Just as states and provinces don’t go to war when there is a strong national government to arbitrate their disputes, a strong UN would prevent wars between nations. The veto-less UN with access to enforcement troops that Roosevelt originally envisioned would have “kept the peace” by arbitrating international disputes and enforcing its decision. But Stalin’s insistence on a unilateral veto made it
impossible for the UN to deal with the vast majority of issues where there was significant disagreement among the veto powers. In addition to the problems created by the unilateral veto system, figuring out how to give the UN reliable access to enforcement troops has also been a problem for most of its existence. However, the comparatively recent desire of at least twelve big nations to gain some form of guaranteed representation on the UN Security Council provides an avenue to solve that problem. Furthermore, none of veto powers except the US wants to use their vetoes to prevent the UN from replacing them as the world policeman. Therefore, Washington insider attachment to disempowering the UN so that we can be the world policeman is the only real reason that a geo-politically UN empowerment proposal cannot be enacted (see page three of this site). Now that Iraq and Afghanistan help remind us of the costs of being the world policeman, there is a logical basis for most Americans to see the advantages of offloading our world policeman burden to the larger world through UN empowerment. In fact, a separate paper I will send you if asked demonstrates that we would make major economic gains if we used an empowered UN to responsibly offload the direct and indirect costs associated with being the world policeman. Another reason that we must deal with this now is that the more powerful Chinese superpower that will emerge in twenty or thirty years might not be as agreeable about UN empowerment as the existing Chinese government. In fact, getting China to accept a strong UN now would be a way to deflect China from a militarily adventurist course when it gains the power to act unilaterally. Furthermore, we could leverage our agreement to accept a stronger UN to gain third world agreement to empowering the UN to deal more effectively with terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Finally, we might be able to leverage our agreement to end US unilateralism to gain other concessions which are in US interests. As important as the political and economic advantages of accepting an empowered veto-less Security Council are, they pale compared to the advantage of ending war and creating a more cooperative and peaceful world (see page four of this site). Just as Woodrow Wilson correctly disagreed with conventional wisdom when he said that another world war was inevitable unless his League of Nations was given more power, Albert Einstein predicted that nuclear war is ultimately inevitable unless we empower the UN to fulfill its charter obligation to reliably “keep the peace.” Precisely because those critics who say that the UN is too weak to be relied on to “keep the peace” are right, we have to correct the two key structurally deficiencies of the UN i.e., the veto and lack of enforcement troops. Otherwise, the cycle of wars that has plagued humanity since time immemorial will continue and eventually one war will escalate to a nuclear war. When one also considers the desperation that might drive nations when global warming, overpopulation and resource depletion get worse, there is good reason to believe that whether we empower the UN now to help us work cooperatively to deal with global issues will probably determine whether our human civilization collapses within a century or two. If you liked what you read, please forward it to anyone you know. If you want to read more or help create a movement for change please write me at my outside email address. Thank you very much
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