The main thrust of the conference can be summed up in one term: multilateralism. Multilateralism, in the context of Davos, is an attack on the legitimacy of the United States in exercising sovereign national rights outside the framework of international institutions. The U.N., International Monetary Fund, EU and various multinational NGOs are multilateral organizations. This means two things: First, they are the creations of more than one nation; second, their mission is to bridge the gap between nations, thereby reducing conflict. There is an ethical imperative here. The view is that nationalism is the problem that drove the world to catastrophe in two world wars -- and that multinational organizations are more than simply useful contrivances that serve the interests of various nations; they are moral enterprises whose very existence helps save the world from conflict.
This is very much the European view, and it is understandable. European nationalism led the Continent and the world into unprecedented exercises of barbarism throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The Europeans, deeply traumatized by the horror that clearly ran just beneath the surface of their civilization and which they no longer could deny, grabbed hold of the U.S.-inspired system of multinational relations and expanded on it for two reasons. One was the explicit mission (such as economic development), and the second was the moral mission, which was to limit the autonomy of European nations in order to prevent another outbreak of European nationalism. NATO and the EU were useful as ends in themselves, but their deepest purpose was to prevent the outbreak of another Franco-German war by tying the two nations together in a single network of relations.
This is very much the European view, and it is understandable. European nationalism led the Continent and the world into unprecedented exercises of barbarism throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The Europeans, deeply traumatized by the horror that clearly ran just beneath the surface of their civilization and which they no longer could deny, grabbed hold of the U.S.-inspired system of multinational relations and expanded on it for two reasons. One was the explicit mission (such as economic development), and the second was the moral mission, which was to limit the autonomy of European nations in order to prevent another outbreak of European nationalism. NATO and the EU were useful as ends in themselves, but their deepest purpose was to prevent the outbreak of another Franco-German war by tying the two nations together in a single network of relations.