Global policeman (or world police) is an informal term for a

superpower A superpower is a state with a dominant position characterized by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, technological, political and cultural s ...

which seeks or claims the right to intervene in other

sovereign states A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined terri ...

. It has been used, firstly for the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and, since 1945, of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Nevertheless, the two terms ''hegemon'' and ''global policeman'' are not identical in meaning. The former term defines capacity for dominant control anywhere on earth, whereas the latter may also include small or large areas ''outside control'', along with monitoring and attempted enforcements, but does not define any level of effectiveness. In recent years there has been speculation that

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

seeks to take over the role Jonas Parello-Plesner and

Parag Khanna Parag Khanna (born 27 July 1977 in Kanpur) is an Indian American specialist in geopolitics and globalization. He is the managing partner of FutureMap, and former managing partner of Hybrid Reality as well as Co-Founder & CEO of Factotum. Early lif ...

, 'Stop fretting about Beijing as a global policeman', ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'', 28 December 2011. as it reaches out to control

shipping lanes A sea lane, sea road or shipping lane is a regularly used navigable route for large water vessels (ships) on wide waterways such as oceans and large lakes, and is preferably safe, direct and economic. During the Age of Sail, they were determined b ...

and protect its overseas workers and interests.

In international law

No formal recognition of this position exists. Theoretically, in

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

, all nations are equal; ' par in parem non habet imperium', no authority between equals, is the principle applied, although, in reality some states are relatively more powerful than others. States are 'immortal' and cannot be indicted.

Comparison with state policing

Within states, law restrains and limits power; between states, the opposite is true. The

Peelian principles The Peelian principles summarise the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other countries such as Ire ...

of policing include: the duty to prevent crime, keep the peace and uphold the law, with the consent of the public, and with minimal use of force and restraint; to act impartially; and not to usurp the powers of the judiciary. The latter standard requires a

presumption of innocence The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present com ...

. Candidates for police recruitment and promotion are appointed on merit, whereas a 'global policeman' is self-appointed faute de mieux. Within states, a

monopoly on violence In political philosophy, a monopoly on violence or monopoly on the legal use of force is the property of a polity that is the only entity in its jurisdiction to legitimately use force, and thus the supreme authority of that area. While the mon ...

is the norm; the police may carry weapons, but few others do so (the US is an exception, prompting Charles Lane to ask if it is 'really a state') Internationally, a 'global policeman' is but one heavily armed state among two hundred others. To confer the role of 'global policeman' on any self-interested, expansionary state implies a

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

. States wage war with maximum force; engage in arms sales; form alliances and thus lack impartiality.

History

The UK made efforts to end the

Slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

through the

West Africa Squadron The West Africa Squadron, also known as the Preventative Squadron, was a squadron of the British Royal Navy whose goal was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. Formed in 1808 after the British Parliame ...

In 1827, Britain, jointly with France and Russia, intervened on the side of

Greek independence The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted by ...

, destroying the Turkish fleet at the

Battle of Navarino The Battle of Navarino was a naval battle fought on 20 October (O. S. 8 October) 1827, during the Greek War of Independence (1821–29), in Navarino Bay (modern Pylos), on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, in the Ionian Sea. Allied fo ...

. In 1854, Britain, jointly with France, prevented Russia from destroying the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. Russia had to withdraw from

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...

and

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and so ...

, and

Sevastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

was besieged in the

Crimean war The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. From 1914–1945 no one state was hegemonic, with Britain's power decreasing, but still very much a leading, world role, and with rising powers such as the United States, the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

, and later

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. In an era of

multipolarity Polarity in international relations is any of the various ways in which power is distributed within the international system. It describes the nature of the international system at any given period of time. One generally distinguishes three types o ...

and diffused responsibility, fascist dictators arose and Europe sank into two world wars. according to Richard J Evans, "The authoritarian German challenge to democratic Britain then, is comparable to the authoritarian Chinese challenge to democratic America now.". Between the years 1945 and 1990, the world trade was dominated by the Soviet Union and the United States in what was known to be the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. The

Truman Doctrine The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledged American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was ...

of 1947 promised assistance to anti-communist allies. "The right of neutrality was abolished... it was an era of aggressive peacetime policy which marked the beginning of America's role as global policeman."

Wendy McElroy Wendy McElroy (born 1951) is a Canadian individualist feminist and voluntaryist writer. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of ''The Voluntaryist'' magazine in 1982 and is the author of a number of books. McElroy ...

, 'How America became the World's Policeman',

Independent Institute The Independent Institute is an American libertarian think tank based in Oakland, California. Founded in 1986 by David J. Theroux, the institute focuses on political, social, economic, legal, environmental, and foreign policy issues. It has more ...

, 20/3/2015 Since the end of the

"The enemy is terrorism not communism". But after a disastrous intervention in

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

in 1993, the US was reluctant to engage in

humanitarian intervention Humanitarian intervention is the use or threat of military force by a state (or states) across borders with the intent of ending severe and widespread human rights violations in a state which has not given permission for the use of force. Humani ...

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...

and

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

. The US-led

Invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Ba'athist Iraq, Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one mont ...

, officially a policing mission to find

Weapons of Mass Destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natura ...

, was, according to some, an illegal cover for ulterior, unethical motives: the need to secure US regional bases, oil supplies, and the loyalty of key allies. Since then, serious doubts have been raised about the validity of US overseas intervention and destabilization in Iraq, Libya and Syria. As the 21st century progresses, the morality of global policing itself is increasingly in question, with the inevitable loss of self-determination by nations in which intervention occurs.

Daniel L Davis Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength" ...

, 'What the World Police Analogy gets wrong',

The National Interest ''The National Interest'' (''TNI'') is an American bimonthly international relations magazine edited by American journalist Jacob Heilbrunn and published by the Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D ...

, 2/10/2016 Furthermore, with the advent of non-state threats to global security, prior legal justifications such as general "

laws of war The law of war is the component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of warring parties (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territor ...

" are of questionable jurisdiction.

References

{{reflist

In international law

Comparison with state policing

History

See also

References

Further reading