Multipolarity, Syria and a New Concert  Dan Trombly had, as he
often does, an interesting blog post the other day on the
possibility of a new concert. Not one with Bruce Springsteen,
but rather a global concert of great powers akin to the 19th
century Concert of Europe, where nation-states acted by a set of
unwritten rules to maintain peace (this came in response to a
previous post by Dan Nexon over at the Duck of Minerva). The
shadows of Libya and Syria veritably loom over the text as the
discussions of intervention and R2P (Responsibility to Protect)
have stirred up an interesting debate on the role of norms in
international relations. The overarching question seems to be,
should the international community (a terribly fuzzy term, and
usually code for the United States and Western Europe) intervene
in other states to prevent genocide and other atrocities,
couched in the R2P framework? I don’t want to get into this
larger debate here, but instead look at the larger issue of a
concert or cartel in the interna