tervening in domestic affairs through the “facilitation of poHticalrntransitions . . . and elections.” A prescription for global tyranny.rnA large step in this direction was advocated by MartinrnWalker in the Summer 1993 issue of the World Policy Journal,rnpublished quartedy by the Wodd Policy Institute. In an essayrnentitled “Global Taxation: Paying for Peace,” Walker points outrnthat “the more than $900 billion traded on the world’s currencyrnexchanges every day is recorded and most of the transactionsrnare accomplished on the world’s most sophisticated data network.rnThey are thus, at least in theory, easily taxable.” Thernprinciple use of this new tax revenue would be to fund arnUnited Nations army independent of control by major U.N.rnmembers like the United States.rnTaxation and the raising of armies are sovereign prerogatives.rnFor the United Nations to claim such rights, regardless of howrnimplemented, would establish it as a superior entity. Walkerrnsympathizes with this notion:rnThe power to assert one’s own economic and taxationrnpolicy has long been the cardinal characteristic of thernnation-state. That power is now in question. But so isrnthe continued utility of the nation-state as the guarantorrnof internal order and prime actor in internationalrnaffairs.rnNote that the United Nations’ role is to extend to assuring “internalrnorder” within nations and not just to serving as a mediatorrnbetween nations.rnThese ideas were once confined to the far left, but their containmentrnhas broken down. The present danger comes fromrnthe naivete and absentmindedness with which these notionsrnare being picked up in mainstream circles. A case in point is thernFinal Report of the United States Commission on Improvingrnthe Effectiveness of the United Nations, released last September.rnEntitled The UN and the Health of Nations, it implies thatrnthe United Nations has the cure for all of the world’s ills. Thernmembers of the commission were picked by President GeorgernBush and by leaders of both parties in Congress.rnIn the report’s introduction one finds the following statement:rnJust as the Pentagon should become “blued” in therndecades ahead with U.S. armed forces prepared to servernas the need arises in blue-helmeted U.N. operations,rnWashington must become “greened” with policymakersrnprepared to demonstrate an increased commitment tornaddressing transnational environmental problems.rnMore disturbing than the assertion itself is the fact that it wasrnmade by the Republican cochair of the commission. RepresentativernJames Leach of Iowa. Leach is a foe of what he callsrn”the corrosive cynicism of the realist critique.” He condemnedrnthe fact that “as recently as a decade ago, the Executive Branchrntook a hard-edged ideological approach to international relationsrnthat included toying with the U.S. withdrawal from partsrnof the U.N. system.” To name names, that was part of RonaldrnReagan’s policy, which led to the American victory in the ColdrnWar. How soon some people forget the nature of the real worldrnin their hubristic embrace of a “New World Order”!rnLeach also denounced Reagan for “taking an ideologicalrnwalk at the Law of the Sea negotiations.” Yet the Law of thernSea Treaty proposed in 1982 under U.N. auspices called for therncreation of a Seabed Authority modeled on the U.N. GeneralrnAssembly, which would literally have had exclusive jurisdictionrnover half the planet, meaning the oceans outside of territorialrnwaters. It would have licensed (for a fee) all deep seabed exploration,rntaxed companies engaged in ocean development,rnand mandated the transfer of technology. The money andrntechnology obtained was to go to the Third World. ThernSeabed Authority was also to fix prices, set production limits,rnand control the marketing of ocean resources. American oppositionrnkilled this dangerous U.N. plot, but such battles arernnever permanently won.rnLeach owed his appointment as cochair to Bush. The twornbecame political allies after meeting at the United Nations,rnwhere Bush was the United States ambassador and Leach arnState Department foreign service officer. It was Bush’s tacticrnof using the United Nations as cover for the Gulf War that isrnprimarily responsible for the revival of the U.N. after it hadrnbeen rendered impotent and irrelevant by Reagan.rnThe commission report calls for “the U.S. and other nationsrnto subscribe to the compulsory jurisdiction of the InternationalrnCourt of Justice (World Court) at The Hague” and for therncreation of a new International Criminal Court. ThoughrnLeach teases the reader by suggesting Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein,rnSlobodan Miloshevitch, and Abu Nidal as potential defendantsrnin such a court, his is an American wish-list. Other people’srnlists may differ radically. As even Leach concedes, “In arndynamic, divided world … one man’s terrorist is another’s freedomrnfighter; one man’s narco-trafficker is another’s RobinrnHood.” That is why the creation of new supranational bodies,rnor the empowerment of existing bodies, is dangerous. ThernUnited States is only one of 184 members of the United Nations.rnAmerica’s national strength gives it a far better capabilityrnto protect its own interests than to control a global organizationrnof diverse states, many if not most of which do not sharernAmerican values or care anything for the well-being and securityrnof American citizens.rnWhile Leach cannot be considered a conservative, similarrncalls for an expanded United Nations have comernfrom those closely associated with the putative right. PaulrnJohnson advocated the resurrection of the United Nations as arnworld government in Nflfiona/Review (Dec. 14, 1992). Johnsonrnsees the U.N. Security Council becoming “the last, most altruisticrnand positive of the imperial powers.” The U.N. SecurityrnCouncil would intervene around the world “from thernprovision of basic government almost from scratch—as is plainlyrnneeded in Somaliland [sic] now—to the provision of internalrnsecurity systems to mandatory currency and economicrnmanagement.” This call for involvement in the internal policiesrnof states goes far beyond the original idea of controlling externalrnaggression. Thus his attempt to cite the Gulf War as arnprecedent for his grand scheme does not connect. Johnson’srntarget list for intervention includes “at least a score of statesrnwhere government cannot discharge its elementary functions.”rnElsewhere Johnson mentions “60 or 70 poor nations distressedrnby war, famine or economic collapse.”rnJohnson believes the end of the Cold War has madernconsensus-building on the U.N. Security Council easy. He isrnso optimistic about Russia he is even willing to give Moscow arn”trusteeship” over the trans-Caucasus region, an obviouslyrnfoolish idea because the region’s inhabitants want indepen-rnMARCH 1994/29rnrnrn