John Kerry keeps talking about "Internationalizing" the war in Iraq. In a speech he put it quite plainly: "The United States is bearing 90% of the military and financial burden in Iraq."  His assertion is that "Bush's go it alone policies" have created this situation.

And Kerry is wrong, the US is "only" bearing roughly 75% of the total burden militarily (I don't have the exact figure and the number changes by a few percent but if you add the UK + Poland + Japan + Ukraine + Australia, + Spanish + the others you get roughly 20% to 25% of the total personnel in Iraq).

The Bush administration lamely responds "I don't think it's right to discount the contributions of countries like Japan, Poland, Ukraine, Spain, UK, etc."   It's lame because it doesn't get to the heart of the matter.

Let's say a President Kerry were in office. What would be the difference? Let's say he got France and Germany and Belgium to love us again. And? We already have a taste of what utilitarianism's benefits are. Afghanistan. For all the "support" of the "world community" that we "squandered", that support didn't translate into much of a physical manifestation.

France provided some aircraft in Afghanistan. Aircraft that would refuse missions if their politicians objected to the mission. The number of French and German and Belgium troops on the ground was miniscule to say at best (the number in some cases may be 0 but I don't want to state that as an absolute).  A few hundred Canadian soldiers were involved in Afghanistan. In short, "international" support didn't exactly buy us much in Afghanistan in terms of feet on the ground.

Now, fast forward to Iraq 2006 with a President Kerry in charge and having kissed the butts of the UN so that they're all helping us in Iraq.  What does that materially buy us? We have ~150,000 American troops on the ground.  Is Kerry or any of his supporters arguing that the French would somehow send over 50,000 troops to help out and Germany an equal number?

Remember the first Gulf War? The one that had UN approval? The model of multilaterialism?  The US burden in the UN approved Gulf War was (according to CNN) (wait for it) >75%. Tthe French sacrifice included 2 combat deaths -- during the entire conflict.

The horse still lives so a few more whacks: Non-UN approval for current US policy in Iraq puts the US burden in Iraq at over 75%.  UN approval of US action would likely put the US burden in Iraq at...over 75%.

I'm not sure which is worse - Bush's poor response to Kerry's assertions that our problems in Iraq would be helped by "working with our allies better" or the very fact that Kerry either doesn't know or is lying about not realizing that "working with allies" would not materially change anything in Iraq.

There is no phantom military force that we could magically conjure up by kissing up to the UN.

update: According to the stats, Belgium, Germany, and France have around ~2,500 troops in Afghanistan. I'll leave it to others whether they agree with whether that is minuscule or not. I don't consider that number to be very significant in light of the fact NATO invoked article 5.

In addition, some have pointed out in the Gulf War that much of the cost was paid by allies. However, virtually all of that cost came from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. So it's disingenuous to make that argument unless one believes there is a credible scenario that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia might somehow pay a sizeable portion of the costs in Iraq today.

Alex Becherer writes that we are currently providing "88%" of the troops in Iraq. By contrast we "only" provided 76% in 1991. I don't think most Americans would consider that difference significant. Or at least, not significant enough to be worth the strings that the additional 12% of troops would come attached with.