Stephen Schlesinger, director of the World Policy Institute and a recent guest at USM for United Nations Day tried his best to answer the question: Why does the United Nations seem so ineffectual when faced with a military crisis? A tough question, yet one that so many have asked before. It got me thinking.
The world, in 1945, was emerging from a period of war and destruction that was unprecedented in scope and brutality. Within a period of approximately 33 years the globe descended in full-scale war not once but twice. After the gradual collapse of the League of Nations in the 1930s (a front-runner to the U.N. established after World War), and with the onset of the Cold War, there was a sense of urgency in establishing some kind of global body that could regulate world affairs.
Since that time, the necessity of the U.N. has been called into question on a number of occasions, and most recently with Iraq. Yet, as Schlesinger pointed out, the effectiveness of the U.N. is entirely dependant on the willingness of its constituents (i.e. its member states) to work together and seek common resolution to the problem at hand. This Idealistic dream of collective security is far from being a reality, something that becomes evident during inter and intra state war. But this is where the greatest misperception of the U.N. occurs.
While collective security is an integral role of the U.N., it is in fact only one of its hats. But because war and chaos get more media attention than resource management, humanitarian aid, and polio vaccination combined, the only time the general public hears about the U.N. is when it is at its most ineffectual.
The key to the U.N. and its military capabilities lays in the Security Council, the small body composed of five permanent members called the P5: China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States. This structure reflects the world powers of 1945. There are 10 additional members on the council who sit for a two year term. The council fulfills the idea of giving the U.N. some kind of metaphorical teeth. They are the group who decides to take any kind of collective military action, after it is debated and resolved But there is a catch; each of the P5 countries has veto power on resolutions that come before the council. This means that if, for example, the US or China don’t want the UN to take action on a particular issue, they have the ability to block it.
Because the council is composed of countries that have different agendas and are also competing against one another, it can only be expected that there will be disagreement almost constantly.
The veto is the cause of much stress and chagrin for the members of the council, let alone for the many down trodden people in this world. Yet if the veto didn’t exist then neither would the UN as none of its architects, essentially the P5, would have agreed without it. Think about the scenario of creating a world body centered around five nations that have just experienced significant losses in world war. All of them could agree that something needed to be done to prevent this from happening again, yet none were sure how much they could trust the others. Also consider that even at this time the US and the USSR were sure their relationship would eventually sour.
In light of this, it becomes important to focus on the measures of reform that can be brought in to make the U.N. a more decisive, acting body, but also to recognize what outstanding work the U.N. does in all other areas. As Mr. Schlesinger pointed out, the U.N. is imperfect in its design, but be thankful that it exists at all. In a world were microseconds can change everything, its good to have a neutral environment where opposing governments can get together and talk about it. That place is at the U.N. u
David Brown is a political science major at USM.