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> Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists

A pretty big overstatement. The only cross-border war between nations I can think of is Russia and Ukraine. If perfection is our standard, then of course the UN and everything else is a failure. Otherwise, the UN is doing this job effectively.

> The UN made sense when the security council members had some incentive to use the UN system, but when their foreign policy is to circumvent international law at any opportunity, then its easy for them to sidestep it. Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them. There's no enforcer here, they're supposed to be voluntarily enforcing themselves and obviously that's not happening.

The golden age you imagine never existed. It's always been this way. This is the way the UN, and politics in general, works. I wish it were otherwise and we should work to improve it, but it does work, unless we measure it by the standards of ideals and perfection - and then what human institution (or human being) measures up?

>> Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists

> A pretty big overstatement. The only cross-border war between nations I can think of is Russia and Ukraine.

Russia is not at war with Ukraine. Russia is just running a covert action in Ukraine in an attempt to destabilize it's democratically elected government.

Russia has never like the fact Ukraine decided to leave the Soviet Union.

I suspect the reference to China refers to how China is unilaterally taking ownership of the South China Sea using it military strength, with total disregard to international law.

It might also be in reference to how China handles Tibet, or how they are trying to kill democracy in Hong Kong, or maybe how they have their eyes on Taiwan where they claim it is rightfully theirs.

> The golden age you imagine never existed. It's always been this way. This is the way the UN, and politics in general, works. I wish it were otherwise and we should work to improve it, but it does work

I suspect drzaiusapelord disagrees with you when you say it is working and I would say I tend to agree with him.

The modern day UN is nothing more than a very expensive bureaucracy that in reality achieves very little.

Maybe it has never worked?

>Russia is not at war with Ukraine. Russia is just running a covert action in Ukraine in an attempt to destabilize it's democratically elected government.

This is correct, although it's not so covert. Russia has built in Eastern Ukraine a full-scale army of 40K troops with 600 tanks and thousands of APCs. It sends hundreds of railway cars with military supplies across the border. The army is better equipped and trained than many NATO countries in Europe. At this scale it simply can't be covert, and it's certainly a war.

> Russia is not at war with Ukraine. Russia is just running a covert action in Ukraine in an attempt to destabilize it's democratically elected government.

Which is different from US involvement in its sphere of influence how, exactly? Presence of boots on the ground?

The U.S. has not invaded a neighbor and conquered its territory and people (at least not since the 19th century). There is no comparison. The borders with Mexico and Canada are undefended - Russia's neighbors, by contrast, are begging for NATO forces to protect them.

> Russia is not at war with Ukraine. Russia is just running a covert action in Ukraine in an attempt to destabilize it's democratically elected government.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine, killed thousands (more?) Ukrainians, conquered a large part of its territory and people, and organize, supply, train, and fight along side an open rebellion.

I'm not sure what else to call that but invasion and war. The Russian and Ukrainian goernments avoid that term right now because both want a cease fire.

I do realize that Russian troops invaded Ukraine but they are not at war (i.e. war has not been declared).

Ask Putin are Russia soldiers in the Ukraine he will say no.

Ask him if Russia is supporting fighters in Ukraine with weapons he will say no.

Ask him is Russia at war with Ukraine he will say no.

That is exactly why the UN is so hopeless. Everyone knows the answer to those questions is YES and Russia is effectively at war with the Ukraine, but all he has to do is deny it.

Ukraine has even gone to the UN asking for help, but nothing is done, only because the UN is such a toothless tiger.

The big world players, USA, Russia and China do as they please, regardless of what the UN or the rest of the world thinks.

The UN Security Council is designed to reflect the actual, not the desired power in the world (as I understand it). For example, when the UN was established Stalin's Soviet Union was given the highest status, a permanent seat and a veto on the Security Council. It's a mechanism for the powers to resolve differences and act when possible. Whether we like them or not, China and Russia have the power to afffect the world, and we need a way to deal with them as peacefully and effectively as possible.

The UN represents the will of the world's powers, for good or ill. As Russia has the status of one of the five leading powers and another, China, does not oppose them in this matter, the will of the world's powers is not what we would like regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In other issues, the world's powers do agree. Two examples are Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs. Another is the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

BTW, you'll note that the Europeans and the U.S. also don't refer to it as war or invasion. I"m pretty sure it's because they don't want to escalate the situation, and neither does Ukraine. If it escalates, more innocents die, more is destroyed, and Ukraine loses even more than they already have.

>> Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists >A pretty big overstatement. The only cross-border war between nations I can think of is Russia and Ukraine. If perfection is our standard, then of course the UN and everything else is a failure. Otherwise, the UN is doing this job effectively.

This is a pretty good point, with nuclear weapons as an alternative explanation.

> > Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists

> A pretty big overstatement. The only cross-border war between nations I can think of is Russia and Ukraine. If perfection is our standard, then of course the UN and everything else is a failure. Otherwise, the UN is doing this job effectively.

Well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War There's that 2008 skirmish. Not that I disagree with your post though.

I agree. I was talking about a current war.

> Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them.

Libya's "no fly" zone, Iraq, Kosovo, nationalistic coup against a democratically elected president.... etc etc etc

I don't even what to say when reading texts like this. It's like democracy is the racism of the 21st century. White infallible democrats versus autocratic niggers.

The biggest democratic state in history grabbed Hawai and occupied the Philippines. But now in the 21st century, since the world is "civilized", lets change the rules. Awfully close to patent trolling.

Anyway UN is doing its work fine. Its somewhat useless, but better than nothing.

> Its somewhat useless, but better than nothing.

That's not a glowing review for an organization who's budget was >$12 billion in 2012. [1]

To what better use could that money have been put?

[1]: http://www.un.org/en/hq/dm/budget.shtml http://www.un.org/en/hq/dm/pdfs/oppba/Regular%20Budget.pdf

So when did the Philippines become a U.S. state?

Did he say it became a US state?

Russia and China are permanent veto members of the Security Council. That the members of the Security Council had far greater freedom of action was always baked into the system, and was required to get buy in from the the most powerful nations, without which the UN would fail (see: League of Nations).

The Security Council is nothing more than the principle members of the Allies at the conclusion of World War 2. Communist China didn't replace the Nationalists on the Security Council until 22 years after Chiang Kai-shek was driven off the mainland onto Taiwan. Since Mao and his old guard were doing their damndest to replicate the starvation and political purging of the Soviet Union in the 20s, it probably didn't matter that much...

"The Security Council is nothing more than the principle members of the Allies at the conclusion of World War 2."

Ie. the most powerful nations at the time, without which a second League of Nations experiment would be doomed to fail.