For years the US has been called the world’s policeman. The term was used widely and with derision during the Iraq War and became a symbol of all the ills of US foreign policy. The film Team America: World Police mocked this crazy and criminal invasion and the idea of a world police.
And yet.
If there is no world’s policeman, and there are lots of countries out there who are the equivalents of the criminals, led by very bad people who are doing and want to do very bad things, who polices them?
What we understand as the course of World War II was changed utterly by the entry of a world policeman. It would not have been won otherwise. It was a bit shit that World War II had to happen in the first place because there was no world policeman before the war started.
The idea of America as a world policeman now seems over. America from now on will side largely with the criminals and against the forces of free democracy and free society (don’t bother pointing out America’s many foreign policy crimes and follies, like, duh).
The UN was supposed to be a sort of world policeman. It’s about as effective as the League Of Nations before it.
To be a policeman, you need access to a baton. And sometimes, a gun.
Does the world need a world policeman*?
*Don’t bother interjecting to point out my use of the word “policeman” rather than “policeperson”.
