fined to self-defense, unless they enjoyedrnspecial authorization for largescalerncollective enforcement action, asrnin Korea in 1950 or Kuwait in 1990. Underrnthe new proposal, the U. N. arnryrnwould be virtually independent of thernstates whose troops actualh’ composedrnits force and whose money financed it,rnand the Security Council itself wouldrndecide when and against whom thernarmy under its exclusive control wouldrnstrike.rnThe plan’s rather alarming implicationsrnfor the institution of nationalrnsovcreigntN’, though muted in the secretarN-rngcneral’s report in June, arc explicitrnin the ruminations of such professionalrnmunchkins of the supranationalrnLollipop guild as former U. N. apparatchikrnSir Brian Urcjuhart, who intonedrnin the New York ‘limes in 1991 that “thernunraeling of national sovereignty seemsrnto be a feature of the post-Cold War period”rnand who proposed plans remarkabh’rnsimilar to those later unbosomedrnb- Mr. Boutros-Ghali.rnIn his report, the secretary-generalrnwas a bit cagey about sovereignty, professingrnthat, well, of course, he believedrnin it, though we wouldn’t want to overdo,rnwould \’e? “Respect for. . . fundamentalrnsovereignty and integrity are crucialrnto an common internationalrnprogress,” he assured us, but, so his veryrnnext sentence read, “the time of absoluternand exclusive sovereigntv hasrnpassed.” Mr. Boutros-Ghali recapitulatedrnhis non secjuiturs in a recent article inrnForeign Affairs, where he informed usrnthat “while respect for the fundamentalrnsoereignty and integrity of the staternremains central, it is undeniable that therncenturies-old doctrine of absolute andrnexclusive sovereignty no longer stands,rnand was in fact never so absolute as itrnwas conceived to be in theory.”rnSovereignty, however, is almost byrndefinition a pretty absolute concept. Eitherrnvon have it or you don’t, and beingrna “little bit sovereign” is no more feasiblernthan being a little bit pregnant. Butrnho\eer vveasclish his words, Mr.rnBoutros-Ghali couldn’t disguise his ultimaterngoals. “The world,” he wrote, “isrnstill in some ways in its ‘Middle Ages’rnwlicn it conies to international organizationsrnaird cooperation. Centuries werernret[uired before the struggle amongrnmonarchical and baronial forces wasrntransformed into states capable of carryingrnout responsibilities in the fields ofrnsecurity, cconoin, and justice. Therernis no doubt that the institutions of thernU. N. system must travel such a path ifrnchaos is to be avoided.” The analogyrnhe draws is pretty clear; sovereign nationsrntoday are analogous to the feudalrnbarons of the Middle Ages, whosernautonomy and power were eventuallyrncrushed bv the emerging dvnastiernmonarchies, which arc analogous to thernpharaonic world go’ernmcnt that glittersrnin Mr. Boutros-Ghali’s dark Egyptianrneyes. What is a little bit pregnantrnturns out to be the United Nationsrnitself, from the belly of which willrnCN’entuallv spring a now-embryonicrnplanetary regime.rnIt may be imagined that, being anrnEgyptian, Mr. Boutros-Ghali is peripheralrnto the mainstream of what is actualhrnthought and done in the West, butrnsuch is not the case. Nor is enthusiasmrnfor a One World State under the UnitedrnNations confined to the eccentric cornersrnof the political left, yvhere OnernWoddism has long linked arms with thernwhite-lipped advocates of Esperanto,rnPeace Toys, the Rehabilitation of Criminals,rnand the Metric System to mountrnthe soapboxes at xMarblc Arch and similarrnlocations every Sunday. 1 ,ast December,rnpopular historian Paul Johnsonrnmanaged to take time off from his annualrnpublication of a seemingly endlessrnseries of obese volunres that would takernserious scholars a lifetime to completernand penned an article for National Reviewrnthat demanded what he called arn”New Imperialism.” It is of no small interestrnthat while those on the politicalrnleft, like Mr. Boutros-Ghali, couch thernNew World Order in humanitarianrnterms calculated to appeal to the ideologicalrnconfabulations of their comrades,rnthose on the political right (or who haverninsinuated themselves into the right) likernMr. Johnson frame almost the same proposalsrnin terms that will catch the fancyrnof the retired colonels who pine for therndays of Kipling and King of the KhyberrnRifles. Such convergence between rightrnand left in the context of what the brahminsrnof each category propose is itselfrnpart of the cultural and political homogcnizationrnthat the new global orderrndemands.rnMr. Johnson, however, doesn’t muchrnlike Mr. Boutros-Ghali and suggests thatrnhe be fired (even after the sccretar}’-generalrnhad so successfully completed hisrnhomework earlier in the ear), but he atrnleast apjjears to agree that “a new globalrnstructure of order” needs to be establishedrnin yvhich the U.N. SecurityrnCouncil will provide the keystone andrnthe muscle. The creation of this newrnorder will in’olve transforming “collectivernsecurity from a reactive and negativernforce into a true watchdog, engagedrnin foreseeing and forestalling—crimernprevention and disaster avoidance.”rn”Like the traditional Great Powers andrntheir general staffs,” breathes Mr. Johnson,rn”the Security Council must learnrnto devise diplomatic, military, and logisticalrnplans for all foreseeable disturbances,”rnand “the Security Council andrnits agents will become the last, most altruisticrnand positive of the imperial powers,rnrestoring to the word colonialismrnthe ‘good name’ it once enjoyed—inrnMediterranean antiquity no less thanrnthe 19th century.” Like many Englishmen,rnMr. Johnson appears not to have arnclue as to just how despised the BritishrnEmpire was in the 19th century, not onlyrnby those peoples whom it triedrnunsuccessfully and often brutall}’ to civilizernbut even by those, like many Americansrnand Europeans, who always sawrnthrough the cant, greed, and tyrannyrnthat animated so much that la’ in itsrnheart. As for the “good name” that Mr.rnJohnson imagines colonialism enjoyedrnin ancient times, the Gauls, Greeks,rnJews, and Egyptians whom the Romansrnslaughtered and enslaved might havernhad a name for it that was not so benign,rnthough surely each of them hadrndone pretty much the same sort of thingrnin their own day.rnTo be fair, of course, Mr. Johnson isrnproposing the “New Imperialism” as arnmeans of taking care of Third Worldrnpeoples and countries that obviously arcrnincapable of taking care of themselves,rnthough nowhere does he establish anyrngood reason why we—the West, letrnalone the United States—should assumernthat burden. Nor do any of the pioneersrnof the new empire consider (at least inrnprint) what may be the consequencesrnfor the sovereign nations of the West ofrna worid run by the U. N. Security Council.rnWe can already perceive one consequencernthrough the fog of our adventurernin Somalia this winter, an adventurernbegotten somewhere in the bowels ofrnthe W’hite House and “authorized” byrnthe Ihiitcd Nations, just as our earlierrncrusade against Iraq was similady “authorized”rnby the same body. Since thernUnited States had no compelling nationalrninterest to make war against Iraqrnor to invade Somalia and since nationalrnAPRIL 1993/9rnrnrn