The UN is not a government.

Some points regarding the UN:

1.  It has no effective power to enforce anything.

    a. It has no money of its own.  The members make voluntary donations.

    b.  It has no army.  Members volunteer troops for "peace keeping" duty.  Blue Helmets are just spectators everywhere they are placed.  The only exception is in Korea which is an accident of history.  But, Blue Helmet duty is VERY popular with soldiers everywhere because the UN supplementary pay is JUST WONDERFUL.  (as is UN civilian pay).

2.  The UN pretends that its "Resolutions" are something like laws.  They are not.  These multitudinous  documents are useful to the major powers (US, Russia, China, India maybe) when they want to justify some action they wish to take.  The various "Resolutions" on Iraq that the US managed to wheedle out of the Security Council come to mind.  And, the "Resolutions" are oh, so useful as rhetorical devices with which to denounce your long-standing enemies.  The Muslim/Arab states and the Israelis are particularly good at this.

3.  The real value of the UN lies in its role as a coordinating body for its subordinate specialized agencies;  IAEA, UNHCR,  ICAO, etc.  But, in fact, some of them are of no  real value, and exist largely to line the pockets of their staff.

4.  The international courts and investigations run by the UN are a joke.  They have no power whatever against the aforementioned major powers.  War crimes trials?  Yes, the losers get tried after denunciation by the winners.  Once again, the lawyers, investigators etc., live well in the process.  The farcical UN investigation into the murder of Rafiq Hariri is a wonderful example.  It went on forever and guess what!  Hizballah done it! (probably with a wink and a nod from the Assad)  Who woulda thought?  An effort was made in the midst of the investigation to get me to participate.  The pitch was made by a sometimes famous ex-CIA  pundit guy who said that my intimate knowledge of the low personalities among the Lebanese Shia and Hizballah would be the key to making the case for their guilt.  Then, the next day the chief UN investigator called to make the same appeal with a lot of money attached to it.  But, alas, I slithered away without taking the bait.

Perhaps we should bring back the League of Nations.  They also were useless and they have all those empty marble palaces in Geneva.  Maybe with Bill De Blasio in charge the UN might wish to leave New York City.  pl

Comments

[mike]

Babak -

I hope you are correct in your assumption that the UNSC will save us from another global war.

But I'm not confident. How would that work if India and Pakistan start throwing nukes at each other? Perhaps at first the UNSC might put up a unanimous front. But I suspect that would deteriorate quickly if either New Delhi or Islamabad gained an advantage over the other.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Col Lang:

I would ask the commentator called Smoothie comment on this.

Third World, proper, starts at the border of Iran-Pakistan or Egypt-Israel.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Stueeeeee

UN was not setup to prevent any and all wars, only to reduce the chance of a major war among major powers.

Its UNSC needs major reform, France and UK must be ejected, and only Russia, China, and US ought to remain as Permanent members.

US war planes are currently buzzing the Russian Federation's maritime borders in the Black Sea.

If the Russians shoot down one of those planes, what would the United States do?

[Mark K Logan]

Deap,

It wasn't just Powers, the entire Clinton administration in hindsight deeply regretted not intervening in Rwanda. All but certainly she meant a US intervention. Many thought at the time that simply taking out the one radio station could have granted enough time to get some US troops in there. They had reduced their own people's source of information to that one outlet and it was all but unguarded. Contributing to this hindsight is the fact that when the madness passed the people regretted it. It may have been preventable.

Fred, The divide-and-rule playbook predates Marxism. It was SOP for imperial powers, pretty much. I think the Brits were the first who mastered the art but am ready to be corrected on that point. Old also is demonizing the "other". In the case of Rwanda the Germans were the colonialists who created the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicity which did not, before they got there, exist. Once created they lived on after the Germans left. The Germans had done their work well...they had not idly made these divisions, they and had made Haves and Have-Nots out of them. That has sticking power everywhere.

The Germans decided who was what by measuring the width of noses. Wide nose was considered inferior and the narrow nosed were deemed superior.

Calling that crap Marxism would make Hitler a Marxist.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Polish Janitor

UN is not perfect but it is only forum in which problems of global security can be discussed.

Many of the ills that you have enumerated took place after the end of Peace of Yalta, an institution of which UN was.

The path forward, in my opinion, would be to negotiate another Peace to replace that of Yalta - let's say the Peace of Makkinejad.

The Peace of Makkinejad would be among the principal global powers - China, Russia, and US. UN would be re-purposed to serve this new Peace.

I am not hopeful that this idea would be taken up by anyone; as power, know-how, and technique diffuse among many more states, those states would be pushing the envelope - to to speak - to crave out their own portion out of the carcass of the Peace of Yalta.

The alternative is what obtained in the maritime realm for several centuries; Piracy, Letters of Marque, Proxy Battles - until the European states decided that piracy was not benefiting them.

That is one thing.

The other thing is that even with a Peace of Makkinejad at hand - how do you deal with situation when a deranged person has become the executive of a nuclear-armed state?

(The entire Doctrines of Deterrence is based on ideas of Human Rationality etc.)

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

mike:

All of us, like Willy Loman, live by Hope and Hope alone.

[Jimmy_W]

Babak,
"UN is not perfect but it is only forum in which problems of global security can be discussed."

That is true and also irrelevant. Since the end of Colonialism, no country has a global security problem. [The American empire thinks it has a global security problem, but that is more a Borgist conceit.]

The WTO deals with "economic security", but does not derive its powers from the UN charter. The Paris Accord / Kyoto Protocol / etc global warming regimes also do not derive from the UN charter.

Maybe you want to talk about asteroid defense, but the UN is not driving that train, either.

Barring the future emergence of another Hitler-ish imperialist idiot [tho it may be soon], "problems of global security" is low on the list of concerns.

[turcopolier]

Babak

I prefer the motto of the von Senger family. "Neither fear nor hope."

[Eric Newhill]

Babak,
Hope for what?

I know there's an afterlife and that death changes nothing. In the meanwhile, I guess, as far as hope goes, I do find myself hoping for a good fight before I'm too old to be competitive in it. The Marxists and democrats are increasing that one hope. Otherwise good Bourbon and p**sy have always been readily available to me. What else is there?

[Polish Janitor]

Dear Babak, I understand your argument, but I believe that the answer to complex arbitrary and 'enlightened' man-made mechanisms of conflict prevention/resolution be it a forum, an intergovernmental institutions or else is not more of the same thing. You can't heal a sick patient with more sickness. Your hypothetical proposal IMO sounds like building an apartment on the foundations of a half-ruined structure that itself needs to be dismantled before it starts dropping debris on people's heads. I see UN as an excess, as something like a 'big but hollow' statement from the CFR types that has not lived up to its original expectations and probably never will. When there is excess of anything there is vanity and vanity is what UN has achieved since its inception with all its NGOs actors, forums, tribunals, etc.

I do however see a role for the UN in matters such as natural disaster relief, very limited peacekeeping missions, pandemics, health, digging water wells in Africa, education and similar common-sense bread and butter issues not complex matters of war and peace.

Before Yalta there was the League of Nations and that too did not prevent European great powers from projecting power in their region and tipping the BoP to their favor.

The inception of UN coincided with the superpower status of the U.S. and thanks to Cold-War's bipolar distribution of power (unlike in the 19th and early 20th century of great power competition's volatility of power) the world became safer compared to the past so the nations around the world started developing and the lucky ones under the U.S. security umbrella were also able to develop into Fukuyama-style liberal democracies (social reform/democratization) like S.Korea, Japan, Germany and instead of spending on defense they spent their GDP in human development. The moment the U.S. pulls out their forces and evacuate its bases from these nations, they turn into their true national and cultural nature and liberal democracy will vanish.

The peace and the prevention of war that you alluded to happened not because there was this hapless post-WW2 UN org., but because the U.S. was the policeman of the world and boy it was costly, misguided (pushed excessively for social reform instead of stability and order in undeveloped nations during the globalization period), and the blowback was so huge that it is exactly why there is Trump in the WH.

And so here we are in 2020 and the great power competition much like in the 20s and 30s is back. In all honesty, do you believe UN will be able to play any positive role in maintaining peace globally? I think not Babak. But I will be curious to know your response.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Jimmy_W

When B-52 airplanes are buzzing the maritime borders of the Russian Federation, when Russia has deployed a forward defense of hyper-sonic nuclear munitions, when China has deployed a 6000 km. of area-denial defenses; then I would say that there is a critical global security issue.

"Borg" does not explain anything - it is a designation, a name, and not an explanation.

John McCain, considered by many to have been a deranged man, was sent over and over again to the US Senate - one must include by an equally or more deranged constituency. Had McCain agreed to be the VP of Al Gore, he almost certainly would have been the President of the United States after Gore.

I find that possibility - and its analogues - rather disturbing.

[turcopolier]

Eric Newhill

But was the p**sy always good? I am driven by my obsessions to write more of the von Sengers. they were famously Fridolin le pere and Ferdinand le fils. they both were Rhodes scholars and members of a South German noble Catholic family. They were anti-Nazis and Grafin (counts). Their family was spread across Catholic Europe. Hitler hated Fridolin but his skill was such that he could not be eliminated. As General der Panzer Truppin, he commanded 14 Panzer Korps at Cassino. He was a 3rd order member of the community of St. Benedict. During the battle he went often to speak to his ecclesiastical superior, the abbot. His men fought us all to the death. Churchill, in the Commons, said that "across the fog of war it must be said that the struggle of the German 1st Parachute Division and 94th Panzer Grenadier Division are feats of arms that must be honored." I had the privilege of spending some time with Ferdinand when he participated in a seminar at the US Army War College at the request of Colonel David Glantz. We got on well.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Polish Janitor

Thank you for your comments.

Before Yalta there was no Peace, the prior one - the Peace of Vienna - had ended in 1914.

This is the major difference between yourselves and me on the interpretation of the past.

I also think it would be useful to make a distinction between the 1945-1991 period and the time since 1991.

Prior to 1991, USSR and US were competing with each other to grab countries - like the days of the Potentates of Yore - the Tsar, the Ottoman Padeshah etc.

Since 1991, the United States, in my opinion, has tried to make herself the Sovereign of the Planet - an impossibility on a planet that is 2/3 covered with water. That has clearly failed but at its inception, it had a lot of popular support in the United States as well as among her allies in Europe.

On top of that has been the WASP culture-continent's religious war for control of Palestine which will, in my opinion, go on for another century.

The Peace of Makkinejad can reduce the possibility of accidental war among major powers - it will not eliminate it. The WASP religious war could be managed then through a set of cease-fires - like the one obtaining on the Korean Peninsula - but predicated on the lines of control at the time of the armistice.

If you do not like the word "UN", might I suggest "IUN" - standing for Improved United Nations.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Eric Newhill:

"What else is there?" you ask.

Honor.

[turcopolier]

Babak

Neither fear no hope. You fight to the end.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Col. Lang:

Honor

[Eric Newhill]

Babak,
Yes. HOnor. That's what the fighting is all about.

Col Lang,
Yes. Pretty high quality for the most part. I'm unusually discerning in that regard. More than just good looks; gotta have the right spirit too.

[Yeah, Right]

“You are not as bad as I thought, but the idea that the UN exists to perpetuate enmities is just childish.”

Again, you misunderstand. It does not seek to perpetuate enmities as if that is in any way a good thing, or somehow a desirable state of affairs. But the diplomats who created the UN recognised that those enmities existed - how could they not in 1945 - and sought a way by which those enmities could be managed short of yet another armed conflict between globe-spanning military alliances.

To put it crudely: the General Assembly was for the 3rd world countries and the non-aligned to let off steam, while the Security Council is where it was at as far as the major players were concerned. A they were very insistent that they could neutralise each other by veto.

Again, not a happy accident. Quite deliberate.

[Jimmy_W]

Babak,
"forward defense of hyper-sonic nuclear munitions"

The so-called "Nuclear Holocaust", while involving many states, never was, nor is, a "global security problem". Even when South Africa and/or Brazil/Argentina had supposed nuclear weapon programs, Most of Africa and South America were not part of the Nuclear Holocaust scenarios. And much of Oceania, too.

And the so-called "Nuclear Winter" would have been a blessing-in-disguise, if you believe in any of the so-called Global-Warming projections.

While I sympathize with those of us obsessing over their personal fates in a nuclear Armageddon, that obsession is ultimately a psychiatric condition.

You earlier spoke of every state wanting nuclear weapons, in the absence of the UN. For a good number of them, that is a perfectly rational desire, UN or not.

[Polish Janitor]

Babak Makkinejad,

It is pleasant engaging with you brother. I have no problem with the nomenclature and the IUN sound about fine, but as I said I'm not too optimistic about the prospect of a reformed UN. Nonetheless, one could see how UN might be able to fulfill some conflict resolution role under certain circumstances.

With regards to the WASPs religious crusades, I agree with you. But unfortunately the WASPs along with their deranged dispensationalist sidekicks(Scofield Bible evangelicals) apparently do not respect any law (IUN or else).

[Fred]

Mark Logan,

"divide-and-rule" The Romans were masters of the craft for centuries. The Inca and Aztec practiced their own versions, which is one reason Cortez found willing allies when he marched on Teotihuacan. As to Rawanda, Babak blames the French, you point out what the Germans did and I'm sure someone else will bring in the Belgians. All those people weilding all those machetes and none with agency to say no to all that killing.

[Eric Newhill]

Sir,
I will look into von Sengers. Hopefully your writing on that topic will be available to us.

In the realm of German military leadership, I like Guderian a lot. I studied him (the man) and his armor tactics and hoped, at first glance, he might even be Armenian, but, of course, he was not.

[Serge]

The UN? Speaking of anachronisms:
Hamas recycles shells from British ships sunk off Gaza during WWI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkarL5uWeI
Salvage operation starts at 39:10. "UK Royal Navy’s HMS M15 warship was sunk off Gaza in 1917 during World War I."

[turcopolier]

Eric Newhill

Guderian? Sure, a grand theoretician of the armored theory, but the truly great men were Rundstedt, Manstein, Kesselring. After them came Manteufel, Rommel, Senger, Senger was notable because he was so Christian, as was his son. "Neither fear nor Hope." As a veteran of VN I understand that.

[Mark K Logan]

Fred.

For such matters IMO the question becomes who has the power to stop it. "Agency" becomes something for lawyers to argue about.