Although the Cold War came to an end more than a quarter century ago, the United States and the Russian Federation still deem it essential to their national interests to maintain nuclear arsenals capable of crippling global human civilization. Several other countries maintain significant nuclear capabilities. As much as we shrink from acknowledging it, the fact remains that the current international status quo is dangerously unstable. Yet there are no proposals being considered at the present time that are sufficiently bold to make a significant difference, and yet sufficiently sensible to command respect.
Evolutionary World Government breaks free of the conventional preconceptions that are hobbling the human imagination at this critical moment in our history. The book describes and evaluates a comprehensive, fully innovative plan for improving the prospects of global human civilization as we confront an uncertain future. The economic aspect of the plan is the initiation of a worldwide economic development effort tentatively designated the Global Marshall Plan, while the political aspect of the plan is the foundation of a limited federal world government tentatively designated the Federal Union of Democratic Nations.
The key element underlying this pragmatic approach to international harmonization is the discarding of the traditional world federalist ideal of the “omnipotent world state,” and its replacement with the objective of a properly limited federal world government that would allow the free departure of member nations from the federation, and would also permit member nations to exercise independent control over their own military forces. In the long run, these reserved national rights would become irrelevant reminders of the distant past, but in the short run they are vital to the initial formation of a global federation that would eventually, through gradual evolutionary processes, become a highly authoritative—yet fully democratic and benign—world government.