President Obama told the world Monday that the United States cannot save it by itself, and that international cooperation must be the prevailing policy if peace and prosperity are to be achieved globally.
“No matter how powerful our military, how strong our economy, we understand the United States cannot solve the world’s problems alone,” Obama said Monday morning in addressing the United Nations General Assembly on its 70th anniversary.
“The disorder we see is not driven solely by competition between nations or any single ideology, and if we cannot work together more effectively, we will all suffer the consequences,” Obama warned.
However, he underscored that the United States will act alone when necessary.
“I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies unilaterally, and by force, where necessary,” he promised. “But I stand before you today believing in my core that we, the nations of the world, cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion.”
Obama said that returning to a “belief that power is a zero-sum game, that ‘might makes right,’ that strong states must impose their will on weaker ones, that the rights of individuals don’t matter, and that, in a time of rapid change, order must be imposed by force,” is the wrong conclusion to draw.
Obama pointed to Iraq as an example of where brute force alone is not enough to stabilize a restless, disjointed population previously held together only by a dictator.
The “United States learned the hard lesson that even hundreds of thousands of brave, effective troops, trillions of dollars from our Treasury, cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land,” he said. “Unless we work with other nations under the mantle of international norms and principles and law that offer legitimacy to our efforts, we will not succeed.”
“And unless we work together to defeat the ideas that drive different communities in a country like a Iraq into conflict, any order that our militaries can impose will be temporary,” Obama said.
“And just as force alone cannot impose order internationally, I believe in my core that repression cannot forge the social cohesion for nations to succeed,” he continued. “The history of the last two decades proves that in today’s world, dictatorships are unstable. The strong men of today become the spark of revolution tomorrow.”
Obama said the civil war in Syria and Bashar al-Assad’s regime is testing the world’s commitment to international order and cooperation like no other conflict. And just as the world must work in unison to end the violence there and support the creation of a peaceful, stable and inclusive government, the world must combine forces to take down the self-proclaimed Islamic State too, Obama said.
“Likewise, when a terrorist group beheads captives, slaughters the innocent and enslaves women, it’s not a single nation’s national security problem, that is an assault on all of our humanity,” he said.
Obama said the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State is necessary to deny terrorists a safe haven, but said ultimately, peace will only come to Syria when Syrians “forge an agreement to live together peacefully.”
He said that he is willing to work with any nation, including Iran and Russia, that is dedicated to ending the bloodshed in Syria and backing a new coalition government.
Underscoring his call for international unity, Obama and 50 other world leaders are attending a peacekeeping summit Monday afternoon. In advance, Obama issued a presidential memo to all agency and department heads outlining how the U.S. will support peacekeeping missions going forward.
Obama said an update was necessary given that the number of and scope of such operations has grown exponentially since the last presidential directive on the matter was issued in 1994.
“The U.N. currently manages 16 peacekeeping missions, with more than 100,000 uniformed personnel and more than 19,000 civilian staff deployed globally,” Obama stated in the memo. “The U.N. also currently has 11 field-based political missions and peace-building support offices in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.”
As part of the peacekeeping summit, the other 49 leaders gathered are expected to pledge troops, equipment, technology and money at the United States’ urging. For months, the U.S. has sought greater contributions from around the world, particularly Europe, to fortify U.N. peacekeeping missions.
Obama agreed in the memo that these missions face significant challenges, but said, “These operations are among the most meaningful forms of international burden-sharing to address the global challenges that exist today.”
But such operations cannot be “the sum total” of international assistance, he wrote. The United Nations must also offer “a broad range of political, economic, development and security assistance provided by many different international actors, well before peacekeepers arrive, throughout the time they remain in theater, and long after they depart,” he stated.
