Our Misguided Neglect of the UN
"Four times in the modern age," English historian John Keegan has written, "men have sat down to reorder the world -- at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 after the Thirty Years War, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars, in Paris in 1919 after World War I and in San Francisco in 1945 after World War II." Such is the march of human history that all of these events -- except for the most recent one -- collapsed in disagreements that eventually led to renewed war. The fortunes of the last of these, the San Francisco Conference, are still not known. However, what happened in that California city that produced the last of these grand compacts, the United Nations, has already had an enormous impact over the past six decades. Indeed, the founding of the UN, in far more sinister circumstances than faced any of its predecessors -- the age of nuclear weaponry -- is affecting the survival or demise of humanity.
The U.N. and its labors have become the background noise of our global age -- sometimes loud, sometimes soft, but always emitting a hum. One cannot pick up any major newspaper or watch any network newscast or listen to any radio news show or consult any media website in America and not hear or see the name of the U.N. invoked regularly by a broadcaster or written down in a daily report by a journalist. The mention of the U.N. has become as commonplace for the U.S. public as that of the White House or Congress. For the UN has been inextricably involved in an infinite variety of crises around the world. But people forget that, before the UN's founding, there was no truly functioning international organization (except for the creaky, faltering institution called the League of Nations). This meant for many decades there was no place for nations to go to in case of global conflicts.
Today, after a half-century of the U.N., most of us are aware now that this aging planetary experiment in global society has given some modicum of hope to the world -- despite its dearth of financial resources and the brickbats tossed at it by American politicians. It has become the world's geopolitical emergency room. But now the question is whether it can survive into the future. After all, we should remember that even its original birth was chancy. The founders in San Francisco had to overcome Great Power rivalries, ideological spats, big versus small nations, and personal conflicts, although once the conference produced a Charter, the U.S. Senate ratified it by an overwhelmingly vote of 89-2.
Fifty-eight years later, in today's America, however, the staying-power of the UN is unfortunately suspect. The sad fact is that our country would probably not pass the same Charter today. Right-wing demagogues in our land have so unremittingly denigrated the organization for so long -- for being bloated, for being anti-American, for wasting time on speechmaking, for abdicating its responsibilities, and for being out of touch -- that leading members of the Senate now routinely dismiss its importance and argue the body is too limiting on our sovereignty.
Furthermore, unilateralism is back in fashion. The Bush Administration, following the attacks of Septembers 11th, has now promulgated a doctrine of preventive war, which allows a nation to go into battle whenever it decides against whomever it wishes, whether there is a legitimate provocation or not. By this standard, last spring the U.S. was able to bypass the UN Security Council to invade Iraq, relying on its preemptive doctrine. And, in any case, even if Washington actually wanted to convene another UN conference, it would be virtually impossible to convince the 192 nations of the world again to draft a new charter for the security of the earth. Because of the sheer number of countries involved today, a consensus could never be reached on a new document.
As we look back on the UN's creation, we should realize how fortunate we were to obtain it. It took a grand vision, formidable planning and brilliant political leadership to make the organization a reality. What should shine through today for Americans in our more cynical age is the unusual intellect and honest internationalism of those American founding fathers and mothers of the U.N. -- particularly, the seven members of the U.S. delegation to San Francisco. These individuals, balancing peace with cold-eyed realism, especially with regard to the veto, erected a formidable structure. There were Democrats, including Senator Tom Connally and Adlai Stevenson, as well as Republicans, ranging from Senator Arthur Vandenberg, John Foster Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller to Harold Stassen. Guiding them were two exceptional presidents -- Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman -- each of whom believed in the need for world organization to oversee and guide state craft toward a peaceful future. Having endured the most calamitous war in human history, this World War 2 generation extracted from the human propensity for devastation the right lesson for our time. That these men and women could fashion such a righteous journey, especially in light of the League of Nations' failure, delegates squabbles and a world war itself, was remarkable.
If we are to revive the role of the UN today as a peacemaker and security guarantor, the United States, as the only superpower on the planet, must again commit to making the body function effectively. This is especially so with the Cold War's demise, which allows the UN to return to its original principles. Why now should America get reinvolved? Because the UN offers America political legitimacy for its various global undertakings, including its foreign operations of all sorts, especially military ones. In turn, this permits Washington to save tax payers' dollars and the lives of its soldiers. Instead of taking on our ventures alone, we would be able to share with other nations of the earth the burdens of reconstructing societies, policing conflicts, training armies, providing legal frameworks and upholding open governance standards, intervening to stop bloodshed, and promoting human rights. There are, in short, benefits of a revitalized UN.