Links Between East and West 26 Global Organization 东西方的连接26 - 全球组织

"Our planet is burning" - Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN

According to popular view, human society has been on a path of evolution, turning into increasingly complex forms. During this process of evolution, it is inevitable that conflicts occur. The causes of conflict can be numerous - a greater misunderstanding between individuals, more intense competition for a resource, and so on. Once civilizations reach a scale that makes interaction with a broader community necessary, these conflicts bring significantly more long-lasting and devastating consequences. To see this point, look at how the destructiveness of wars has dramatically increased up to 1945.

As warfare and conflict threaten the social order and even the very existence of humankind, societies have spontaneously convened to discuss solutions. One such solution, proposed in the early 20th century, is to form global organizations deliberately. These international organizations are responsible for keeping global peace and promoting global prosperity. This essay will focus on the two most iconic organizations: The League of Nations, emerging right after the end of World War I, and the currently-existing United Nations, developed following World War II. This essay will show that while these organizations have lofty and insightful ideals, they all possess various defects that prevent them from effectively working when they are most needed. Then, this essay will explore the way forward and discuss the evolution of global organizations in the future world.

The League of Nations was one of the world’s first attempts to establish an order for the entire globe. After WWI laid waste to regional relationships in Europe, Asia, and beyond, a strong need to create a system that would ensure long-term peace seemed only necessary. The idea was to “promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and prosperity.” The League came into effect officially in early 1920, following the Treaty of Versailles. The organization was open to all states (except for Germany and some other Central Powers), starting with 42 members, though the number eventually increased to 63.

The League of Nations consisted of three main components: The Assembly, a meeting place for all members and where all countries would be represented equally; The Council, a group that was primarily responsible for settling international disputes; The Secretariat, which performed the “day-to-day work” and represented the civil service of the League. Other auxiliary components fit into the general idea of an interlinked system effective enough to rebuild the world order.

The reality was much harsher. The League had some success in settling conflicts, such as the border dispute between modern-day Colombia and Peru or the Aaland Islands halfway between Sweden and Finland. It also contributed to the end of slavery and campaigned for disarmament. However, the League had major issues preventing it from being successful or authoritative on global matters.

The members rarely agreed on anything substantial, taking the Geneva Protocol of 1924 as an example. The draft of the Protocol essentially disallowed aggressive warfare and placed the burden on the dominant powers of the League (Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy). As a result, Britain directly vetoed the proposal as it feared the terms would threaten its global hegemony. Later, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and his French counterpart Edouard Herriot proposed the “Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes” as another version of the initial draft. This proposal led to the opposition of the United States and some of the Conservatives within Britain. Ultimately, the Geneva Protocol failed its purpose and was never reintroduced.

Further, due to the inability of the key members to reach a consensus, the League was too weak and helpless to prevent countries from moving back into large-scale warfare. The League could not impede Germany and its allies from leaving the organization or re-arming. Rampant nationalism was one of the triggers of WWI, but there was no way for the League to halt its horrific growth again before WWII. The members were silent when the Nazi regime rose under Hitler and began remilitarizing the Rhineland; The members proved powerless to stop Japan from invading Manchuria in the early 1930s; The members did not discourage the Soviet Union from attacking Finland militarily in 1939. All these failures became the causes of WWII and even later confrontations worldwide.

The failure of the League of Nations shows that for an international organization to prevent conflict and enforce the laws of peace, it needs to possess a functioning structure that exerts more power on member states. In 1942, amidst WWII, the 20 Allied nations agreed on the plan for setting up a more permanently effective peacekeeping body. Hence the United Nations was born. Unlike the League of Nations, the UN received massive support from the world’s superpowers, namely the United States. As a result, it has grown into a worldwide organization that wields significantly more power than the League of Nations.

According to many sources, the UN’s peacekeeping missions are assessed to be generally successful. For example, Georgetown University professor Lise Howard attributed this relative success to the organization’s emphasis on “verbal persuasion, financial inducements and coercion short of offensive military force, including surveillance and arrest.” However, the argument that the UN has become increasingly incapable has many merits. Although bounded by different limitations of perspective, former US ambassador to the UN Daniel Moynihan complained that “The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective”. The UN failed three opportunities to prevent massive humanitarian crises happening in Somalia between 1988 to 1991, and it has been struggling to stop the rise of nationalism and the desire to wage wars again on a global level today.

Critics also blame the UN for bureaucratic inefficiency, waste, and corruption. In 1976, the General Assembly founded the Joint Inspection Unit to investigate inefficiencies. The US refused to pay dues in the 1990s, citing the Unit’s inefficiency, and only agreed to start paying again unless the UN would introduce a fundamental reform. This action undoubtedly lowered the working efficiency of the organization further and subjected the UN to various kinds of corruption. Corruption charges were additionally placed on the organization in 2004 when people questioned its Oil-for-Food Program for widespread venality.

Given the current issues and the increasing irrelevance of the UN, many people are advocating for the UN to be replaced. Replacing the UN seems to be an overly idealistic option. It is hard to surmise what the new system would look like and whether it would avoid possessing the same problems. When countries across the world founded the UN, they had the hope that this organization would be a significant improvement from the League of Nations and solve the issues of its precursor effectively. However, although the UN is a more successful creation, reality has proven that it has similar deficiencies to the League.

Hence, from today’s viewpoint, humankind should not choose to rebuild the system completely, as the UN is not totally rendered obsolete, and the costs could be too daunting. Instead, countries should aim to push forward the evolution of the UN. From the League of Nations to the UN, one factor negatively disrupting nations’ work is nationalism. Nationalism is vastly different from patriotism. While patriotism is the love one shows towards their nation, nationalism is more an argument that one’s nation is better than others. During the first decades of the 20th century, many of the League’s works, such as preventing tension from quickly rising in Europe, were delayed by the pull of nationalism. Germany refused to cooperate. Its opponents, namely Britain and France, were competing for their respective interests. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, nationalism has also been the drag to maintaining peaceful world order. It has caused the US and China, alongside other powers, to come head-to-head, disregarding the UN as a platform to resolve conflict.

Many who argue for creating a new system also argue for nationalism to be wholly removed from that system, citing the potential capability of nationalism to fuel more conflict. This argument possesses few merits. First, ridding the world of nationalism is virtually impossible. As social groups expanded and evolved in the early times of culture, communities needed a force or story to unify the populace. Nationalism is hence a natural product of human social behaviors. To bereave society of it would imply a complete restructuring of human civilization. In the short term, this restructuring does not look to be possible. Second, nationalism is not always an opposing force. Without it, it is hard to imagine any coherence in society, and order would simply collapse, marking a return to the natural state.

Following the arguments above, if people should not try to defeat nationalism, what will the evolution of a future global system look like? While drawing an accurate picture of the future is improbable, it is possible to surmise it using the works of famous historians and theorists in the past. According to the ideas of English essayist John Locke, humans, by exercising natural reason, left the natural state to form a society and government bound by a social contract or the consent to be ruled by a higher authority. While Locke held that humans respected the laws of nature and were peaceful, English thinker Thomas Hobbes believed otherwise. He pointed out, arguably with more reason, that individuals were in a state of war against each other in the natural state, trying to satisfy their interests. Suppose one combines the writings of Locke and Hobbes. In that case, one can reach the process whereby the chaos and violence in a natural state prompt humans to form collective organizations, such as societies or governments.

In a sense, it is doable to apply these theories to the current state of the globe. The most important part of the analogy is that each country today is like an individual in the state of nature. In the status quo, when resources are becoming increasingly scarce, most countries would choose to, like the individual, defend their interests and attempt to reap the interests of other states. Today, conflicts are beginning to leave scars on the world. The Russian-Ukraine war has already been inflicting horrific humanitarian costs on Europe and beyond. The Sino-US competition can additionally further intensify following recent political events. History shows that by one point when enough damage is dealt to the current global order, a new order and collective organization would be created – the League of Nations was born in the aftermath of World War I; The United Nations, in a similar manner, was born in the ashes of World War II. This process shares similarities with how individuals bond to develop social contracts and more powerful kinds of government to ensure safety and prosperity.

If the world continues to be plagued by more detrimental and long-lasting conflicts, then it is almost certain that unless humans destroy themselves completely, societies will make some improvements to the current United Nations, or a totally new order will appear. The danger, now, is that the costs of getting to that point could be unbearable. Severe economic depressions could occur; cultural conflict could leave difficult divides to mend; warfare could take lives much more efficiently. As a result, leaders today must push forward this evolution faster. Countries must convene and discuss how to make the current “social contract” between nations more authoritative, providing greater safety to each state, or how to draft a fresh one.

States should reference history to make decisions in the future. One common issue that both the League of Nations and the United Nations possess is that they become increasingly irrelevant in times of conflict when nationalistic leaders choose to ignore these organizations. In the future, how can an organization avoid this issue and enforce more authority on members? It is a possibility, for example, to allow an independent representative of the organization to participate in the decision-making process of a nation, going as far as giving that representative the right to veto certain decisions. Yuval Noah Harari pointed out in his book Homo Deus that humans changed the path of history in the 20th century and early 21st century positively because we made the right decisions. We are at a crossroads now, where decision-making becomes vital again. One lesson to learn from the past is simple: We cannot afford history to play out again.

“世界正在燃烧” - 安东尼奥·古特雷斯，联合国秘书长

流行的观点认为，人类社会一直在进化的道路上，其衍生出越来越复杂的社会形式。在这个进化过程中，发生冲突是不可避免的。冲突的原因可能有很多，小至个体，大至文化之间的误解升级，对资源的激烈竞争等。随着文明的不断发展，更广泛的社群互动成为必要，那么这些冲突就会带来明显更持久的破坏性后果。要看到这一点，只需观测20世纪初直至1945年战争的破坏性是如何急剧增加的即可。

由于战争和冲突威胁到社会秩序，甚至人类的生存，全球各国自发地召集起来讨论解决方案。其中一个解决方案在20世纪初提出--组建全球组织。这些全球组织有责任保持全球和平，促进全球繁荣。本文将重点介绍两个最具代表性的组织，既第一次世界大战结束后出现的“国际联盟”（国联），以及目前存在的联合国（在第二次世界大战后发展的）。这篇文章将表明，虽然这些组织有崇高而有见地的理想，并取得了卓越的工作成果，但它们都有各种缺陷，它们在最需要的时候时常无法有效工作。之后，本文将探讨未来的道路，并讨论全球组织在未来世界的演变。

国联是各国最早为集体人类文明建立秩序的尝试之一。第一次世界大战使欧洲、亚洲和其他地区的区域关系遭到破坏，创建这样一个能够确保长期和平的系统的强烈需求似乎是必要的，其理想正是 "促进国际合作，实现国际和平与繁荣"。1920年初，《凡尔赛条约》签订后，联盟正式生效。该组织向所有国家开放（德国和其他一些同盟国外），从42名成员最终增加到63名。

国联由三个主要部分组成：大会是所有成员的会议场所，所有国家在这里都有平等的代表权；理事会是一个主要负责解决国际争端的小组；秘书处负责 "日常工作"，是代表联盟的公务员队伍。其他辅助部分也符合一个足以重建世界秩序的互联系统的总体设想。

联盟在解决冲突方面取得了一些成功，如哥伦比亚和秘鲁之间的边界争端，瑞典和芬兰之间争夺的奥兰群岛等均得到和平解决。它还为结束奴隶制做出了贡献，并开展了裁军运动。然而，国联仍存在一些重大问题，使其在全球事务上无法取得成功或具有权威性。成员们很少就任何实质性问题达成一致。以1924年的《日内瓦议定书》为例。该议定书的草案基本上不允许侵略战争发生，并将责任落实到联盟的主导国家（英国、法国、美国、意大利）身上。结果，英国直接否决了该提案，因为它担心这些条款会威胁到其全球霸权。后来，英国首相拉姆塞-麦克唐纳和他的法国同行爱德华-埃利奥提出了另一个版本 "和平解决国际争端的日内瓦议定书"，这一提议导致了美国和英国国内一些保守派的反对。最后，《日内瓦议定书》未能达到其目的，也没有被重新议定。

此外，由于主要成员无法达成共识，联盟在阻止各国重新进入大规模战争方面显得过于软弱和无能。国联无法阻止德国及其盟友退出该组织并重新武装。猖獗的民族主义是一战的诱因之一，但在二战之前，联盟没有办法阻止民族主义的再次恐怖发展。当纳粹政权在希特勒的领导下崛起并开始重新军事化莱茵地区时，成员们保持了沉默。事实证明，成员们更无力阻止日本在20世纪30年代初入侵中国，无力阻止苏联在1939年对芬兰的军事进攻。所有这些失败都成为二战甚至后来全世界对抗的导火索。

国联的失败表明，一个国际组织要想达到预防冲突和执行和平法则的目的，就需要拥有一个能够对成员国施加更多权威的运作结构。1942年，在第二次世界大战中，20个盟国同意建立一个更持久有效的维和机构。因此，联合国诞生了。与国联不同，联合国得到了世界超级大国，即美国的大力支持。因此，它已俨然发展成为一个世界性的组织，拥有比国联多得多的力量。

统计资料显示，联合国的维和任务被评估为普遍成功。乔治敦大学教授Lise Howard将这种相对的成功归功于该组织对 "进攻性军事力量的强力施压，其中包括监视和逮捕 "的强调。然而，联合国变得越来越无能的论点同样有很强的事实作为支撑。前美国驻联合国大使丹尼尔-莫伊尼汉批评说："国务院希望联合国被证明是完全无效的"。1988年至1991年期间，联合国有三次机会，但均未能阻止索马里境内发生大规模人道主义危机。更为重要的是，虽然联合国一直在努力阻止民族主义的崛起和今天在全球范围内再次发动战争的愿望，但是有可能被最终证明是无效的努力。

批评者还指责联合国的官僚主义效率低下、浪费和腐败。1976年，大会成立了联合检查组，以探查系统内的低效率问题。20世纪90年代，美国以联检组效率低下为由，拒绝支付会费，并提出条件，如其重新开始支付，必须引入一项关键改革。这一行动无疑进一步降低了该组织的工作效率，使联合国受到各种腐败的影响。2004年，该组织还受到了腐败指控，其石油换粮食计划被质疑存在广泛的腐败行为。

鉴于目前的问题和联合国作用的持续降低，许多人都主张取代联合国。然而，取代联合国似乎是一个过于理想化的选择。人们很难推测新系统会是什么样，是否会拥有同样的问题。当世界各国建立联合国时，他们希望这个组织能在国际联盟的基础上有很大的改进，并有效解决其前身的问题。尽管联合国是一个比较成功的创造，但现实证明，它与国联有着类似的缺陷。

因此，站在今天的角度看，人类不应该选择完全重建这个系统，因为联合国并没有完全被淘汰，而且代换的成本可能过于艰巨。相反，各国应致力于推动联合国的发展。从国联到联合国，有一个因素一直在对各国的工作进行负面的干扰，那就是民族主义。民族主义与爱国主义有很大的不同。爱国主义是一个人对自己国家的爱，而民族主义更多的是一种论调，认为自己的国家比其他国家好。在20世纪的头几十年里，国联的许多工作，如防止欧洲的紧张局势迅速上升，都被民族主义的牵引所拖延。德国拒绝合作，它的对手，即英国和法国，正在为各自的利益而竞争。在20世纪末和21世纪初，民族主义也成为维护世界和平秩序的阻力。它使美国和中国等大国正面交锋，完全无视联合国作为解决冲突的平台。

许多主张建立一个新体系的人也主张将民族主义从该体系中完全删除，并指出民族主义有可能助长更多的冲突。这种说法没有什么正确性。首先，消除世界上的民族主义几乎是不可能的。随着社会群体在早期文化时代的扩张和演变，人们需要一种力量或故事来统一民众。因此，民族主义是人类社会行为的一个自然产物。剥夺社会的民族主义意味着人类文明的彻底重组。这种重组，在短期内，看起来是不可能的。第二，民族主义并不总是一种消极的力量。没有它，就很难想象社会的任何一致性。秩序会简单地崩溃，标志着社会重返自然状态。

根据上述论点，如果人们不试图打败民族主义，那么未来全球体系的演变会是什么样子？虽然不可能对未来做出准确的描绘，但利用过去著名历史学家和理论家的作品进行推测是可能的。根据英国思想家约翰-洛克的观点，人类通过行使自然理性，离开了自然状态，形成了一个受社会契约约束的社会和政府，同意接受更高权力的管辖。虽然洛克认为人类尊重自然法则，在自然状态中是和平的，但英国思想家托马斯-霍布斯却不这么认为。他以更具理性的方式指出，个人在自然状态下处于相互争斗的状态，试图满足他们的个人利益。如果把洛克和霍布斯的著作结合起来，就可以推出这样一个过程：自然状态下的混乱和暴力促使人类形成集体组织，如社会或政府。

在某种意义上，将这些理论应用于全球的现状是可行的。这个类比最重要的部分是，今天的每个国家就像自然状态下的个体。在现状中，当资源越来越稀缺时，大多数国家会像个体一样，选择维护自己的利益，并试图收获其他国家的利益。今天，冲突在世界范围内留下伤痕。俄乌战争已经给欧洲和其他地区造成了可怕的经济代价和人道主义代价，在最近的政治事件之后，中美冲突还可能进一步加剧。历史表明，在某一时刻，当当前的全球秩序受到足够的损害时，一个新的秩序和集体组织就会诞生--国际联盟在第一次世界大战后诞生，联合国也以类似的方式，在第二次世界大战的灰烬中诞生。这个过程与个人如何结合在一起制定社会契约和更强大的政府类型以确保安全和繁荣的过程有相似之处。

如果世界继续被更多有害和持久的冲突所困扰，那么几乎可以肯定的是，除非人类彻底毁灭自己，否则目前的联合国会有一些激进的改进，或者也许会出现一个全新的秩序。现在的危险是，达到这一点的代价可能是无法承受的。严重的经济萧条可能发生，文化冲突可能留下难以弥补的鸿沟，战争可能以更高的效率夺走生命。因此，今天的领导人有必要以更快的速度推动这一演变。各国有必要召开会议，讨论如何使国家间现有的 "社会契约 "更具权威性，为每个国家提供更大的安全，或如何起草一份新的契约。

各国应该参考历史，为未来做出决定。国联和联合国都拥有的一个共同问题是，在冲突时期，当民族主义领导人选择忽视这些组织时，它们变得越来越不重要。在未来，一个组织如何能够避免这个问题，并对成员实施更多的权威？例如，允许该组织的独立代表参与一个国家的决策过程，甚至让该代表有权否决某些决定，是一种可能性。尤瓦尔-诺亚-哈拉里在他的《未来简史》一书中指出，人类在20世纪和21世纪初积极地改变了历史的道路，因为我们做出了正确的决定。我们现在正处在一个十字路口，决策再次变得至关重要。从过去学到的一个教训简单而有力：我们无法承受历史再次上演！