United Nations, explained.
“The international community must rediscover the extraordinary potential of collective action” – Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, European Council’s António Costa, Kenya’s William Ruto and Canada’s Mark Carney (@LulaOficial/X, MEA Photo Gallery, President of the Republic of Finland, @MarkJCarney/X)
Leaders keep inventing new forums to fix multilateralism – when the institution they need already exists.
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P4M: A new club for middle powers – and the same old habitsP4M: A new club for middle powers – and the same old habits
As ambition goes, credit to the leaders of Brazil, the European Council, Kenya and Canada.
“We believe,” they write in a joint op-ed (Opens in new window) published this week in the Financial Times, “that the international community must rediscover the extraordinary potential of collective action.”
It is a huge aim.
They are calling it P4M – Partners for Multilateralism – an initiative timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly to support reform of the United Nations and other global institutions, “to make them more representative, legitimate, effective and trusted.”
Canada’s Mark Carney has helped catalyse this effort, capturing acclaim for his remarks at Davos earlier this year. Australia’s Anthony Albanese has been eager to associate himself with the middle power moment – although apparently not enough for Australia to be a co-author of the article.
Nothing in the op-ed cuts across what Albanese has said about the importance of multilateralism. Australia might not have been asked to write, of course. Perhaps the organisers balked at adding another Western power. Or maybe it was Canberra’s caution. But Albanese will participate in what is billed as a “summit (Opens in new window)” in New York today with the four leaders from the op-ed plus India’s Narendra Modi and Barbados’ Mia Mottley.
Each time the world has confronted a crisis, the reflex has been to set a new table for leaders to gather around and dine out on global ills.
The United States will be wary. Donald Trump’s animus toward world organisations in general – and Carney in particular – is well documented. Senior Pentagon official Elbridge Colby recently dismissed the “hubbub” about middle power coalitions, calling instead (Opens in new window) for a philosophy of “flexible realism”.
Doubts about whether P4M will gain traction become evident in what the four leaders write. Quick to define what they don’t want – it “is not about creating another exclusive bloc or another international bureaucracy” – they say:
“Its purpose is the opposite: to create a flexible, open framework for countries from different regions and political traditions that are willing to work across divides, to build coalitions for reform and to translate shared principles into practical action.”
That sounds a lot like the very purpose of diplomacy.
So, while putting a label on a new initiative helps with marketing, the point seems to be a renewed statement of old principles. To translate them into practical measures they will need the heft of a bureaucracy.
And that’s been a problem in the modern era. Each time the world has confronted a crisis, the reflex has been to set a new table for leaders to gather around and dine out on global ills.
The COP summits for climate change.
The G20 after the global financial crisis.
Don’t like the G7? Set up BRICS. Feeling left out? MIKTA is the answer (Opens in new window) from Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Türkiye and Australia.
None are without achievements. But whether it is the Quad or the East Asia Summit, the proliferation of these meetings, especially at leader-level, puts an extra burden on already over-worked individuals. Now we can add the P4M. After the fanfare of a launch, these groupings quickly descend into busy-work, the impression of action by scheduling, deciding hosting rights, crafting communiques and setting agendas for working groups. Outcomes drift.
So, by all means, get stuck into fixing the blocked plumbing of global affairs to ensure the connections flow again. But it is grubby work of compromise, working not only with those “like-minded” countries but convincing recalcitrants that supporting broader principles is itself a potent form of power.
The world doesn’t need another venue for debate. It has one. The United Nations.
About the author
Daniel Flitton
Daniel Flitton is one of Australia’s most experienced foreign affairs journalists and is Managing Editor of the Lowy Institute’s international magazine, The Interpreter.
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