Today, powerful countries believe their world outlook is infallible, their security sacrosanct and lesser nations and states must fall in line... or face unenviable consequences. The powerful continue to ride roughshod over
smaller countries.
Today’s war in Ukraine is an example of the theory of ‘might is right. Russia believes its security is endangered by Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) -a US anti Russia military alliance- bringing US troops and missiles to Russia’s doorstep.
The United States (US) and NATO in the meantime, rather than defusing the crisis, encourages Ukraine to battle with its super powerful neighbour. The United States is still the world’s leading economic super power. According to ‘worlddata.info’, with a GDP of 23.0 trillion USD, the US is by far the world’s largest economy. It is followed by China in second place with a GDP of 17.7 trillion USD.
Russia meanwhile owns one of the world’s largest collections of nuclear arsenals. While there were approximately 12,705 nuclear warheads worldwide as of January 2022, almost 90 percent belonged to two countries -the US and Russia; with Russia having 5,977 nuclear warheads, the US 5,428, China 350, France 290, the UK 225, Pakistan 165, India 160, Israel 90 and North Korea 20.
In a world facing many grave challenges based on division of economic and military power, the peoples of this world tend to look to the United Nations (UN) to play a key role in resolving problems based on these inequalities.
Smaller and less powerful nation states look to the UN to uphold their rights in the face of large and powerful countries who fail to recognise that ‘their’ interests may be in conflict with those of less powerful neighbours. The United Nations, an intergovernmental organization- was set up (in the aftermath of World War II) on 25 October 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among states, achieve international co-operation, and to become a centre for harmonizing actions between nations.
In fact one of its founding principles of the UN, is based on the sovereign equality of all of its members and disputes are to be settled by peaceful means. Members are required to refrain from the use of threat or use of force. The power of nations like Russia and the US lie in their possession of large arsenals of weapons of mass destruction -namely nuclear warheads and the power of their economies.
Russia, according to worldometer is in possession of the largest reserves of natural gas -1,688,228,000 MMcf (One million cubic feet of gas is instead denoted as MMCF, in which the two Ms mean “one thousand thousand” or 1,000,000, with each M representing three zeros). Unfortunately, though the UN has achieved much during its lifetime, such as implementing successful programmes through the UNICEF via responding to emergencies, as well as being one of the world’s largest providers of vaccines, while supporting child health, nutrition, safe water, sanitation and quality education around the world, the UN by its very structure has not been able to prevent the bullying and dominance of smaller and weaker nation states.
One of the worst examples of bullying and illegal occupation of lands is the case of Palestine. The state of Israel -a creation of the UN itself -now occupies more than 3/4 th of land belonging to its mother country -State Palestine.
The world body itself has found Israel guilty of committing apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory. But because of its structure -where a single country within the UN Security Council can veto any action- the UN is unable to even criticise or take affimative action to impose punshment on the wrongdoer Again in Iran, the United States is attempting to compel other states to follow its policy on Iran by threatening those states’ companies and business executives with economic or even criminal sanctions to force them to cut commercial ties with Iran -a country unilaterally sanctioned by the US on blatantly false charges.
This is the sad reality of our world. We have two super power blocs attempting to control our destinies to suit their needs. In the past we had the Non Aligned Movement mitigating. But with the fall of the then Soviet Union the bloc disappeared. Perhaps it’s time to recreate this balance The United States is attempting to compel the other state parties (and others) to follow its policy on Iran by threatening those states’ companies and business executives with economic or even criminal sanctions to force them to cut commercial ties with Iran.
