Patrick Stewart

Contemporary debates over the appropriate balance of unilateralism and multilateralism in U.S. foreign policy reflect disagreements not simply about the practical effectiveness of these alternative options but also about their legitimacy. Advocates of multilateral and unilateral action alike tend to bundle prudential calculations with normative claims, making assessments about costs and benefits difficult to disentangle from ethical arguments about fairness, justice, morality and obligation. Greater clarity may be possible by classifying U.S. foreign policy into six analytical categories, based on whether the aims pursued are nationalist, internationalist, or cosmopolitan and the strategies adopted to realize them are unilateral or multilateral. Each set of aims has different ethical justifications that generate and help to explain divergent attitudes and judgments about the role of multilateral cooperation in U.S. foreign policy. The article sheds new light on alleged U.S. unilateralism, showing that the U.S. decision to go it alone–or to act with others–can be motivated by the desire to advance the narrow interests of the United States, to advance the interests of all states, or to advance the interests of humanity at large. The article suggests that purely nationalist policies, whether pursued through unilateral or multilateral means, will become increasingly untenable and illegitimate as world politics becomes institutionalized and as humanity becomes integrated, albeit slowly, into a single cosmopolitan community.

In the post-9/11 era, a new focus on failing states and their ability to threaten global security has influenced US foreign policy and aid policy. This paper explores the links between failing states and transnational threats such as terrorism, weapons proliferation, organized crime, and global pandemics. It argues that analysts and policymakers must look more deeply at precisely how failing states pose a threat to global security. By offering a thorough survey of this issue, the author provides a framework for determining which states are associated with which dangers. He puts forth a roadmap for US policy that includes deeper intelligence collection and analysis, improved policy coherence, and more robust international engagement to tackle the threats posed by weak states in the new millennium. This paper is a part of CGD's ongoing work on security and development.

Zimbabwe is a country on the edge. It may technically be at peace, but it is suffering war-like trauma to its polity and economy. The international community will soon likely confront the challenge of assisting the country's difficult transition from a bleak period of economic collapse and authoritarian rule. Fortunately, the world has learned lessons from post-conflict interventions in other countries, many of which it can apply to Zimbabwe¯once a new leadership is in place. No donor should provide assistance to the government at the present time since a recovery is impossible with the current leadership. But there is no time to waste in developing a multilateral framework to respond to the transition that is unavoidably coming to Harare. In this Working Paper, Fellows Todd Moss and Stewart Patrick outline key steps that the donor community and multilateral actors can take to promote a locally-owned recovery strategy. These steps include supporting the reconstruction of Zimbabwe's political structure and economy by providing technical and legal assistance, sending immediate food aid, helping to relocate the internally displaced, and helping to formulate an economic recovery strategy.