"Meaningless Multilateralism"

"One Man Global Content Provider" Mark Steyn has a good piece on multilateralism-as-manacles. Important to note that:

After the Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, put the squeeze on Nato’s 26 members, they reluctantly ponied up an extra 600 troops and three helicopters for Afghanistan. That averages out at 23.08 troops per country plus almost a ninth of a helicopter apiece. Credit where it’s due, the three Black Hawks all come from one country – Turkey. But it wants them back in six months’ time.

Now I very much like Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. I’ve met him a couple of times before his present eminence, and he’s one of the most thoughtful of European politicians – well disposed toward America, not into stringing along with Chirac and the other Europoseurs for the sake of it. But he finds himself presiding over a sham alliance. Theoretically, it has millions of conscript troops at its disposal. But it has no ability to project more than a few thousand out of area – ie, to any of the places anyone’s likely to need them in the years ahead.

In other words, if a military alliance means a press release and a black-tie banquet for Bush, Chirac, Schroder and co once a year, Nato works fine. If a military alliance means functioning armed forces capable of fighting side by side and killing the enemy, Nato is a post-modern joke. The big burly Fijians who’ve done such a splendid job guarding currency convoys in Iraq have made a greater contribution than many of America’s supposedly “major” allies. And, from a cost-benefit analysis, they didn’t require months of endless diplomatic schmoozing by Bush, Powell, Rice and Rumsfeld, all consuming valuable time and money which, when you add it all up, makes it cheaper to add another 600 men to the New Hampshire National Guard rather than chase round a dozen European capitals trying to crowbar them out of Nato barracks.

Multilateralism isn't about increasing America's hard power. It's partly about increasing our soft power (even if they don't have any useful soldiers, there are an awful lot of Europeans, and their opinions do matter) though it's not entirely clear to me why the Iraqis would prefer their country be occupied by Crusaders and Zionists from many nations. More importantly, it's about constraining American freedom of action. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe it's not. (I lean towards not, but I'm open to discussion.) But that's what it's about, and anyone who tells you different is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.