Preface

The United Nations (U.N.) was born in the crucible of World War II, when much of the world was being ravaged by Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers. U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and America’s allies saw the need for an international organization, along the lines of the earlier League of Nations, whose role it would be to prevent conflict and to work for peace and other humanitarian ideals. Toward those ends, the United Nations was officially established in 1945. Reflecting the spirit of the U.N., the preamble to the organization’s charter begins by describing its member nations as "determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small." From the late 1940s through the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the U.N. was involved in many of the crises and conflicts that erupted around the globe: for example, stepping into the morass that is the incessant struggle between Israel and Palestine; trying to mediate the protracted struggle between India and Pakistan over the possession of Kashmir; assembling an international force to fight with South Korea in the Korean War; and intervening between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the 1990s, as African civil wars boiled over, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and the Balkans were ravaged by religious and ethnic bloodshed, the United Nations took on a more active and prominent role in world affairs.

There is no doubt that the organization has accomplished an enormous amount of good in the world, though in some ways the U.N. from the outset had charted for itself a nearly impossible task: to foster peace, freedom, and justice in a world so often given to violence, discord, and inequality. While most world leaders and governments agree on the need for some level of international dialogue and cooperation, how can anything be accomplished by an organization informed by so many competing voices? Should sovereign nations subordinate their own interests to the negotiated goals of a consortium of countries? To what extent should the world body intervene in localized conflicts? These difficult questions are often at the heart of the contentious debate surrounding the United Nations—questions concerning its efficacy, its relevance, and the degree of its influence.

Perhaps most emblematic of the difficult position the U.N. now occupies in world affairs is the organization’s involvement in Iraq since 1990. U.N. economic sanctions and formal warnings to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein seemed to many misguided or toothless and prompted the United States to disregard the U.N. Security Council’s stand and invade Iraq unilaterally in 2003. Following major combat, the U.N. entered Iraq to assist in the country’s reconstruction, but on August 19, 2003, the organization suffered one of the worst attacks in its history when its Baghdad headquarters were bombed. Several months later the U.N. pulled its operations out of the country. However, in January 2004, both the United States and Iraqi leaders began making earnest appeals for the U.N.’s renewed assistance.

The articles selected for this book provide glimpses into the U.N.’s role in Iraq and in other nations around the globe and have been culled from a variety of sources. While the constantly evolving nature of world events and the wide reach of the U.N.’s many agencies and member organizations make a comprehensive presentation impossible here, an attempt has been made to cover as many of the most significant topics as possible. The first chapter looks at the history of the U.N., from the organization’s conception to its formation and structure and its involvement in world affairs. The genesis of the U.N. is also considered in the larger context of the evolution of international organizations. While the U.N. is best known for its peacekeeping efforts, the majority of the organization’s resources are used for economic and social development programs. The U.N. has under its umbrella a wide variety of programs and specialized agencies that perform important tasks in those areas, including caring for refugees, promoting human rights, working to preserve the Earth’s environment, and combating poverty and disease. The second chapter looks at several of these entities, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Environment Programme. Chapter 3 focuses on the many international peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations the U.N. has undertaken since World War II. Through these interventions, the U.N. has played a significant role in world history over the last sixty years. More than anything else, these missions have defined both the success and failure of the organization. The articles in Chapter 4 discuss the often strained relationship between the United States and the United Nations and may therefore be especially useful to students preparing for the 2004–2005 National Debate. Along with other characteristics, the United States has always possessed within its body politic a reluctance toward foreign entanglement. In some way the U.S. relationship with the U.N. is an outward display of the country’s own internal debate: Should it act alone, heeding above all else its own interests, or should it seek consensus and world approval? Chapter 5, which concludes the book, deals with ideas concerning reforms to the U.N. and its operations, particularly in the areas of peacekeeping and conflict resolution. There is also a look toward the U.N.’s future role in the world.

I would like to thank all the periodicals that granted us permission to use their work. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to all those at the H. W. Wilson Company who made this book possible, especially Lynn Messina, Sandra Watson, Jennifer Peloso, Norris Smith, Richard Joseph Stein, and Gray Young.

Cullen Thomas

April 2004