US President Proposes New Global Security Strategy at the United Nations

Following the startling new cooperative, regional approach to security outlined in the 2008 State of the Union address, the US President describes the new US policy for a more peaceful world at the opening of the UN General Assembly, in a short film from Philadelphia filmmaker Kevin Hansen, Statesman Craig Eisendrath, and Bunker Seyfert. Prepared text as released to the press reads as follows:

I Introduction

Distinguished Leaders, Honored Representatives, Ladies and Gentlemen. Tonight, I come before you with a powerful wish, that my nation should rejoin the community of nations, and once again be a leader in the great dialog of humanity.

On behalf of my nation, tonight we declare the intention of the United States to move towards a new era of global cooperation.

You may ask why my nation would wish to change its direction. My reasoning is simple. All nations now depend on each other, and the United States now depends on all nations. The destiny of my nation is now tied to the destiny of the planet. This fact is now clear, and it is why the Citizens of the World, together, cry out for a change.

We must now face the fact that together, we lead the future of the planet, not just of our own nations. The threats we face are no longer isolated or national - they are simultaneous and global:

1.    The global security situation is increasingly tense and fragile;
2.    New wars over oil prices and food shortages are closely linked to climate change and oil dependency;
3.    Two billon people are left out of the global economy while their poverty promotes failed states, extremism, and humanitarian crises;
4.    One third of all natural resources have vanished in just 30 years; and
5.    The economies and currencies of the world are increasingly unstable.

Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that because of the simultaneous occurrence of these threats, it is in the vital interest of all nations to work together, today, for a stable architecture of peace, prosperity and sustainability. We must take this action despite the fact that every nation, and every leader, carries the burdens of the past. Although we must live with what we inherit, we must not succumb to the failures of the past. For our futures lie together, not separately.

Fundamentally, we need a new set of global agreements to guide our planet, so that world conditions do not once again degenerate into war. I declare that my nation is resolved to pursue five new global agreements for our shared Global Commons:

1.    A global security strategy based on strengthening regional security arrangements;

2.    A global energy and climate strategy emphasizing renewable energy development;

3.    A global poverty strategy so that 2 billion people can join the world economy as full partners;

4.    A global environment strategy that protects our ecosystems at the heart of human existence; and

5.    Lastly, we need a new kind of world economy, one that is stable, fair and sustainable.

These form the Great Work of Our Time: to find a path forward, together, where humanity can share a healthy planet in peace.

A New Global Security Strategy

The first step toward a world that works is Human Security.

Unfortunately, the world community is all too aware of the fragility of world peace, a system where miscalculation, terrorist attack or accidental nuclear launch can have the ultimate consequences.

Together, we must re-define the terms of a new worldwide Human Security that makes the world safe for all people in all nations.

How then do we move towards a new worldwide Human Security regime?

First Steps: Underlying Security Needs

We propose that the first step should be a new global security dialogue that deals substantively with the hard issues faced by each nation – and that drives its security objectives.

I think we will find that grasping for resources and national pride are our real enemies. They start with fear. They are perpetuated by arrogance. I know this, because my nation suffers deeply under their burden. My nation’s pride and our grasping for oil have helped lead us to the lasting conflict in Iraq, with an addiction to oil we have yet to overcome.

Worst, my nation hesitates to act on our highest principles when it might threaten our oil dependency – or our pride. But the world can change when we face these enemies.

When we guarantee that others are safe, and when we guarantee that they will be treated with respect, a safer world is possible.

But we must face these difficult issues squarely. A nation dependent on external sources of food, oil, gas, coal, water or nuclear fuel must have guarantees before relaxing the security that protects them.

The only practical way to plan for global resource stability is a new global dialog on security. But, the United States believes that the implementation of a practical new global security system must be regional.

We know that regional alliances prevent wars and create stability based on shared regional strategic interests. Examples are clear: after centuries of war, conflict in Europe is now rare. The African Union’s action in the recent Kenyan conflict provided another good example of regional leadership.

When we have clearly identified the issues that matter most to each nation, then we can make stepwise progress towards regional security. This will require patience. A new Regional Security arrangement cannot be attempted abruptly or forcefully. No nation would agree to a realignment, withdrawal, or insertion of a new security regime unless its national interests were first protected.  

Recognizing these deeper and fundamental needs for Human Security will allow our nations to defuse regional tensions - for planet-wide safety.

The nuclear threat

The United States tonight proposes that all of the major security organizations of the planet convene within the next 90 days, to address these issues in good faith, because the consequences of inaction are quite clear: at least 20 new nations are considering building their own nuclear weapons.  

We need a new dialog among nations. New nuclear weapons have become the simple answer to any government that relies on brute force to achieve its ends. Unfortunately, nuclear weapons are shockingly simple to build and use.

Should these 20 nations, in legitimate fear of aggression, actually build their own nuclear weapons, a new global nuclear arms race would begin.

A new global nuclear arms race would be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. If we thought North Korean, Iranian or Libyan nuclear weapons were destabilizing, imagine a nuclear Serbia or Sudan or Georgia.

The growing pressures in the Caucasus region make this more urgent than ever.  Although we decry foolhardy actions in Georgia today, a dozen other nations are waiting in line to become the next regional war, or the next nuclear war.

That future is all too possible.

A New Parity Among Nations

We propose to create instead a new international parity that protects nations both small and large from aggression. And, it must also protect human life from the disasters of nature and genocide.

Tonight, the United States proposes a new security regime of Six World-Regional Security Councils.  We propose that the standing national forces of each Council handle aggressive actions by any country in their Region, where they know one another best.  

 Because continent-based security alliances make sense and expand existing alliances in a practical way, the United States proposes that Six Regional Security Councils be created in:

•    East Asia
•    South Asia
•    The Middle East
•    Africa
•    Europe, and
•    The Americas

We must achieve this regional security system, for my nation cannot continue the sole burden of preserving security around the globe. Although the United States currently has armed forces in more than 100 nations, neither U.S. citizens nor the peoples of the world want the U.S. to be the police force for the planet, although many nations have benefitted from the stability brought by our military presence.

I believe these practical regional alliances between nations are an effective tool for protecting national interests without disenfranchising smaller nations.

Using these Regional Security Councils, the United States tonight proposes the following five-part safety mechanism to defuse conflict:

1.    First, we propose that the member states of the six Regional Security Councils be organized according to the six regions just described, where regional diplomacy makes sense.  Each of these Regional Security Councils should have a standing Secretariat, because diplomatic dialogue must be ongoing.

2.    Second, we must balance power between nations of very different sizes.  Only in this way can we legitimately acknowledge the vastly different strengths of each nation, while protecting smaller nations from aggression.  

To accomplish this, the United States proposes that each of the member states of the Regional Security Councils be provided with voting rights, where the use of sanctions or force could be authorized by a two-thirds majority of the regional council’s member states.

We believe that such a voting system will acknowledge the true security and economic realities of our interdependent world, while encouraging the formation of regional alliances among all nations, large and small, for mutual benefit and mutual security.

3.    Third, when diplomacy is insufficient to resolve disputes, economic or other sanctions should be the natural next step - led by the nations of each Regional Security Council.

If force should be necessary, any response should be lead by the military forces of each Regional Security Council. Although standing regional forces would be preferable to rapidly contain new crises, elements of existing national forces could be specially trained and integrated as rapid-reaction forces to quell violence.

Imagine the conflict in Georgia, had the European Regional Security Council interrupted the increasingly tense situation with peacekeepers before full-scale hostilities began.

4.    Fourth, should a regional response prove insufficient, a standing Global Security Council would have the authority to intervene in support of regional nations forces, should the Regional Security Council request support.  

I would have preferred that the United Nations Security Council serve as this Global Security Council. Unfortunately, the UN Security Council has been rendered ineffective, and cannot now serve as the Global Security Council without major reforms, including its enlargement and the elimination of the veto threat. The members of the Global Security Council should be the members of all regional Security Councils, and could act with a two-thirds vote of member states – for progressively stronger actions as dictated by the situation.

5.    Fifth, there must be limits to the authority of a Regional or Global Security Council. The existence of every state must be preserved. However, in cases of aggression, genocide or natural disasters each Regional Security Council must also have the authority to take security measures within national boundaries.

This system will fairly divide both the responsibilities and the costs for true Human Security, while providing the world community with the legal capacity for intervention, if needed.

A Global Strategy for Energy and Climate

The transition to regional security alliances must happen soon, because the pressures of resource depletion are rapidly driving world security towards many new conflicts.

Our oil dependency has increasingly become a major cause for which we are fighting wars around the world, today. In Iraq, Darfur and now Georgia, we cannot ignore the part played by the desire to control oil and gas. These problems will only increase, as world demand for oil is now growing more than three times faster than new oil discoveries, which are increasingly remote, dangerous and expensive to pump.

Water is the next reason for regional conflict, as the combination of global temperature rises, depleted water supplies, uncontrolled population rise and diminishing food supplies will place extraordinary political pressure on many nations.

This is now a global emergency, and we must move quickly.

First and most fundamentally, to stabilize our environment, we must agree by 2010, as a world community, to a binding and enforceable global greenhouse gas treaty based on capping and then reducing global carbon emissions, with taxation for excess polluters that achieves an 80% reduction in greenhouse gasses by the year 2050.

Second, curbing the usage of greenhouse gases requires a coordinated global energy strategy – but our strategy must not destabilize security through the use of nuclear power.

•    I say this because even though nuclear power looks attractive today, nuclear power morphs very easily into nuclear weapons.

•    And here is the critical point: we must not allow the risky lure of nuclear power to destabilize the nuclear weapons problem. As we know from the lesson of Iran, home-grown nuclear fuel production runs directly against a stable and peaceful world security system.

•    The best way to avoid this risk is to support nations developing their own renewable energy supplies to prevent nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel cycle from morphing into nuclear weapons.

•    Fortunately, it is now clear that new renewable energy can be built faster and more cheaply and more safely than nuclear energy.

•    The combination of many renewables together, like solar, wind, hydro, biomass, and ocean-based energy production, can be constructed faster and far less expensively than nuclear, with fewer emissions, and no diversion into nuclear weapons or toxic nuclear waste.

•    But at the same time, nuclear energy already exists. It is an important part of national energy supplies. In order for nuclear power to be considered safe, we should institute strict inspections of all nuclear power facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Tonight, I offer that the United States will participate fully in a strict IAEA-sanctioned nuclear inspection program.

The United States proposes that the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group monitor and control the safe, worldwide production and distribution of all nuclear fuels. To create the world stability in which nuclear weapons will no longer be attractive, I will aggressively pursue the US ratification of both the Comprehensive Test Ban and Fissile Material Cutoff Treaties.

And in cooperation with other nuclear states, the US will work to rapidly divest itself of nuclear weapons. This will fulfill our legal obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that we ratified 38 years ago, and pave the way towards the stepwise elimination of all nuclear weapons.

In order for this proposition to function in the face of pressing needs for carbon-free energy to promote human and economic development, we must simultaneously, as a global community, rapidly increase our support for renewable energy programs - so that political pressures from energy price increases do not drive more nations toward home-grown nuclear fuel.

A Global Poverty Strategy

With a new foundation of global safety, achieving the Millennium Development Goals will become possible. In an interdependent world, this means ending the great scourges of continued poverty in a world of plenty, of injustice in a world of strength, of illiteracy in a world of technology, and of chronic disease in a world of miracle cures. Unless we act now to end these preventable crises, rooted in poverty, they will inevitably drag our nations into further conflict.

Therefore, tonight I renew the pledge of my nation to be a full partner towards the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals through the United Nations Millennium Project, to create a sensible, coordinated and global program of country-specific Poverty Reduction Plans for every Highly-Indebted Poor Country.

To accomplish this, the United States sees a need for an aggressive international development program like the successful Marshall Plan after World War II. It cost $80 Billion in today’s dollars to help rebuild western Europe into wealthy, democratic nations where, today, war seems a remote possibility. This cost is trivial compared with the more than $800 billion already spent to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is again time to invest once more in the world through a GLOBAL Marshall Plan, and both rich and poor nations will benefit strongly.

Remember that a peaceful world saves everyone money, and a prosperous world makes money for business. To the business owners of my nation and the world, I say that if you would like two billion new customers, help me end poverty now!

A new and Global Marshall Plan must include, at a minimum, five elements:

•    We must provide Economic development support with the technical assistance needed by poor nations;
•    We must forgive the international debt obligations of highly indebted poor countries - in return for transparent and verifiable corruption-protection mechanisms;
•    We must loosen intellectual property restrictions for poor nations’ benefit; and
•    We must expand the re-settlement fund for families displaced around the world by the climate damage that we have already inflicted.  

In this process, we must also insist on the protection of mega-corridors of ecological value in exchange for our development support. As a first step, the United States offers to climate refugees displaced by rising sea levels a new opportunity for resettlement, in the United States of America.

I have directed my Vice President to prepare for these efforts, and my administration has already begun preparing legislation for our Congress, to increase our national contribution to a new Global Marshall Plan, over time, to a full 2% of our GDP.

A Global Environment Strategy

Next, we must restore our home, this planet, for our entire planetary ecosystem is in jeopardy.  We have lost one-third of all planetary natural resources in just 30 years’ time. These are the Global Commons, the resources we share – that belong to everyone.

So I propose today that the community of nations, led by the United Nations Global Environment Facility, jointly develop a 100-Year Plan for global environmental sustainability.  Some of the measures just described will logically be part of such a 100-Year Plan. A planetary energy and climate strategy will help – but more will be necessary.

It is both possible and essential that we succeed in creating this plan, for the ecosystems of the planet must be stabilized. Although the climate crisis is a disaster in the making, it is only one facet of the larger collapse of ecosystems, worldwide. These issues can only be solved together. They are our mutual responsibility, for our mutual survival.

Global Economic Strategy

We have seen that many nations are exploiting their forests, their fields, their oil and their minerals faster than nature can regenerate them, to raise cash to pay their debts. Many are creating deserts of their nations instead of building schools, roads and infrastructure.

At the same time, the financiers who loaned the money to these nations are themselves in jeopardy as financial markets are dangerously fragile. Markets now seesaw wildly, with the potential for the financial collapse of banks, markets and entire currencies. The US dollar itself has lost 25% of its value in just the past four years.

In order to stabilize this fragile and dangerous situation, while providing a consistent source of funding for global development, the United States proposes to create a single Global Reserve Currency, to provide stability for all national currencies.

In order to support this single Global Reserve Currency and to finance part of the cost of development programs, we propose that the international community create a new system of tiny “One Cent Taxes” on the large international transactions originating within wealthy nations:

o    One cent per kilogram of carbon emissions into our shared atmosphere
o    One cent per hundred dollars of international currency transferred
o    One cent per 100 kilometers of international transport distance

This new Global Reserve Currency will be administered by a new entity that we propose to call the Global Public Trust. 

The revenue from these taxes will form the core of the Global Reserve Currency. At my direction, the United States will shortly convene an international conference of Central Bankers to implement this single, stable Global Reserve Currency. The Central Bankers of the European Union, Japan, India, China, India, Brazil and South Africa have already agreed to meet to discuss implementing this new Global Reserve Currency.

Those listening tonight in the financial and banking sectors please take note: you better than anyone, know that the world needs currency stability, NOW.

These taxes will provide part of the funds for renewable energy development, mitigation of climate damage, and provide part of the cost of investment in developing nations so that they too may become full players in the world economy.

We must act now

Now it is towards the great issues of the planet that I ask our governments to turn. Unlike our predecessors, our nations can no longer work alone; we must work together.

Tonight, as we enter a new dialog about the measures that will create a peaceful and sustainable planet, we are joining a conversation that already exists, because it lies within the rising voice of a convergent humanity, increasingly speaking as Global Citizens.

It is becoming clear that our new boundaries are not the boundaries of nations. Our limits are that of our will and our creativity, which prevent the real issues of our time from occupying every waking moment of our governments, our corporations, civil society and humanity itself.

We have become Global Citizens, and it is time for us, together, to take responsibility for our entire planet.

Will we listen to humanity’s new voice? Will our governments adapt to this new reality, and, in the process, work for the highest standards demanded by our peoples?

I say yes.

Thank you, and Good Night.

Produced by: Kevin Hansen, Craig Eisendrath, 9/24/2008
Language: English
Run Time: 28 min. 0 sec.
Story Level 3 = 12+ years of age