Designing and Applying Chapter VII

Abstract

The seamless transition from WW2 to the Cold War turned Roosevelt ’s vision of the policing of world peace by the four most powerful or populous nations—the US, UK, Soviet  Union and China —into an illusion. Their philosophical and political disagreements were not only the biggest obstacle to an effective management of international peace and security; they proselytized their ideas across the globe and sowed war and violence among smaller nations. The Cold War clouded every issue that required the Security Council’s attention and intervention. With France as a belated addition to the “Policemen”, the club of permanent members, the Western alliance now mustered three veto -wielding powers over the Soviet-Union and China, which seldom synchronized their votes. Instead of employing UN sanctions as instruments of peace the permanent three (P3 ), France, the UK, and the US, operating with majority votes, regularly opposed Russia , forcing its veto rather than seeking compromises to resolve bloody conflicts. Sanctions policy-making was fraught with political inhibitors associated with the permanent five (P5 ), of which the Soviet Union’s overuse of the veto was the most highly discussed but by no means the only one. This dissonance left the Security Council paralyzed and its sanctions system incapable of playing its peace and security-preserving role. Misuse of the sanctions tool continued even in the face of the most dangerous threats to international peace and security—the extraordinary buildup of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. The dysfunction of the Security Council became a token in the big power policy chess game when the West convinced the General Assembly to adopt the Uniting for Peace Resolution, for no other purpose than to score political points against dissenters.