David Ziegler. “World Government”

World government is the most obvious solution to the problem of war. Our own national government controls fighting between groups with conflicting interests: white supremacists versus black militants, farm laborers versus farm owners, even feuding Appalachian families such as the fabled Hatfields versus the McCoys. Why not, then, a world government to control fighting on a world scale?

World government is more difficult to discuss than other approaches to peace because we lack actual cases to study. There have been historical examples of disarmament agreements, peace-keeping forces, and other proposed methods of bringing peace, but never a world state. The closest approximation to a world state was the ancient Roman Empire with its pax Romana. Most of our discussion therefore is theoretical. We can draw analogies from experiences in the past and in the present, but they will be nothing more than analogies-that is, comparisons of situations that are alike in only some respects.

WORLD GOVERNMENT: THEORY

Historic experience of world government may be lacking, but plans for it are not. Even as -the modern state system was beginning to take form, writers were putting forth plans for transcending it. The Italian poet Dante, known best for The Divine Comedy, advocated a universal kingdom including all the states of Europe. In his book De Monarchia, which appeared in 1313, Dante uses a style of argument that may seem strange to a modern reader. Nevertheless, his fundamental argument for world government survives unchanged among modern advocates: Peace is impossible without a single supreme authority that can settle quarrels among those beneath it. Only universal empire will bring universal peace.

Modem advocates of world government do not often refer to De Monarchia when arguing their case, but they start with the same fundamental assumption. Today, however, in addition to many competing sovereign states, we must come to terms with nuclear weapons, intercontinental missiles, and global economic interdependence. Consequently, the most carefully worked-out proposals for world government consist of many components: a world legislature, a world police force, abolition of existing armies, machinery for peaceful settlement of disputes, and rule of law. Disarmament, peaceful settlement, and law can be advanced as approaches to peace on their own, and we will examine them later in separate chapters. In this chapter we will concentrate on the fundamental problems of a world government and look in detail at its most distinctive feature, a world police force.

Wars occur, we have seen, because no higher authority exists to prevent them. We-call this condition international anarchy. If a world state existed, it would provide that missing higher authority and thus bring an end to anarchy. By disarming existing states, it not only would take away the means of fighting, it would also take away the governments that decide to build armies in the first place. The present system, with authority widely scattered, would be replaced by one in which authority would be concentrated in one center. Resorting to war as a means of settling disputes would no more be allowed than is resorting to duels in society. The private use of violence is known as taking the law into one's own hands, and it is universally condemned. Under our national government, the Hatfields are not allowed to take revenge on the McCoys. Under a world government, the Greeks would not be allowed to carry on their feud with the Turks in the Aegean Sea.

This description of world government relies on analogy. We must remember that analogies don't prove anything; they only illustrate. By drawing an analogy to domestic society, we have not proved that a world state would prevent war or even that a world state would be possible. At most, we have given a vivid picture of what we are talking about. Argument by analogy is listed as a fallacy in textbooks on logic. We must be especially wary of this fallacy in thinking about something such as world government, which has-never existed in reality.

We are all familiar with our own domestic society. If you have a quarrel with your neighbor about where your property line runs, you don't settle the quarrel by invading your neighbor's property with an armor-plated lawn mower; you go to court. Domestic disputes are settled, ideally and most often in practice as well, without force or threat of force. In international politics, that is not always the case. If a national oil shortage develops, the president may drop hints about landing the Marines to take over another country's oil fields. Domestic political problems are supposed to be handled differently. Motorists waiting in line for gasoline don't talk about seizing the corner gas station.

One problem with this analogy is that it is not a very complete description of how domestic politics works. Some kinds of violence are in fact beyond the control of national governments. If you're a little short of cash one month and walk into your local bank to demand all the cash in the drawer, it won't be long before the local police come around to pick you up. But if firefighters go out on strike in direct violation of a law forbidding strikes by city employees, the mayor does not always send a constable around to arrest the head of the firefighters' union. Government leaders realize that using force, no matter how legitimate, would only make the firefighters more determined and possibly win them sympathy from the other groups. In most cities strikes by public employees are illegal, but that has not prevented them.

Government leaders may decide that they cannot satisfy the grievances of some group; instead of negotiating they try to employ force. But the use of force fails. In Northern Ireland the government decided that giving in to the demands of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) would be unacceptable to the Protestant majority of Northern Ireland, but the use of force has failed to suppress the IRA. There is no question that the British government legally governs the territory of Northern Ireland. It meets all the normal criteria-government machinery in place there, recognition by the inhabitants as well as foreign countries that it is the government, collection of taxes, issuance of authoritative laws. But it cannot maintain order.

When people talk about the ability of world government to control aggression, the analogy they use is the police versus the lone bank robber. But the analogy with the firefighters' union or the IRA would be more appropriate. Individual criminal acts are easy to deal with, organized political acts much harder. The threat to peace in the world comes not from individuals but from organized groups such as revisionist states, military factions, and revolutionary parties.2

The argument for world government is that war will be eliminated when the whole world is run like a single nation. But in fact many international conflicts arise from the failures of national governments to keep the peace. The government in Pakistan could not control the Bengalis in East Pakistan either by meeting their demands or by suppressing them. The failure of governmental power within the state of Pakistan led to international war with India. If the prescription "government" doesn't always work at the national level, why should we be certain that it will work at the international level?

Another problem with analogies is that we naturally draw them from our own experience. Americans think world government will be like American government, that violators of world law will be punished as violators of domestic laws are. But the U.S. experience is not necessarily typical. When the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Richard Nixon had to turn over tapes of his White House conversations to the special prosecutor, he did so even though the tapes damaged him irreparably. When a court in India ruled that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had to relinquish her office because she had violated campaign laws, she refused and threw the opposition leaders into jail. Why should we think that a violator of world law would follow the U.S. model (and resign like Nixon) instead of the Indian model (and counterattack like Gandhi)?

Argument by analogy is one fallacy. A second fallacy to watch for is peace by definition. Someone using this fallacy makes peace part of the definition of the proposal that is supposed to achieve peace. For example, someone might argue that diplomacy is the best approach to peace and define diplomacy as "negotiations instead of war." Well, we say, what about the Cyprus conflict of 1974? Diplomacy wasn’t able to prevent that war. "Oh, no," replies the advocate of diplomacy, "the negotiations before fighting broke out were not really a substitute for war, so they weren't really diplomacy." In other words, success in preventing war is built right into the definition of diplomacy. If that's what someone insists diplomacy must mean, of course it will prevent war.

We should begin to suspect attempts to achieve peace by definition when we encounter forceful adjectives attached to proposals. For example, followers of the Baha'i religion believe in world government and describe how a "world tribunal will adjudicate and deliver its compulsory and final verdict in all and any disputes that may arise between the various elements constituting this universal system."5 The goal may be desirable but simply adding the words "compulsory" and "final" does not make it possible.

When we are defining world government, we must take care not to do so in a way that produces peace by definition. Government is has been defined as "the monopoly of the use of physical force within a given territory." 6 But this definition should not blind us to the frequent existence of armed force, even though illegitimate, that rivals the government monopoly. An obvious case of such rivalry is a civil war.

If we use "government" in the commonly accepted way, we can say that during the nineteenth century the states of the United States formed a single government, but the states making up Europe did not; Europe was in a condition of international anarchy. But because of the American Civil War, deaths from military action in the United States in the nineteenth century nearly equaled military deaths in the European countries.7 Clearly government alone is no guarantee of peace and order. In Quincy Wright's list of 278 wars fought from 1480 to 1941, 78 of them (28 percent) were civil wars.8 It seems likely that a world state would continue to have wars, though they might be called rebellions or insurrections.

We must also take care not to confuse procedure with substance. A constitution for a government lays down procedures for reaching decision. It cannot guarantee the results that these procedures will produce. An argument that confuses procedures and results is misleading.

Consider a newspaper advertisement for a world government, run by the World Federalist Association (WFA) in 1992.9 In this advertisement, the President of the World Federalists, John Anderson, a former Republican representative from Illinois who ran for president as an independent in 1980, states three goals:

1. A global parliament to enact laws to protect the Earth's environment;

2. A standing peacekeeping force and arbitral system to prevent wars;

3. An international criminal court to bring terrorists to trial.

Each of these proposals combines procedure and substance. For example, the WFA asks us to envision not just a world legislature but one that enacts a particular kind of law-to protect the environment. Yet logically a world legislature could just as easily enact laws that would increase environmental degradation.

In fact there is already evidence that such an outcome is likely. In 1990 the United States banned imports of tuna caught by Mexican boats because the Mexican government permitted fishing by methods likely to kill dolphins. Mexico complained to the international body that regulates trade, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and in 1991 a panel of GATT ruled that the United States' ban was not permitted under GATT rules. The GATT panel, a small example of what a world government would be like, produced a decision not in keeping with the values of many people who advocate world government. (Bumper stickers to "Visualize World Peace" and "Save the Whales" are most likely to be found on the same cars.)

Some advocates of world government idealize not just the substantive results but even the procedures by which they are attained to such an extent that it resembles no government on earth. Although they rarely spell out their views in detail, they give the impression that in this new order, decision making will be immaculate. Representatives of the states of the world will gather in a room. When serious questions arise, from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to global warming, the correct response by the global state will immediately be evident. There will be unanimous approval of a rational and ethical course of action. The solutions will be complete and consistent with each other, without loose ends. States will be disarmed, and local troublemakers such as terrorists and criminal gangs will present much less of a problem to domestic tranquility than they do now. Laws will be obeyed, quite unlike what happens in our present society, where police officers are videotaped beating motorists and stockbrokers cheat people who invest their money with them.

But of course there is no reason to think that decision making on the global level will be any different from political decision making on any other level, from local water boards to state and federal legislatures. During the crisis over the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait, Representative Henry B. Gonzalez introduced House Resolution 34, impeaching (that is, making accusations against) President George Bush. According to Gonzalez, Bush's offense was that he "violated ... the UN Charter by bribing, intimidating and threatening others, including the members of the UN Security Council to support belligerent acts against Iraq." But surely, as a representative in Congress, Gonzalez must have known that bribing and intimidating is how American presidents get Congress to approve the legislation they want. Perhaps he remembers the remark that President Lyndon Johnson made to Senator Frank Church, when Church opposed Johnson's policy on Vietnam. Church told Johnson that he was persuaded by the arguments of the newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann, whereupon Johnson said, "All right, Frank, next time you want a dam for Idaho, you go talk to Walter Lippmann."10

Politics, whether lawmaking by legislatures or policy-making by executives, is contentious. Rarely is there complete agreement. Indeed, if there were, there would be no need for political forums to argue and bargain. Usually more than one solution will be offered, and for each solution one person or group will take the lead. In the 1970s tobacco advertising was banned from the airwaves, not because members of Congress suddenly all realized that cigarettes cause cancer, but because Senator Frank Moss of Utah introduced a bill, marshaled support for it, and engaged in bargaining (for example, agreeing to let the ban take effect several weeks into the new year, after the Super Bowl game had been played, to allow the networks to run cigarette ads one more time).

The politics of a world government are unlikely to be different. For given issues, one state is likely to take the lead, and that state is likely to be a powerful one. The organization of a coalition against Iraq by George Bush does not differ in its essentials from the organization of a coalition against cigarettes by Senator Moss.

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF WORLD GOVERNMENT

Some defenders of world government may use fallacious arguments, but that doesn't make the idea itself wrong. Critics of world government sometimes employ a fallacy themselves, the fallacy of perfectionism. They argue that unless a system functions perfectly it is of no use at all. However, many systems function imperfectly yet are useful. Some people cheat with their checkbooks. They write checks when they have no money in their accounts or when they don't even have an account. But this misuse does not make checks useless devices. Merchants find the honest use of checks worthwhile enough to put up with occasional abuse. Only if the system were grossly abused would it make sense to do without it.

Even though world government would have flaws, it wouldn't need to function perfectly to be an improvement over what we have now. Wars in the form of rebellions or insurrections might indeed occur, but we could expect that there would be fewer of these civil wars. In Quincy Wright's list only 28 percent of all wars were civil wars. One could hypothesize that under a world government civil wars would continue to occur only one-third as frequently as international wars. Thus, even if world government did not eliminate war, it might reduce it by two-thirds. These figures do not constitute conclusive proof, of course, but they do give what lawyers call a prima facie case; that is, upon first looking at them they seem to argue in favor of world government and not against it.

It is true that, despite a central government, the United States experienced a severe war in the nineteenth but without such a government, war between the states might have come sooner and been fought repeatedly, and total military casualties might have been far greater than those in Europe.

Nor is the analogy with domestic politics totally worthless. One thousand years ago the area known today as France consisted of separate states-Burgundy, Lorraine, Normandy, and many others-usually at war with each other. Over a period of five centuries, the separate provinces were brought together in a unified state. Two facts about this unification could discourage advocates of world government. One is that it took many years. Another is that these years were full of wars fought to resist unification. Both of these are drawbacks for those who want instant peace. But, on the positive side, we can say that a unitary state was finally created, that war between the formerly sovereign units disappeared, and that reversion to anarchy has become less and less likely.

The development of peace and order within France was helped by the creative role of the state. War between Burgundy and Provence is unlikely today, not just because the central authority in Paris prevents it but also because a French state fosters a sense of community between Burgundy and Provence. Children in school learn the same history; radio and television broadcast the same news and entertainment; a single code of laws makes it easy for people in one region to travel, change jobs, or engage in business in another region.

Even if we have reservations about world government, we should not underestimate how important a central authority can be in prohibiting violence. International politics differs from other kinds of politics because large-scale murder (which we call war) is still legitimate. This type of murder is not totally unregulated. Ordinarily, individuals are not entitled to cross the border with Mexico and gun down people at will. But if a few conditions are fulfilled-making a declaration of war, joining the armed forces, and being ordered to attack-they could receive medals for gunning down Mexicans. This kind of behavior is approved at no other level of politics. World government would abolish legalized mass killing. Deaths would still occur, just as they do when a state's police force resorts to violence. Such deaths would no longer be considered a normal way of doing business, however, and we would not make especially violent police officers into folk heroes.

World government would thus contribute to an enlargement of people's moral horizons. At one time morality extended only as far as one's family; it was considered moral to cheat, rob, or kill outsiders in the defense of family interests. Gradually moral horizons were extended to the village and region and tribe. Killing members of one's own tribe was considered murder, but killing members of other tribes was not. In many tribal languages, the word for "human being" was often the same as the name of the tribe. Members of other tribes were by definition not human beings, and killing them was no more murder than was killing a wolf. Today our moral horizons have extended as far as our own nation-state. The bombardier who released the atomic bomb on Hiroshima would likely have had grave scruples about releasing it on Milwaukee." Advocates of world government are asking us to take one last step and extend our moral horizons to encompass all human beings.

ADVOCATES OF WORLD GOVERNMENT

Interest in world government waxes and wanes. It wanes when national states seem to be doing well, providing security and prosperity for their citizens. When they do not provide these things, interest in replacing them with larger units begins to grow. The 13 American colonies federated after a period of revolution. The countries of Europe began to move toward a European community after the disruptions of World War II. Even in the United States interest in a world government grew after World War II. Some polls at that time showed almost two-thirds of the respondents willing to support at least the abstract principle of a world body able to settle disputes between states and enforce its decisions.12

Such sentiments were cultivated by writers such as Norman Cousins, for years editor of the Saturday Review. He argued repeatedly in editorials appearing in that magazine or in his influential book, In Place of Folly, that there was no alternative to world government. In the past we could afford to hesitate, bicker, and procrastinate because the consequences of failure were not the total destruction of humanity. No more, Cousins argued, in what might be labeled the in extremis position. The situation has changed so radically because of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems that equally radical departures in thinking are required. We face the possibility that all human life will be destroyed within a few days as the result of actions by a handful of military leaders. In this extreme situation all the old hesitations about taking radical steps are no longer valid.

Cousins and others with similar views clearly were writing under the impact of the then-new atomic weapon. Today it is easy for us to say that these fears were exaggerated. World government was not instituted, but the world did not come to an end. Most people think we are not in the extreme situation Cousins thought we were in.

PRACTICAL DETAILS OF THE WORLD STATE

But what if most people are wrong? Perhaps we should spend a few minutes to think about what a world government would look like. We should be clear that we are talking about a government, not a technocracy or rule by nonpolitical experts. A plan for world government is not like a plan for an automated telephone switchboard. It cannot operate without human judgment and political decisions. The constitution of a world state may state, "Arms are prohibited; violators will be automatically punished," but words alone tell very little about what a world government will be like in practice. The Soviet Union under Stalin had a constitution with written guarantees of civil liberties; the United Kingdom, in contrast, has had no written constitution at all. No on believed that civil liberties were better protected in the Soviet Union because of words in a constitution.

Obviously a police force cannot be employed against a violator without a decision to do so. Someone must tell the police to arrest conspirators arming in secret, and the decision to arrest depends on other decisions. An official must decide to "see" a violation in the first place. Suppose a constable on duty at midnight in Bliggens City stops a car for weaving over the center line on Main Street and discovers that the car is driven by W. W. Bliggens, Chairman of the Board of Bliggens Textile Mills. Does the constable see a case of drunken driving and make the required arrest, or does he see a motorist fatigued by a hard day's work and in obvious need of a lift home? Blacks in the United States have charged that standards of law and order differ within the black and white communities. Murders in which both attacker and victim are black have been tolerated in a way that other murders have not been. Law enforcement officers, it is claimed, do not "see" crimes committed by blacks against blacks. Similarly some forms of world government could lead to toleration of certain kinds of collective violence-acts that did not threaten the interests of the world rulers or acts that were allowed because the world rulers were intimidated by the perpetrators. We have no right to be more naive about world government than we are about our own.

The question of "seeing" a violation is only one matter to be resolved. There are many others. Suppose a violation is clearly identified. How much force is to be employed against it? If an alleged violator promises to stop before enforcement has begun, is punishment then called for? Matters of judgment always come up. Who will make these judgments? Questions about who will run a world state, how they will be selected, and how they will be held accountable are very important.

Governments in the past century have ranged from very loose associations to very tightly controlled totalitarian states. The distinguishing characteristic is the amount of behavior they control. The government that governs least may control very little behavior; it may do little more than catch thieves and repel invaders. A totalitarian government strives for total control, over leisure activities, family life, and even private thoughts. Again we must avoid the pitfall of analogy. When Americans use the term "government," they naturally think first of the U.S. government and focus on two of its prominent features: its democracy and its federalism.

"Democracy" is an elastic term, and we need define it only loosely. Democracy is a form of government in which fairly large numbers of people participate in decision making and even larger numbers are consulted before the decisions are made. At the opposite pole is autocracy, a system in which decisions are made by a very few and the decisions are not challenged. Whatever one's reservations about the present American system, one will probably admit that all decision making is not concentrated in the hands of a very few. The president, members of Congress, and most other officials agree that something must be done to control government spending, but no one official or group can decree that its solution be implemented.

Not all governments operate under such restraints. Although no government is entirely free of restraint, some are a lot freer than others. When the revolutionary government took over South Vietnam, it decided to stop crime on the streets by shooting thieves and looters and letting their bodies lie at the scene of the crime. Some Americans have proposed the same solution, but they have little chance of implementing it because too many groups would oppose it.

Americans generally agree that they pay a price for these restraints, the price of relative inefficiency. The United States has responded very slowly to a shortage of energy because so many groups need to be consulted. In contrast, the revolutionary Cambodian government in 1975 decided to reduce dependence on imported oil quickly by destroying motor vehicles and then just as quickly did so.

This line of thought suggests that a world government, if it were to be efficient, might be less democratic than the government we are used to. It might consult fewer people and pay less heed to objections to policies. The kind of opposition to registering firearms expressed by some Americans could not be tolerated on a world scale if a world government were to achieve the goal of preventing war. If a world government did have the power to compel people to surrender firearms (stop and think how much power the U.S. government would have to use just to have firearms registered), what else would it be able to do? Perhaps control the content of books, newspapers, and television programs? After all, this sort of regulation could be justified as helping to prevent war because books, newspapers, and television shape attitudes toward war and peace.

The firearms example is enlightening in another way. It is difficult to imagine the registration, much less the abolition, of private firearms in the United States, yet opinion polls have repeatedly demonstrated that only a minority of Americans opposes such control.14 But this minority is well organized and politically active. The majority is confronting not isolated individuals but political groups. As we pointed out earlier, it is the political group that gives government the most trouble. We do not anticipate that a world government will encounter problems from solitary lawbreakers building atom bombs in their hobby rooms. Trouble will come from organized groups-just as in the past states faced their most serious challenges from groups, Britain from the Irish Republican Army, Israel from the PLO, Peru from "The Shining Path" guerrillas. Considering recent history, we do not have much reason for confidence that world government will be able to control them. In a few countries terrorists are controlled, but these countries can hardly be used as an argument in favor of world government, for control is achieved by enormous repressive forces. When Cambodia in the 1970s was run as a rigidly controlled police state, terrorists did not blow up buildings, but most of us would have preferred not to live there.

Most of us would oppose a government with extensive repressive power, preferring to take our chances with the present risk of war instead. For this reason most of the serious proposals for world government advanced in the West equate world government with the relatively weak control associated with the central government in a federal state. The federalism of the United States is often used as an example.

Unfortunately for the advocates of a weak world government, American federalism looks more attractive in its historical version than in its present-day form. Almost universal complaints about big government have not stopped the enormous growth of central government in recent decades. Behavior is now regulated in a way never imagined by writers of the Constitution. Government has a say in what kinds of workers are employed, how packages are labeled, and even where children are sent to school. This development is not unique to the United States. Governments around the world are growing bigger, not smaller.

RESISTANCE TO WORLD GOVERNMENT

Proponents of world government do not rely solely on catastrophe to implement their plans. Traditionally they have used analogy not only to explain how world government would prevent war but also to show how such a government would come about. And again the analogy is frequently drawn from the United States. In 1783 the 13 colonies were separate, sovereign states, loosely bound by the Articles of Confederation. By 1787 they had agreed to form a strong federal union and central government.. The motto they chose, E pluribus unum, "out of many, one," summarizes what happened. One historian of these years titled his book The Great Rehearsal, suggesting that other parts of the world might later follow the American

example.15

Opponents of world government likewise have traditional arguments. Their basic argument is that the American situation was unique. Those thirteen colonies had just completed a revolutionary war; the shift of political loyalties from small units to a larger one occurs only when other political and social habits are changing as well-in other words, in a revolutionary situation.16 The Revolutionary War was fought against a common enemy under one commander, who went on to become head of the new state. This cooperation in waging a war was facilitated by many things the colonists already had in common-language, culture, political tradition. It was not accidental that the part of North America where a different language was spoken, Quebec, was not included in the new state, or that those who did not share the political values of the revolution were often forced to emigrate to Canada. Whatever petty jealousies separated the 13 colonies, there were no traditional barriers to movement or trade, certainly nothing comparable to what years of independent sovereign existence had created in Europe.

No one should deny, of course, that a union of small units is possible. The United States was formed of small units; so too was modem Switzerland. But we should not ignore the enormous barriers that vested interests normally put in the way of amalgamation. A "Greater New York joining the parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York State that are economically and in other ways tied to New York City is a rational solution to many of New York's problems, but such a solution is not likely because of set patterns and vested interests.

Similarly, countries resist amalgamation. In fact, such resistance is given the highest priority in a state's policy and is termed "national security." It is a basic policy of Pakistan to resist amalgamation with India, of Mexico to resist amalgamation with the United States, and so on. Four reasons are usually given.

1. People are attached to their culture, language, and traditions. They fear that these will be changed by amalgamation. The Protestants in Northern Ireland, for example, fear the effects of incorporation into an Irish state that is mostly Catholic.

2. People fear disruption of their economic system. Although almost all Koreans would like to live in one country, the difference between North Korea's state-controlled economy and South Korea's free-enterprise economy is a major reason the halves have not yet reunited.

3. People fear that a large political unit will be less responsive to their wishes. The Norwegians rejected membership in the European Community in 1972 and again in 1994, in part out of fear that this loose union of states could eventually acquire too much authority and their own control over that authority would be diluted.

4. People who benefit from existing arrangements, such as those with jobs in government, fear they will lose income or power. It might be logical to have a single prairie state called Dakota, but we would expect any such proposal to be resisted by the existing governments in North Dakota and South Dakota.

CONSENSUS VERSUS COERCION

The cases of Northern Ireland and Korea illustrate a basic proposition about government: It depends as much on subjective feelings as on objective institutions. If many people are opposed to cooperation with a group they view as outsiders, then objective factors such as a common language make little difference. The subjective element in government is termed shared values or consensus. All successful states depend at least in part on consensus. States also use force or coercion, but the amount of coercion needed depends on the amount of consensus already present-the greater the consensus, the less coercion is needed. This is why small, homogeneous, well-integrated states like Denmark and Costa Rica have both small police forces and low crime rates. They enjoy a wide consensus. On the other hand, in countries where different groups hold very different values countries ruled by minorities or by foreign invaders-large repressive forces have been needed.

It seems clear that in the world today there is little consensus on values important to a community. Differences are wide on such issues as the way to organize an economy and distribute wealth, the right to hold religious beliefs different from those of others, and the morality of divorce, birth control, and abortion. Any attempt to create a world state without consensus to build on will have to rely on coercion in fact, a great deal of coercion. A world state that forcefully reunited hostile groups who recently stopped fighting only because they separated (Irish Republicans and British, Palestinians and Israelis) would require a great deal of centralized power just to stay in existence.

This dependence on coercion undermines the claim that a world state would be limited. If the central authority could prevent the United States from having a cache of arms, could it not also prevent the United States from have a cache of surplus grain? Grain could in time of world shortages be taken away from productive countries as a legitimate way to prevent war, on the argument that starvation is a cause of violence. Drastic changes in diet might follow. A strong central government could decree a vegetarian diet, forcing Americans to give up backyard barbecues. Or it might decree that cattle in India should be abolished to save the grain they would otherwise consume. Fear of such actions would provoke widespread resistance to this kind of governmental control would generate new conflict, possibly more than the world has right now.

The need to rely on coercion when consensus is absent is supported by the little historic evidence about world government that we have. The closest humanity has ever come to a world state was the Roman Empire. It brought together the formerly separate states bordering the Mediterranean. Although there were areas of civilization elsewhere in the world, they had such little contact with the Mediterranean that in the minds of the Romans they did not exist. For all practical purposes, the Roman Empire did what world states are supposed to do. It abolished individual sovereignties and replaced them with a centralized authority.

The Roman Empire was created by force. Order was maintained by the famous Roman legions. The phrase pax Romana, the peace of Rome, stands for peace maintained by force. The peace was constantly tested by wars in the form of revolts against Roman rule, similar to national liberation movements today, and the revolts were brutally suppressed. The defeat of the Jewish Zealots, with the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem and the dispersal of the inhabitants of Judea, is the best known.

A WORLD POLICE FORCE

Any world government in the foreseeable future would require a substantial amount of coercion. Thus, it is worth thinking about what kind of "World Police Force" would be needed. Given the size of the task, such a force would be large. Members would have to come from many countries to keep the force from being seen as partial to any one country. Therefore most members would need the intellectual ability to learn a second language, yet have the temperament to be willing to take orders, live a regimented barracks life, and put their lives at risk. In an age when military service in all countries is increasingly unpopular, why would talented young people join? One author suggests high salaries and an appeal to idealism.17 Perhaps such incentives would work, but a global police force would serve mainly garrison duty in enclaves scattered around the world. Garrison duty has always been considered tedious and has no obvious attraction for idealists. For the Allied Control Commission in charge of enforcing the disarmament of Germany after World War I, such duty led to laxness and unwillingness to investigate complaints. A study of the United Nations peace-keeping force on Cyprus found that the overriding feature of peace-keeping duty was "tedium and monotony."18

The kind of idealism called for is a new one-willingness to act against one's own country. One wonders if those willing to do this would make the best soldiers.19 Traditionally, military duty has not been incompatible with other attachments; sacrificing for one's own country did not mean going against one's family. The same qualities that made Robert E. Lee an admired soldier led him to leave the U.S. Army and fight along with the rebellious forces in his own section of the country. In a future state, it is hard to imagine a Bengali contingent on a World Police Force willing to use force against armed Bengalis trying to save themselves from extermination by Punjabis. Exempting force members from actions involving their own country would help but would require that each critical job be shared by people from different countries, so that the job could be performed in all situations.

The attraction of high salaries is not clear either. One could hardly enjoy them while on garrison duty. Moreover, if the police force took part in unpopular acts, its members might have difficulty finding a place back home to enjoy their savings after retirement. The historical record is not encouraging. Going off to die for a patriotic cause has produced better soldiers than going off for monetary reward. Mercenary armies were possible only when the alternative was unbearable poverty, and even then they did not fare well against idealistic armies.

The source of high salaries is another problem. Police forces are not just men and women; they are also supplies, bases, and the finances to run them. The financial burden might be less than the present arms burden, but it would not be negligible any more than the police force is a negligible item in the budget of New York City. In the development of modern nation-states, monarchs started out with their own power base-royal lands and royal retainers. Louis XI of France relied on the area around Paris known as the Ile de France; the kings of Prussia relied on the Mark of Brandenburg. Some proponents of a World Police Force, by contrast, propose that the force be dependent on charity. It is not difficult to imagine cases in which this would cause grave difficulties.

Suppose, in a disarmed world, Mexico gets massive U.S. investment to develop oil fields near the U.S. border but refuses to share their output with the United States. A force consisting of Texas Rangers and oil company security guards moves into Mexico to take over the oil fields. The World Police Force is sent in against them, but the United States, in self-righteous anger, cuts off its share of financing for the force and stops delivery of equipment such as helicopters that would be vital to enforcement action. It is easy to see that the success of a World Police Force will depend on its possessing an independent power base.

But once it gets such a power base, how can a police force be controlled by anyone for any purpose? How could demands for incredibly large salaries be resisted? How could protests against even the grossest violations of neutrality be effective? Even if a World Police Force did not become corrupt, it would have to be strong enough to prevent change, and a system that prevents change is for all practical purposes a tyranny.

The American revolutionary patriot Samuel Adams pointed out the danger of such forces more than two hundred years ago:

A standing army, however necessary it may be at sometimes, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Soldiers are apt to consider themselves a body distinct from the rest of the citizens. They have their arms always in their hands. Their rules and their discipline are severe. They soon become attached to their officers and disposed to yield implicit obedience to their commands. Such power should be watched with a jealous eye.20

Multi-national armies, like all armies, are in the business of using deadly force. Understandably, political authorities want command and control over that force¬command to guarantee that they use it when political authorities decide, control to make sure that they don't use it at other times. A well-regulated force is difficult to attain even in a national army. It requires competent management, extensive train¬ing, and mutual trust.

Sometimes even purely national forces fail to meet adequate standards. The U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 was characterized by a lack of coordination. Lacking a common communication system, Navy pilots were unable to communicate with Army forces on the ground and attacked positions held by American soldiers .21 Even more disastrous was the experience of the Turks during the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, when they sank one of their own ships.

The difficulties in creating an effective multi-national military force are even greater. Such forces lack the opportunity for extensive training that national forces have. And even extensive training cannot overcome differences in languages, equipment, and procedures. In addition, there is likely to be lack of intangible feelings of trust and fraternity. In a national army, incompetent performance leads at the least to disgrace, a severe punishment in a profession that values honor. In a multinational force, there is less accountability and fewer safeguards against incompetence.

This point is illustrated by the disaster in Somalia in October 1993. At this point the UN had expanded its mission from merely distributing food to hungry people to trying to set up functioning government. To accomplish this, UN forces tried to eliminate the local warlords. As part of this campaign, a force of U.S. Rangers used helicopters to land on a hotel, hoping to seize the deputies of the most powerful warlord. Because they were part of an multinational force, their armored backup force was Pakistani and Malaysian. When the Rangers emerged from the hotel, they realized the element of surprise had been lost and fighters loyal to the warlord were waiting for them. In the ensuing battle, three helicopters were shot down, 12 Americans were killed, and 78 wounded. The UN backup forces took nine hours to respond.22

By contrast, the intervention to return a democratically elected president to power in Haiti a year later was completely American. As part of that intervention, a patrol of 14 Marines got into a firefight with local police. Backup from armored vehicles arrived in less than four minutes.23 The contrast been cumbersome international forces and efficient national ones was displayed again in Bosnia in 1995. UN peacekeepers coming under fire on the ground had to get permission for response from so many levels that they rarely could defend themselves. But when a U.S. pilot was downed over Bosnia, his rescue was accomplished immediately. He was able to send out a signal indicating his location at about midnight. The U.S. commander was roused at 1:00 AM, the rescue mission was in the air by 5:45 AM, and pilot was picked

up at 6:44 AM

In addition to problems with command-that is, getting forces to do what they are supposed to do-there are problems with control-keeping them from doing what they should not do. One of the dangers of a name such as "World Police Force" is that again we draw an analogy to our own experience. We think of President Truman dismissing General MacArthur, with General MacArthur quietly fading away. We don't think of the more typical case, in which the attempt to dismiss the head of the armed forces leads to the overthrow of the government. The latter possibility is far more likely. In recent decades about two-thirds of the countries in the world have experienced military coups. America's experience with a totally housebroken military is unusual and misleading as a model of what a world army would be like. Instead of politicians controlling their police, it is more likely that the police would control politics.

OUTLOOK FOR WORLD GOVERNMENT

World government is a frontal attack on the problem of state sovereignty. Advocates

of world government identify state sovereignty as a major cause of war. They wish to deprive the individual states of both the ability and the excuse to use force in their own behalf to settle disputes. Under world government, force would be centralized under one authority. But much of the case for world government rests on an analogy with domestic society, and analogies, though helpful in illustrating proposals, are not convincing proof. The differences between domestic society and international society are large-one of the most important being that people within states (at least within stable ones) have a lot more in common with each other than they have with outsiders. In the absence of consensus, great amounts of power would be needed to institute and maintain a world government. But concentrating all this power in one place would create a temptation to seize it. For this reason, too much reliance on force to solve the problem of war among states raises serious doubts about world government.

Even if you might find an enforced peace, a pax Romana, preferable to present international anarchy, the power to bring it about does not seem available in the world today. The Roman legions, however undemocratic, could govern an empire. Modern political leaders have difficulty governing New York City, not to mention Cyprus, Northern Ireland, or Lebanon. Those who wish to resist authority have many more weapons at their disposal than the Jewish Zealots did. From cars you can siphon gasoline to make Molotov cocktails; from construction sites you can steal dynamite to make bombs; and from nuclear reactors you can make off with enough plutonium to build a nuclear device. In the face of such developments, the amount of power needed to create and administer a world state simply is not available.

A global consensus that would serve as a foundation for world government does not yet exist. But we still have to consider the question of whether a limited consensus exists. If world government does not work on a global level, perhaps it will work on the regional level. After all, states themselves grew by the integration of local units. Perhaps world government will emerge from the integration of states. Perhaps there are lessons in current moves toward regional integration.