The United Nations is ineffective and indispensable??
It has been said that the United Nations is both ineffective and indispensable. Do you agree? Much like the stale-mate times of the Cold War, the recent situation in Iraq also displays the virtual insignificance and irrelevance of the UN as a monitoring organization of international conflicts. Firstly, the role of the UN has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War in that up until the breakdown of the USSR in 1989, western (namely US) ideologies restricted the UN to very few globally approved resolutions. The Berlin Blockade, Korean War and Cuban Missile Crisis are just three examples of how US influences in the UN only led to a narrow focus on how to ease a situation, after it had already become a possibly disastrous crisis. Now, with direct reference to current military intervention in Iraq, the US simply ignored UN disapproval of a proposed regime change in Iraq and set about almost unilaterally invading Iraq. There are however certain cases in which UN peacekeeping intervention did help in the resolving of conflict. Yugoslavia in the early-mid 90's is at the forefront of examples of how UN intervention did indeed stop the potential genocide of even more people. On the whole, the UN once allowed to do their job
Rarely do we see a clear opinion from all nations in the UN supporting the one resolution, paving the way for many timely procedures, thwarting the UN's primary objective. Conflicts or crisis in Berlin, Korea and Cuba all demonstrated the insignificance of the UN - in all three situations the US acted alone on behalf of western liberal democracy or capitalism, while the USSR spearheaded their own interests on behalf of communism and equality for all. What is widely assumed based on 12 years of UN weapons inspections, is the prospect of Iraq having possesion of 'weapons of mass destruction'. Consequently, a last resort option was utilized with the US using its brute force to airlift millions of tons of essentials to westerners trapped in a Soviet surrounded Berlin. While the Yugoslavian example does give credit to the UN and its peacekeepers, situations such as this are few. The Cold War as a stale-mate developed after the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945. A period known as 'cold war hysteria' or 'McCarthyism' spread around America thus to an extent infecting other western nations. Peacekeepers have been sent into Iraq, but the damage is done and Iraqi patriots continue to bombard these international soldiers. This was the beginning of bi-polarity, the so called Cold War which dominated international relations for over 40 years . Sanctions had torn apart Yugoslavia's economy and Milosevic's only way out was to submit to terms presented by the UN. The first conflict which the UN and its peacekeepers (namely US and British soldiers) failed to resolve calmly was the Berlin Blockade of 1948. Once again, the UN's presence was barely felt because decisions were made by the US President and his advisors who used the UN banner as a pretext . This attracted massive international attention as many mass graves were uncovered, with Serbs under Milosevic the ones to blame for this genocide. Saddam Hussein, the President, and his Sunni Muslim comrades still live the highlife, travelling from palace to palace while the majority of the Shi'ite Muslim population suffer from malnutrition and live in poverty.
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Acceptance Essays
