NATO's collective action problem

The appeal for more NATO troops in Afghanistan was ignored by most member states yesterday.

Why? Well, according to Chris Dillow, it's a classic collective action problem:

The thing is, biffing the Taleban is a public good. Lots of people would benefit from their defeat, but those who (hopefully) achieve it are unable to stop others enjoying those benefits.

And it's well known that free people will not provide sufficient public goods, because every individual wants to free-ride on the efforts of every other - that's Mancur Olson's Logic of Collective Action.

With no other way to galvanise governments, he then makes the following suggestion:

Advocates of a world government are usually regarded as cranks. However, if you believe that the west's security will require regular overseas interventions, shouldn't the idea win more followers as it's an obvious way to solve the free-rider problem?

Alice Fishburn