@booklet {63306,
	title = {Multilateral Organizations after the U.S.-Iraq War of 2003},
	year = {2003},
	note = {},
	month = {Aug 1, 2003},
	abstract = {At the end of World War II, the United States found itself in a situation of unprecedented power. The economy of the former hegemonic state, Britain, was decimated by the war. So were the economies of the rest of Western Europe, including Britain?s foremost European economic challenger, Germany. While the Soviet Union presented a growing military threat, in economic terms U.S. power was unchallenged, leaving the United States in a position of hegemony. Washington responded to this new position by adopting policies of multilateralism. Drawing lessons from the economic catastrophes of the interwar years, leaders in the United States determined that the only way to safeguard U.S. interests was to remain deeply engaged with the rest of the world, rather than turning inwards as after World War I. A major mechanism Washington used to implement this policy of engagement was the creation of multilateral organizations, including the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, NATO, and others. As the new millennium gets underway, the United States finds itself unexpectedly in a position of unipolarity, with no serious military challengers and economic challengers all facing serious problems of their own. A student of international relations who somehow missed the decades of the 1980s and 1990s would be startled at this turn of events. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the discussion centered around how declining U.S. power might translate into instability in the international system. The assumption that the United States would continue its relative decline was challenged by some, but widespread. Anyone comparing U.S. policy in 2003 to that in, say, 1948, would be struck by the contrast. In both periods American power was immense, creating a situation of hegemony or unipolarity. Yet U.S. policy in 2003 did not reflect the ultilateralism of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Rather than creating and strengthening multilateral institutions, the United States turned to unilateral policies, denigrated the entire notion of multilateralism as a principle, and refused to participate in numerous new multilateral ventures such as the International Criminal Court. This paper begins with the observation of this paradox and builds on it to analyze the future of multilateral organizations. I begin by examining the concept of multilateralism, both in theory and in history. I then turn to an analysis of multilateralism, asking why the United States turned to multilateralism after World War II and evaluating its payoffs. The final section applies the insights developed in the rest of the paper to the future of multilateral organizations. It concludes that the current policy of "ad hoc multilateralism," or turning to multilateral organizations opportunistically, fundamentally misunderstands the nature and motivation for multilateralism. Such a policy is therefore likely to fail, leaving the United States with a stark choice between expensive unilateralism and needing to rebuild its reputation as a reliable participant in multilateral endeavors.},
	author = {Lisa L. Martin}
}
