UN useless?
 

I came to thinking that the UN can't actually do what it set out to do. So I came to think how this can be solved. My solution is that all countries surrender all military power to the United Nations, who own their own piece of land. It is run similar to the US form of government, Elected leader country, house of commons of countries, senate of coutnries, etc., etc. House of Commons operates by top ethnicities within a country (i.e. if Canada had 3 representatives, 1 would be English Canadian, another French Canadian, last one Chinese Canadian). something like that. details could be ironed out further, but this i feel is the only way the UN can do what it set out to do.

comments or questions on my rant?

The UN will never be able to do what it set out to do, because no state will give up their sovereignty. And its a good thing they dont, i thought the UN is scarily power hungry as is, but to be the only governing body with a military? are you mad? pretty soon no one will have the right to do anything the UN doesnt like and no one can say squat about it because they are the only ones that can enforce any kind of laws, i can assure you that the first right to go will be all of our guns, as the only way we could prevent them from doing anything else is to take them out militarily, and anyone who could organize a coup would controlt he world.

yes but the UN has no citizens affiliated ONLY with it. no one could really start a coup on an organization based on a powerless president. Seriously, Bush is powerless. he has to go through HoC and Senate. And if you think that the coupers could slowly take over Senate and HoC positions, a simple solution would be to re-elect Senate and HoC every # of years, with no repeat terms. this would keep the ranks filled with idealistic University Grads, whom of course will try to make the world a better place to live. Ignorance here can be used to benefit mankind, rather than detract from it. Some poli-sci students i know are pretty freaky on their ideals, all hippie-crazy freaky about world peace and ending world hunger.

I was talking about a Coup on the UN. And i think you are the only one so far i know here to recognize how powerless a president is. The UN wouldnt have to have any citizens affiliated with it Either, Infact it would make it even easier to make a coup against it, since non of its citizens will retaliate , since it has no citizens, And when a place like that ...actually when any place, has the only military power in the world , they control the world and everything that goes on in it

Congratulations, if created a proposal more unrealistically ideal than the League of Nations! Oh sorry, I’m being catty. Anyway, I slide with the staunch realists on things like this. The problem with the UN is that it’s just a little club house for the world’s nations which are ultimately self-serving sovereign states only concerned with their own well being. It always gets me when people say the UN doesn’t do anything; that misses the point entirely; it’s the countries in the UN that don’t do anything.

Kofi Anon isn’t President of the world; he just kind sits at the focal point of the general assembly because he’s like the talk show host of the place or something. When it comes time to put collective security into action a nation goes, “I don’t wanna!” like a little kid roused to go to school, there’s really not a whole lot anyone can do. Collective security will only ever work if the world’s states want it to work, which is a lot like saying Marxism would work if were all naturally good. Trying to get The US, The UK, France, China, and Russia to agree on anything is like trying to feed every animal the zoo the same thing. Thus, even when obvious examples of human rights abuses occur (Rwanda genocide is the most obvious example.) the diplomatic mess of the little kids who run our world is going to make sure nothing useful happens.

Call me a cynic, but there’s no way around it; there could never be a world state, not for a good two or three centuries. What, is Nato going to try to conquer and democratize all the crappy countries? Fall of Rome anyone? The kind of colonial investment it’d take to try and bring the crappy parts of the world up to par is just way too much. Never mind the fact that we in the nicer parts of the world don’t even bother spending a single percent of our massive GDP on aid for the struggling countries or that generally most nations aren’t going to much care for liberation if it means becoming a satellite state of some superpower so that you’ll have worldwide revolt on your hands. States like being sovereign, and its going to stay that way for long time so that no IGO will ever have any power other than to act as a forum for state actors to call each other names.

The US is a perfect example. Richest country in the world, but it doesn’t bother paying its dues to the UN. Add ontop of that the murder of Kyoto, the treaty to ban land mines, attempts to derail the world court, and so on and so fourth and you get a nice example of that self interest nations are driven by interfering with the interests of the larger international community. That being said, I’d like to give the UN credit where credit is due for the following:

The ITC, UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, UNIFEM, IMF, GATT (WTO), Peace keeping, internal aid, and all the other countless little organizations scurrying about in our best interests (And in some cases doing quite nicely. Who thinks UNICEF is worthless? I pee on such people!)

And I’d in the World Bank, but its evil and it admits that it’s evil so that really all it has is good intentions that don’t work out in real like, kind of like the UN itself in a lot of ways. NGOs do a lot better than IGOs in helping the world out. Rather than being driven by narrow power hungry international politics, they tend to be actually based on competent folks getting things done. I’ve even heard theories that have suggested NGOs will replace governments as social service providers, and when I think about, the Red Cross probably would have greater competence in providing healthcare than OHIP… Bastards and their canceling SRS funding…

Mog: Point. US. Retaliation would be faced from only the other 200+ countries (I did say 'not ONLY a citizen of the UN', meaning they are also citizens of whatever country they're representing). If one country is vying for supreme power, the other countries ultimately will also, therefore the vying for power leads to balance through chaos. If one is about to gain the uppper hand, others would bring them down, since this vying for power is dependent on political skill, which a majority of countries have at least 1 person cunning enough. And that is the point of having only the UN as the only military power. They will control everything. That's a benefit coming from multi-nationals they will support (even if only half-arsed) whatever country they're a citizen of. And with all the emigration and immigration going on, this is bound to happen. I myself am a citizen of 2 countries (3 if you count Hong Kong as a country), and if I married someone who's a citizen in 3 European countries and had a child in South Africa, my child would be a citizen of South Africa by birth, and 5 other countries by parental affliation. And since it has no permanent population (its members rotated out), it has no chance of being a sovereign nation. (FYI: I may have overstated everyone surrendering their military. I meant their army, navy, AF, etc. not militia or national guard - non-military-only personell)

Devon Lake: Actually the UN is about as effective right now as the LoN in 1939. This is a fact a I do recognize. But the LoN was founded on the pricinple of peace through common sense, which is not common or sensible for the situation at hand. I'm proposing a UN through sheer might, back to the good old medieval ages. Think about this for a second. City states were ruled as a monarchy, then became a democracy/republic. As city states banded together, again, a monarchy, then democratic countries as we know them today. I could of course bring this back further past city states, but this illustrates a cycle in human history. Might is Right, then Might for Right, then back to Might is Right, and so on and so forth. Of course we're gonna need to suffer a monarchy for a while, if we want world unity. I'd like to further point out that the UN ambassadors are mostly grumpy old men, the others being grumpy old women. They've experienced too much 'life'. It has destroyed their ideals and now they only hope to profit themselves, even if it means promoting an idea that does not fit the peaceful resolution. The idea is to force peaceful resolution by force, which I know is a contradiction, but people only listen to arbitrators, when they have the biggest gun. And you can feed every animal the same thing, its called IV fluids. In real world terms, pick the most peaceful solution and point a gun at anyone who disagrees. They already have public support, as you've already said, with their humanitarian initiatives, all they need to do is use it. (UNICEF has the right idea, if everyone in the developed contries did not buy one cup of coffee and instead donated it, they could pay for every single child in those World Vision programs, and still have enough money left over to rebuild agriculture in war-torn countries).

And yay! Another Ontarian who hates its overpriced health-care plan! :D

Hieyeck: So how is the UN going to make the whole world surrender? The thing is, the world has guns, and the UN doesn't, accept for the guns they borrow from the world. Thus, it can't take over the world, and the other alternative is just idealistic well-wishing that all the power hungry curs running the world's militaries are going to spontaneously go, "Yay! WORLD PEACE!" and surrender to the UN.

Hieyeck, one person or group having all the power is a very BAD idea. See also; USEA in Ace Combat 04. As was once said before, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."

Besides, the feudalistic model wasn't really so great. It was a bunch of corrupt officials (yes, even the Bishops of the church, who generally committed just as many crimes as the lords of manors) who ran things inefficiently in their little power struggles against each other. There's a reason the Renaissance didn't start until after the fall of feudalism.

Devon Lake: I never said that this was going to happen, I just said that this seems to be the only way for the UN to accomplish its goals. In fact, I know this is never going to happen in the next few lifetimes, that's why I'm toying with the idea.

Taran Alvein: I agree, power does corrupt. The "Symbol of Freedom" seems a bit oppresive nowadays. However, There is not absolute ruler in the proposed model, as it is governed by 200 self-serving countries, to make sure no wars break out. The system of governing ensures nothing else gets done. Look at the States and the problems within the country. Crime, poverty, etc. The wars are just a distraction so that the average joe doesn't notice.

And for a fall of feudalism, there has to be a feudalism in the first place. When everyone is happy happy joy joy, they dont have the motivation to make the world a better place. To put it terms of war and peace, World War II is like the feudal era. All these great destructive technologies were developed. After the end of the war (fall of feudalism), we achieved developed from these technologies nuclear power, computers, rocketry and jet propulsion. From the fall of feudalism came democracy, gorgeous art, and far-flung (in a good way) ideas.
-"Whatever goes up, must come down". Renaissance up, chaos down. Renaissance down, chaos up. Renaissance up, chaos down. ad infinitum.
-"The bigger they are, the harder they fall". Renaissance was great, started ending in the... 19th century? What happened after that? The World Wars. It is possible to say that they are 2 different wars, but 20 years in the eye of history aren't even half-a-blink. Actually, this was followed by the Cold War. Which - I admit this might be stretching it - nearly three quarters of a century of war, where more people died in those 11-12 years of combat than in the 100 Years War, Dark Ages, or the Black Plauge (maybe even combined, though dont quote me, I'm not checking). Actually (no offence to Americans, I'm mostly blaming the Bush Administration), America can even be seen as the beginning of another feudal era, always sticking their nose into other country's business.

The U.N. is just like how it was portrayed on Family Guy.