[xoa]

>UN like a League of Nations is rather a sad joke

Well, the UN ultimately mostly reflects actual geopolitical reality. It's not actually a world government, there is no world government. It has the power nation-states choose to give it. The countries that wield vetoes? They also generally wield real "vetoes" IRL, ie., they've got nukes/massive militaries/economies. The formal legal veto they have in the UN merely reflects that if there was no UN, they'd have options on things they didn't like regardless. A basic point of the UN was to try to prevent WW3, and in that respect it did pretty well. For all the ideals, a lot of the core parts of it are pretty pragmatic about the limitations embodied by definition in anything "international". It seeks consensus and to avoid hot conflicts, and the former is pretty important to avoiding the latter.

Obviously it's not entirely without power of its own, particularly various kinds of soft power. But that soft power has sharp limits without hard power backing it, which is a very sticky wicket in most scenarios that make the news.

[Roritharr]

Very well put. It's one of the things I decry often when talking about european politics.

If Europe wants to be taken seriously, it can't just be the French having a medium sized stick to back their soft power.

[me_me_me]

Europe is one of the biggest economical block, there is already a lot of soft power EU can exert via tariffs and bans.

Military is not as important as it used to be.

Russia is not going to attack EU country ever.

Who is going to buy their gas and oil?

They had to use the 'greenmen' to attack mainland Ukraine in attempt to reduce international backlash.

[NicoJuicy]

Europe invests 1%-2% in their military.

By comparison, Russia invests 5%-6%, but it's GDP is similar to Italy, i'd claim the "stick" ( if required) is a bit larger than you might expect :)

After all, it's mostly a numbers game.

[valuearb]

The UN hasn’t prevented nuclear war, it’s accomplished virtually nothing in its long history. It’s the League of Nations with better PR.

Geopolitical reality doesn’t require letting authoritarian regimes chair your human rights committees.

The UN would be a far more effective and useful body if it took away the right to vote from authoritarian regimes. The idea of providing a UN vote to a dictator or kleptocrat who doesn’t allow a real democracy in their own country is absurd.

[ethbro]

> The UN hasn’t prevented nuclear war, it’s accomplished virtually nothing in its long history.

Last "nuclear war" was on 9 August 1945.

UN formed on 24 October 1945.

> Geopolitical reality doesn’t require letting authoritarian regimes chair your human rights committees.

Yes, it does. If they have large militaries and/or economies.

> The UN would be a far more effective and useful body if it took away the right to vote from authoritarian regimes. The idea of providing a UN vote to a dictator or kleptocrat who doesn’t allow a real democracy in their own country is absurd.

No, it wouldn't. The point of the UN is to avoid war, not to spread democracy [1]. The structure of the UN is a consequence of that aim.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_United_Nations#...

[valuearb]

There hasn’t been a nuclear war since the Cleveland Rams last NFL championship. The correlation is just as apt.

As far as preventing war in general, the Korean War, Vietnam, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Falklands, two gulf wars, Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc, etc. UN mediation is no more effective than any other major power mediation efforts in history, in fact it can be argued the UN has been less effective.

The key method to avoiding war is to spread democracy, which is why the UN is such a failure, and it’s charter is the prime reason.

[alextheparrot]

Would learning that the diplomatic channels of the UN were some of the methods used to relay information during, for example, the Cuban middle crisis change your opinion? The comparison seems to lack historical context, the UN has been involved into international diplomatic actions relating to nuclear war far more than any footballers.

I think the “spreading democracy” mindset is wholly unsubstantiated, as most of the wars you mentioned were predicated on either preserving or spreading democracy. If we need war to prevent war, it seems that there can be no peace.

[valuearb]

There is no peace as long as authoritarian regimes threaten democratic nations and their own peoples.

[vkou]

A bad peace is better than a good war.

As anyone who's ever had a war fought on their soil will tell you.

When was the last time a war has been fought on your country's soil? How many times since then has your country brought war to another's?

Your opinion might change were you on the receiving end of these adventures.

[alextheparrot]

> The key method to avoiding war is to spread democracy

This statement remains unsubstantiated, and is furthermore argued against by the wars originally provided in the general context of the quote.

[AnimalMuppet]

Yes and no. Yes, there is not real peace, and there is not peace even within such nations. That difference (between authoritarian and non-authoritarian) matters.

But no, even with authoritarian regimes in existence, there is a difference between "shooting war" and "no shooting war". That difference matters, too.

[mytailorisrich]

> The UN would be a far more effective and useful body if it took away the right to vote from authoritarian regimes.

That's like saying that the House of Representatives would be far more effective if it took away the right to vote from Representatives you don't agree with.

That would simply be the end of the UN. Countries are sovereign and if they lose their voice in the UN they would just leave it and ignore it.

[valuearb]

Right, I’m saying the UN is ineffectual and corrupt and needs to be ended. Countries already are sovereign, and already freely ignore the toothless UN.

And no, its like saying we should take away the right to vote from Representatives who used corruption and murder to rig their own elections.