The future of the UN

The UN, or United Nations, was founded to prevent wars and settle disputes between countries peacefully. A noble goal, but there is just one problem: the UN is weak. Since its inception, the UN has been the pawn of the nations on the UNSC (the UN Security Council)—when all of them agree on something, the UN takes action. But otherwise the organization becomes bogged down with endless discussion and debate. The UN can clearly do more than this, and I believe it should be a stronger, more federal organization between the countries that make it up. Today, I will explain why I support a stronger UN.

The main reason for a stronger UN is to keep belligerent nations in line. Today the UN is made up of many nations, most of whom share the common interest of preventing warring nations from causing harm. However, the UN is often unable to achieve this because their “peacekeeping” army is quite small, and UN intervention often raises eyebrows. For example, in the case of the Iraq War, most of the nations on the UN and UNSC supported entering Iraq, but because of the way the UN functions it is almost impossible for the organization to declare war without unilateral support. If this is amended, the UN can intimidate belligerent nations such as Iran or North Korea because the UN would attack these nations if they disobey it. Though this sounds overly imperialistic, it is very important in the nuclear age—for example, I doubt North Korea would launch a nuclear attack if they knew UN nations would launch a counterstrike.

The second reason is an extension of the UN’s original purpose, peacekeeping. The UN can be used to ensure that the nations that constitute it do not go to war with another by requiring nations participating in the UN to sign a treaty forcing all nations in the UN to go to war with any other UN nation that acts aggressively or violates UN mandates. This will effectively keep UN nations at peace with each other—though this peace might be tense, it would be peace nonetheless.

Furthermore, the UN can be used to issue directives related to environmental, economic, or natural resource-related issues. For example, the UN can coordinate with the IMF and other organizations to regulate international trade and resource distribution. I believe that this power is going to be extremely important in the years to come because of the looming overpopulation crisis and the threat of global warming.

Of course, I am not suggesting that the UN become an all-controlling world government. I am simply suggesting that if the UN were more efficient and more federal, it could accomplish far more. But, as is always the case, if this power is not coupled with responsibility, the results will be disastrous.

But are any of these goals realistic? Is it reasonable to expect the UN to morph into a stronger, more federal union? Probably not. Since its inception, the UN has been bogged down by mindless debate, and even the UNSC members don’t always get along. In the next few years the situation may worsen, as China is beginning to take on a Cold War-type mentality, which is clearly incompatible with a federal UN.