However, the manner in which the European Union manages trade issues provides an interesting counterpoint. Member states have pooled sovereignty to grant the European Union exclusive authority to deal with trade issues. The European Union has thus acted unilaterally; a case in point is agriculture, which many of EU member states consider to be the highest of high politics—a vital national interest. The equation fits. When Europe has the sovereignty and power, coupled with the strong national interests of EU member states, it will occasionally act unilaterally.

Does this analysis mean that only the weak act multilaterally? The answer is no, because there may be instances when acting multilaterally is in the national interest of even the strongest power. As Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye has pointed out, not everything that transpires globally happens in a unipolar world. There is also a multipolar world, which requires multilateral cooperation to deal with global issues that no one country can solve, such as the AIDS pandemic. And there is a micropolar world in which day-to-day cooperation must take place on a myriad of issues among countries, businesses, and individuals. The arbitrary exercise of power in the unipolar world can result in a lack of cooperation in the multipolar and micropolar worlds.

Postwar Iraq is a clear example. The US decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force came at a cost. The failure to achieve greater political consensus within the United Nations or even NATO, coupled with the inability to achieve in practical terms more than a token military coalition, resulted in a lack of cooperation in efforts to stabilize and rebuild postwar Iraq. The Bush administration contends that it did everything possible to secure greater cooperation in the lead-up to the war and that the costs of proceeding without UN sanction were bearable. Nonetheless, the fact remains that acting more or less unilaterally in Iraq was expensive for the United States.

The point is contentious. The Bush administration would counter that the risks to the United States of not eliminating the regime of Saddam Hussein outweighed the risks of having to do it more or less single-handedly. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq significantly weakens the administration’s case but does not demolish it. Few would argue that Saddam Hussein was not a menace to peace and security in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region or that almost everyone in the area would not be better off with him out of the picture. The more damaging charge is that in attacking Iraq without proper UN sanction, the United States has succeeded in further radicalizing Muslims worldwide, which will only make the challenge of defeating global terrorism more difficult.

By way of contrast, the invasion of Afghanistan enjoyed widespread support and was widely seen as a legitimate use of force. The international community has, in fact, been intimately involved from the moment the worst of the fighting came to an end in the struggle to resuscitate the Afghan state. The issue today is whether NATO member states, in particular, will contribute enough money and manpower to make a meaningful difference to that country’s future.

This in turn raises yet another question: when the United States is willing to work cooperatively on security issues, will countries such as France, Germany, and Russia still attempt to create a counterweight to US actions? Or will they agree to work with Washington and assume a reasonable share of the burden, thereby conferring legitimacy on agreed upon actions? In the Balkans, for example, burden-sharing among the Western allies is the rule rather than the exception. Looking to the future, how nations work together on issues relating to postwar Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iran, and North Korea will have lasting effects on international behavior.

Lessons of Legitimacy

Still another question: is what constitutes multilateralism and legitimacy? In his Foreign Affairs article “America’s Crisis of Legitimacy,” Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that both are in the eyes of the beholder. How many nations must agree to make an action multilateral and thereby give it legitimacy? Can France and Germany rationally argue that the war in Kosovo was legitimate without a Security Council resolution, but that the Coalition’s invasion of Iraq was not? Did more countries support the war in Kosovo than the war in Iraq? Was agreement within NATO enough to give the Kosovo war legitimacy? Were Slobodan Milosevic’s human rights violations more egregious than Saddam Hussein’s?

The only difference between the actions in Kosovo those in and Iraq was that France and Germany supported the Kosovo campaign and opposed the Iraq war. Russia, China, and many other countries were opposed to both. The United States could have tried to act more cooperatively to gain the support of key countries, thereby lending more legitimacy to its actions. And in so doing the United States would have been acting more “multilaterally.”

Multilateralism and legitimacy are subjective terms that do not lend themselves to precise definitions. Working with other countries to achieve a common goal is acting multilaterally. But it is wrong to see such cooperation as a moral imperative. It is a tool to further a country’s national interests.

So our equation—sovereignty plus power plus national interest equals unilateralism—must be amended to include the above considerations. When a state does not have the power to address a problem on its own, a solution to which would be in its national interest, it will seek multilateral cooperation. A state may decide that a multilateral approach is in its interest since the long-term benefits of cooperation may be greater than the benefits of unilateral action. It could also decide that the best way to manage risks in a potentially “bad” multilateral agreement is to stay active in the negotiations aimed to produce consensus—at least until the time at which further participation seems pointless.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an example of the latter situation. The Bush administration determined early on that the potential risks of the ICC exercising arbitrary jurisdiction over US military or public officials justified its not entering into the treaty. In addition, the administration has argued that the ICC could infringe on US sovereignty and on rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.