The United Nations and a New World Order

The United Nations was set up at the close of World War II in order to rid the earth of the scourge of war and to lay the foundations of international peace. After the abortive experiment with the League of Nations which was set up after World War I with a similar objective, the U.N. has been the most ambitious project involving the entire international community. It has survived for fifty-five years through many a crisis, and this is a record of sorts. Given that peace is much more than the absence of war, it is in the fitness of things to reflect on the contemporary role of the U.N. in promoting a new global order. For peace to endure it needs a sure foundation which cannot be a mere balance of power, or worse, of terror such as prevailed for many years of the Cold War. It can be argued that the Cold War, for all the criticism that may be levelled at it, served the vital purpose of keeping a cold peace instead of a hot war with all its disastrous consequences. But in the long term it is always preferable to establish a global order that renders war useless as an instrument of policy both nationally and internationall