American Interests and the United Nations

Author(s): Donald J. Puchala

Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Winter, 1982-1983), pp. 571-588
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 American Interests and
the United Nations

DONALDJ. PUCHALA

For more than 35 years it has been the policy of the United States
to support the United Nations by participating in multilateral policymaking, by
favoring and furthering institutional growth, and by helping to finance general
UN activities and special programs. The American government's positive pos-
ture toward the United Nations has met with public approval as evidenced in
opinion polls, widespread mass media endorsement, and political party plat-
forms. U.S. presidents of both parties have reaffirmed our committments to in-
ternational organizations. "The ideals of the United Nations," former Secre-
tary of State Alexander Haig told the 36th U.N. General Assembly, are "also
American ideals. The Charter embodies American principles. It will always be a
major objective of our statecraft to make the United Nations an instrument of
peace." '
Continuing support for the United Nations and deepening involvement in its
processes, policies, and programs remain in the American national interest. Yet
criticisms of the United Nations and questions about U.S. participation are
presently being voiced by some analysts of American foreign policy.2 Their
main argument is that the United States is currently subjected to considerable

I Alexander M. Haig Jr., "A New Era of Growth," Current Policy, No. 314 (21 September
1981), p. 1.
2 Juliana Geran Pilon, "The United States and the United Nations: A Balance Sheet," Back-
grounder No. 162 (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, January 1982).

DONALD J. PUCHALA is professor of government and international studies and director of the
Institute of International Studies at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of numerous
articles on problems of international cooperation and the annual editor of Issues before the United
Nations General Assembly.

Political Science Quarterly Volume 97 Number 4 Winter 1982-83 571

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572 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

rhetorical abuse in the U.N. General Assembly and other large multilateral for-
ums where majorities of countries are pressing for world political and economic
changes that appear to be inimical to American interests. In addition, the critics
contend that the United Nations seems to operate on a double standard by con-
demning actions of the West while condoning similar behavior by the East.
While America is ridiculed and slighted, the critics say, our government con-
tinues to pay a substantial share of the organization's bills. Do we get our
money's worth from the United Nations? What has the world organization done
for the United States lately?
In addition to legitimate questions and concerns, some of the current criticism
of the American involvement in the United Nation is ideologically slanted and
motivated, in part, by domestic politics in the United States. Such criticism must
be interpreted, therefore, in terms of where it is coming from. Furthermore,
some bemoaning of the United Nations stems from wishful thinking about the
end of American global dominance and the passing of Western cultural univer-
salism. Such positions are symptoms of a broader dissatisfaction with trends in
world affairs. However, venting frustrations by attacking the United Nations
hardly seems appropriate since the organization cannot alter the fact that the
world is mostly non-American, non-Western, and non-Caucasian.
With regard to the more reasoned criticisms, it should be emphasized that
there are two fundamental flaws in American critics' assessments. First, they
tend either to misrepresent or misperceive the nature of the international organi-
zation, attributing to it capabilities it does not have. This enables critics to decry
the United Nations for being unable to perform according to the impossibly
high standards they themselves have established. Second, critics confuse rhet-
oric with performance. Clearly, much of the harsh language spoken in U.N. de-
liberative organs nowadays tends to be anti-American or anti-Western, and
much of it is unfair and untrue. But, as is the case of most parliamentary bodies,
the weakest members shout the loudest, the most radical seek the most atten-
tion, and the most paranoid are the most critical. In these respects, U.N. forums
are almost archetypical. Rhetoric is important, but so is performance. Looking
at the record, when actual U.N. decisions and programs of action are examined,
what emerges in fact is a marked congruence between U.N. policies and U.S.
preferences.
Despite this, there are still plausible and very real questions to be asked about
the United States and the United Nations. There are also problems about the lat-
ter that even supporters identify. The questions deserve a reasoned response,
and the problems call for corrective action by the United Nations itself. Both of
these points will be addressed in this paper.

THE UNITED NATIONS TODAY:

REFLECTIONS OF A DANGEROUS AND FRAGMENTED WORLD

Those who have called the United Nations "a dangerous place" are correct only
in that it is a microcosm of the cleavages, contentions, insecurities, and volatili-

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 573

ties of a very dangerous world.3 Rivalry between superpowers, the nuclear spec-
ter frustrating efforts at disarmament, racial, ethnic and class antagonisms, and
festering, explosive political issues are some of the stuff of U.N. affairs. Gov-
ernments go to the United Nations to deal with matters that divide them, but
they do not often reach lasting agreements because incompatibilities beneath
such issues are real. There is no remedial magic in the Security Council or the
General Assembly. Conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union
are no more soluble within the United Nations than without, and Cold War is-
sues in general remain practically immune from U.N. influence. Yet govern-
ments do sometimes find accommodation through multilateral diplomacy there,
and when they do, the world becomes incrementally less dangerous-as, for ex-
ample, with Zimbabwe, earlier in the Suez, in the area of nuclear testing and
non-proliferation, in the Latin American nuclear free zone, and until recently in
the creation of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
Governments also go to the United Nations to deal with matters that unite
them. Many of the most pressing problems of our planet are transnational in
origin and impact, and most defy unilateral solutions. Preserving peace among
nations; facilitating international commerce; protecting the global environment;
ordering the use of the seas, airways and airwaves; alleviating hunger; and ac-
commodating global movements of information, resources, and people are be-
yond any single country's capacities. These are tasks for collective action, and
governments have assigned many of them to the United Nations.' Global poli-
cies toward global problems are not easily or quickly formulated at the United
Nations because consensus is critical for enforcement, and this is elusive in a
fragmented, politically-charged world. Nevertheless, when consensus is reached
-as, for example, in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade's (GATT)
trading rules, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) lending rules, the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD) commod-
ities program, the Food Aid Convention and the International Fund for Agri-
cultural Development's (IFAD) rural development program, the allocation of
airwaves, and important aspects of the Law of the Sea-the world becomes less
anarchic, more predictable, and thus safer.
The United Nations is not a world government, and there is no evident desire
by its members to have it evolve toward greater supranationality. Most Ameri-
cans hardly want yet another level of political authority reaching down into
their lives. But along with recognizing that the organization is not an indepen-
dent power "beyond the nation-state," it must also be accepted that the interna-
tional organization has limited capabilities. It has no power beyond that which

I See Abraham Yeselson and Anthony Gaglione, A Dangerous Place: The United Nations as a
Weapon in World Politics (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1974), and Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
A Dangerous Place (New York: Berkley Books, 1980).
' United Nations Secretariat, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Office of Financial
Affairs, Proposed Medium-Term Plan for the Period 1984-1989 (A/36/6, in press).

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574 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

its members grant it, and no legitimacy beyond that which its members accord
it. Furthermore, as an association of sovereign states, each one equal under in-
ternational law, majority rule, consensus, or unanimity must be the principles
of U.N. decision-making. Where majority rule prevails, no member can hope to
be part of a winning coalition on every decision, and the organization is
therefore bound to make policies that some members will not agree with. When
policy is formulated by consensus, as it is most frequently at the United Na-
tions, compromises produce "common denominator" agreements acceptable to
all members but often less than ideal for most. Where unanimity is the rule, de-
cisions will often not be made at all, and impasse will prevail. In addition, be-
cause U.N. members are sovereign states, enforcing the organization's decisions
is ultimately a national matter for each of them. The United Nations cannot
compel any member to act or react in any specified manner. Nor can it move
militarily, politically, financially, or otherwise onto the territory or into the do-
mestic affairs of any member state unless it is specifically invited. In light of
this, the answer to the question, "Why didn't the United Nations do
something?" is often simply that the member states had not given it either the
authority or the power.

U.S. PREFERENCES AND U.N. POLICY: A LOOK AT THE RECORD

Talk in the United Nations is too often substituted for action, mainly because
action demands consensus, while talk requires only wordsmiths, mass media
agents, and attentive home-country audiences. At the present time, some of the
talk is critical of the United States, but this was not always so. During the 1950s,
much U.N. rhetoric was anti-Communist as Western Europe, Latin America,
and much of the rest of the membership echoed Washington's themes.5 There is
also some reason to expect that the present anti-American volume will diminish
in years ahead, partly because time puts the Western colonial period further and
further into history and as events focus attention on the expansionist tendencies
of other types of regimes, particularly the Communist ones. Furthermore, econ-
omic development in coming years will create more and more states with inter-
ests-and economic and political systems-akin to ours so that gaps in percep-
tion and interests between the West and the South could narrow appreciably.
Even today the so-called "newly industrializing countries" (NICs) are increas-
ingly uncomfortable with the more radical themes, demands, and accusations of
the Group of 77 (G-77), and the anti-American utterances of the NICs are ac-
cordingly subdued. During the next two decades many more newly industrializ-
ing countries will emerge, and present ones will look, behave, and increasingly
sound like the more developed Western countries.

I Thomas Hovet Jr., Bloc Politics in the United Nations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1960), passim.; Hayward R. Alker, Jr. and Bruce M. Russett, World Politics in the General Assem-
bly (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1965), pp. 50-54, 70-80.

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 575

The United States could not afford to tolerate the charges made against it at
the United Nations and resolve merely to ride out the present rhetorical storm if
there were a direct connection between what extremist orators say at the General
Assembly and what the United Nations actually does in policy and program.
But this connection is at best tenuous and in some cases non-existent. U.N. pro-
grams (as opposed to U.N. rhetoric) reflect the consensus that produced them,
and consensus usually requires wooing the United States. Little of substance can
happen in the U.N. system without American cooperation-and little happens
without American resources-so that it is not very surprising that negotiators
often defer to United States preferences. Examples abound:

* Security Council resolutions are frequently modified to court the approval

of the United States, as was the case with Iraq's compromises on the 1981 reso-
lution that protested the Israeli air attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor.6
* A similar episode in 1981 concerned a Security Council resolution of con-
dolence for three Nigerian soldiers killed in U.N. service in Lebanon. The
American government preferred not to have the resolution single out Israel for
condemnation, and strong contrary stands by other members of the Security
Council eventually gave way to the American position.' When U.S. approval
cannot be obtained, an American veto is sufficient to kill any possibility of Se-
curity Council action.
* On questions of economic development, American influence is linked to its
resources, and American preferences consequently often prevail. A case in point
is the Third World stance on the question of world economic restructuring, a
stance which was modified dramatically between the Sixth and Seventh Special
Sessions of the General Assembly after it became apparent that the United
States was not going to support schemes of redistribution nor be swayed by con-
frontational tactics.8
* Similarly, the agreement on an International Development Strategy (IDS)
for the U.N. Third Development Decade was a bargained compromise that took
into account American preferences for free trade and open markets, American
insistence that agriculture be a central target of development, and the American
position that first responsibility for development rests with the less developed
countries themselves.9
* The final form of the Integrated Commodities Program agreed to by
UNCTAD was largely a concession by the Group of 77 to the American position.

6 Resolution 487 (1981); see also Issues Before the 36th General Assembly of the United Nations
(New York: United Nations Association of the United States, 1981), pp. 18-19; New York Times, 20
June 1981, pp. 1, 4-5.
7Dorothy Rabinowitz, "Reagan's 'Heroine' at the U.N.," New York Magazine 20 July 1981, p.
38.
1 Branislav Gosovic and John Gerard Ruggie, "On the Creation of a New International Eco-
nomic Order: Issue Linkage and the Seventh Special Session of the UN General Assembly," Inter-
national Organization 30 (1976), pp. 320ff.
I United Nations, Department of Public Information, International Development Strategyfor the
Third United Nations Development Decade (New York: United Nations, 1981).

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576 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

* Earlier, the conciliation or "cooling off" mechanism which modified

UNCTAD decision-making by moving it away from straightforward majority
voting was another case of American preferences taking precedence over G-77
desires. 0 I
* The system of "graduation" linking eligibility for assistance to levels of
economic development, agreed upon at the June 1980 meeting of the Governing
Council of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), was yet another
G-77 concession to an American position.'"
* The structure and functioning of the IFAD are of American design.
* American positions have consistently prevailed in the area of population
activities and in the disposition of the United Nations Fund for Population Ac-
tivities.
* When it became apparent that the United States would not accept interna-
tional restrictions on the freedom of the press, or anything in the nature of a
codified "new international information order," Third World countries in the
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
readily accepted an American plan for an International Program for the Devel-
opment of Communication. The intent of this program is to help less developed
countries improve their capabilities in mass communications."2
* The voluntary rather than binding nature of the U.N. Code for Restrictive
Business Practices is yet another deference to American preferences, and work
on the Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations also appears to be
evolving in directions that American firms and the U.S. government can accept.
* Important, but ultimately insufficient, concessions were offered to the
United States in 1982 on controversial aspects of the draft treaty of the Law of
the Sea.
* The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon was accepted largely in the form that
the United States proposed.

More generally speaking, throughout its 35-year history, the organization's

principles and most of its actions have been consistent with U.S. interests.'3
Americans, for example, certainly have no trouble with the U.N. principle of
self-determination. Woodrow Wilson was its early American champion, and the
rapid and peaceful dissolution of our fledgling "colonial empire" was its em-
bodiment in policy. The illegitimacy of armed intervention is another U.N. prin-
ciple that Americans can readily accept, though our own record as regards
"gunboat diplomacy" is somewhat blemished. The promotion of peaceful
change is a cornerstone of American diplomacy; it is also a first principle of the

'0 Richard N. Gardner, "The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development," Interna-
tional Organization 22 (1968): 114-20.
" Cf. Statement of Elliot Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization
Affairs, before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, House Committee on Appropriations,
97th Cong., Ist Sess., 12 May 1981, pp. 490-511.
12 Issues Before the 36th General Assembly, p. 126.
'' Flora Lewis, "The Value of the U.N.," New York Times, 23 May 1982, p. E23.

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 577

United Nations. Protecting and promoting human rights are central to Ameri-
can political theory, just as they are central among U.N. objectives. Conflict
resolution through negotiations, mediation, conciliation and adjudication are
main elements of the American political process and are also prominent in U.N.
decision-making. That human affairs should be ordered by codes of law rather
than contests of power is another tenet of both American and U.N. political
thinking.

U.N. PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES

Principles are fine, but what about practice? To be sure, there is considerable
disparity between the principles held by the United Nations and the domestic
and international practices of some of its members. But the day-to-day actions
of the organization and the behavior of some of its members should not be con-
fused. In fact, the United Nations itself has expressed disapproval of some of its
members' actions. During the 1950s, France and the United Kingdom were cen-
sured for their invasion of Egypt, as was Israel; similarly, the Soviet Union was
censured for its invasion of Hungary."4 The 1960s saw the beginning of public
U.N. disapproval of apartheid in South Africa, Ian Smith's usurpation in Rho-
desia, and Chilean denial of human rights. In the 1970s, U.N. members decried
the atrocities of Idi Amin's Uganda and the genocide perpetrated by the govern-
ment of Kampuchea. More recently, the General Assembly voted sharp disap-
proval of the Khomeini regime's imprisonment of U.S. diplomats; it condemned
the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan by an extraordinary majority of 104
to 18; and it censured Israel for its de facto annexation of the Golan Heights.'I
These condemnations are important because they forcefully assert the limits
of the international community's tolerance. Yet sanctions against deviant mem-
bers are only a very small part of U.N. activities. Through the years, actions to
strengthen the international community in areas of peacekeeping and peaceful
change, economic development, and the preservation of the earth's resources
have been primary concerns. Here again, in most of these areas there has been a
close correlation between U.N. policies and American preferences.

In Defense of Peaceful Change

In the realm of peacekeeping, the United Nations has on several occasions in-
serted international military contingents to monitor and enforce ceasefires be-
tween warring countries and factions. Some of the better known peacekeeping
missions include the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO),

'' United Nations, Department of Public Information, Yearbook of the United Nations, 1956
(New York: United Nations, 1957), pp. 25-62, 67-89.
15 See S/RES/46 (1979); A/RES/ES-6/2, A/RES/35/37; New York Times, 18 December 1981,
pp. 1, 3.

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578 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

established in 1948 to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and neighboring

Arab states; the Emergency Force (UNEF I and UNEF II) stationed to enforce
Egyptian and Israeli ceasefires in 1956 and 1973; the Operation in the Congo
(ONUC), executed to quell civil anarchy and prevent fragmentation imme-
diately following the former Belgian Congo's independence; the Force in
Cyprus (UNFICYP), dispatched in 1964 to separate parties locked in Greek-
Turkish communal conflict; and most recently the Interim Force in Lebanon
(UNIFIL), sent to separate contestants in the Lebanese civil war and to deter
terrorist activities along the Lebanon-Israel border. UNIFIL was the organiza-
tion's second peacekeeping mission to Lebanon.
The primary purposes of these U.N. missions have been to deter renewed
fighting, to gain time for diplomacy, and to discourage external, and especially
superpower, intervention that could escalate into larger wars. The United States
has supported each of the peacekeeping ventures, and the results of these mis-
sions have largely supported the American interest. The different ventures in the
Middle East, particularly UNEF II, bought some of the time American states-
men required in order to promote Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation. The Congo
operation contained anarchy in Central Africa and thwarted Soviet interfer-
ence. The mission to Cyprus has discouraged two NATO allies from open war-
fare, and the diplomatic time purchased by the monitored ceasefire may pres-
ently be yielding first conciliatory results.
In each of these cases, escalation was controlled, and frequently, "keeping
the superpowers out" mainly meant preventing Soviet intervention. The Rus-
sian refusal to pay U.N. assessments for peacekeeping operations caused con-
siderable financial stress for the organization. Yet it also denied the Soviet
Union legitimacy as a mediator and the opportunity to share credit for peace-
keeping successfully executed. American support for U.N. peacekeeping, on the
other hand, has enabled the United States to participate in the diplomacy of
conciliation both preceeding and following peacekeeping episodes. (This has
been especially important for American policy in the Middle East.) The United
States initially challenged the Soviet Union on the question of payment for
peacekeeping operations, but when the so-called "Article 19 Crisis" threatened
to destroy the United Nations, the issue was left unresolved, and Washington
announced that it, too, would henceforth support only those U.N. peacekeeping
missions that were in the American interest. To date, however, the U.S. govern-
ment has continued to support all U.N. peacekeeping activities. U.N. Ambassa-
dor Jeane Kirkpatrick recently indicated that the Reagan Administration
"would like to see the role of the U.N. in promoting and preserving and main-
taining peace expanded."'6
Threats to peace nowadays come as often from terrorists, guerrillas, mercen-
aries, and other transnational trouble-makers as from hostilities between gov-

1 "U.S. Positions to Change Under Reagan, Reflect More Realism," Diplomatic World Bulletin,
6 April 1981, p. 2.

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 579

ernments. The United Nations is devoting considerable effort to finding ways to

control such lawlessness. Nevertheless, building international consensus has
been difficult because groups abhorred as "terrorists" by some are acclaimed as
"freedom fighters" by others. There is widespread agreement, however, that in-
nocent people should be protected from indiscriminate violence, and toward
this end the United Nations has drafted conventions concerning airline hijack-
ing, the protection of diplomats, and the taking of hostages. Basically, these
commit signatories either to prosecute or extradite captured terrorists. A U.N.
committee is presently drafting a convention against the recruitment, use, fi-
nancing, and training of mercenaries. Naturally these codes are only as effective
as individual governments permit, but many are adhering because proscriptions
against terrorism are in almost everyone's interest. Since Americans abroad
seem particularly vulnerable to terrorism and are disproportionally chosen as
targets, U.S. citizens benefit by whatever deterrents the United Nations can con-
trive. For example, incidents of aerial piracy involving Americans dropped off
markedly since the adoption of the Hijacking Convention in 1977.

Decolonization

Decolonization has been the primary concern in the U.N. principle of peaceful
change. In historical perspective, the end of the great European overseas em-
pires represents a world-political change of monumental proportion and im-
port. In a period of less than 30 years, the entire structure of the international
state system changed; distributions of power and wealth among states altered;
the agenda of diplomacy changed; and global affairs became truly "global" for
the first time. Despite its enormity, the change from a world of a few empires to
a world of many states was unexpectedly peaceful, quite unlike the decoloniza-
tion of the Americas during the eighteenth century when Great Britain and
Spain were ejected at considerable cost in human lives. Some wars -of indepen-
dence in the 1950s and 1960s-in Algeria, Indochina, and Angola, for example
-were long and bloody. Nevertheless, most of Africa, South Asia, the Pacific,
and the Caribbean moved to self-government without much bloodshed.
The story of the role of the United Nations in twentieth-century decoloniza-
tion has been told many times. I7 To monitor the Declaration on the Granting of
Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the U.N. General Assembly
appointed a Special Committee on Decolonization in 1962. For nearly two de-
cades this "Committee of 24" has been overseeing the decolonization process
and pushing it forward by prodding imperial powers toward planned, orderly
withdrawals. The United Kingdom and France have not entirely appreciated the

" David A. Kay, The New Nations in the United Nations, 1960-1967 (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1970); David A. Kay, "The United Nations and Decolonization," in The United Na-
tions: Past, Present and Future, James Barros, ed. (New York: Free Press, 1972), pp. 143-70; Ru-
pert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1967), pp. 308-28.

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 580 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Committee's zeal, and the United States has lost its enthusiasm for it as well.
Yet in many ways the United Nations has been but a handmaiden to history,
since colonialism had already lost legitimacy, and the ability to maintain em-
pires was drained from Western Europe during World War II. During the 1960s
and 1970s, the Committee of 24 put the "handwriting on the wall" in bold
script while counseling haste and order in the midst of what might otherwise
have been delay and chaos.
Except for a brief flirtation with imperial grandeur at the end of the nine-
teenth century, anti-imperialism has been a main tenet of American foreign pol-
icy. The United States broke away from the British empire; self-determination
was part of Wilsonian idealism; American refusal to endorse the reconstitution
of empires after World War II was a source of inter-allied dissension in wartime
diplomacy."a In light of U.S. tradition, decolonization was something that
Americans could understand and welcome. And peaceful decolonization was
even more welcome, since this spared the United States countless agonizing deci-
sions about policies toward NATO allies on the one hand and contestants in co-
lonial struggles on the other. The United States had difficulties with the Com-
mittee of 24, and usually abstained because the issues raised continually forced
choices between Western allies and advocates of colonial independence. Had
these been choices about battles, rather than resolutions, where our allies were
losing, the American dilemma would have been infinitely greater. The battles
were far fewer because the United Nations guided peaceful decolonization, a
fact sometimes forgotten.
There is no denying that some of the new countries that emerged from decolo-
nization are now among the harshest critics of the United States. Collectively
they compose the Group of 77, now about 121 strong, vocally volatile, politi-
cally and economically impatient, outwardly single-minded, and narrowly self-
interested. 19 They are also highly dependent upon the West financially, commer-
cially, and technologically, and almost powerless in their efforts to effect
changes on the issues that interest them most-world economic restructuring,
independence for Namibia, the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, and
statehood for the Palestinians.
On economic questions the fundamental division between the United States
and the Group of 77 stems from relative wealth: The industrialized countries of
the so-called North are rich and the less developed nations of the South are
poor, in many cases very poor. Southern ideologies center on doctrines of equal-
ity, and restructuring schemes involving international leveling reflect the poorer
countries' economic conditions and aspirations.20 These will probably temper as

'' Robert Beitzell, The Uneasy Alliance: America, Britain and Russia, 1941-1943 (New York: Al-
fred A. Knopf, 1972), pp. 142-43.
19 Robert L. Rothstein, The Weak in the World of the Strong: The Developing Countries in the
International System (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 3-72.
20 Roger Hansen, "The Political Economy of North-South Relations," International Organiza-
tion 29 (1975): 925-47.

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 581

economies develop. At this juncture the United States may either contribute to
the pace and scope of Southern development, or remain passive and watch it
happen anyway, albeit more slowly and haphazardly. Contributing to Third
World development by accommodating some of the interests of the Group of 77
may not yield immediate political gains for the United States, since allies are no
longer to be bought and the appeal of nonalignment grows as dangers in the
East-West relationship mount. Contributing to development, however, will es-
tablish economic partnerships and international market relationships where
two-thirds of the world's people live, work, and consume, and, consequently,
where marketing and investing opportunities are vast. Western Europe and
Japan seem to understand this much better than the United States, as does the
Soviet Union. Those who promote Marxist revolutions make their views most
convincing where people are miserable and frustrated, and the more strained the
relationship between the United States and the Group of 77, the slower the
probable course of development and the greater the likelihood of revolutions in
the Third World.
The major political questions in U.S. relations with the Group of 77-Nami-
bia, apartheid, and Palestine-are complex and dangerous since each could
escalate into a large-scale war. Namibia is an issue of self-determination, a deco-
lonization matter with international legal implications. Apartheid is fundamen-
tally a question of human rights denied by a racist doctrine enforced by an obsti-
nate regime. The "Palestine Question" involves issues of self-determination,
conflicting territorial claims and security interests, disagreements about the
legitimacy and representativeness of the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO), and broader matters having to do with ways and means to a comprehen-
sive Middle Eastern settlement. On each of these issues, the United States has
the opportunity to exercise considerable influence because it is able to deal di-
rectly with almost all contending parties. If there are keys to peaceful settle-
ment, Washington certainly holds several of them. However, U.S. effectivenems
resides in a willingness to accept and an ability to play the mediator's role or,
where that is not possible, to protect opportunities for institutions like the
United Nations to do so.2'

Economic Development

The bulk of the United Nations' current work is in the realm of economic devel-
opment. Here, U.N. policies and programs emerge not only from American and
G-77 dispute, but from negotiating processes that involve the rest of the West-
ern countries, sometimes some of the eastern countries (increasingly China),
and often officials of the U.N. Secretariat and specialized agencies. Contrary to
what North-South rhetoric might suggest, there has been substantial agreement

2' Oran Young, The Intermediaries: Third Parties in International Crises (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 50-115.

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582 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

between North and South at the United Nations on development issues and con-
siderable activity at the operational level. Since the United States has been party
to most of the development agreements and, indeed, author of some of them, it
is more appropriate to explain why they are in the American interest rather than
to ask whether they are.
U.N. planning for global development is a decade-by-decade effort. In 1980,
the United Nations, having entered its Third Development Decade, negotiated
and published a very ambitious plan to guide its agencies and member govern-
ments toward 1990. Bearing in mind that the plan lists aspirations only, that it
obligates no one, and that its goals are loftier than its accomplishments will be,
Americans might nonetheless ask whether they would welcome the future that
U.N. planners project. The U.N. International Development Strategy assigns
"primary responsibility for the development of developing countries" to "those
countries themselves," though it also encourages increased North-to-South fi-
nancial flows and transfer of technology. It envisions a world of increased econ-
omic interdependence, "an open and expanding trade system," and "the real-
ization of the dynamic pattern of comparative advantage." It also calls for
enhanced cooperation among less developed countries under the rubric of "col-
lective self-reliance" and a more efficient allocation of industrial production
globally. Responsibility for world economic growth and well-being is assigned
to developed and less developed countries jointly because "in an interdependent
world economy, it is the responsibility of all Governments to contribute to the
goals and objectives of the Strategy." Linkages between agricultural and indus-
trial development are affirmed, and less-developed country (LDC) investment in
agriculture, agrarian reforms, national food policies, and the eradication of
hunger are called for. Linkages between development and improved social con-
ditions are also acknowledged, and population, health, and education policies
are prescribed, as well as special efforts on behalf of women, children, and
youth. "The ultimate aim of development," according to the plan, "is the con-
stant improvement of the well-being of the entire population." According to the
IDS, a number of institutional reforms are in order, especially in international
monetary affairs, where less developed countries are seeking more influence
over decision-making. 22
If the IDS for the Third Development Decade represents the United Nations's
interpretation of the New International Economic Order (NIEO), a slogan
which has raised so much alarm in the West, it may surprise many Americans to
find little in it that is particularly objectionable. Passions surrounding the acro-
nym NIEO have distracted many in the United States from actually studying the
substance of the U.N. development plan. Clearly, some of the its aspirations are
controversial. How much more aid would be needed, whose technology would
flow to whom on what terms, how much of whose industrial production would
be relocated and how fast, and what kinds of institutional reforms would be
feasible in light of American interests remain to be determined. But these are

22 United Nations, International Development, pp. 1-27.

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 583

matters for negotiation rather than confrontation, and, indeed, the West holds
most of the bargaining chips: The industrial countries need only say "no" to
Third World demands when such denials are reasoned to be in the western interest.
Furthermore, the controversial issues are not the central features of the devel-
opment strategy, which centers upon improved well-being for poor countries
and poor people and calls for greater international cooperation to accomplish
this. The IDS does not seek the redistribution of the world's wealth, nor would
the West ever permit this. It does, however, look to a narrowing of the income
gap between industrialized and less developed countries in the context of a gen-
eral increase in world prosperity through the development of new resources,
productive capacities, and markets. What the United Nations aspires to in its
development planning is notably different from what G-77 extremists advocate.
It will also turn out to be different from what some extremists in the West be-
lieve they can accept.
Whether or not the development strategy succeeds will depend upon U.N.
members' separate and collective policies and actions during the next decade.
Meanwhile, a great many development programs are currently underway under
U.N. auspices. For example, as a result of the World Food Conference in 1974,
an International Fund for Agricultural Development was established, partly fi-
nanced by the United States, but mostly by Arab countries. IFAD has been pay-
ing particular attention to small farmers in poor countries. Rural development
efforts of the World Bank under Robert McNamara's presidency were also fo-
cused on small farmers. Projects financed by the UNDP are primarily intended
to develop economic infrastructure-roads, dams, port facilities, public utility
systems, and training schools-that are essential to economic modernity, but
unattractive to private investors. Efforts have been mounted by the United Na-
tions Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to encourage Third World
investors to keep funds in their own countries and to encourage inflows of for-
eign funds. UNIDO is also promoting the development of indigenous industrial
technologies. UNCTAD is seeking stabilized markets for internationally traded
agricultural and mineral commodities which are mainstays among Third World
exports and crucial exchange earners. The International Labor Organization
(ILO) is pressing for development oriented directly toward meeting basic human
needs such as food, shelter, sanitation, health facilities, and education. With the
exception of activities like famine relief and aid to children via UNICEF, little
of what the United Nations is doing in development can be interpreted as doling
international welfare. Economic development is a multi-faceted process with
each phase and element related to every other one; U.N. programs are directed
toward welding these interrelationships.
The United Nations is promoting development in the Third World, and devel-
opment is taking place. By many indicators, growth in the South has been out-
pacing growth in the North, although, of course, huge income gaps remain.23

23 Martin M. McLaughlin, ed., The United States and World Development Agenda, 1979 (New
York: Praeger Publishers for the Overseas Development Council, 1979), pp. 149-82.

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584 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Whether what the United Nations is doing is in the American interest depends
upon whether economic development in the Third World is in the American in-
terest. Aside from all the obvious economic reasons why better-off people make
better neighbors, customers, borrowers, and partners, there are political reasons
for encouraging development. The correlation between economic desperation
and political turmoil is very high, and turmoil in Third World countries tends
either to promote local demagogues with "quick fixes" (and usually anti-West-
ern ideologies) or to invite outside meddling. Neither of these is particularly wel-
come to the United States. In addition, there is domestic political costs to pay in
the United States as a result of turmoil in Third World countries, as Americans
tend to be quite divided about how our government should respond to such
situations.

Preservation of the Earth's Resources

Increasingly during the last decade, the United Nations has been led by its mem-
bers into issues concerning the disposition of the global commons. The com-
mons are those domains possessed by no nation but used by many or all. These
include the high seas, regional seas, the seabed, international river basins, the
atmosphere, the ionosphere, and outer space. A generation ago the exploitation
of many of these common domains was technologically unfeasible, and their de-
spoilation was unimaginable. Yet today we can mine the oceans and the moon,
direct electronic signals and laser beams through the ionosphere, and travel in
outer space. We can also pollute the oceans, change the rains to acid, destroy
the earth's ozone layer, squander reserves of fresh water, contaminate the
atmosphere with radioactivity, and station nuclear weapons on the floor of the
sea and on platforms orbiting in outer space. Moreover, because some countries
are more technologically able to accomplish these feats than others, there is
danger that the exploitable commons will disappear as the pioneers scramble to
extend their national jurisdictions. There is also danger that present-day pol-
luters will pass on a highly contaminated earth to future generations.
The thrust of U.N. efforts on issues of global commons has been to attempt
to regulate these domains under international law. Some law-making via treaty,
convention, and code has been directed toward forestalling the closure of the
commons by guaranteeing access to all countries regardless of present power po-
sitions or technological prowess.24 This, for example, has been a major element
in U.N. efforts to draft a new treaty codifying the Law of the Sea and in institu-
tionalizing the principle that the oceans are the "common heritage of
mankind." Forestalling closure is also a key element in negotiations concerning
the allocation of radio and television frequencies, considered at the World Ad-
ministrative Radio Conference in 1979.25 A similar issue has been the parceling

2' Seyom Brown, et. al., Regimes for the Ocean, Outer Space and Weather (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution, 1977).
2 Issues Before the 34th General Assembly of the United Nations (New York: United Nations As-
sociation of the United States, 1979), p. 115.

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 585

of satellite space in the earth's geostationary orbit. In 1980, U.N. memb

cluded the Agreement Concerning the Activities of States on the Moon and
Other Celestial Bodies, stipulating that neither the moon's surface nor its sub-
surface shall become the national property of any state. Outer space as well as
the seabeds were previously demilitarized by U.N.-sponsored treaties in 1967
and 1971. As esoteric as some of these matters may appear, they are but hints of
the world affairs of the future fashioned by advancing technology. Current ef-
forts to establish legal regimes are attempts to provide means for future conflict
resolution by adjudication rather than by force.
Legislation concerning environmental matters in the United Nations is de-
signed to elicit commitments from states either to refrain from polluting or to
cooperate in clean-up efforts. By U.N. agreement, for example, ocean-going oil
tankers are regulated by international law, and owners are held responsible for
pollution their ships may unleash. A major U.N. treaty, the Treaty Banning Nu-
clear Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, attempts to
slow the nuclear arms race, but also stems contamination by radioactivity in the
atmosphere and the oceans. Ocean contamination is also the target of the U.N.
Environmental Program's emphasis on regional seas, where activities are under-
way to combat pollution in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean Sea, the Red Sea,
the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Guinea, and other areas of the Pacific.26 All of
these programs involve commitments to common action by littoral states, and
all are funded by international trusts established to finance U.N. environmental
activities. In 1977 the United Nations also adopted a Plan of Action to Combat
Desertification at the perimeters of the Sahara, as well as a global plan to pre-
serve the earth's fresh water resources.2"
American interest in the global commons is consistent with the intent and di-
rection of U.N. efforts. Americans use the global commons much more than
other peoples. The United States would probably benefit from a short-run
scramble to close off the commons and parcel it into national jurisdictions.
Since our technology permits us to exploit now what others can only hope to ex-
ploit in the future, we would for a time command the lion's share of the par-
celled commons. But there should be no doubt that such a policy would invite
challenge and conflict in the future-much as colonizers' territorial conquests in
the past invited later decolonization. A commons regulated by law, protected
from contamination, and exploited under a regime which allocates shares
among users, including the United States and other industrialized countries,
promises greater international tranquility by providing an equitable division of

26 Conference of Plenipotentiaries of the Coastal States of the Mediterranean Region for the Pro-
tection of the Mediterranean Sea Against Pollution from Land-based Sources, 1980, Final Act (New
York: United Nations, 1980); Issues Before the 35th General Assembly, pp. 103-04; Issues Before
the 36th General Assembly, p. 107.
27 Report of the United Nations Conference on Desertification, Nairobi, Kenya, 29 August-9
September, 1977, A/CONF.74/36; Report of the United Nations Water Conference, Mar del Plata,
Argentina, 14-25 March, 1977, U.N.P. Sales No. E.77.11 .A. 12; see also Yearbook of the United
Nations 1977, pp. 509-14, 553-63.

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586 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

benefits between present and future generations. Far from contradicting Ameri-
can beliefs in free market behavior (since abusive exploitation is regulated even
in our own country), U.N. programs concerning the global commons affirm the
fundamental American belief that law and not force must be the basis of public
order.

AMERICA's FUTURE AT THE UNITED NATIONS: CRITIC, SUPPORTER, LEADER

The U.N. system of international organization that emerged after 1945 was for
the most part the product of American idealism, imagination, and political crea-
tivity. Others read our cues, accepted our visions, followed our lead, and took
steps away from traditional international anarchy not only because they be-
lieved that the United States was powerful, but because they also believed that
the United States was right. A great mistake of those who specialize in rewriting
the history of the postwar era is to attribute America's leadership, or "hege-
mony" as some call it, solely to its power. Certainly, the United States was pow-
erful, and its might was widely respected, particularly by the Soviet Union and
its allies. Among non-Communist countries, America's moral leadership was
equally compelling. Washington's initiatives were accepted and acclaimed be-
cause they were viewed as legitimate, with legitimacy flowing from projected
values that people almost everywhere could accept: freedom, human dignity,
the rule of law, anti-imperialism, non-aggression, and peaceful change. U.S. en-
dorsement gave a critical measure of legitimacy to the United Nations, and in
this sense it very much still needs American approval.
The organization also needs the United States as an anchor. The United States
remains among the very few countries in the world that both share the values
upon which the United Nations was founded and is capable of acting in the in-
terest of world order. Without the United States, the United Nations. becomes a
parade of small countries largely unable to act upon their aspirations, plus some
Communist states that continue to reject the principles of the organization.
When eastern countries use the United Nations at all, they attempt to use it
solely as an instrument of their revolutionary foreign policies, and they almost
always fail. We may applaud this failure, but if that is all we can expect from in-
ternational organizations, the world would indeed be a more dangerous place.
The United Nations requires American power and authority behind its pro-
grams for world order and peaceful change.
The United Nations also needs a constructive critic, sympathetic to its goals
but realistic about its shortcomings. The United States must take on the critic's
role, as indeed it has already, both to protect our national interests and to keep
the organization true to its original purposes. In many ways the United Nations
is less than most of its supporters would like it to be, and emphasizing its accom-
plishments must not distract us from looking at the organization's problems. As
Vice President George Bush told the United Nations Association in 1981, there
is an urgent need for an "immediate and meaningful reduction in political rhet-

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 AMERICAN INTERESTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS | 587

oric throughout the U.N. system," since it is impossible to politicize every issue
and still hope to create humanitarian and developmental programs that benefit
the international community.28 The primary victim of the harsh rhetoric ex-
changed in U.N. forums is the organization itself, for it loses credibility and ef-
ficiency when it turns into a multinational shouting match.
Moreover, the United Nations must be protected against straying from its
own ideals, or from being used by overzealous members for ends that are not
prescribed in its charter. Recent attempts by some in UNESCO, for example, to
push international authorities toward limiting freedom of the press distort U.N.
principles concerning the free flow of information. Similarly, the "double stan-
dards" evident especially in the General Assembly and the persistent scapegoat-
ing of a few governments do little either to advance the causes of the accusers or
to enhance the stature of the United Nations. Such behavior contributes only to
polarization; it is wholly out of place in an institution chartered to promote in-
ternational conciliation.
That U.N. activities are costly, that budgets need to be more tightly con-
trolled in times of economic austerity, and that such controls have been less than
effective in international organizations in recent years are all true. Former Sec-
retary General Kurt Waldheim's call for "no-growth" budgeting for the next
biennium and his insistence that program administrators make their priorities
explicit are steps in the right direction. So, too, are expanded Secretariat efforts
at evaluation and assessment and more deliberate attempts to terminate ineffec-
tive or redundant activities. Much more such monitoring and control are neces-
sary in the U.N. administration, however, and some of this could be prompted
by donor countries such as the United States, watching and questioning the
ways in which their contributions are used.
If the United Nations needs the United States to all these things, it is also true
that in these last decades of the twentieth century, the United States also needs
the United Nations, for the organization has become a legitimizer in its own
right.29 Most members currently respect the United Nations, accept commit-
ments contained in its policies and programs, adhere to U.N.-inspired conven-
tions and codes, and accord authority to resolutions that follow from consensus.
The United States must therefore watch what happens at the United Nations very
closely. For the United States, as for other countries, power plus legitimacy re-
main the keys to leadership. As underlined throughout this article, American
values and foreign policy interests are largely consistent with U.N. principles
and policy directions. A more positive U.S. official attitude, then, together with
greater willingness to work within the organization, more flexibility and imag-
ination in parliamentary diplomacy, and indeed more diplomacy and less unilat-

28 Hon. George Bush, "Address by Vice President Bush at UNA/USA," United Nations Associa-
tion of the United States, New York, 25 May 1981, transcript, p. 5.
29 Inis L. Claude, Jr., The Changing United Nations (New York: Random House, 1967), pp.
73-104.

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588 1 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

eral posturing, could help recreate a situation where American foreign policy
works in tandem with U.N. objectives to build legitimacy for both. It is time
again to identify the United States with the goals and aspirations of most of the
peoples of the world. The United Nations is one place where this can be done.*

* This paper was prepared under the auspices of the United Nations Association of the United
States as part of its project on Multilateral Issues and Institutions. Positions taken and conclusions
reached, however, are those of the author.

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