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“Multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated when accepting the Charlemagne Prize in May. Indeed, in recent years we have seen a revival of great power politics and unilateral action, while support for international institutions has weakened.

The good news: some middle powers have joined forces to reinvigorate collective action and the multilateral order, with Germany and France at the forefront. At the opening of the 74^th United Nations General Assembly, on Thursday a number of countries will officially launch what has been in the air for a while: an Alliance for Multilateralism, bringing together states that share an interest in not only upholding but further developing the current multilateral order.

The launch is timely, coming in the midst of populist and nationalist resurgences. In order for the alliance to succeed, its members will have to consider three key issues: the group’s normative underpinnings, its agenda, and the geopolitical implications.

Germany and Its Partners

The idea of founding a “multilateral club” of like-minded states is more than a year old: German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas first it during his visit to Tokyo in July 2018. He proposed an “alliance of multilateralists” to defend and develop international rules and to fill the vacuum that had emerged following the withdrawal of “others”—read: Donald Trump’s United States—from the world stage.

Canada was presented as another member of the alliance’s core group during the German ambassadors’ conference in August 2018. Finally, France joined as the fourth core group member: in a joint op-ed, Maas and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian emphasized that an Alliance for Multilateralism was “more necessary than ever” to stabilize the rules-based international order.

Since then, Germany and France have held consultations with various countries, most extensively during the handover of the presidency of the UN Security Council in April 2019. The countries they approached included Argentina, Australia, Chile, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

While Canada and Japan have officially expressed their support for the initiative, others have been more wary. The more hesitant camp comprises states with traditionally very close ties with the United States, toward which the alliance’s proponents have remained rather ambiguous. Minister Maas has repeatedly emphasized that the grouping is not directed against anyone. Yet his assertion that he “wouldn’t slam the door in anyone’s face” if there was an interest in joining was probably not received as a friendly invitation by his colleagues in Washington.

Ambiguity and Lack of Substance

Terminology does not help Maas’ case: at the very core, the term “alliance” invokes associations of the transatlantic alliance or the Allied Powers of World War II. What these alliances had in common at their inception is that they were clearly directed against someone. While the German foreign minister was eager to emphasize the inclusive character of the grouping, he could not forestall doubts on the other side of the Atlantic and among some traditional US allies (see for instance David Ritchie, Alliance for Multilateralism: An Australian View, from the BPJ’s July/August 2019 issue).

Alliances are also usually defined by a settled membership, unlike the idea of flexible geometry that has now been attached to the Alliance for Multilateralism. Rather than consisting of a defined number of members, this alliance, its creators hope, will gather combinations of countries under its umbrella to take the lead on specific international challenges.

In addition, the term “multilateralism” might not have been the best choice for the minister’s signature project. A recent survey has shown that most citizens in Germany have never heard of the concept or are unaware of its meaning. The numbers in other countries are likely similar. This is not a trivial flaw in a time where populists often set the agenda. But among policy-makers, too, interpretations of multilateralism vary. Chinese political leaders, for example, have acted as defenders of the multilateral system even though they do not attach the same meaning to it as many Western powers, who implicitly regard multilateralism as synonymous with (or at least largely congruent with) the rules-based and liberal international order.

Terminology aside, there is yet another, more substantial weakness of the Alliance for Multilateralism, namely its hazy agenda. As multilateralism is, first and foremost, a tool of international politics, the policy issues one seeks to address in a multilateral manner need to be defined. Diplomats have linked the alliance to climate change, trade, international humanitarian law, and migration, among other things. But the topics have varied since the idea was first presented. A clear-cut agenda is not in sight, and the form and substance of the alliance are still to be defined.

Three Suggestions

How to make the alliance a success, i.e. to help it become a tool for reviving collective action in international politics? Here are three suggestions:

Communicate your normative baseline clearly: The first task will be to come up with an “Alliance for Multilateralism in a nutshell”, outlining the core features and objectives of the club. An important component of this would be to work out the normative underpinnings that the Alliance adheres to. Clearly, multilateral cooperation and the liberal international order are not the same thing. However, they must be seen as two sides of the same coin: multilateralism is codified in the United Nations, and the latter’s charter was largely built on liberal-democratic ideals. This also underpins the idea of an Alliance for Multilateralism as pursued by Germany, France, and other partners. These countries would do well to be explicit about their view of the international order and the rules and principles they attach to it. After all, doing so would enable other potential partners to decide whether they want to be part of the club. Nobody likes to buy a pig in a poke.

Be bold when setting the agenda. The issues that have been floated so far—climate action, international humanitarian law, migration, trade—are all crucially important. At the same time, various regimes are already in place for regulating and addressing them (e.g. the Paris Agreement, the Geneva Conventions, the Migration Compact, the World Trade Organization). Living up to the ambitions of these frameworks and institutions—and where needed, reinvigorating them—should be a priority of the alliance. It will be even more important, however, to address the “jungle”, i.e. the areas of international collaboration that are not currently regulated by international organizations or regimes. Cyber security and the digitalization of weapons systems are preeminent areas in this respect; biotechnology and geoengineering would be others. In driving forward global governance where it is needed most, the alliance should not shy back from picking these issues as its core projects.

Take geopolitics seriously and involve the US: With all the emphasis on “soft” matters, one must not forget that the multilateral order of the past decades was built on the convergence of great power politics, especially in the 1945 postwar period and the 1990s. The order flourished when the interests of great powers aligned. In times when this is no longer a given, reviving the international order requires the alliance to also address underlying geopolitical rivalries. To do so, the members could come up with joint policy proposals on the world’s geopolitical focal points, such as Syria or Yemen. The role of Australia and Luxembourg in negotiating humanitarian access to Syria in 2013 has proven that coalitions of small(er) states can make a difference when great powers are caught in a political standoff.

Engaging in geopolitical thinking implies that the alliance will have to come clean regarding its relationship with Washington. Despite all the current transatlantic (and trans-Pacific) quarrels, the United States is certainly the great power that shares most of the norms and values that the prospective members of the alliance adhere to. They should therefore actively search for common ground. A starting point could be to take the American criticism of the current multilateral system and its institutions seriously, and to come up with proposals for how to ramp up its effectiveness.

Multilateralism has to regain the strategic initiative. In order to win the race against nationalist and populist tendencies, the rules-based international order has to produce innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. The Alliance for Multilateralism has the potential to give fresh impetus to this undertaking. But it will need to be clearer, bolder, and not shy away from power politics.

The post How the Alliance for Multilateralism Can Succeed appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

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Acting in concert with others where this helps the achievement of our national interests—and, indeed, to head off threats to this achievement—is a key weapon available to Australia. It magnifies the international weight Australia can bring to bear; and the rules-based multilateral system helps build the stability and prosperity Australia needs, in a global environment characterized by perpetual uncertainty.

And these are deeply uncertain times. The tectonic plates on which the post-World War II order was built, modified slightly after the end of the Cold War, are definitely in motion. The order which served us so well for nearly 75 years is under significant challenge from all directions. This is most notably because of: doubts about the US security guarantees that have underpinned global security; the US questioning of the institutions and rules created since 1945 and its unilateralist approach to pursuing its interests; managing the rise of China; disarray in Europe, including uncertainty about Brexit and the future shape of the EU; and a range of other major problems, for example, populism/nationalism, mass people movements, chaos in the Middle East and North Africa, Russian games, and so on.

Little wonder that, at the 2017 Munich Security Conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, admittedly partly for self-interested Russian reasons, foreshadowed a new, “post-West” world order!

“Acting With Others”

Against this background, the 2017 Australian White Paper—the most recent and comprehensive definition of Australia’s national interests, the values that underpin those interests, and the approaches that it will take in pursuing those interests—correctly notes that Australia has benefited greatly from the system of global (and, for that matter, regional and bilateral) institutions and rules set in place in the period since the end of World War II.

It clearly states that “Australia’s interests are strongly served by acting with others to support a rules-based international order,” that “Australia will encourage and tangibly support the leadership of the United States to this end,” that “we will work with new and emerging powers to increase their stake in the international system,” and that “we will support… well-designed proposals for new forms of global cooperation and reform of multilateral institutions.”

So, even though the Australian government has yet to comment publicly on the German/French proposal for an “Alliance for Multilateralism,” in broad terms it seems to be very compatible with the approach taken in the Foreign Policy White Paper. No doubt Australia will be represented when the “Alliance” is formally launched—“at Ministerial level”, according to French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian—in the margins of the UN General Assembly in September this year. And Australian officials have also attended preliminary meetings in New York since German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas’ speech putting forward the proposal in July 2018 in Tokyo.

How? Why?

But there are some cautionary things that need to be said about the proposal.

The first and most obvious is that it is still very short on detail. Maas told his Tokyo audience that he envisaged it consisting of an “alliance of countries” that: defend and develop existing rules further; show solidarity when international law is broken or ignored; fill vacuums created by the withdrawal of others from the world stage; are strongly supportive of efforts to combat climate change; and which take common political and financial responsibility in international organizations.

That’s all very well and these are fine ideals, but how is it supposed to work? At their meeting in April, Maas and Le Drian mentioned several issues (disarmament, global imbalances, new technologies, human rights, the environment) that could be pursued by such an alliance, but how is that to happen?

Second, what is its fundamental purpose? Some of the objectives in Maas’ Tokyo speech sound suspiciously as though the alliance is essentially anti-US (“fill vacuums created by the withdrawal of others from the world stage…”, for example). And, when asked by the media in New York if the United States would be invited to join the alliance, Maas said he had yet to discuss this with the United States but “wouldn’t slam the door in anyone’s face”—the alliance was about strengthening multilateralism against attempts to hollow it out and “each must decide which side his country is on.”

Committed to the US Alliance

The implication is obvious. If so, why? The US remains a massively important player internationally, including as the EU’s largest trading partner. Marginalizing it and its concerns would be a fruitless exercise. And trying to use the alliance to take forward global issues of the order outlined by the two ministers in April over US objections and despite US caution also seems like a recipe for failure.

Is the aim to encourage the US to re-engage multilaterally? That also seems a dead end for now, given the attitude of the current administration, at least while it still perceives great weaknesses in parts of the multilateral institutions, especially as tools to pursue US interests successfully. As it stands, the alliance proposal is unlikely to persuade America that multilateralism is a better way to achieve the outcomes it wants than the use of bilateral muscle. Just reinforcing the commitment of Western partners outside the US to a multilateral system that the current US administration sees as deeply flawed won’t cut much ice.

And here is a possible difference of opinion between Australia and the alliance proposal’s authors. Although published in 2017, before Australia and others saw the full nature of the Trump administration’s “America first” approach, the Australian Foreign Policy White Paper notes that “Australia will encourage and tangibly support the leadership of the United States” to support the rules-based international order. Australia sees multilateral cooperation as an important tool to pursue its national interests but clearly recognizes the central position of the United States in addressing so many issues of great importance to us. And Australia’s close alliance with the US remains a fundamentally important plank of its security.

An Imperfect System

Third, we shouldn’t pretend that the system of rules and institutions we now have is perfect as it stands. Let’s be honest: it needs modernization and reform, not least to meet the challenges thrown up by current and emerging global problems. We shouldn’t just dismiss US concerns, some of which we definitely share, about how some of the multilateral institutions operate.

And might not President Trump be right when he complains that the United States’ Western partners have become complacent (or worse, lazy) and aren’t carrying as much of the international burden of ensuring global security and prosperity as they should, instead “freeloading” (as the president claims) off the United States? NATO and the (non-)achievement of its 2 percent of GDP defense expenditure target could be an example of this.
Fourth, although potentially valuable in strengthening and reforming the multilateral system, especially in the face of a resurgence of unilateralism, the Alliance for Multilateralism won’t go to the heart of current problems in the West, which aren’t all about multilateralism. There needs to be a much more robust defense of the values we share and our democracies, for example. And most Western countries are facing major realignments in their established political order.

Do Your Homework First

We also need more certainty about institutions that have been hugely important pillars of global security and stability. Sorting out the significant problems facing one of those pillars—the European Union—and achieving agreement among its members on the shape of the new, post-Brexit EU would make a significant contribution to this. All of this will require leadership and energy of the sort that seems, at least seen from this side of the world, somewhat lacking at present.

And, finally, like-minded countries from across the globe which share interests and values, such as Australia and Germany, need to strengthen their bilateral cooperation. A good start was made to this end through the work of the Australia-Germany Advisory Group a few years ago. That needs to be revived. The Group’s report also contains recommendations for joint action—such as in development projects in Indonesia—that would also contribute to the goal of strengthening global cooperation.

In short, the Alliance for Multilateralism proposal is likely to receive a positive response in Australia. But, in taking it forward, there are still some big issues that need to be considered carefully.

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