The UN – An Exercise In Herding Cats?

“The UN General Assembly is Great in Theory just Not in Practice”

An astute and valid depiction by Sarah Abed of the UN General Assembly which began its 74th annual conference yesterday.  It is not a pretty picture.

The UN becomes more and more tinged with and a captive of Western bias in many important matters, yet strangely independent in others.  The security of the world and many individual nations who do not automatically follow the Western line or pattern would be engrossed in a whole lot more madness were it not for the rational element of nations like Russia and China holding back the more obscene urges of the Western cowboy element.  

Not that such restraint limits those who have at times no qualms about operating under terms of their own ‘rules based order’, which usually means operating outside and in contravention of the norms of international law.

So, the UN is what it is, just like any other man-made institution – a necessary evil – yet at times and with the potential of being more often a far greater force for good.

But how do you measure success in the herding of cats?