‘Narrow-minded nationalism can’t fix our problems - let 2023 mark a new era of international cooperation’
‘BETTER TOGETHER’: The United Nations. Picture by Mathias Reding
The Accidental Diplomat, a column by Paul Knott
Global issues require global solutions
Here is a thought for the season of goodwill. Let’s hope the world will step back in 2023 from the disastrous beggar-thy-neighbour nationalism it has been flirting with for a few years and focus on international cooperation as the best way to tackle our problems.
The historic record of the times when countries failed to work together is not a pretty one. The nations of Europe, Britain most definitely included, spent centuries repeatedly fighting each other over often petty issues of power and advantage. Economic crises, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, were caused by countries opting for excessive protectionism and killing global trade in the process.
By comparison with this grim history, the damage done by the recent resurgence of narrow-minded nationalism, such as Brexit and Trumpism, is relatively mild so far. But the pain is already being felt by plenty of people in Hull, the UK and elsewhere. This will only get worse if we continue to neglect international cooperation.
To correct this, we do not have to go as far as creating the eternally peaceful “brotherhood of man” with “no countries” conjured up in John Lennon’s Imagine. Lovely though that might sound in song and principle, such a utopia will probably always be unattainable. In any case, most people are quite attached to their countries. When run wisely, these states are also handy building blocks for constructing a functioning global political system.
‘CRUEL AND INEFFECTIVE MEASURES TO DENY THE REALITY OF PEOPLE MOVING IS POINTLESS, EXPENSIVE, AND DANGEROUS’: A migrant boat being rescued by the RNLI in the English Channel. Picture by RNLI
In a system of sovereign states, the first duty of national governments will always be to look after the interests of their own citizens. This includes maintaining the security of the country’s territory and control over who and what enters and exits it. The real question is about the best way to achieve those aims.
Some people’s instinctive answer is to “take back control” and do everything solo. But the problem with this “Sinn Fein” (or “ourselves alone”, as the name of the IRA’s political wing translates into English) version of nationalism is that it does not work. Whether we like it or not, our countries exist within a wider world and its problems and opportunities are impossible to close out completely.
The most obvious opportunity for countries to work together in their mutual interests is on borders. These, of course, face in two directions, so focusing only on controlling your side of a frontier cuts your chances of success in half. Or less if, like Britain, you have a maritime border adjacent to multiple other countries. The more effective alternative is to coordinate with neighbouring countries on movements out from their borders as well as managing entries through ours (and vice-versa). The UK government has quietly acknowledged this by seeking recently to rebuild the cooperation on migration with France that was destroyed by Brexit.
More widely, people have moved around the planet throughout human history. Many Britons in the past have lived overseas and some of us are still doing so. Conflict, climate issues and inequality of opportunity make migration a fact of global life. On the whole, this is a good thing for countries like Britain, which has an ageing population and a shortage of key workers in its healthcare system, amongst other sectors. Enacting cruel and ineffective measures to deny the reality of people moving is pointless, and costly in taxpayers’ money and migrants’ lives.
THE SCARS OF WAR: ‘How much more of Europe would have suffered this if NATO did not deter Putin?’ Picture by Julia Rekamie
Instead, a better managed system of international cooperation to organise and direct migration would benefit all concerned. Some countries, such as Canada, already do this successfully. They complement their own sensible immigration system by working with the United Nations (UN) to take in recognised refugees. In turn, their country prospers from the skills and work ethic the new arrivals bring.
There are some people we do need to work harder together on keeping out though. Organised criminals thrive in the cracks between countries and have no nationalist hang-ups about cooperating across borders. The more the forces of law and order coordinate on investigations, intelligence sharing and extradition of suspects, the better their chances of stopping dangerous crooks from ruining decent people’s lives.
The principle of mutual benefit applies equally to some of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Deadly diseases, as we experienced with the Covid pandemic, and climate change do not recognise the existence of countries. While individual states are useful mechanisms for organising action to deal with the consequences of such threats, no country can hope to tackle them on its own. This can only be achieved by international cooperation to share the resources, knowledge and technology required to solve these crises that imperil us all.
Failing to work together to tackle climate change is likely to cause more wars in an already conflict-prone world, as countries struggle to cope with the environmental damage and compete for scarcer resources, such as water in the Middle East.
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Averting conflict is perhaps the area in which sustained cooperation between countries has the clearest benefits. Whatever its other flaws, the EU provides a good example of this to other regions of the world. Its biggest achievement has been creating a system of political and economic cooperation that has ended the wars that blighted Europe for centuries. The only parts of Europe that have suffered major wars in recent times are the countries of the former Yugoslavia, none of which were in the EU at the time, and other non-EU members like Ukraine, which have the added misfortune of being next door to Russia.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a stark reminder of how much international cooperation matters even when conflict does break out. Imagine how far across Europe Vladimir Putin’s war criminals might be by now if NATO did not exist to deter them. Moscow’s warmongering should be the final warning Europe needs to contribute more to this collective defensive alliance too. Successive American Presidents, in their different ways, have made clear their country cannot be relied upon so heavily for ever.
International agreements and organisations are also crucial when dealing with rising powers like China. Unlike rogue states such as Russia, China has both a stake in the global system’s success and risks dangerously disrupting it by throwing its growing weight around. The best way to limit this danger is to keep China bound into rules-based arrangements such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and use its participation in global bodies such as the UN to discuss issues with it.
Ultimately, most of us know from our own lives that we get more done and handle problems better when we work together. So, let’s do more of that on a global scale as well in 2023.