The growing irrelevance and recent failures of the world's fundamental institutions, namely the United Nations and its specialist agencies, has created a sense of "a world operating without a system," a London-based think tank said Tuesday.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies' annual Strategic Survey said the fact that world leaders repeatedly talk of the need for common approaches to shared problems implies that this need is not being met by the existing intersecting network of organizations, treaties and structures.
(Kyodo) _ The growing irrelevance and recent failures of the world's fundamental institutions, namely the United Nations and its specialist agencies, has created a sense of "a world operating without a system," a London-based think tank said Tuesday.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies' annual Strategic Survey said the fact that world leaders repeatedly talk of the need for common approaches to shared problems implies that this need is not being met by the existing intersecting network of organizations, treaties and structures.
It draws attention to the United Nations in particular, stating that it has been "weakened by corruption and the perceived ineffectiveness of some of its agencies," and says the Security Council no longer reflects global power balances.
In addition, the report says the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization are all failing to live up to their post-World War II purposes.
"This architecture has been put increasingly in question since (U.S. President George W.) Bush took office in 2001 -- though his aggressive unilateralism perhaps accelerated and exposed institutional inadequacies as much as it created them," the Strategic Survey suggests.
Other factors attributed to the authoritative demise of the world's organizational structures consist of an apparent "inadequacy to manage current trends," including globalization in general, the growing role of an "undemocratic but wealthy" China, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Mounting Islamic extremism is also cited by the institute as throwing the international order into confusion on a large scale; and the resultant "global war on terrorism" waged by the United States is described as being "more alienating than inspiring to the rest of the world."
The report focuses attention on the Bush administration, its "lost prestige and damaged credibility," and the "divisions and inadequacies" that have become apparent in a large part due to the recent foreign policy of the United States.
"There is a sense that the world's most powerful country, rather than leading ways to address the shared problems of a globalized world in a cooperative manner, is pursuing instead an isolated track that appears, by turn, ineffective, irrelevant and objectionable," the report said.
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the country's subsequent decline into near-civil war, in particular, in a period of Middle East-dominated international affairs, is highlighted as provoking the first slippage in American power since the end of the Cold War.
"The Iraqi adventure has revealed limits to American military clout and strategic leverage...accentuating in the minds of many people the overweening aspects of U.S. power and its perceived disregard for international law and global norms," the report said.
However, while predicting that the United States may not be able to reassume the same "unquestionable dominance" it has previously enjoyed, the Strategic Survey says that due to the size of the country's markets, combined with its importance in dealing with any global crisis, "it remains a priority for almost all governments to have a comfortable relationship with the United States."
The institute suggests that a waning of America's global dominance is "disconcerting" for those who want to see it as a "benign guarantor" of security in many parts of the world, and is increasingly unsettling when coupled with the emergence and rapid growth of the Chinese and Indian economies.
The report noted that Washington's desire to turn NATO into a more global security body, with a special status for Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand was not met with enthusiasm, indicating that the ability to construct an order which does not involve a central role for the United States is lacking for the immediate future at least.
With so much mounting violence unable to be quashed by existing global institutions in their current forms and capacities, the report concludes that "time remains for diplomacy -- but not much."
