The United States should withdraw from the United Nations

This is an important topic to many people, and this forum tends to attract quite a thoughtful audience to such themes. This has been a considered debate, from my view. My argument has been simple: It is best that we do nothing radical or potentially destructive to our national interests – without careful and measured consideration. In the case of withdrawing from the forum that the totality of the entire civilized world has used to negotiate, establish trade, remedy grievances and strengthen alliances, I feel that the United States would be insulting virtually the entire planet. Currently, the United States uses the UN to spread our ideals and values globally – with an embarrassment of influence and prestige. Thanks to our membership within the world body, I have demonstrated that our constitution is more secure, our borders are safer, and our will is more easily imposed upon the rest of the world. If we are removed from the community of nations, we will suffer grievously in all of these areas, and lose much of our ability to defend our borders, our freedoms, and our interests abroad – not to mention our allies. Our membership within the United Nations ensures that we do not fight wars alone, that we do not foot the entire bill for nation-building and securing states in danger of collapse by ourselves, but as a valued part of the civilized world. Recent history has shown beyond any doubt that these dangers present by far the greatest risk to our national defense – the danger once posed by massed Soviet-style armies is long since gone. Throughout this debate, my partner has never convincingly made any argument that the United States taxpayer should bear the burdens in the stead of the world community. Our influence and imposing presence within the UN helps to ensure that the American Treasury is not required to fund these critical missions alone. The omnipresent reach of the United Nations ensures that our priorities are transmitted to the greatest possible level of international saturation – we should not be eager to relinquish this reach. My partner has repeatedly conceded that the UN is a de facto agent of the United States, arguing that the body would be greatly weakened following an American withdrawal, and repeatedly pointing out that our funding of UN missions is critical to its success. I have only weakly attempted to counter such arguments, since they support my case: if the US were to leave the UN, and establish its own independent international forum – this new forum would simply be a new UN with a different name. There would be differences – the new UN would lack the credibility and history and international reach of the current model, for example. But the new "Americanized" UN would just be a reduntant and uneccesary attempt to accomplish the work that the UN is already doing. Let us be Machiavellian for a moment, and discuss Realpolitik. In the event that the US did withdraw from the UN, what would be the most likely outcome? I have tried to present this piecemeal, but I should be well advised to be more explicit: The US would offend the world, and attempt to do the same thing that the UN is already doing, at great cost and enormous effort. Our borders would be less secure, our constitution under siege (observe the penalties for actions, unprotected by First Amendment-equivalent laws in the Muslim world, for example), and our taxpayers burdened with the woes of the world. We would also lose the ability to coerce the international community to obey our will. We need these powers, and this influence, for good reasons. I want to thank everyone who has followed the debate to this point. I feel that I have offered convincing reasons to remain within the UN, at least sufficient to have met my part of the burden. As we have been discussing reasons why the US ‘ought’ to remain within the UN, I want to underscore what I feel to have been the most convincing argument in closing: My partner has conceded that the US is unlikely to withdraw from the UN – which implies that he is aware that convincing reasons exist for retaining our membership. It does not matter that he does not enumerate these reasons, or that he agree with the logic – for the purposes of this debate, it is sufficient that he has conceded that these reasons and this logic exist, and is compelling to important decision makers. I regret that I have not dwelt upon this point more forcefully, which is why I repeat it here, at the end of the discussion. This is tantamount to a full concession, and should be persuasive.