Why US shapes new global rules is an opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor. It talks about the US building a coalition outside the UN for the Iraq War and creating a separate coalition of nations pursuing an alternative strategy to the Kyoto Accords for environmental protection.
This isn't unilateralism as much as it is "forum shopping," or creating many new multilateral groupings that strive to be both legitimate and effective, unlike some current global bodies. Some groupings don't work, such as the dormant Community of Democracies. Some older and well-tested bodies, such as NATO, are being prodded to venture onto new turf.
The Piece ends with:
As global challenges shift, US presidents will need to change or scrap institutions and rules set up after World War II or during the cold war. Finding a new balance between US interests and those of other nations will take the same kind of American leadership as in the past.
It strikes me that some Americans (including many in an unnamed mainline denomination whose initials are PCUSA) want the US to place its sovereignty under an international body like the UN. That just ain't going to happen. Yet others seem to think that we can and should dictate the rules to the rest of the world. "To Hell with others if they don't like it." But that only leads to more resentment and resistance, creating fertile ground for every variety of totalitarian opportunists to squelch freedom in their corners of the world. It seems to me that the balance between these poles is what we are struggling with politically as a nation. I think this question will continue to be a dominant one for Christian ethics for the foreseeable future.
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