When I was a kid studying in fifth grade there was a chapter in my social studies book called “The United Nations”. when I finished that chapter I was more than convinced that war would never happen in this world. I was convinced that UN was built on a solid foundation of brotherhood and mutual understanding. The idea was simple; there is UNESCO for economic growth, there is Security council for discussions related to war and conflicts. There was UNICEF for child care, there were several other organisations too for the smooth functioning of the world.
At that time only the Israel- Philistine, Kashmir and African countries were the regions of conflict otherwise everything else was not exactly fine but peaceful at least.
But then;
1. US attacked Afghanistan after 911. Not that I am against it but I would been happier if the UN forces would have attacked Taliban.
2. US invaded Iraq.. then again I would loved UN inspectors to find something and then attack.
3. Israel- Philistine conflict rose and few years back hundreds of rockets were being fired on each other.
4. China expanded it air space in dispute with Japan.
5. North Korea developed Nuclear weapons
6. Iran was at the brink of a war with USA. Thankfully the tension eased up.
7. Russia invaded Ukraine
8. Syria used chemical weapons
9. Africa is still in the same condition ( almost)
10. World economy had a major depression in 2007
Now these are only the major ones which come into my mind right now; there are many other which I can’t recall. After finishing this list I cannot see any importance of UN in today’s world. It’s just a group of wealthy countries having tea together at the expense of Taxpayers money.
They were not able to resolve not a single world issue. The only reason they still work in Africa because those countries are too small to argue on it’s policies.
NATO is stronger than ever having just 28 members but the UN security force numbers are decreasing day by day given the number of member nations is more than 100.
The only thing I heard from UN on any major incident; is it’s criticism on worldly matters it never actually did anything on the ground level when mattered the most.
Recently when the Malaysian Airline plane went missing I would loved to hear from UN on setting up a combined task force to search for it. Instead 10-12 countries used their own means to do that. This would have given some hope to the world.
Sometimes I think it’s just a platform to enforce laws on weak countries when they are right and use Veto power when any of the five permanent members are right.. In the matters of environment I saw more greenpeace activists doing all sorts of things to protect the environment while the UN conventions were nothing more than diplomatic holidays.
Being a citizen of the EARTH; I do not oppose the ideology of UN but I would love it, if it gets some teeth for some action.
Mahendra