Security and World Government Further Considered

An influential tradition in political theory, mainly associated with Max Weber, views states as being monopolies on the legitimate use of violence, even using that as a definition of the state. But looking at the present world, truly successful states require minimal application of violence for the preservation of order and society. The institutions and social norms are strong enough to exert power and maintain control. Even though these are backed up by the capability to use force, the actual force is seldom used (and when it does, it is usually due to a failure of those structures). A successful state does not merely monopolize violence, but also keeps it to a minimum.

In practice no government rules based purely by power and fear, and neither only on ideological and moral value support. No political community achieves a universal consensus without any dissent, or public norms without any deviation, to be able to ditch the power of the state. At the same time, it is also not possible for a government to maintain its hold on power by suppressing the entire population; there is a requirement of a minimum level of support among the people. It is the combination of both that creates stability, maintaining the backing of as many people as possible but also having the force to establish law and order.

And it is the same with a world government as with any other state; there is no reason to assume that a world government will have to routinely use mass violence to sustain itself (as some dystopian thinkers do unwarrantedly). There is a difference between force to maintain stability and violence as an instrument of policy, the latter of which world government will eliminate (Fed. 5). The point of world government is not just to monopolize force at the global level, but minimize or end its use.

In the present world, internal insecurity within states owes a lot to the external hostility between them, with states making concerted efforts to foment instability and unrest in enemy states. Rebellious groups in countries are often supplied with weapons and resources by backers in enemy states, as with outside powers backing rival sides in an internal conflict. Weakly governed states also have a role to play, often projecting insecurity beyond their borders. Yet once this system of divided nations comes to an end, such rebels will no longer enjoy the support of powerful state actors. A world union can therefore expect not just to be freed of external threats, but much more secure against internal insecurity than any nation now.

It must also be kept in mind that a major source of internal insecurity in nations is secessionism from sub-national identities. The aspirations of a sub-national group to form their own nation only have a basis in a multi-state world order. But in a world state, the fundamental basis for secessionism will disappear since where would a group secede from the world? A universal, planet-wide union offers no scope for a group to secede, and this cause of insecurity shall be brought to an end.

Those who fear the possibility of tyranny from a world military, an unopposed armed force with immense destructive capabilities at its disposal, may greatly reduce the magnitude of that fear. For in a world government without external enemies (Fed. 5) there is only the need for a police force to maintain internal security, and it will be neither justifiable nor required to arm any further. A limited police force, as opposed to a fully-fledged military, would lack the capability to enforce a tyrannical regime by itself. And a large and centralized army is in any case not of much utility to a world government, since it is not a fully feasible solution to the threat of internal rebellion (which is the only one a world union faces). An excessive response in force incurs the risk of creating a long-term popular insurgency and losing the support of more people. Moreover, unlike the approach to external conflict, the forces cannot deploy too much destruction on home territory, which is the entire world.

That said, it is far preferable to have the world ruled by a tyrannical government than to have no one govern it. The Hobbesian case is well established, that it is better to have a bad government than to have no government, and that is partly the reason why bad governments exist at all. The greatest danger to human life and security comes not from autocracies or repressive governments, but from anarchy and lack of order.

It is ungoverned spaces which are the worst possible in every dimension of security, and the present world provides ample evidence of this. These are the parts of the world that witness the greatest breakdown of not just politics but society and economy. Not only are these riddled with rebels and spawn terrorist groups, but these also witness the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The ‘tragedy of the ungoverned’ shows just how important a well-established state apparatus is to human conditions, and also the need of bringing good governance to everyone through world government (Fed. 10)

So far the literature around security through changing the world order has centred too much around nuclear weapons, and besides world government a number of other proposals have been put forward to prevent their use. These have ranged from global disarmament treaties to an international body to take custody of all nuclear weapons. Yet under all these limited plans, what is supposed to happen after nuclear weapons are controlled or abolished? Presumably the nations go back to ‘business as usual’ and continue fighting each other? It is worth noting that all wars in human history except one have been fought without the use of nuclear weapons. Proponents of such national reform seem to be willing to tolerate conventional wars so long as there is no nuclear doomsday, which is indicative of very limited aspirations towards global security. We must strive for a world that is genuinely peaceful, meaning free of wars, and not just to remove the threat of mass destruction while allowing conflict to persist.

Many thinkers have, paradoxically, seen nuclear weapons as ensuring peace through the logic of ‘mutually assured destruction’. This is also one of the justifications given by countries for nuclear arms buildups. Yet to stake humanity’s existence on some highly problematic assumptions, such as the rationality of nations or perfect information, is exactly what the acronym of the theory conveys. Moreover, as the following paragraphs argue, a ‘nuclear peace’ falls short in ensuring a genuinely peaceful and secure world order.

In the present situation where there are 9 nuclear states, even assuming the premise of peace through mutually assured destruction to be true, nuclear weapons will at best prevent only wars between these states. That still leaves open most of the international order vulnerable to warfare, with too much scope for conflict involving non-nuclear states. This has indeed been witnessed over the past few decades: many non-nuclear countries continue to engage in and suffer destructive conventional conflict. Nor does the presence of nuclear weapons prevent aggression by nuclear states against non-nuclear ones, which may actually be further incentivized by providing stronger superiority against escalation. Thus nuclear weapons cannot be said to be ensuring peace at the global level under current conditions.

And if nuclear weapons could indeed ensure peace through deterrence, then why is there opposition to their proliferation? By this doctrine universal proliferation of nuclear weapons should be encouraged—if every nation would have them there would be no war. Or why not go further with ‘pocket nukes’ for every individual to put an end to crime as well? No one seems to believe that this is the way to a peaceful utopia. Deep down we all know and fear that somewhere sometime there will be some fools who will use them. And that is why a peace based on deterrence is not sustainable in the long run. Humanity is no stranger to people committing highly irrational and even suicidal actions, and it is not guaranteed that nuclear weapons will not be used in the future just because they have not yet.

Ultimately ensuring true peace requires much more than controlling nuclear weapons—it is about bringing an end to international conflict. The ‘nuclear peace’ that theories have come up with as a post-justification for nuclear weapons is hardly a genuinely secure state of affairs. It is a costly and risky appearance of peace, keeping societies in a constant state of readiness for war and requiring huge amounts of resources on maintaining military capabilities in the name of deterrence. Do we really want such a ‘peace’ with the threat of the destruction of humanity constantly hanging over our heads? Many believe this is the best we can have. I do not think we should give up.

While the hostility inherent in the national order persists, nations will continue efforts to improve their destructive capabilities and new, ever-more dangerous forms of weaponry will evolve. Ultimately we cannot depend on all of them never being used, and the more such threats there are the greater is the risk. It is also rather fanciful to hope that nations will create treaties or mechanisms to contain all of these weapons, or that every nation will agree to arms control every time. (If nations were to ever become that cooperative, they might as well establish a world government.) In the long run, the only way to secure humanity’s future is to uproot the hostility itself from the world order. Through a world government we can ensure that such weapons will never be developed or used.

It is also not enough to assume that nations will be content even in an international order that guarantees their security. For there is also the nationalist component behind conflict and militarization, which seeks dominance and glory for a nation or expansionism towards some ‘homeland’. Often security is only the excuse invoked by nations in pursuit of these identity goals, and nations have in history displayed aggressive behaviour even when their security was not under threat. So humanity cannot just simply ‘wait out’ conflict for the resolution of all international disputes and for the situation to stabilize itself, but rather we must actively seek security by rooting out the causes of insecurity.

And what is creating most of the insecurity in the world in the first place?: it is nationalism and other forms of group identity. Analysts often see other factors, such as resources, ideology, or economic incentives, behind many modern-day conflicts, yet these are not enough to cause conflict to erupt by themselves. Such considerations are ever-present in the world, even in peaceful settings. The critical ingredient for mass conflict is group identity. Other factors lead to conflict whenever a sufficiently strong group-based component is added; and nationalism/identity can spark violence by itself even if there is no other trigger. The willingness to use violent means for an identity is at the root of not just international wars but most large-scale internal insecurity, and containing its militarization is key to a secure world.

It is worth clarifying that world government should not be seen as a guarantor of national security, as some federal proposals envisage. The driving objective behind world government is ensuring the security of humankind as a whole and that of every individual, not merely of separate states and collective groups. And insofar as nations are part of the insecurity problem, the must be dealt with rather than be the objects of security. In fact worldism is actually the greatest threat ever possible to national security, since it calls for the outright abolition of nation-states.

An argument has been made that violence is a part of human nature and that hence wars can never be eradicated. If this is the case then let us treat it as a social problem and deal with it accordingly, for this does not in any way legitimize or justify it. We cannot let millions of people die or be left in perpetual fear of death just because some people cannot live peacefully in a civilized non-violent world. Belligerent nationalism must be contained just as violent crime. And as with crime, we must make all efforts to ensure that nationalist violence is stopped and does not go unpunished. As for the people who think that imaginary nations are worth fighting over, and justify the killing of millions, they should perhaps play virtual-reality games, but at least not be placed at the helm of the political order with weapons of mass destruction in their hands.

In general, violence is a failure of political organization among humans. It is something that should be resolved, not accepted as a feature of the world. If our present political system requires the continuous build-up and application of violent capabilities, then it is failing at one of its central purposes. And when nationalism and identity are themselves such a central cause of the insecurity that plagues the world, we must reconsider having a world order that is founded on these principles. A secure world for every human can be created with a demilitarized world under one government, where no one has to fear violence in the name of identity.