Saturday, 5 February 2005

UN deathwatch

One of Austin Bay’s commenters notes a historical “Rule of 72” and figures that we can expect the UN’s death around 2018 (72 years after its 1946 founding). I can’t say I’ll be disappointed since the UN stands in the way of creating a meaningful alternative, like a coalition of liberal democracies.

3 comments:

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That’s what the UN started life as—the hegemony of European liberal democracy. The fatal flaw was the equal vote for all nations. Too many venal kleptocracies, marxist states and tyrannies outvoted the hegemony. Then came the infiltration and domination of the NGOs.

You’re right. It needs to go. Then we start over again, this time with the US, Australia, Britain, Japan, India and a few others.

 

I’m not sure I share much of an antipathy towards the UN; it does manage to do some of the things it’s supposed to do (WHO, UNESCO, UNHCR) about as well as one can expect a bureaucracy to do them.

Unfortunately, it does a fairly rotten job of ensuring international peace and security, which is its core function; in terms of globally pressing security matters it is, at best, a nuisance (e.g. Iraq) and, at worst, a hindrance to achieving peace and security (e.g. general assembly meddling in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

 

Chris,

My objection to the UN is mostly on security grounds. Well, that, and the fact that we’ve institutionalized realpolitik. As for the humanitarian stuff, that could remain and I would be quite happy.

 
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