Dealing with dictators: Westphalian and American strategies

The 1648 Westphalia settlement contained a recipe for the toleranceof political and religious diversity within states. Until the twentiethcentury, European governments generally tolerated a pluralityof political forms. Breaking with the Westphalian tradition,the Bolsheviks were the first to deny moral and diplomatic legitimacyto ‘bourgeois’ regimes. Although the United Stateshas recognized, placated and supported a number of dictatorships,it has also used extreme measures to oust regimes that do notmeet unspecified tests of democracy. The United States, breaking rankswith the UN Security Council strategy of containing Hussein,has sought to destroy him through bombing. The Rambouillet agreement,I argue, was a case of ‘faux’ diplomacy, an ultimatumdesigned to provoke Milosevic to war. American responses topolitical diversity in the world raise a number of importantquestions about the continuation of the Westphalian tradition.Are we to have a world of political heterogeneity or homogeneity?If the latter, who will decide on the criteria for inclusionin the club of states, and how will the decisions be made?