Mary Kaldor on the role of the USA in the world

A friend draws my attention to a somewhat old piece written by this outstanding scholar: http://bostonreview.net/BR30.1/kaldor.php

He asks what I think of the article.

Here is my response:

"My points of disagreement with her relate to her apparent belief that anyone can bring about peace in the Middle East: apart from the Israelis and Palestinians themselves, who have rarely shown any great interest in peaceful co-existence, there are all the nearby and faraway powers who have a vested interest ....

And her notion of not American but multilateral interventions in support of individual and "“human security” is theoretically interesting, but unlikely to get very far in view of the fact that multilateralism has historically not got us very far in any conflict in the 60 years or so after WWII - the interests of nations are simply too diverse.

She is closer to what should be achievable globally when she speaks about global rules but, as the G-20 summit in Toronto demonstrated at the end of last month, even that is extremely difficult to achieve given the lack of commitment by political leaders to any real global leadership". Sphere: Related Content