Interesting….
Well, your second points first, since they are easier to address. Generally, I think you’re conflating the UN as an administrative/ & coordinating body with the idea that it controls its member states. All the things you say the UN can do - well, it really does matter which organs are empowered to do those things. Like I said, the Security Council imposes sanctions, but of course, not without the input, agreement, and indeed direction of the five permanent members. For war, the UN does not make war on any nation - it has no standing army. Rather, the Security Council can choose to provide international sanction for a particular war, and there are various reasons why this may be nice, but not necessarily needed.
For uniting to impoverish nations and inciting hostilities, I’m afraid you have to provide some specific examples of such. What UN (not member state) action directly led to the creation of hostilities that didn’t either pre-exist its involvement or emerge independently? Likewise, how have UNDP, UNESCO, and UNICEF created poverty? Or are you referring to a peacekeeping mission’s failure, and that causing poverty? In which case, wouldn’t the blame more rightly be placed on the paramilitary forces in, say, Rwanda causing the misery?
But, you’ve got to be really careful here. If the US, UK, and France use their powers within the Security Council to authorize the use of force against country X, and China and Russia abstain, in what sense then did the UN as an independent body declare or make war on X? If they decide to impose sanctions on country Y through the Security Council, in what sense did the UN as a representative of world opinion place the sanctions?
As I said, you have to stop thinking of the UN as a unitary political body guided by Kofi Annan. It is not. It is a coordinating diplomatic body with many centers of dialogue and internal power, and your comments have a danger of throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Yes, there are numerous shortcomings, but a more careful view of how it operates would allow greater insight into what has worked and what hasn’t. After all, it is hard to argue that the UN hasn’t had an impact on international affairs, and even harder to say that, of all that impact, none of it was good. The human rights regime is much more powerful because of the UN’s existence, for example.
But, I think this ties into your first point about what the UN should do, although this is getting away from the original subject. In your other posts, it is fairly clear that you prefer local-level, laissez-faire government, devolving power to the individual and allowing that person a greater latitude of freedom in making their own decisions. (Please correct me if this isn’t right.) I’m saying this because it appears that your feelings towards the UN are perhaps couched in this philosophy. And I will tell you that that philosophy largely does not work in international relations. Yes, it is certainly possible for states to exist as semi-isolated islands from each other, letting countries take care of what is inside their own country. Yes, it is possible for countries to voluntarily come together to handle existential threats (WWII) and effectively repel them.
However, recent modern history, to take one example, does not suggest that that is always effective. We write on what is essentially a WWII board, and so it’s easy to overlook what preceded it. But don’t forget that classical liberalism was shunned for much of the mid-19th to late-20th centuries for a reason, and they had a lot to do with the Great Depression and World War I - voluntary arrangements, very complex in their nature, which nevertheless imploded and caused enormous suffering. Add to this the fact that international institutions make cooperation INFINITELY easier, and you can see why the volume and pace of global trade has advanced faster in the past 50 years than in any individual period beforehand, and why sustained, sometimes even intrusive interstate relations are so vitally important.
Obviously, I am writing in broad brushstrokes, and any individual could write a dissertation on what I’ve just mentioned (and perhaps Thomas Friedman has with his latest book). But a UN as a simple staging ground for enemies to have discussion, as you suggest? Places like that exist, either in a bilateral or multilateral context (think Camp David or Switzerland). And they didn’t work. The UN’s individual track record on this account is up for question as well, but I cannot see any other institution tackling the same range of issues (poverty, science, culture, politics, development, trade, laws of the sea, etc.) that perhaps no other body will touch. I’m by no means for global government, but the UN fulfills a coordinating role that its critics often fail to appreciate.
I’m looking forward to your comments on this! And if someone can tell me what I’m doing wrong with quote box, I’d love to know.