Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

International relations and the new world governance
everyone participate is high, but it will continue to be worth paying above
all if the Council is capable of renewing itself and is joined by the states
which are truly democratic at the start of this century.
The United Nations system will be more useful if it rids itself of the
myth of internationalist fundamentalism which it has developed over the
past decades, whether out of idealism or interest. It was established with
a utilitarian perspective and aware of its many limitations. Given its design,
we should neither expect of it more than it can offer nor allow legal formalism
to take precedence over democratic principle. In the future as in the
past, democracies will attempt to reach agreements within it. If they do
not manage to, those which feel sufficiently strong will attempt to settle
their problems outside the United Nations ambit. In the future as in the
past, non-democratic nations will act outside this sphere when it is in their
interests, and will use the Council to block the actions of those who feel
the need to seek legitimisation and go against their interests.
Up until now the United Nations has been the international organisation
par excellence since its establishment. However, most conflicts have
been settled outside its walls. Everything appears to indicate that we will
continue in the same vein in future. No major power is going to grant the
Security Council the right to veto its foreign policy.
A WESTPHALIAN WORLD?
There is no going back in history. It is not possible to return to the
Peace of Westphalia, which lent legitimacy to the nation-state as the main
player in international politics vis-à-vis the Empire. Change is the only
constant feature in history aside from the existence of human society. Now
that the Cold War is over we find ourselves in a situation in which globalisation
is putting to the test states’ ability to act in a much larger space.
Just as businesses join forces to boost their competitiveness, so do states
feel the need to forge alliances. Unlike in the Europe of Westphalia the
future will be more multilateral and associative. Those who have made
reference to the treaty which marked the starting point for an international
system that survived until the First World War have done so to underline
the elements of continuity with that world or, in the opposite sense, the
exceptional nature of the Cold War.
The Soviet threat and the evident risk of the tension ending in the
destruction of Europe and/or a nuclear holocaust set the stage for the
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