ROW Episode 29

In this episode we examine how the war in Ukraine might have been averted if we had firstly had a global system of collective security in place capable of deterring nations from entering into conflicts and restoring peace when it is breached. And secondly if we had additionally had other global institutions like a properly functioning World Court, an International Legislature, and an International Intelligence and Inspections Agency, comprising a viable system of global governance fit for purpose for the 21st century and beyond.

Episode Transcript

Sovaida (00:08):
Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast
dedicated to envisioning abetter world and to infusing
hope that we can make theprincipled choices to build that
world.
In this episode, we examine howthe war in Ukraine might have
been averted if we had firstlyhad a global system of

(00:30):
collective security in place,capable of deterring nations
from entering into conflicts andrestoring peace when it is
breached.
And secondly, if we hadadditionally had other global
institutions, like a properlyfunctioning world court and
international legislature and aninternational intelligence and

(00:51):
inspections agency, comprising aviable system of global
governance fit for purpose.
Given the current state of ourworld, it's understandable that
many of us should be feelingdemoralized and hopeless.
To say that the past two yearshave been trying for many folks

(01:11):
around the world, is anunderstatement.
We're still reeling from thebody blows inflicted by a global
pandemic, which is not over, bythe impact that the pandemic has
had on our global economy.
And while we're still trying tohandle these twin crises, we
know that climate change iscontinuing to barrel down the

(01:35):
hill at us, and we haven't yetbeen able to get our arms around
the change in habits that willneed to happen if we're to avoid
the worst calamitous effects ofclimate change.
And indeed recent reportsindicate that it's happening
faster than even the scientistshad imagined, with an increase
in wildfires of 50 percent by2100, and by the rising of sea

(02:00):
levels at a faster pace thanwe'd imagined by yet another
foot by the year 2050.
And as though all of this werenot enough, we are now faced
with the specter of a war inUkraine that could easily spread
to other countries and pullother nations of the world into
its orbit.
To add insult to injury, such awar involves one of the world's

(02:25):
great nuclear powers.
So it's worth stopping andpausing for a second to note a
reality.
It seems that our tests repeatthemselves until we learn a
lesson.
We're familiar with thisphenomenon in our individual
lives.
I'm sure you've all experiencedthis.
There's something that you'rewrestling with in your life and

(02:47):
you think that you've licked itand then it comes back again and
it comes back again until you'veactually managed to overcome it.
This same phenomenon thatapplies in our individual lives
also applies in our collectiveand societal life.
It was interesting to hear theSecretary General of NATO say a

(03:08):
couple of days ago, Mr.
Stoltenberg, that we're seeingwar of a scale and type we
thought belonged to pasthistory.
And yet, when we actually stopand ponder this, we see that
we've been here before, evensince the last century, even
since the Second World War.

(03:28):
Ukraine and what's happeningthere is somewhat reminiscent of
what happened in Syria.
There're certain commonfeatures.
There was no externalterritorial aggression of the
kind we see in the Ukraine, butsimilar themes are emerging.
The flow of refugees out ofUkraine into Western Europe and

(03:48):
other countries in EasternEurope, like Poland and Romania,
and other countries, just as wesaw in Syria.
The fight over pieces of acountry with different factions
trying to gain a foothold andgain control over those pieces.

(04:08):
It's pulling different countriesaround the world on different
sides of the conflict.
In Syria, it got so bad that oneof the newspaper reports at the
time called it a proto worldwar.
And of course Syria became abreeding ground for terrorism
and we're already starting tosee far right militias from

(04:29):
around Europe gathering arms andtraveling to Ukraine in order to
fight, which can't bode well forthe future of the country, when
you have lots of folks,foreigners, who come in and who
are armed.
That's never a good thing forany country in any situation.
And as in Syria, here again, theworld stood back and said, let

(04:53):
them figure it out.
We also, when we look athistory, we see that we have had
this repeated pattern ofterritorial aggression.
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
In 2014, Russia illegallyannexed Crimea.
The first time around with Iraq,we cobbled together a coalition

(05:16):
of willing nations to go in andget Iraq out of Kuwait and free
Kuwait.
With respect to Crimea, theworld really ineffectually stood
by, did a lot of hand wringingand stern rebuking, but
ultimately there was no action.
So this test keeps coming backover and over again.

(05:39):
In fact the way I think about itis that these tests come in
waves, and the waves increase innumber, increase in frequency,
and increase in intensity, andultimately turn into a tsunami
that threatens to engulf us,which is exactly what is
happening in the Ukraine rightnow.

(06:00):
What can we do is the realquestion.
We know that we certainly can'tafford to be paralyzed and
despondent and fearful andanxious, because we now need to
act as we've never acted beforein order to assure the peace,
security, and tranquility of theworld.

(06:20):
Because without peace andsecurity, we can't do anything
else.
The question becomes, Whatopportunities might be inherent
in the present moment?
And in order to identify thoseopportunities, we need to be
clear eyed about what our pastand present experiences teach
us, about what not to do, andthen determine what we can do

(06:43):
differently.
So let's look at our pastreactions.
A hallmark of our past reactionsto this kind of scenario of
territorial aggression has beento do too little too late.
The international community hastended to abdicate its
responsibility.
Going back to our image of thetsunami, even though we have

(07:05):
indications that a tsunami iscoming, we have been throwing a
few sandbags here and there.
Or in the face of a 40 foottsunami, we've been building
walls that are 2 feet high oreven 10 feet high, but nothing
that is really capable ofwithstanding the force of the
waves.

(07:26):
The way we have done thisbusiness as usual, is that we've
continued to take an approachand have a mindset of an us
against them.
We huddle in groups.
We huddle in alliances.
We huddle in coalitions.
We get together and havebilateral agreements and
trilateral agreements and smallmultilateral agreements.

(07:50):
And our aim all along is merelyto seek to maintain an
equilibrium of the interests ofvarious nations.
Now this would make a lot ofsense if we did not live in a
world that was so interconnectedand interwoven that essentially
our interests are fused.

(08:11):
It does not make sense anylonger to think in terms of
maintaining an equilibrium ofinterest.
To me, this becomes very vividwhen, as a human being, I stand
back, I zoom out, and I look atwhat's happening in the Ukraine.
We see a country burning, withfolks being killed, and property

(08:35):
and infrastructure destroyed.
And here's the rest of the worldstanding by and saying, okay,
you don't belong to thisalliance that we call NATO, and
so we're not going to step inand help you, but we're going to
do things at the margins.
We're going to shore ourselvesup around Ukraine, so if this

(08:58):
spills over into a NATO country,then we'll do something.
And we'll impose some sanctions,but we know that sanctions in
the past haven't really beeneffective.
And in fact, they were noteffective enough to deter the
invasion in the first place.
This is really child's play andnonsensical given the kind of
world we live in.

(09:20):
The truth is that we come to thequestion of what can we do
differently.
And we've got to understand thatwe stand at a fork in the road.
We're faced with a stark choice.
as humanity.
We either deepen our unity or weself destruct.
Now, it's interesting to me thatthe famous scientist Albert

(09:43):
Einstein, as far back as 75years ago in 1947, wrote an open
letter to the United Nations inwhich he talked about the fact
that the UN was really just atransitional body, and that the
final goal of humanity shouldbe, and here's the quote,"The

(10:03):
establishment of a supranationalauthority vested with sufficient
legislative and executive powersto build the peace." In other
words, he was calling for thebuilding of a United States of
the world.
Now, in this series of podcasts,the last 28 podcasts, we have

(10:25):
been exploring the vision ofprecisely how we go about
building such a system of globalgovernance and collective
security to ensure the peace andtranquility of the world.
For those of you who may thinkthat this was simply a
theoretical exercise, I wantedto spend time today looking at

(10:46):
the Ukraine and saying, okay,What might have happened if we
had such a system, a robustsystem of global governance in
place today, and this Ukrainecrisis started?
Would the outcome have beendifferent?
Would we have been able to avertwar, and how?

(11:06):
And how would we have been ableto solve the differences?
Let's start with the first thingthat we have talked about, and
that is the need to build aneffective system of collective
security.
We've gotten to the point whereit's time, and the creation of
such a system I deeply believeis not only possible, but

(11:28):
inevitable.
It starts with an agreementbetween core group of the
world's leaders who possessqualities of trustworthiness and
high mindedness and who arecourageous enough to have as
their sole agenda therestoration of peace to the

(11:49):
planet.
As they get together, they needto sign an agreement and then
having signed it, get othernations to ratify it.
Interestingly, Albert Einsteinin that letter that I talked
about says that we need to haveat least two thirds of the
world's economic and industrialpowers sign on to it, because
then it will have enough of aninfluence and impact on the rest

(12:13):
of the world.
So under this agreement, theamount of arms that each nation
could possess would be limitedto that which is necessary to
preserve internal peace.
And we could set up aninternational commission to do
studies to see what that wouldbe.
The second thing would be thatall the rest of the armaments,

(12:33):
the surplus, would have to bedestroyed in all countries.

Nuclear weapons (12:37):
there would have to be an agreement that
they all be destroyed.
These leaders would also need toagree to dispense with war as an
instrument of internationalrelations.
And one of the most importantprovisions of this treaty would
be to agree that if one nationbreaches the provisions of this

(13:01):
agreement, then all nationswould arise as one to bring it
to heel.
So if you think about it, assoon as we start to have an arms
build up by any nation, thatwould immediately trigger
collective action, starting withsanctions all the way up to the
use of force, because we allknow that the only way to deal

(13:21):
with a bully on the playgroundis to take a united stand
against him or her.
Now, in order for such a systemto function, we would also need
another element that we havealso talked about.
We spent a whole podcast onthis.
We would need a supranationalintelligence system that acts as

(13:42):
an early warning system, so thatwe can nip things in the bud
while they're still small.
Very much like what happens withthe tsunami.
We now have parts of the worldwhere they have created these
early warning systems with theseseismic monitors that they have
on the floor of the ocean thatdetect even one inch in a
difference in movement.

(14:05):
We can then give warning and getpeople to safety.
We need something similar in oursystem of global governance.
What's interesting to me is thatI'm starting to see glimmerings
with this Ukraine crisis, a lotmore sharing of intelligence.
For the first time, forinstance, from what I read in
the media, the United States hasbeen trying to quickly

(14:26):
declassify intelligence reportsthat can be shared openly.
And we've been hearing on thenews, we have intelligence that
we believe this country is goingto do X, Y, and Z, and we think
that these actions are going tobe taken, there're going to be
cyber attacks, there're going tobe videos.
It's been fascinating to see theworld being forced to eventually

(14:47):
take this step, but why not justgo ahead and do it?
That was one thing, which is asupranational intelligence
agency.
In addition, we also need tohave an international court that
we all trust because its membersare elected as opposed to
appointed in backroom deals.

(15:07):
Again, we spent a whole podcastdiscussing how we need to reform
our international court.
This international court, mostimportantly, needs to have
compulsory jurisdiction.
Look, nations are inevitablygoing to have disagreements and
disputes, and the point is totry to settle them without

(15:28):
resort to force, and without itdegenerating into destabilizing
conflict.
With respect to the Ukraine, ifthe question comes up, to whom
do the territories in easternUkraine belong, and what nation
should these people belong to,then that issue should come
before, be referred to, thisrevamped international court for

(15:50):
decision.
The nations involved would haveto submit without exception.
They would not have theopportunity to opt out under
this new, revised, revampedinternational court system,
because there is compulsoryjurisdiction.
Moreover, once a verdict isrendered, all sides would have
to abide by it.

(16:11):
It would be binding and it wouldbe enforceable, because without
a system of enforcement, it'sall meaningless.
We end up back in the world ofwords.
Which then leads us to the needfor another element in this
system of global governance thatwe also spent a whole session

(16:32):
exploring, the need for aninternational standing force.
This force would be comprised ofunits from all the nations of
the world.
So it would be representative ofall the nations of the world.
And it would act only accordingto collective decisions made by
a global legislature the membersof whom are directly elected by

(16:56):
the peoples of the world andrepresents their collective
interests.
It would act in accordance withpredetermined rules that this
body had legislated on.
So none of this fuzzy policystuff that,"Oh, when if you're a
nation we like, then we'll turna blind eye.
And if you're a nation wedistrust, then we're going to

(17:18):
come down hard on you." Andaction would only be taken in
the collective interests ofhumanity.
Now, who would pay for such aforce?
Again, something we talkedabout.
The global legislature wouldhave limited rights of taxation,
the ability to tax the people ofthe world.
So just like we pay local,state, and federal taxes, we

(17:41):
would pay this global federaltax, if you like so that we
could sustain this standingforce.
Let's see what else the systemthat we've been talking about
would do to help us deal withall the problems that flow from
the Ukraine crisis that we'refaced with.
One of the concerns is aboutenergy and adequate access to

(18:04):
natural gas and oil to meet theenergy needs of Europe and other
countries in the world.
As you may recall, we talkedabout this global legislature
that would be directly elected.
One of its functions would be toserve as the trustee, the sole
trustee, of the world's criticalnatural resources.
including energy resources.

(18:27):
So it would have exclusiveauthority over these resources
and have the responsibility tomanage and distribute them in a
fair manner to all the nationsof the world.
Another concern that has arisenwith respect to Ukraine is the
nuclear concern.
It's a little disconcerting.

(18:48):
One could see this coming downthe pipe, but one still wishes
that it weren't happening.
We're starting to hear in thenews people talk about the fear
of this escalating into anuclear war, because Russia is a
nuclear power, and of course wehave members of NATO.
God forbid if NATO gets draggedinto the conflict, if there is
accidental spillover fromUkraine into NATO territories,

(19:11):
then we could see a war between,or conflict between nuclear
powers which may not end verywell, not because people want to
necessarily have a nuclear war,but the truth is that once war
starts, things easily get out ofhand, and things escalate, and

(19:32):
we often end up in a much largerwar quite by accident.
This is another benefit.
We talked about first of all,eliminating the nuclear weapons,
but then we still have nuclearfacilities and the potential to
create nuclear material that canthen be used to make bombs.

(19:52):
And so pooling those, just asthe European Coal and Steel
community did in the aftermathof the Second World War, pooling
these resources in the hands ofa supranational authority, this
world legislature, again, whichwe spent, I think, two sessions
unpacking, so that we don't haveto worry about individual
nations reaching for nuclearweapons.

(20:14):
In short, it's really time tobuild, as we said, a United
States of the World.
Now, what are some of thebenefits of creating such a
system?
It allows us, the world, theinternational community, to step
in and act quickly, decisively,and effectively to nip problems
in the bud while they're stillsmall.

(20:36):
So at the first sign...forinstance, here with Ukraine, the
problem really started in 2014when Russia moved in and annexed
Crimea in violation ofinternational law.
At that point already, if we'dhad such a system, we should
have taken steps.
And when they also startedsending troops and armaments to

(20:57):
Eastern Ukraine, to the Donbassregion.
It's, if one wants to thinkabout it this way, it's like
administering chemotherapy earlyto to get rid of cancer cells in
a body, if a certain behavior isgoing to risk the well being of
the body.
If a behavior of a certainnation is going to put the peace

(21:22):
and tranquility of the world atrisk, then the entire
international community has theresponsibility to stand up for
peace and take steps to bringthat country to heal.
And the longer we wait and themore this behavior, this cancer
metastasizes in the body of theworld, the harder it is to take

(21:44):
care of it.
So if we'd taken care of this in2014, we probably wouldn't be
here today dealing with thisproblem with the Ukraine.
Other benefits.
We maintain the credibility ofthe international system and we
uphold the authority ofinternational law and
institutions and thereby preventnations from behaving with

(22:07):
impunity, which they now do on aregular basis, knowing that they
will not suffer anyconsequences.
And we see this with Ukrainewith Russia knowing that the
countries, individual countriesand NATO really doesn't want to
confront Russia, and thereforewe're all standing on the

(22:27):
outside of Ukraine and hopingand praying that the war doesn't
spill over into any of the NATOmember states.
But it, as I said before, it's anonsensical place to be right
now.
It also it avoids sending amessage to other nations that
the only way they can protectthemselves is by getting their

(22:47):
hands on nuclear weapons as adeterrent.
Because if that's the messagethat's sent, one of the likely
consequences of what's happeningnow is that we're going to have
an escalation in the nucleararms race with other countries
looking and saying,"Whoa! We allneed to scramble now to create
nuclear weapons programs whenthe whole goal of our planet has

(23:09):
supposedly been to gradually getrid of our nuclear arms and to
stop building any new nuclearweapons.
Another benefit is that we cantake all this money that we
spend on building, on producingarmaments and funnel it into
addressing the well being ofpeople, ensuring that people

(23:30):
have clean water and food inplaces where there is drought,
especially with climate change.
That people have access to food,countering the effects of
natural disasters, mitigatingthe effects of global warming,
spending money on research anddevelopment to find alternative
renewable sources of energy, andpaying for an international

(23:52):
standing force, and so manyother things.
Building such a systemacknowledges in response to the
reality that no single nation,no matter how powerful, can or
should be the policeman of theworld.
It's too high a price for thatnation to pay in terms of human
life and financial costs.

(24:13):
It always leads to a backlash.
And we are now in a place, aswe're starting to hear in the
news, that we simply can'tafford to do it.
Which leads us to the nextpoint.
We simply can't spread ourselvestoo thin.
Imagine if we have simultaneousconflagrations, say over Taiwan,

(24:34):
over Ukraine, North Korea.
Even the United States can'tdeal with all of these disasters
at the same time.
And it shouldn't have to, thisis really the responsibility of
the international community,which is why we need a global
international supranationalsystem of governance.
We also don't have to worryabout this idea that living in a

(24:57):
multipolar world means that wecan break the world up into
spheres of influence.
Rather, we come to recognizethat our multipolarity is based
on an awareness and acceptanceof our oneness.
Our interconnection andinterdependence as a human race,
and that therefore the next stepin our natural evolution towards

(25:18):
collective maturity is to createa global infrastructure of
governance that meets the needsthat we have as humanity today,
and is capable of addressing ourcurrent challenges.
Such a system also puts us in aposition where we don't simply
have to rely on sanctions, whichwhile very important, a very

(25:42):
important tool in our arsenal,have generally proven
ineffectual at preventing themost egregious behaviors,
including territorialaggression, including building
and maintaining illicit nuclearweapons systems.
We can stop relying on thissystem.
That's what we've been doing,which is a piecemeal approach in

(26:04):
tackling global challenges.
We'll sanction banks here,companies there, we'll free some
assets, we'll close someairspace, we'll propose
legislation imposing tariffs,we'll close down deals for the
transfer of gas from Russia toGermany using the Nord Stream 2
pipeline.

(26:25):
We'll stop exportingsemiconductors and limit access
to technology, and so on.
We need to have a viable,effective, swift strategy that
actually works to nip thisproblem in the bud.
In conclusion, we see thebenefits of building a new

(26:45):
system of global governancefounded on, and this is an
element we've also discussed inthis series, on the basis of a
set of shared global ethics,including our recognition of the
oneness of humanity.
This system is really our onlyhope for assuring the peace and
security of our planet, asAlbert Einstein so eloquently

(27:07):
put it, thereby freeing up ourmaterial, mental, psychological,
and spiritual resources so wecan focus on doing what's
important, which is fulfillingour individual and collective
potential.
If you guys are interested inthis topic and in learning more,

(27:27):
for those of you who may nothave been following along with
the series of podcasts, first ofall, I'd urge you to go back and
listen to some of them becausewe go into far more detail on
how each of these variouscomponents actually work.
And the other thing you may wantto reach for is this this book
called Building a WorldFederation, The Key to Resolving

(27:49):
our Global Crises.
It's a short read 45 minutes, 30minutes if you read very fast,
that really lays outcomprehensively the vision here
for what we need to do in orderto maintain peace and security
in the world by building asystem of global governance
infrastructure that actuallydoes what it's supposed to do to

(28:11):
keep us safe.
All right, I will stop here andI'm going to look at comments to
see if there are any questions.
So Jay Tyson.
Thank you, Jay.
Yes, absolutely.
There's been plenty ofaggression by plenty of
countries.
We simply don't have time to gointo it.
In fact, if one takes out a mapof the world and starts looking

(28:32):
at the various countries thathave exhibited aggression
towards each other and toothers, it's actually quite
stunning.
Thank you.
And yes, one of the things thatwe need to do as part of this
new system of globalinfrastructure is to have a new
kind of global executive thatserves this global legislature.

(28:54):
If the system is premised on thefact that there is the shared
ethic of our oneness, it'simpossible to have a global body
in which anybody has the rightof veto, let alone, as you say,
five individuals who may be,whose rulers may be old and
paranoid human beings.

(29:15):
So absolutely, we're talkingabout a radical overhaul in the
system of infrastructure.
And Moji says that right now,we're in a pickle.
Right now starting an offensiveattack against the offender
would be met with a nucleardisaster, which is why we're
talking about the importance, weneed to start building now for

(29:36):
future for future Ukrainedisasters, because we've seen
that these waves keep coming.
This is not going to be the lasttime that this happens.
If we manage to avert a nucleardisaster this time, we can be
absolutely sure that there willbe more Ukraine like instances,
maybe not in the Ukraine itself,although that's quite likely,

(29:58):
but in other parts of the world.
And we need to wise up and getsmart and start building very
rapidly this new globalgovernance system, so that next
time, all the things we talkedabout can happen, and we won't
find ourselves between a rockand a hard place.
Yes, right now all of us, wefind ourselves with our backs

(30:19):
against the wall, and it's likewatching a horror movie unfold
in slow motion.
It's just, it's amazing.
For weeks we had the drumbeatsof,"Oh, it's coming.
And this is how it's going tohappen." Like someone had
written the script out inadvance.
It's not that we didn't know.
And then we're watching itunfold.
And the worst thing is to feelhelpless.

(30:41):
We don't need to feel helpless.
That's the message of thisseries.
Reimagining Our World is we needto take back our agency and say,
"Okay.
So far, we've not made very goodchoices, but going forward, what
can we do now to ensure thatfive years from now--so between
Crimea and this crisis it's been2014 to 2022: eight, nine years.

(31:06):
Imagine if we'd started in 2014building such an infrastructure,
where we might be today, right?
I hope we're not having thisconversation 50 years from now.
I won't be around.
I hope our children, my daughterand our children, our
grandchildren will not be havingthis conversation about we need
to do something.

(31:27):
We don't have the luxury of timeanyway, just given climate
change.
So it's time to get on board andjust start acting.
So please, as you go out intothe world, have these
conversations.
We need to get this conversationpermeating at the grassroots
levels.
So that we can elect the kindsof leaders who can get together

(31:49):
and create the system ofcollective security that we
talked about.
Leaders with the qualities ofwanting only the best interests
of our world, not beingegotistical and narcissistic,
not thinking about their ownself interest, not lacking in
courage, being honest,transparent, trustworthy, and
acting with ceaseless effort todo what's necessary.

(32:14):
I don't see any other commentsfor now.
I really appreciate you joiningme, please.
Let's continue this conversationon Facebook and YouTube.
Please put your comments in,let's all engage as a community
to talk about this and carrythis message out and feel free
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(32:34):
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People can subscribe for free,so I invite you all to invite
your friends to join in.
Take care and have a wonderfulmonth until next month.
Goodbye for now.
That's all for this episode ofReimagining Our World.
I'll see you back here nextmonth.

(32:57):
If you liked this episode,please help us to get the word
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This series is also available invideo on the YouTube channel of
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