The UN's Effectiveness: An Overview

[Jonstar]

effect of the un

 

[member 5645]

The UN, in it's present state, is absolutely a bloated wasteful worthless body. It is full of corruption, has no teeth, and needs a revamp.
With that said, I do not support a removal the UN. As I have said, it needs a revamp, and I support fixing a problem, rather than running from it.
Firstly, we need a list of problems with the UN, then a way to fix it.
With human rights abuses in China, nuclear weapons proliferation spreading, and the US poised with the only real military backup for the UN, we need to define what the UN really should be (and who should be in it)
I've got ideas, but none I care to get into this late. PErhaps tomorrow :)

 

[jimmy p]

as effective as a chocolate teapot.

 

[ShawnD]

Originally posted by Jonstar
Throughout centuries, the UN has made goals and such to protect the right's of the imporverished and unfortunate ones.

Isn't the UN only like 60 years old?

I agree that the UN is useless. Nothing ever seems to get done and I see 2 big flaws in the UN.

1. There are something like 5 countries that have the power to veto anything. That has made it impossible to resolve conflicts between countries with veto power. During the cold war, the US would veto anything that had Soviet interest. The Soviets would veto anything with US interest.
France has a huge interest in Iraq because of oil and they have been very friendly to Iraq because of it. France even built a nuclear reactor for Iraq in 1981 (which was later bombed by Israel). If Iraq was found to have weapons of mass destruction and the US went to the UN for permission to attack, France would probably veto any attempt at that. The first Gulf war was UN approved because France was also friendly to Kuwait (another oil rich country).

2. Minor countries hold a large amount of power even though they have little real power such as industry, military, or even just population. Canada (about 30 million people and a strong economy) has as much power as some country in the South Pacific with less than 1 million people and practically no international trade.




The UN is essentially useless.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Jonstar
Throughout centuries, the UN has...

The UN was founded in 1945.

I do agree though, mostly with the opinion that the UN is ineffective.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The UN is the attempt to do democracy with nations. I think the analogy was false and the evidence is that it doesn't work. It keeps going because so many people want to believe in it, but it's moribund.

The UN can't intervene because it can't call on any effective military force. Thus its attempts to control states are limited to sanctions. Sanctions were also the tool of choice of the old League of Nations. If you read the history of the League, before WWII, you will see that the UN has drifted into almost the same blind alley the League did, making meaningless gestures of democracy while being maniputaled by the cynical powers.

 

[FZ+]

Any failure of the UN is due to the failure of its constituent members. It is ultimately a conference of nations, with the hope of giving all a voice. Its failure to agree and act decisively is a symptom of a divided and fractured world. To make it truly "effective", you need to deal with these divisions first.

Trouble is, of course, the only organisation with an interest in uniting the world is the UN. And so, the self-perpetuating slide begins...

 

[Mattius_]

www.un.org/works[/URL]

A tad unilateral, but it does highlight some of the successes of the united nations, among them, immunizing 2 billion people in the world for polio, bringing power to a nepalese community, making an attempt to heal war crimes in sierra leone through counseling, and spreading AIDS awareness in mexico.

So I don't like to hear people using the word useless when they describe the United Nations, I mean, can any organizaiton really cure some of the problems the UN is expected to? The goals are unrealistic sometimes, that's all.

 

[Nereid]

And let's not forget the refugees - if you were one of the unfortunate millions (tens of millions? hundreds of millions??), would you say the UN has been useless?

Jonstar, as others have said more eloquently than I could, whatever it is that the UN does, what *realistic* alternative do you have, to put in its place?

 

[FZ+]

I still disagree: The UN was not meant to look over the world - it was meant to be the world, represent the world.

 

[motai]

If you read the history of the League, before WWII, you will see that the UN has drifted into almost the same blind alley the League did, making meaningless gestures of democracy while being maniputaled by the cynical powers.

Diplomatic sanctions pretty much limited the League's power (in addition to the absense of U.S) When Japan invaded Manchuria before WWII the most they could do was kick them out of the League of Nations and say "Stop that."

If the UN is tangled in disagreement politically, it still can be effective with widespread humanitarian missions. After all, isn't the UN an idea as well as a philosophy? It is meant to further and unite the world so events like WWII won't happen again.

 

[Shadow]

Effectiveness of the UN...wait what have they effected again? oh, that's right... Nothing.

Put simply, the U.N basically follows this order.
An important topic is brought up. It is debated and discussed and all positive and negative aspects of this topic ( or action) are brought up. Half the U.N is for it, half against it. Then, all the politicians decide that its too dangerous to make any action, because if it is the wrong one, they will lose their nice comfy seat of power.
So, while they may say they discussed things thoroughly, they usually end up at ground zero, with no decision made but to stay out of it.

 

[jimmy p]

what do the UN do? They disagree with everything Britain does and slags them off, and then when Britain sort the problem out, they cower in their seats and pretend they said nothing..

 

[Njorl]

The UN is the worst multinational organization dedicated to the promotion of peace and human welfare there is. It is also the best.

It is flawed. It may not be the most effective engine to use the funds it spends in attempt to fulfill its mission, but it does some good. The world would be worse without it. More importantly, the future world would be worse without what the UN has the potential to become.

Njorl

 

[Nereid]

what do the UN do? They disagree with everything Britain does and slags them off, and then when Britain sort the problem out, they cower in their seats and pretend they said nothing..

That's just not true jimmy, and the UK willingly and meaningfully joins many UN initiatives, for which it gets just praise.

One way to look at the UN is that it's only as good as its members deserve (FZ+'s point, in different words) - if the individual members (esp the permanent members of the Security Council) were able to cooperate better, coordinate more effectively, be less anal about control, etc, etc, etc, the UN would surely be given more respect for its good deeds.

Many posters in this thread have expressed a desire for a 'global' organisation which does more to alleviate misery and suffering that result from national policies of greed, brutality, and worse. Don't all our hearts bleed on hearing of yet another massacre? yet another gross travesty of natural justice? But aren't we then condemning the UN for failing to do something it could never do? Aren't our expectations set at unreasonably high levels?

 

[jimmy p]

Yeah, the UK joins in with the UN but it is ALWAYS British soldiers sent in first...

 

[Shadow]

not true...often the US goes in first... of course a lot of times we bring up the issues...but still we are first

 

[Nereid]

The UN is about much more than sending in troops, and the UK and US make notable contributions to the Human Rights, Economic and Social Development, Humanitarian Affairs areas in the UN ... and so do many other countries.

Even in the Peacekeeping area, I would guess few of us have even heard of half the missions; for example, http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/onumoz.htm , with force commanders from Brazil and Bangladesh (and a police commissioner from Egypt); >6,000 troops deployed, >20 killed.

And, measured in terms of fatalities per 100,000 population, surely Fiji has paid much more dearly than the UK or US in support of international security?

 

[Shadow]

True...however Onumoz ended almost 10 years ago, and I cannot speak for everyone but I have been speaking of more recent situations.
However, I am not sure about Fiji...can you provide a link or more complete data?

 

[ShawnD]

If the US was there for oil, gas prices in the US would go down, not up.

 

[member 5645]

bump?

What about the War in Iraq? any comments? Clearly, the U.S is there for oil and not to safeguard human rights.

Well CLEARLY! It's so clear that there is all this debate about it! wow!

 

[russ_watters]

What about the War in Iraq? any comments? Clearly, the U.S is there for oil and not to safeguard human rights.

If that's the case, its exceedingly bad economic policy. Congress even voted not to use the proceed from oil sales to fund the reconstruction.

 

[Jake]

The UN I don't think, is effective at all except mabye for the most desperate situations but even that is a stretch.

The orginization of the UN garuntees that there WILL BE NO garuntee of fairness, because of the default and unchanging of the balance of power within the UN, as well as the unqalified representatives who represent each country.

 

[schwarzchildradius]

The UN was founded in 1945.

I do agree though, mostly with the opinion that the UN is ineffective.

It's interesting in this thread, how at first the opinion was very negative of the UN but as people started researching a bit the opinion changed a bit. But let's talk about Iraq -- without the UN, Iraq today would probably be a nuclear power, rich on oil and controlled by that great evil dictator, Saddam Hussein.

 

[Shadow]

The UN was originally against the invasion. Their inspectors said nothing was over there, which while that may be true, they ignored pleadings and warnings of civililians. One that sticks out on my mind was recorded and broadcast by the media. It should a man running up to the UN pleading with them, and being dragged away by Iraqi guards.

 

[hughes johnson]

without the UN, Iraq today would probably be a nuclear power, rich on oil and controlled by that great evil dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Without the UN, Saddam would have been out of power years ago.

 

[schwarzchildradius]

Without the UN, Saddam would have been out of power years ago.

You mean with unilateral US action, or what? You know, or it seems like you don't, the US in 1991 was part of a true international coalition allied to evict the Republican guard from Kuwait. By the way, what has Saddam done to you that you feel we need to destroy thousands of lives to git him?

 

[russ_watters]

Well, since the thread is back from the dead, I never responded to this:

But let's talk about Iraq -- without the UN, Iraq today would probably be a nuclear power, rich on oil and controlled by that great evil dictator, Saddam Hussein.

How do you figure? Iraq isn't a nuclear power largely because Israel destroyed its highly developed nuclear program (French supplied of course) in 1981 and it never fully recovered. In '91 we hit them again (fortunately, they didn't get another French reactor - but the French would have sold them another if they could have). The best that can be said is that the UN didn't help them rebuild their nuclear program.

Also, in a dictatorship, you can't really say the country is rich...

And I don't see how the UN (lead by the "coalition of the unwilling") did anything but stand in the way of the removal of Hussein. That's one of the primary criticisms of the US invasion.

 

[studentx]

How can ppl get so confused they would rather have Saddam than the Americans there?

 

[hughes johnson]

How can ppl get so confused they would rather have Saddam than the Americans there?

No one is confused. It's just the way democrats conduct their presidential campaigns. You'll get used to it after a few decades.