Is US Constitution, like UN, 'empty words'?

 

Gordon L. Weil

In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump asserted that the U.N. was “empty words.”  In an important sense, he was right.

When it was founded 80 years ago, the U.N. was supposed to be the world’s peacemaker and peacekeeper.  At its summit were placed five nations – U.S., Soviet Union, U.K., France and China.  They were the principal victors in World War II, having stamped out aggression and war. United above all by their experience, they would protect against more such conflicts.

It took less than a year for the hoped-for unified commitment of the five to fall apart. An “Iron Curtain” fell across Europe. In the East, the Soviet Union pursued historic Russian imperial policies and forced nations under Communist rule, managed in Moscow.  

Under the U.N., all five were required to act unanimously; after 1946, that became increasingly impossible.  The U.N. action against North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1951 was only possible because the Soviet Union was boycotting the U.N.  Over time, the U.N. played only limited roles in peacekeeping, turning its attention to mitigating the causes of conflict.

In this series of events, the U.N. Charter was not violated. It was applied, but in a manner that left it failing to pursue its original intent. Evolving beyond the terms and intentions of a founding document is perhaps inevitable as people and events change, and sometimes that can happen quickly, as with the U.N.

What has happened to the world organization is now happening in the United States.

The American system of government, initiated in the historic and innovative Constitution, was based on the common commitment of a group of leaders who shared much the same background and experience.  They expected that the system would evolve, as it must under such a brief rulebook, but would maintain the values they tried to build into the American republic.

Among the most basic of their concerns were the excessive concentration of power in a central government and in the chief executive of that government.  They rejected British royal rule and all power over the 13 colonies being exercised by London.  They also sought to protect people from oppressive rule, immune from legal review.

While the government could adopt policies required by the times, what has become a catch phrase – “a system of checks and balances” – was the byword for how the government could be kept from concentrating excess power.

The intentions of the Framers have been eroded somewhat by successive generations of national leaders of major political parties, especially in the White House and Congress.  However, in many basic respects, the Constitution has functioned as planned and in line with shared understandings.

Until now.

The Constitution risks becoming “empty words.”  The intended limitations on the power of the chief executive are being dismantled, and the effect spreads across American life, public and private.

When the words “freedom of the press” are open to unprecedented, partisan interpretation, they become “empty words.”

There appear to be two principal causes for this historic turn.  The U.S. Supreme Court sees the president as having almost unlimited executive power.  The result is that the balance has shifted from Congress to the president, thanks to the judgment of the Court.  This transfer is possible in part because many laws leave the president more discretion than has proved to be wise.

The other cause is Donald Trump’s view of his election. Not only did his win, coupled with the support of his party’s congressional majority, give him almost absolute control over all parts of federal government action, he believes, but even the power to reach beyond public institutions, using the immense government power, to influence business and personal behavior.

He abolishes agencies created and funded by law.  He fires independent regulators to replace them with his allies.  He directs prosecutors to pursue his past opponents, whom he readily says he hates.  He carries out acts of war on the high seas without the knowledge of Congress.  He uses the armed forces as domestic police.

And more.  He uses his office to enrich himself and his family to an overt and extensive degree not reached by his predecessors. He seeks to impose a set of moral values on many who have the right to their own values and to the exercise of their rights.

All of this both sets dangerous precedents for the future of the American system and has clearly changed the nation’s place in the world.

Speakers at the General Assembly spoke of the need to end the one-nation veto, now frequently used by the U.S.  It’s doubtful if that is possible without U.S. agreement.

Similarly, perhaps the Constitution should be amended.  It’s doubtful that the required 38 states would agree.

To recalibrate how the Constitution is applied requires doing just as Trump has done.  Win elections, control Congress, and add some balance to the Court.

For the present, an Iron Curtain has fallen across America. 

But we may misunderstand the two sides, so next time, I’ll take a look.

Peacekeeping nearly dead

 

Gordon L. Weil

Peace came close to a fatal failure this week.

The global effort against war suffered a possibly mortal blow when Israel, a member of the United Nations, supposedly the world’s peacekeeper, attacked U.N. outposts and tried to drive them away.  

Just as Russia had unimaginably launched a European ground war against Ukraine, Israel flagrantly attacked the multinational U.N. mission monitoring its boundary with Lebanon.

In the fleeting glow of their World War II victory over Nazism, Fascism and imperialism, the winners set out to create international organizations with real power to step in to prevent conflict and provide a forum for negotiated solutions.

The U.N. was the most ambitious, and it eventually came to include almost all sovereign countries.  Its Security Council, dominated by the war’s leading powers, could mandate joint peacekeeping measures.

But Security Council decisions could be vetoed by any one of the five countries – China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.  China was soon taken over by the Communists and the Soviet Union, later replaced by Russia, wasted no time in reneging on its commitments and became the American rival.  A flood of vetoes came.

The U.N. could perform some useful functions even as peacekeeping efforts faltered.  It has tried to dodge the Security Council deadlock and use the General Assembly, including all members, to pass non-binding resolutions.  Groups of willing members could back peacekeeping measures proposed in General Assembly resolutions. 

Some peacekeeping operations have worked, because the U.N.’s thin blue line was respected.  Others have struggled, including one in southern Lebanon, begun under a Security Council order.  It has now come under the most serious attack ever by a U.N. member.  Contributors to the U.N. force insist they won’t budge, but Israel may not be held accountable.

Regional groups also developed.  In Europe, a new international organization was formed, designed to interconnect nations so that Germany and France could never again launch a world war.   It grew into the European Union.  It was openly based on supranationalism, authorizing EU agencies to overrule national sovereignty.

The effort was successful in creating a single trade area with a single market.  It was poised to make Europe a major world power alongside the U.S.   Then the demands of national sovereignty overwhelmed the promise of supranationalism.

Unlike a truly federal nation like the U.S., the EU required the unanimous vote of its then 28 members on many major issues.  Hungary, a small country, has tried to block decisions.  The U.K., preferring its sovereignty, Brexited from the EU.  No common foreign or defense policy could be agreed upon.   European unity was half done, leaving it far short of its original promise.

The U.N. and the EU, both common efforts to build working relations among nations and reduce the chances for renewed warfare, did not accomplish their purposes.  Instead, the world relies on military alliances whose strength might deter others from aggression and war.

NATO is the prime example.  Equipped with a unified military command and responsive above all to the U.S., its most powerful member, it served as a deterrent.  But it grew weaker as it became more successful.  Only after Russian aggression proved that NATO had let its guard down, did it renew itself.

In the Pacific region, China’s increasingly hostile moves have led to new military cooperation.  AUKUS joins Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. in a cooperative agreement. The Quad includes Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. in developing defenses against China. The U.S. also has defense agreements with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand.  

As peacemaking gave way to deterrence, Donald Trump’s administration was striking because it accepted neither.  He quit three U.N. agencies and the Paris agreement on the environment, threatened NATO and killed the deal slowing Iran’s nuclear weapons development.  His “America First” policy alienated potential allies.

This isolationism was accompanied by his fawning over authoritarian leaders.   Did he appease such leaders in hopes that he could trade concessions to them for a period of peace?  Did he see agreeing with them as “the art of the deal,” recalling his days developing real estate?  Or did he merely enjoy being in a club with leaders who answer to nobody?

Whatever the reason, he clearly believes his superior personal ability to deal with Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi, North Korea’s Kim, Hungary’s Orban and even Israel’s Netanyahu is all that is required for a successful policy.  He now claims that he could solve major conflicts with such autocrats in a single day, though inevitably that would mean accepting their demands.

Trump’s policy is neither deterrence nor peacemaking.  It is disengagement, even in the face of aggressive actions by adversaries.  Pursuing this high-wire personal policy with any success would depend on the fading skills of an aging man.