Will a U.N. Navy Defend America? UNCLOS U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea

In the past, Karl Rove and other administration officials have defended the treaty on the grounds that the U.S. military supports it. An analysis of why this is the case shows that the dramatic decline in the number of U.S. Navy ships, from 594 under President Reagan to only 276 under President Bush, is driving the Pentagon's endorsement of the pact. Under the sway of international lawyers, Department of Defense officials have concluded that a piece of paper that asserts some rights we already take for granted on the high seas is better than nothing.

The Pentagon is not immune to the influence of international lawyers. My recent report on this matter noted that Navy Commander James Kraska, who handled oceans policy on the Joint Staff of the Pentagon, was among those who paid tribute to Louis Sohn of Harvard, a writer of UNCLOS who co-authored a book, World Peace Through World Law, outlining a plan for transforming the U.N. into a world government. I also discovered a thesis written back in 1996 by a student at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, on the subject of establishing a U.N. Navy. British Professor Gwyn Prins, who served as a consultant in the Office of the NATO Secretary-General, has long advocated such a force.

This kind of thinking is why many conservatives argue that the Pentagon has gone dangerously off-course. They say the answer to UNCLOS is building up the U.S. Navy and the Coast Guard and making our military once again into the "Law ON the Sea."

On the other hand, if we want America to be defended by international lawyers and a U.N. Navy, rather than U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships, UNCLOS makes perfect sense.