UN: short for UNimpressive, UNable and UNdesirable

It is asked, ‘do organizations such as the UN help states reach cooperative solutions that they would be unlikely to reach on their own?’ When a cooperative solution between nations cannot be reached, the most dire outcome is armed conflict. Therefore I will seek to answer the proposed question by discovering a relationship between the emergence of the UN as a factor in world politics and the breakout of armed conflict. If the UN effectively helps states to reach cooperative solutions, then one should expect to see less armed conflict in the years following its founding.

The official website of the UN maintains that “preserving world peace is a central purpose of the United Nations. Under the Charter, Member States agree to settle disputes by peaceful means and refrain from threatening or using force against other States.” Under the heading “what the UN does for peace” it is claimed that “[The UN] has worked to prevent conflicts from breaking out.” In this section it lists a single conflict the UN helped prevent – the Cuban missile crisis.(1) They claim to have prevented one. How many conflicts have they been unable to prevent?

The UN was officially founded in 1945. 64 years have passed since its founding. Wikipedia conveniently displays lists of wars and the date each war broke out. 164 conflicts have begun since 1945 (or an average of 2.5 per year). There were 113 wars begun between the years 1881 and 1944 (or an average of 1.7 per year). This means that in the 64 years that have transpired since the founding of the UN there has been about 50% more wars begun compared to the 64 years extending back before its founding. While it is true that the worst decade as far as number of wars begun was 1911 through 1920 involving 37 conflicts, the second place prize goes to the ‘90s which saw 32 wars begun. However, no other decade prior to 1945 had more than 18 wars begun during it whereas only one decade after 1945 had fewer than 25 wars begun during it (which was the ‘50s which saw only 11 conflicts begun).(2) The founding of the UN and its effect on conflict appears to be a footnote in military history.

In fact, rather than preserving world peace, apparently the interference of the UN in international relations has abetted the breakout of more wars! If abet is too strong or dubious (even malignantly deceptive?) a word, then let us replace it with ‘been utterly impotent to prevent.’ Here is the retry: ‘rather than preserving world peace, apparently the interference of the UN in international relations has been utterly impotent to prevent the breakout of more wars!’

Is this fair to the UN? After all, what I haven’t told you is that some of these wars involved far fewer than 1,000 casualties (for example, the Slovenian War in 1991 claimed 62 person’s lives). If the distribution of the death toll caused by wars from 1881 to 1944 is commensurate to the distribution of the death toll caused by wars from 1945 to 2009 then I am completely fair in my argument. Sadly, I did not have the time to learn how to do a statistical analysis and then perform one for the 277 wars. Let us therefore give the UN the benefit of the doubt and pretend that I did a statistical analysis and found that, on average, the wars begun after 1945 involved fewer human deaths.

Does this mean the UN has been an effective force in assisting cooperation between states? Far from it. This would mean that the UN in its illimitable might cannot even stop small petty wars. How are we to expect it to fare better in stemming the tides of major wars? Surely the reasons which cause nations to invest greater manpower and greater resources (which ultimately result in the major wars’ greater loss of blood and treasure) are of greater concern to the nations involved than the reasons which cause nations to invest smaller amounts of manpower and resources (which will result in the relatively smaller loss of blood and treasure). In other words, if the UN cannot even resolve these pettier disputes which result in smaller conflicts, than why could it resolve the weightier disputes which result in the greater conflicts? If there are on average more small wars do not thank the UN. Be amazed at their incompetence

An apologist would point out that overwhelmingly more people were killed by the wars prior to 1945. But this is skewed because of the two World Wars. Could Hitler’s war and the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere have been prevented by the UN? The same reasoning could be used to answer this question: the UN is unable to prevent literally hundreds of less involved and less meaningful conflicts, how then could it have prevented the more complex and meaningful conflicts where more nations and more complex issues were involved?

If armed conflict is still being resorted to in the efforts between states to resolve conflict then at least one of two things must be true. Either there are some disputes which can only be resolved through conflict and these disputes are increasing in number; or the UN is simply extremely ineffective and incompetent in performing one of its primary and crucial functions.

Either way, organizations such as the UN are currently incapable of helping a surprising number of states avoid the most dire outcome of a dispute between states. If they are incapable of this, who could believe they are capable of helping enough states avoid lesser consequences of interstate disputes? For all the good the UN may do, there is an overwhelming amount of evil it has not and apparently cannot or will not prevent.(3)

Sources
1

Official website of the UN
http://www.un.org/Overview/uninbrief/chapter2_intro.html

2

Lists of wars from Wikipedia.org

1800 -1899
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1800%E2%80%931899

1900 - 1944
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1900%E2%80%931944

1945 – 1989
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1945%E2%80%931989

1990 – 2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1990%E2%80%932002

2003 – current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_2003%E2%80%93current

3

My incredibly brilliant brain


Lists of Wars by Decade:

1881 to 1944
7 wars from 1881 to 1890
15 wars from 1891 to 1900
13 wars from 1901 to 1910
37 wars from 1911 to 1920
17 wars from 1921 to 1930
18 wars from 1931 to 1940
6 wars from 1941 to 1944
Total - 113

1945 to today
12 wars from 1945 to 1950
11 wars from 1951 to 1960
29 wars from 1961 to 1970
25 wars from 1971 to 1980
26 wars from 1981 to 1990
32 wars from 1991 to 2000
29 wars from 2001 to the date of this writing
Total – 164