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Secret History of the UNPosts: Joined: 2005-05-12
I've read articles trying to rewrite history but Dan Plesch's takes the cake.
The argument that "The United Nations was a real entity" and that "The allies fought the war as the United Nations.." This is techinically true in the most trivial sense of the word that the Coalition of the Willing repsresetns 46 countries. The Axis powers surrendered to the United Nations but here is a quick listing of those nations that were part of the United Nations: United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia. It is more than fair to say that most of these countries contibuted little or nothing to the war- several were governemnts in exile and controlled nothing. Most were not present at the surrender of any Axis power. Most of the states involved were paper signatories only and held no part in either military planning, military preparations, military strenght or decision making. Only FDR, Churchill and Stalin were at conferences like Yalta where the future of the world after the war was decided upon. I mean this isn't even a serious article.
Collective Security is a failure of an ideal in a world with so many divergent interets. The collective security of the League of Nations did nothing to enforce the Treaty of Versailles, aid independent states like Ethiopia, Spain, Austria, Chine or Czechoslovakia that came under attack from foreign powers. The League did nothing to stop mass murder in the Soviet Union or the start of the Holocaust in Germany. Plesch is grossly dishonest in asserting that the UN or any other orgnaization of collective security stopped the Axis as opposed to very old fashioned military alliances betweeen great powers with little animating them other than a common foe. The UN's less-than-sterling role in Yugoslavia, its criminal neglect in Rwanda, it's impotence in the face of Syrain occupation of Lebabnon for decades and its total failure to deal with the start of a genocidal campaign in the Sudan (I'm sorry, they did impose travel restrictions) is why the UN is a joke in terms of peace and security. The body lacks the moral crediblity, military capability and political to be any sort of force on the global security stage not matter how muhc other sides of the UN (WHO for example) have been tremendous boons to mankind.
Message was edited by: craigfisher
Submitted on Thu, 2005-05-19 19:18
Re: Secret History of the UN
Yes, it's the worst conceivable option for peace and security - apart from every other option!
Re: Secret History of the UN
Half right, it is the worst conceivable option for peace and security.
There is just no track record of success. The best examples are the defense of South Korea and Kuwait and in both cases it it arguable how "collective" those measures were- although I guess using the standards in the article the coalition in Gulf War I was a wonderful success since it was everyone in the world mostly doing nothing.
Collective security is a nice short-term mantra now when it can be used to club GWB but I'm more concerned with tying future actions that are defensible (stopping democides of all stripes or actual militant states) to a body that doesn't show much interest in acting decisively to stop those actions in its 50+ year history. Unilaterialism is not an evil into and of itself, only what end it serves are good or bad just as is collective security when it bomes a cover for collective inaction.
Re: Secret History of the UN
“... a study by the Rand corporation, a think thank, suggests that the UN, despite its well-publicised blunders, is quite good at peacekeeping. Of the eight UN-led missions it examined, seven brought sustained peace ... while one did not. An earlier Rand study had looked at eight American-led missions and found that only four of the nations involved were now at peace ... The comparison is not entirely fair. The Americans took on tougher targets ... On the other hand, the UN had punier forces and budgets at its disposal. The annual cost of all 11 UN peacekeeping operations today is less than America spends in a month in Iraq.”
The Economist, 5-11/3/2005, “Rebuilding Failed States: From Chaos, Order.”
The poverty of the UN results in large measure from the neglect of member states, and the huge arrears. It has had some well-publicised failures and some less-publicised successes (Ivory Coast, the Baltic). The UN is the least worst available option in principle and practice, and I think a large part of the criticism of the UN at the moment is political - several governments that live in glass houses throwing stones, and an example of the same sort of power-politicking that causes the UN's well-known problems.
The problem with unilateralism in principle is that you end up with leaders who claim to be accountable FOR populations without being accountable TO them. Not democracy. Even with the current UN, everybody's government has some sort of seat at the table. I don't deny there are big problems with this. It's a symptom of an imperfect world. So reform it. But if not the UN, then what? Not peace - anarchy.
Best wishes
Simon
Re: Secret History of the UN
Rubashov,
There is no shortage of semantic silliness on Open Democracy.
Re: Secret History of the UN
Don't blame the article for the fact that the idea of the UN existed in the minds and actions of the Allied leaders before the first charter was signed. I find it quite natural that an idea forecome the facts of reality. Then if you define the UN as an idea that shapes it form from current political cirrcumstances of its time then you could claim that the UN has a very long and history. Sure that kind of definition of the UN is not universaly accepted or even practical. Still neither definition change facts.
And again, it is not fair either to compare the hopes and dreams of a new peaceful world carried by all people around the world after a devastating world war, with our cynical time.
On the other but unrelated issue: What has been so well illustrated latly is that we cant rely on the judgment of a few, as was the case with the American lead military disarment of Iraq's weapons of massdestruction. If and when mistakes are made it is better that it was the judgment of all that proved insufficient (as with the case of the UN's many other failers).
//CL
Re: Secret History of the UN
The United Nations as an organization is quite useless now, but in the 40s it was the Soviet union, United states of America, England and Canada that were united to get rid of Hitler. When that was accomplished it showed how ununited they were. We had another 40 years of [cold] war.
It was the relentleshly bombing of German cities daily and nightly for three years that won the second world war.
The Netherlands are named as part of the UN. Many of us were starving to death. Personally, as a slave laborer, I subsisted for 7 weeks on a daily diet of a bowl of potatosoup and two slices of bread, while digging trenches for the German army.
It was that steady drone of those bombers overhead that told us. Keep going, something is being done to get us out of here. After seven weeks of that life I still found the energy to escape.
Yes the Netherlands had a government in exile, So Dan Pletch gives them the honor of winning the war. How generous.
Re: Secret History of the UN
I agree with most of what has been said. The article is revisionist history at its worst. The only country which never ceased to fight Hitler was the United Kingdom and I for one am not ashamed of the part my country took in standing up to him and defeating him. As Churchill said it saved civilisation. It was shaming that at the victory celebrations held recently in Moscow we were not represented by the Prime Minister and the Prince of Wales and that Britain was almost regarded as nothing.
As to the UN it is well past its sell by date and has been for years. There is no equality between democracies and tyrannies like Saddam's Iraq or the scum Mugabe and unless and until there is a distinction the UN will be a waste of space.
Re: Secret History of the UN
Right, Owly, England was so close to being to being overrun like the rest of Europe. For about 5 years we heard it almost daily. The German army marching through our streets and singing "Ünd wir fharen gegen Engeland."
[we sail to England] It was Hitler's mistake, just like Napoleon, of going to Russia first that saved England.
But it was definitely the USA that won the peace. Instead of keeping Germany and Japan down after conquering it, as had always been the custom between warring countries, the Marshall plan rebuilt both their former enemies, making them their loyal friends in defeating the Soviet Union, which was done without blood shed. Maybe the UN played some roll there.
Too bad that this part is pretty well fogotten.
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