Hungary, Portugal, and Singapore provided between 100 and 500; and Czech Republic, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Philippines, New Zealand, Moldova, and Tonga contributed fewer than 100. Moreover, the contributions of a number of these countries were specifically limited to non-combat roles. Among others, Japan contributed only medics Continue reading →