I see lots of hand wringing about the WHO decision but rather than cliched kumbaya hand holding let's unpack some of this. Let me posit at the start I am in spirit and in theory a full throated globalist. The burden of knowledge has made me a jaded cynic about the reality 1/n
The first mistake defenders of institutions like the WHO make is implicitly assuming it is an unqualified good. I don't think based upon evidence that is necessarily true. As we have seen with corona, at best the WHO has proven itself profoundly incompetent and unprepared 2/n
Realistically, they are little more than a branch office of the CCP. This raises the question what is their value add to efforts like fighting pandemics? If anything the WHO HINDERED the fight against corona with an awful multiplier effect. Countries and researchers 3/n
Used WHO guidance to do everything like turnout awful research to take no steps until it was way too late. If you are going to argue that the US should continue to contribute you need to demonstrate what is the value added over sending something like sending out daily CDC 4/n
Guidance to countries or coordinating with friendly and willing countries. This leads to the second issue which is the long term institutional rot of the WHO and similar institutions. For a variety of reasons, these issues have popped up more under Trump but these are long 5/n
Term issues. Heck the UN Human Rights Council has been a shambolic disaster for probably 30 years and you know what (lean in close I'm going to whisper this): It's going to be a shambolic disaster as long as it exists regardless of what the US does and regardless of 6/n
Whether it is President Trump, President Tulsi Gabbard, President Biden, or President Care Bear making this decision. There are many reasons for this but one of the most fundamental is that authoritarian states with money from China have an ENORMOUS incentive to stack the 7/n
Council while Sweden is bored of authoritarian preening and wants to get back to Ikea meatballs. Now combine these two points: the institutions are not unqualified goods and in fact, structurally they have ENORMOUS structural deficiencies. Here is my own thought: 8/n
The post WWII institutional landscape was made to respond to certain landscape with specific underlying assumptions that countries would adopt the norms and ideals of those organizations. There was even some exclusion during the Cold War from these institutions based upon 9/n
Geopolitical alignment. Now countries are actively trying to remake those institutions for less liberal and technocratically proficient ends. Most countries receiving little benefit have invested little invested in them while generally appreciating the previous ideals. 10/n
This institutional landscape is rapidly reaching a crisis point demanding a broad rethink that faces the reality of a Cold War 2.0 with a savy communist authoritarian state who can manipulate the system rather than the unicorn idealism so many want the system to be. 11/n
Reality is rapidly overtaking the ideals we want and hope for those institutions. It would bear more fruit to rethink the entire system than cling to an untenable and unrealistic system destined for failure. Done.
