John Bolton Is Right About the U.N. - Bret Stephens

[TomSea]

Opinion | John Bolton Is Right About the U.N.
Bret Stephens

Confronted with the record of failure, U.N. defenders typically deflect and demand: the former, by pointing to the bad behavior of individual states as the cause of U.N. failures; the latter, by insisting that the U.N.’s core problem is a dearth of financial resources and legal authorities.

The arguments aren’t baseless. More permissive rules of engagement might have helped prevent some atrocities. Less obstructive behavior by Security Council members might have prevented others.

But they’re also misleading. Contrary to the belief that the U.N. runs on a shoestring, total expenditure for the U.N. system in 2016 was around $49 billion. That’s up 22 percent since 2010. And the abuse of the U.N. system by states such as Russia to protect clients like Bashar al-Assad is a feature of the system, not a bug.

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/john-bolton-un-united-nations.html