The world where the big powers follow at least some rules is better than the world where they follow none. So it was worth the attempt.
And it somewhat worked for 80 years. Yeah, not perfectly. Yeah, you can point to all the failings. Still, the postwar world was one of the more orderly and peaceful 80 year spans in international relations. The US was perhaps the least assertive hegemon in history. (Sure, not totally unassertive, but enough less assertive than the norm to actually matter.)
It remains to be seen where we land after Trump. Perhaps something can be salvaged, or perhaps it's just the law of the jungle from here on out.
It’s amazing how quickly people are attacking the post WW2 order to justify colonizing Venezuela. It feels a lot like the playbook to undermine the press - or maybe the postal service. First attack the UN, take actions to undermine it, then say it isn’t working. But also I do think the UN’s focus on fringe things was leading it to a place where it was vulnerable to such attacks.
I think this is the problem with the UN. The Security Council works with vetoes. It should be a bigger group of countries and work on a majority vote, maybe.
Regardless, as bad as Maduro is, I feel there is less justification for America’s new colonial resource stealing playbook than other countries’ actions.
> I think this is the problem with the UN. The Security Council works with vetoes. It should be a bigger group of countries and work on a majority vote, maybe.
There is a mechanism for the UN General Assembly—a bigger group that works by majority vote without vetoes—to act where the UNSC is deadlocked by one or more vetoes, special sessions under Uniting for Peace, a proposal the US successfully advanced after the UN response to the invasion of South Korea was only possible because the USSR was, at the time, boycotting the UN.
The problem is that if one or more of the UNSC veto-wielding members are actively opposed, getting a coalition to enforce anything even if it passes in the UNGA is often extremely difficult, so while there have been some notable actions taken under Uniting for Peace, like the deployment of peacekeepers in the Suez Crisis over a dual veto in the UNSC by France and the UK, generally UfP resolutions end up as unenforced paper declarations.
Why even keep up the farce of international law? None of the big powers are following it anymore.
The world where the big powers follow at least some rules is better than the world where they follow none. So it was worth the attempt.
And it somewhat worked for 80 years. Yeah, not perfectly. Yeah, you can point to all the failings. Still, the postwar world was one of the more orderly and peaceful 80 year spans in international relations. The US was perhaps the least assertive hegemon in history. (Sure, not totally unassertive, but enough less assertive than the norm to actually matter.)
It remains to be seen where we land after Trump. Perhaps something can be salvaged, or perhaps it's just the law of the jungle from here on out.
It’s amazing how quickly people are attacking the post WW2 order to justify colonizing Venezuela. It feels a lot like the playbook to undermine the press - or maybe the postal service. First attack the UN, take actions to undermine it, then say it isn’t working. But also I do think the UN’s focus on fringe things was leading it to a place where it was vulnerable to such attacks.
I think this is the problem with the UN. The Security Council works with vetoes. It should be a bigger group of countries and work on a majority vote, maybe.
Regardless, as bad as Maduro is, I feel there is less justification for America’s new colonial resource stealing playbook than other countries’ actions.
> I think this is the problem with the UN. The Security Council works with vetoes. It should be a bigger group of countries and work on a majority vote, maybe.
There is a mechanism for the UN General Assembly—a bigger group that works by majority vote without vetoes—to act where the UNSC is deadlocked by one or more vetoes, special sessions under Uniting for Peace, a proposal the US successfully advanced after the UN response to the invasion of South Korea was only possible because the USSR was, at the time, boycotting the UN.
The problem is that if one or more of the UNSC veto-wielding members are actively opposed, getting a coalition to enforce anything even if it passes in the UNGA is often extremely difficult, so while there have been some notable actions taken under Uniting for Peace, like the deployment of peacekeepers in the Suez Crisis over a dual veto in the UNSC by France and the UK, generally UfP resolutions end up as unenforced paper declarations.
How shocking!
How often does one state kidnap the leader of another state?