Fucking Transnational Armies, How Do They Work?

Might Makes Right, unfortunately.

More to the point, UN delegates are diplomats, not rulers.

^ Which is for the better. Do you honestly think large area and population states like the US, Russia, China and India would take kindly to various African hellholes dictating what their laws can and cannot do via the UN? That kind of set up wouldn't last a month before the large population states of the world basically say Screw This, I'm Outta Here.

Because they don't have power, they're diplomats not government officials?

I'm wondering if the League of Nations would've worked better if it had been given a fair chance.

I know, but why is that so?

Why? That'd be like saying that the East and West coasts should abandon the Union because they can't allow Flyover Country to dictate their policies.

What was up with that project?

edited 12th Jan '11 1:00:32 PM by RawPower

That'd be like saying that the East and West coasts should abandon the Union because they can't allow Flyover Country to dictate their policies

We've already had and solved this kind of dispute before in regards to inside our own territory.

So you are proposing we have an awesome global war between the UN and anti-UN (led by the USA), and then you lose and we live happily ever after in a supranational environment with global healthcare, effective laws and an international army that prevents armed conflicts between member states?

Some people still have sour spots about this, and no, that was a different issue altogether.

edited 12th Jan '11 1:07:53 PM by RawPower

uh, UN is difficult... I think the whole thing hangs on the industrial states: the ideal UN would be able to stop problems between states via diplomaty. For this, they would need power... but giving them too much power gets the countries frisky because they want to protect their own rights. And they pull out. And as soon as a mayor country leaves the UN is useless because they can't interfere with them anymore without provoking a World War. But without all mayor industialized countries, they don't have anymore authority. I mean, what kind of significance have decisions if they aren't supported by Russia or the USA? Nothing at all, practically. Because they have to balance between pleasing the "important" states and trying not to loose all their significance changing anything through the UN is extremly unrealistical. Best way to illustrate is parcipating in a LARP on the topic....

The UN should have had the authority and leverage to stop the USA from going into Irak. That was such a slap in the face...

Why in the world would it have that kind of authority?

So that one country can't unilaterally go to war against everyone else's wishes and all common sense?

Sorry, but:

I am not an anarchist. Governments are fine. But I'd rather have a nuclear war than see the United States, or even other nations, subordinated to some international military state with claims of being a worldwide circle-jerk peace-fest.

You'd rather doom the human race to a horrible death than let it be united in (possibly) awful conditions?

And who gives it that authority exactly?

All countries, Leviathan-style. It's what a Social Contract is. In fact, don't have it decided at the level of countries, have it decided at the level of PEOPLE. So that there may be a GLOBAL citizenry, where everyone has the vote.

Yeah, I think a bunch of nations would have a problem about an Army Without Borders. Some have problems with Doctors Without Borders, for crying out loud.

I say fix the UN and give them a rotating pool of troops form member nations to use for the same purposes as proposed.

The rotating pool woudl be based off of the standing army of the nation that gets picked to donate troops. So if you have a small military, your donation to the pool is small - although you could give more. For a land-locked nation with no real air force, another nation may donate the aircraft assets.

Then, this revamped UN can send in this international force to police up a hotspot, defuse tensions and provide disaster relief.

Some rules need to be made so that the Security Council isn't owned by the same permamaent members. Like, number of votes based off of total population, or GDP, or something like that. Votes are cast in favor of who comprises the security council, the body that actually authorizes and funds the security force that will be doing the work.

Or something like that. Is it ovbious I'm a novice?

On top of that you'd want what is equivalent to a constitution for that. The more rule-based it is, the easier the framework to make decisions and the less likely abuse can occur.

Y'know, we're barely more advanced than blokes in the bar talking about half an hour about the "fact" that "Humans are the only animals that stumble upon the same stone twice". My God, I overheard one of those conversations, and it was so... so FRED COLON...

Well, we're incompetent, ineffectual, and hardly better than those blokes, is all I'm saying.

^^ Yes, a clearly-worded charter/constitution/whatever so that we can quote chapter and verse as to why something needs to be fixed, or why we can't fix something else.

^ Hey, at least we're trying to understand, and I have no problem for inquisitive idiots. How many don't even bother doing that much?

@ Eth Zee: That was hyperbole, but I certainly wouldn't want the UN to have any sort of legal or practical authority over the US, and as a matter of consistency/fairness, that means I don't want them to have authority over any other nation, either.

I am truly baffled as to how anyone could think a standing UN army could possibly be a good thing, however.

If a standing UN Army was established and almost anyone could join and essentially cast off their nationality for the duration of serving, I'd be down.

Shit, if it had a 20 year pension the way the military did, I would most definitely join, so long as I wouldn't expect the same retarded ROE that the UN peacekeepers use. "Yeah we're getting shot at, but we aren't going to shoot back. Or counter-attack. Or counter-battery. Actually, we're just going to sit here and be targets instead of actually bringing some order."

Alright. I just dislike the "Better Dead Than Red" attitude in general. There is very little that I would find worse than a nuclear war.

This is the last of my foray offtopic, but I watched this programme on youtube: QED: A Guide To Armageddon (you can see the 2nd and 3rd parts on the related videos bit). I'd just recommend watching through it, it's an illuminating programme.

Pvtnum11: There are only five permanent security member countries on the Security Council, while the other ten or so have member countries rotate in and out. I like the rotation aspect, as it makes sure that everyone gets a say at some point without having to fight all at once. I don't like the permanent members though, and I wish that would be repealed. It gets annoying when all but one of the countries agrees to an action and one country screws it up due to the benefits of permanence.

Funnyguts - Exactly. Rotate them all out, or at least have their positions put up for vote. And fix the ROE, like Barkey said. Shoot, I'd go for that if they had a need for radio operators, and be the salty thirty-something that complains all the time and is called "Pops".