The Case for the United Nations

I hope a military response to Tuesday's attack does not make a real solution impossible.

Certainly, someone must pay. Our country was attacked and we will respond the way countries respond when they are attacked: We will go to war, whatever that means.

One thing war is certain to mean is all attention will be given to its implementation. But a military campaign to combat terrorism must not replace a rethinking of the international system that breeds terrorism.

America's first response to Tuesday's attack was to turn to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and invoke its mutual defense clause — an action which was proper. In the 1990s, NATO increasingly became the go-to organization for the United States in times of crisis and Americans became less confident in the United Nations as a force for international intervention.

Tuesday's attack, however, created an opportunity to redefine the role of the United Nations forever. Through the U.N., the United States should lead a global effort to remake an international system that is badly in need of repair. Terrorism is a symptom of the system's ills, not their source. World leaders should sit down and think hard about things from a global frame of reference — everything from the role of states to that of Bill Gates.

Terrorism finds its most loyal supporters among those frustrated and angry peoples who are isolated — economically and politically — from the West. Whatever the logic of the new world order, its defining policy is engagement. Isolation is out — engagement is in.

Superpowers must engage developing countries and all must engage nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and powerful individuals in a discussion to rethink the balance of power in the 21st century. There is no better place for this discussion to take place than in the United Nations.

Military action is a necessary response, but a short-term response — even if short-term means several years. For real solutions — that is, long-term solutions — we must turn not to military institutions, but to the United Nations and other institutions for international development and reconciliation.

Amid the seeming chaos and confusion, there is a new structure to the world that waits to be discovered and created. One thing seems clear: We live in a globalized world and global crises demand global solutions.

While NATO represents only the West, the U.N. includes all the countries of the globe — and importantly, the Islamic countries. The President must not allow the coming conflict to be a culture war, even if — at some level — it is. And he must not allow it to be an East-West conflict, even if — at some level — it is. The reason is terrorism comes not only from the East. There's the Irish Republican Army, the Basque terrorists in Spain and American militia groups, among others. Will these groups too be targets of the war against terrorism?

We must be wary in this first war of the 21st century not to let the coming military campaign distract us from our greater task as Americans and citizens of the world — a task that demands we rethink the relationship between power and inequality everywhere. Adam Frankel is an Wilson School major from New York, NY. He can be reached at afrankel@princeton.edu.