It was with both alarm and amusement that I read Jordan Greene's Viewpoint, "Reject UN-American Values" (March 12). While I understand Greene's interest in advertising the Tufts' Republicans' events, his tirade unfortunately fails to adequately address the issue of whether the United States should remain involved in the United Nations.
Greene's tabloid version of the United Nations is apparently tantamount to "smuggling socialism into the fabric of our society"; please, someone tell me I'm not the only person who smells the McCarthyite rhetoric. The analysis he presents to prove this inference is simplistic and sensationalist in approach. Simply put, it does not stand up to scrutiny.
Let me first, however, discuss the constructive case for why the United States should stay involved in the United Nations. The aim of the United Nations, according to its charter, is to prevent war and safeguard human rights. It functions, essentially, by lowering the transaction costs of diplomacy; that is, by having a permanent body such as the United Nations, it is easier to cut diplomatic deals. The likelihood of successful diplomacy increases, which, in turn, decreases the likelihood of conflict.
Theory aside, the practical effects of the United Nations on global security simply cannot be denied. The Human Security Report 2005, published by the Oxford University Press, documents a 40 percent decrease in violent conflict, an 80 percent decrease in what is classified as the "most deadly" conflicts, and an 80 percent decrease in genocide since the end of the Cold War. According to the report, this is largely attributed to U.N. efforts, such as a four-fold increase in U.N. peacekeeping missions from 1987 to 1999 and an 11-fold increase in economic sanctions from 1989-2002.
In its humanitarian work, the United Nations has eradicated smallpox through the World Health Organization. In addition, according to its Web site, the World Food Programme currently feeds more than 90 million people in 82 different countries, helping alleviate hunger in some of the world's most underprivileged regions.
In the field of human rights, the United Nations has worked to end child labor and child abuse through the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to end state torture and discrimination against women. Through the non-binding agreements and protocols monitored under the human rights treaty bodies of the United Nations, important measures have been taken to promote social, political and human rights throughout the world.
Finally, in the area of international law, the United Nations has administrated successful war crimes tribunals in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia.
Greene would certainly have you believe the United Nations is at its heart an un-American socialist menace, but examine the facts. Where was Bretton Woods held? Answer: New Hampshire. Where was the U. N. Charter drafted? Answer: San Francisco. Who invented the name of the organization? Answer: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Where are its headquarters? Answer: New York City.
The United States enjoys veto power in the Security Council and leads the effort to reform the United Nation's institutions. This is hardly an anti-American organization. Through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, free market systems have effectively been imposed on dozens of third world states - if this is the socialism that Greene speaks of, I have a copy of "The Communist Manifesto" I'd like him to borrow.
Greene portrays the United Nations as a Europeanizing agent, concerned only with spreading what he calls "socialist humanism" throughout the world. He fallaciously warns of the raging feminism sweeping across Europe and attributes it to high levels of unemployment in that continent.
If we examine the facts, however, we find that these European "dystopias" have comparable Human Development Index values to the United States. If we take Norway as an example, it has had lower unemployment than the United States during the past 15 years - even with a female Social Democrat as Prime Minister.
Notice also that Greene provides no real analysis - he simply states that social democracy leads to unemployment, which leads to rampant feminism. One would think that with such sweeping accusations, there would at least be something there to back them.
And, for that matter, I was unaware that gender equality had become a thing to be feared and avoided at all costs.
Greene's simplistic analysis of Europe is complete when he says that their "reflexive opposition to American unilateralism is predicated on a deep mistrust of traditional American values." If indeed aggressively policing the world is a traditional American value, then I would have to agree that European states oppose this set of values. Yet these are hardly the values the United States was founded upon.
Lastly, there is no rational reason for the United States to leave: the United States has not paid its U.N. dues in years; it can safely ignore General Assembly resolutions if it so chooses and it has veto power in the Security Council. It is clearly not costing the United States anything to remain in the U.N. system. Why on earth, then, would a rational state in such a situation simply leave?
Let us then examine the alternative: ad hoc agreements. As previously mentioned, the United Nation's raison d'??tre is the reduction in the transaction costs of diplomacy. For all its detractors' uproar regarding the United Nation's inefficiency, the reality is that the absence of such a body would result in even more inefficiency. Agreements would "cost" much more in terms of time spent negotiating and traveling.
The painful truth is that diplomacy has a cost - it takes time. It provides considerable benefits, however: international legitimacy, decreased likelihood of war, increased human rights and relief for environmental and economic catastrophes. In this case, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.
I am certainly not denying the imperfections of the United Nations. It is a vast and inefficient bureaucracy. However, reform is the correct action, not abandonment of this important diplomatic channel.
The United Nations isn't about "irrelevant values like 'peace' and 'justice'" as Greene so eloquently put it. The United Nations is about having the machinery in place to facilitate international agreements. It's about preventing war, alleviating disaster where it strikes and promoting basic human rights throughout the world.
Greene is quite right when he says the United States can solve its own problems - the United Nations exists to collectively solve problems of an international nature. Human rights, avoiding major war, humanitarian crises - these are issues that are relevant to all of humanity, and we will always need a forum in which to discuss them.
In our age, that forum is the United Nations.
Andreas Vindenes is a freshman who has not yet declared his major. He is part of the Executive Board of Tufts Model U.N.
