UN and Iraq

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Anyone think its odd that the UN can say no to the Iraq War when if you add Japan to the "Coalition of the Willing" (which while they havent done much militarily as they dont have one they have helped finically) provides well over half the funding to the UN.

No i dont think the UN should be bribed into agreeing with the "coalition of the willing". There is no point in having all those nations in it if they dont have their own say on things.

But why should the US and France practially be equal when the US' population is much greater then Frances and so is our commitment to the UN. For that matter why in the general assembly are Cambodia and Japan equals.

The thing is the US need to be more commited because most countries arent that commited to the UN and they see this as a bargaining tool. Population levels doesnt really come into as Africa, India, and China would be the dominant powers then. Basically the US can give out favourable policies to countries that back them (really a bribe but most countries do it) but no country will find it easy to get a majority in anything.

Basically all five nuclear powers (France, US, China, Britain, Russia ) can veto any policy they dont agree with and pull out of negotiations so any agreement needs a lot of agreement and so the UN cant really be that effective as world policemen at the moment. They cant even agree on what constitutes a 'terrorist' so any unilateral UN enforcement against terrorist organisations is merely ceremonial at the minute. It will be interesting to see what happens with Iran as it seems they arent backing down over nuclear power at the moment.

Okay that another question, why is Japan not on the Security Council when they provide 20% of the funding to the UN.

*cough*WWII*cough*

Yeah thats part of the problem, why judge the current world system based on what it was like 60 years ago.

I do agree the Security Council is in need of reform, expanding it to include rising nations such as India and Brazil would be a good idea. I don't believe that world security decisions should be made on the basis of who has the most cash to bring to the table though.

We could never allow India in, Pakistan wouldn't like it one bit.

Include Pakistan as well then - makes sense since they're both nuclear powers.

Well when the US president created the UN, it was a way of securing their place on the world stage and not allowing the world to become as hostile as to sleepwalk into war as the forerunner to the UN 'the league of nations' was a limited sucess but a failure in bringing any real policy changes on a world stage and of course wars where still happening. It was a US idea so they would obviosly be the biggest contributors.

The UN was formed right after the second world war (october 1945) so any of the major enemies who fought against the allies was obviously excluded from being a permanent member for security and political reasons. There was five permanent security council members made up of the leading powers of the world and it is doubtful whether any country without a substansial nuclear arsenal would make up another permanent member though couldnt be ruled out.

Japan are quite keen on the idea of world security and as a thriving nation with little security of their ownthey probablt see it as in their interests to have a 'world police' as opposed to having their neighbours, China be the only power in the region as they treated China britally in WW2 and there is still some disputes over land and policies with China.

Without a decent world security level Japan would be in a much weaker position than many of the other leading world economies. This and possibly an attempt to make up for WW2 a little is what i feel partly is to do with Japan giving so generously to the UN funding.

They arent considered nuclear 'powers' as such yet as they dont yet have enough nuclear bombs to be a world threat but it probably would make sense as they are working on expanding their arsenals all the time. Im not sure how well it could go down with the 'traditional' powers. The Pakistan regime was a coup and a military dictatorship and along with India and the skirmishes in Kashmir they arent thought of as stable enough. Before the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and Pakistan and Indias compliance of this they where under US and British sanctions.

Of course China a dictatorship and Russia was distrusted by the Europeans and the US at the time of the UN formation but they had/have far more substansial nuclear arsenals than India and Pakistan and along with the other members of the security council probably have the worlds most dangerous militaries so inclusion of them in the UN was a neccesity, not a choice. North Korea and (although they are secretive about it for obvious reasons) Israel have nuclear weapons but to make either of them a permanent member right now would be thought of as too risky for world stability at the moment.

Depending on how all these countries (excluding Israel possibly due to being an American backed, western friendly democracy) they could possibly force the five permanent members hand in being instated as permanent members (and possibly some backed by the Chinese, particularly North Korea. However to give them permanent membership is giving them a lot of power and could potentially be damaging to world security so not something that is likely to be agreed to easily by all the traditional powers, Particularly the US and Britain.

Although it's a very untidy principle when scaled up to nations, one man, one vote, is alright with me. I don't see any point in saying that someone who is shorter than me should have less of a vote, I don't think that the disabled should be discriminated against. On the scale of nations the problem we have at the moment is that those who have most financial clout get the biggest vote.
I've come across all sorts of reasons being put forward for disenfranchising swathes of people, but none of them really impress me, since they do involve disenfranchisment. It sort of defeats the purpose of democracy, if you catch the drift. One of my favourite caricatures is in the novel "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller , the Texan in the Hospital at the same time as Yossarian who constantly bleats about "More votes for decent folks", now there is a proto-neo-con.

Wars are still occurring.

Yes but not yet to the stage of outright world war like past conflicts last century. If it does happen we are all done for really.