Policing the New World order: An alternative strategy

Abstract

The United States responded decisively in the recent Persian Gulf crisis. The Bush administration considered successful resolution of this crisis a precursor to the “new world order.” Many questions now confront policymakers as America approaches the twenty‐first century. A pressing question is: Can America continue to serve as the world's policeman? America's challenge for the 1990s is to avoid the trappings of world policing that past superpowers have experienced throughout history, a la Pax Britannica. The United States can achieve this by first, formulating its national security strategy to elevate the role of the United Nations as the world's policeman. Second, the United States’ national security strategy should support establishment of a standing UN peacemaking force. This force would provide the United Nations and international community a short notice military employment capability during the early “warning period” of an impending crisis. Such a force would ultimately lower the United States’ profile as the world policeman in the emerging new world order.