[Venkatesh]

I see a lot of people here saying that the weakness of the United Nations is its lack of power to back up its words.

I believe that nothing could be further from the truth. A United Nations Army would be a fate worse than any that we could possibly contrive. A new world order could be imposed upon soverign nations, starting with weak countries at the periphery of global power, and reaching slowly inward, till all uncontrolled people are islands of hope in a storm. There will be no regional conflicts; instead, it will be the forces of the "World Government" against forces of regional autonomy.

My expectation of the United Nations is not that they stop every conflict, but rather that they try and eliminate the roots of violent conflict. After the birth of nuclear ballistic weapons, every day's survival was just an hour away from utter destruction. However, we are still here today, and the spectre of death no longer hangs so threateningly above us. The UN provided a forum for negotiations between the various parts of the world, enabling us to be here.

The UN has successes in many other areas as well. The WHO was able to forcibly eradicate smallpox from the face of the Earth. Imagine if another such campaign was targetted against AIDS or typhoid or something else. Such an undertaking requires international cooperation.

It is my opinion that the UN is a very useful organization which cannot always be successful, but must always try. Each success means that many fewer people die and that many few families and cultures are destroyed.