An Independent United Nations Army

Those of us who are old enough to remember regret how clever Joseph Stalin was when he asked “How many Armored Divisions does the Pope have?” You see, as it happened, the Pope had objected to some of the Soviet Union’s policies and had launched something of a diplomatic offensive in the Forums of Power throughout the World. A great many people were taking the Pope very seriously and this puzzled Stalin. If the Pope had no Armored Divisions, then who cared what the Pope thought?

But such is the case regarding the United Nations today. Its efforts at diplomacy are rendered effectively ridiculous for the same reason that Stalin found the Pope to be ridiculous. There needs to be some actual weight behind the words. A Pope that can’t fire a shot is not worth listening to. Well, there is Moral Authority, but that and several dollars will buy you a cappuccino at Star Bucks.

As it is now, the U.N. has not a single soldier under its own command, but must go begging among its member states. Well, this arrangement reminds us of America’s own Constitutional Crisis – its Great Civil War. You see, at one time America had no unified and independent Army of it own, but possessed only the conglomeration of Regiments from the individual States. Well, as it happened, instead of serving the greater good, many of these State Regiments went to War against the Nation as a whole. So America, while still calling itself a Federation, had effectively transformed itself into a Centralized and Unified Single State.

But now we can see that the United Nations is in the same precarious condition that the United States was in while it allowed itself to be a cluster of competing and warring factions – a Federation. Today, National Armies are as likely to fight for as against other Member States of the U.N.

But then, there are Two United Nations. There is the Security Council that consists of a few Designated Victors of World War Two. This Club of Belligerent Nations, reflecting a Strength that was real 60 years ago, now claims a Traditional Privilege of Veto over the will of all other Nations combined. The collection of suppressed, dominated, and subjugated nations is the General Assembly.

Well, the General Assembly needs to cast off this Tyranny of the Security Council and unite in common cause. Each of these Nations wastes its precious funding on small armies too inconsiderable to matter. Yet if their contributions went into a Common Fund, they could put together an Army sizeable enough to be imposing. Or perhaps the General Assembly could even begin gathering Taxes, receiving them even on a voluntary basis… from people who truly would like to be Citizens of the World. This funding could be used to put together an Army entirely under its own Command.

You see, until the World can finally get together, institutionally and not just sentimentally or symbolically, but with some real strength, then the World is doomed to be crushed under the oppression of any effective Dictatorship… even if the Dictatorship does call itself a Democracy. But what kind of a World Democracy has only one Nation that can vote while a Hundred other Nations must live under thinly veiled intimidations, and unilateral Wars?

The Nation that so prides itself on Democracy must learn that the rest of the World needs to be counted too. But the World must bring more to the table then pencils and paper and stirring heart-felt appeals to justice. How many Divisions does the World have?