Frenchman here, we are indeed a permanent member of the Security Council. Picture me wondering, silently but ostentatiously, if I should dignify that dig with an answer.
Back in 1945, it was decided to give a permanent seat to the major Allied countries that would keep peace in the world. Winston Churchill, who had promised to restore France "in her dignity and greatness" in 1940, explained that France was indeed a major Allied nation. Basically, he argued that French troops had been fighting Germany since 1939, long before the US or the USSR joined the fight, and that our small contribution in the war, due to our inability to stop the German war machine early on, did not change the fact that we were in the team.
*Cough* He may also have wanted a strong Allied nation on the continent to help against the Soviet *cough*
Oh how wonderful and truthful it would have been if Biden and other world leaders had indeed gone with, “a deeply fucked move from a real shit-smeared asshole.”
Spot on. William F. Buckley, a reliable critic of the United Nations, nevertheless wrote once that if the UN didn’t exist we would have to invent something functionally equivalent. There needs to be an institutional structure for coordinating both cooperative and adversarial communications. The United Nations is that structure.
It grates that international law is ineffectual and hypocritical, but I think (though I cannot prove) that it's still a big deal. We don't get to see the counterfactual, but I suspect that a world where Putin doesn't have to do a song and dance routine pretending he's doing something legal looks a lot worse than the world we live in.
Obviously, one big problem with the UN is that potentially criminal nations are on the security council. That's like having the burglar on the jury. Another is that even non-members have powerful allies on the council, like Israel the US. A third is that the UN has no real enforcement arm, so any member nations can freely thumb their noses at a resolution.
Is the United Nations a serious attempt at replacing warfare with lawyers? (as private violence was replaced with lawyers thanks to the state monopoly, at least in the first world) Or is it just a convenient place to dress up power politics with the currently-popular flavor of fig leaf?
Frenchman here, we are indeed a permanent member of the Security Council. Picture me wondering, silently but ostentatiously, if I should dignify that dig with an answer.
Back in 1945, it was decided to give a permanent seat to the major Allied countries that would keep peace in the world. Winston Churchill, who had promised to restore France "in her dignity and greatness" in 1940, explained that France was indeed a major Allied nation. Basically, he argued that French troops had been fighting Germany since 1939, long before the US or the USSR joined the fight, and that our small contribution in the war, due to our inability to stop the German war machine early on, did not change the fact that we were in the team.
*Cough* He may also have wanted a strong Allied nation on the continent to help against the Soviet *cough*
So permanent seat it was.
Oh how wonderful and truthful it would have been if Biden and other world leaders had indeed gone with, “a deeply fucked move from a real shit-smeared asshole.”
Thanks for making me laugh a few times early in the morning!
The United Nations is an institution that is hopelessly imperfect. Even its name is oxymoronic. That said, we're better off having it than not.
Spot on. William F. Buckley, a reliable critic of the United Nations, nevertheless wrote once that if the UN didn’t exist we would have to invent something functionally equivalent. There needs to be an institutional structure for coordinating both cooperative and adversarial communications. The United Nations is that structure.
It grates that international law is ineffectual and hypocritical, but I think (though I cannot prove) that it's still a big deal. We don't get to see the counterfactual, but I suspect that a world where Putin doesn't have to do a song and dance routine pretending he's doing something legal looks a lot worse than the world we live in.
Obviously, one big problem with the UN is that potentially criminal nations are on the security council. That's like having the burglar on the jury. Another is that even non-members have powerful allies on the council, like Israel the US. A third is that the UN has no real enforcement arm, so any member nations can freely thumb their noses at a resolution.
Is the United Nations a serious attempt at replacing warfare with lawyers? (as private violence was replaced with lawyers thanks to the state monopoly, at least in the first world) Or is it just a convenient place to dress up power politics with the currently-popular flavor of fig leaf?
When you think of France, remember the Resistance and Charles DeGaulle! Viva la France!