■"As Nations Lobby to Join Security Council, the U.S. Resists Giving Them Veto Power: A U.N. balancing act: the old guard and the new world order," by Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 15 May 2005, p. A12.

■"Oil-for-Food Benefited Russians, Report Says: Iraq Sought to Influence U.N. Through Moscow," by Justin Blum and Colum Lynch, Washington Post, 16 May 2005, p. A1.

■"Court on Crimes in Former Yugoslavia Hits Its Stride: Suspects charged with atrocities are brought to justice," by Marlise Simons, New York Times, 15 May 2005, p. A3.

■"After Its Epidemic Arrival, SARS Vanishes ," by Jim Yardley, New York Times, 15 May 2005, p. A6.

■"Rebuffing Bush, 132 Mayors Embrace Kyoto Rules," by Eli Sanders, New York Times, 14 May 2005, p. A8.

Great collection of stories demonstrating that international cooperation across the Core is-by and large-alive and well.

We've got several New Core and a couple of crucial Old Core (Japan, Germany) powers looking to acquire permanent seats on the UN Security Council, but because of its archaic, Cold War-derived veto-driven rule set, few security issues will be served by expanding the number of great powers able to kill a UNSC action with a single veto. Until that rule set changes, the U.S. is right to want to hold off that dilution of its power.
The reality is that the UNSC is not the venue for that power to be employed. The far better example of such consensus-based great power decisionmaking is found in the G7/8/20.

[As a sidenote on the Brinkley article, doesn't "old guard" and "new world order" strike you as far more obscure and thus less useful descriptors than Old and New Core?]

The G-7/8/20 venue is the logical place for conducting summiteering on the military-market nexus, because when you get the biggest economies and the biggest militaries around the table, you reduce the sense of zero-sum uncertainty that many great powers still associate with the "unilateral" employment of the U.S. Leviathan force, and it's that uncertainty that gets you scandals like Food-for-Oil.

The increasing willingness of the G7/8/20 institutions to take on security issues since 9/11 shows both the health of this organization and its fundamental utility as a discussion forum for great powers, easily surpassing that of the UN Security Council, drawn up as it was with ideas from another historical era.

Other international organizations showing vigor include the International Criminal Court, which will eventually get rolling in the same way as has its model and historical precusor, the UN's war crimes tribunal on former Yugoslavia. Eventually, the ICC will emerge as the Core's preferred venue for putting on trial bad Gap actors we collectively remove from power. It's where the rest of the world would like to see certain Sudanese leaders be tried with regard to Darfur, and frankly, it's where Saddam should go on trial-not in Iraq itself as the U.S. has planned.

The World Health Organization is clearly on the rise as an increasingly influential and crucial rule-set provider for the world. Every time a SARS or avian flu rears its diseased head, the WHO tightens up the Core's collective health rule sets while effectively firewalling the Core off from the Gap's potential to generate pandemics.

Finally, the Kyoto Treaty is alive and kicking, despite the U.S. government's unwillingness to sign. In a sign that reminds us that America is a multi-state economic and political union, dozens of U.S. cities across the country have voluntarily signed onto, and adopted the strictures of, the Kyoto Treaty because-hey-that's how democracy in America works, buddy!

Good stuff all around.