united nations

We revisit the U.N. Charter and review what happened to an institutional concept that once inspired. We examine the U.S. Security Council’s agenda of the past 25 years and conclude that if the world experiences occasional periods of stability, it’s not because the idealism enshrined in the UN’s guiding principles got us there, but because an impasse between the permanent Security Council members or mutual fear between them held everyone in check. We offer some remedies that might improve the situation.