Global Steam Engine Agreement of 1850

[skadistic]

I hear this all the time from posters in the US, but it's not true. That organisation still holds all the hoops through which you have to jump.

And those hoops are worthless. With China and Russia playing games with the security counsel the US and its allies simply walk around the hoops. The UN is ineffective at anything but coruption. Iran is giving the bird to the UN and what is going to happen? Nothing. The UN is weak and will let Iran continue down its path of nuke weapons while it pretends to debate the issue. Iran signed a treaty that it is now renigging on it should suffer consiquences but it wont. Then Isreal and the US along with other willing nations with the balls to do something will have to step up. The world will cry foul and ***** and moan about the anti-muslem west.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Skadistic, we agree about the pointlessness of the UN, but for very different reasons. The UN was a tool created by the victorious powers of WW2 to help them maintain the global status quo, one in which they called the shots. The basis of their authority rested on the fact that they had the biggest bombs, and could annihilate billions of people in a very short period of time, if necessary. That supreme executive authority over world affairs is now in the process of being eroded away with the spread of nuclear technology. Nukes are the great equalizer. Now a pitiful, pathetic little state like North Korea has the ability to deter invasion by the most powerful military in the world. So thats why I believe the UN is irrelevant. The UN only has relevance and authority to run the international system so long as its core, the original Gang of Five nuclear powers have the biggest bombs.

 

[Xenocrates]

How about reorganising the UN and scrapping the security council?

I think the UN is failing because the World agrees with Bozo (and me) on this. How can we expect it to have authority now that it has been completely unmasked?

I would move the headquarters out of NY (to Cuba maybe?), scrap the security council, go to one member one vote, maybe organise it along regional lines so that the US doesn't get to vote on issues on the other side of the World and voluntarily increase its budget. If it doesn't have the power to reel in the US it's blowout.

 

[allhailIndia]

How about reorganising the UN and scrapping the security council?

I think the UN is failing because the World agrees with Bozo (and me) on this. How can we expect it to have authority now that it has been completely unmasked?

I would move the headquarters out of NY (to Cuba maybe?), scrap the security council, go to one member one vote, maybe organise it along regional lines so that the US doesn't get to vote on issues on the other side of the World and voluntarily increase its budget. If it doesn't have the power to reel in the US it's blowout.

What nonsense...

The UN does not exist as an anti-US organization and was never meant to turn on any of the Nuclear Five. There are many many more things the UN does and does pretty well, apart form trying to prevent the US from going to war.

Let us look at it this way. Would ANYTHING have prevented the US from going to war? Short of a threat to nuke the US, nothing the rest of the Security Council could have done would have made the US change its mind. The Security Council does need reform ,which is currently being blocked by the US and China, but that does not mean that an Executive body must cease to exist.

Its a bit like saying, look at all the cronyism and corruption that surrounds the appointees of the Bush Administration, as well previous administrations; to put an end to this, let us give all its powers to the Congress and abolish the post of the President and the whole Executive.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

The reform necessary to save the UN would be so drastic that youd basically be disbanding it and creating a new organization from scratch. Thats not something the UN bureaucracy is likely to do to itself, on its own. The organization is now completely irrelevant. Its not just the inability to enforce a high profile item like the NPT, look at its utter impotence first in Rwanda, and now Darfur. All it took was one carbomb in Bagdhad for the UN to pull down its flag and flee Iraq. The UN is a spent force.

 

[Xanikk999]

In the year 1850, the Great Powers gathered in Vienna and signed the Global Steam Engine Agreement. This agreement stipulated that non Western people around the world were not to be trusted with steam power and other technologies, because if they possessed them, they might begin to think that they were the equals of the West, and begin acting independently, in ways we didnt preapprove. Under the agreement, the only way these countries could have railways would be if they were built and operated by Westerners. These railways also had to be open to regular inspections, to ensure that no high technology was being transferred to the country. For over fifty years the agreement remained intact, but then with the outbreak of WW1, the various Western factions needed all the help they could get from their colonial possesions, so in return for full unwavering support, the agreement was abandoned and steam power and other technologies were allowed to move freely throughout the world.

Sounds pretty stupid doesnt it? If you could go back in time in this alternate history, youd tell them the whole thing was a waste of time, right? So what is it about nuclear non proliferation that makes any sense?

I think the non proliferation treaty is still different though. We arent trying to stop other nations from becoming advanced we just dont the ones that have lunatic tendancies to be in possesion of nukes.

Iran could possess nukes and thats probably the least of our worries.

But does anyone here trust certain people like Kim Jong Il with nukes? I dont and i would hope our country would try to stop north korea from developing nukes.

 

[Xenocrates]

What nonsense...

You could make that same argument about the police. Is there anything that they could have done to prevent the shoplifter aside from nuking him?

It's not about reeling in the US for the sake of it (there are signs that the US is really out of control at the moment!), but if the UN doesn't even attempt to do that it has zero credibility with anyone.

Meanwhile the US is being questioned about torture even as we speak:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4974852.stm

Too little too late.

 

[Bill3000]

Is there anything that they could have done to prevent the shoplifter aside from nuking him?

Um, retaining him? Shooting him? Arresting him?