Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Florentino Portero Rodríguez
tever the problems and vicissitudes it must overcome, China will be the
focus of attention of the area.
THE PROBLEMS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM
Following the First World War the victors decided to establish an international
organisation to avoid situations like those that led to the eruption
of the war, which had a cost that was hitherto unseen. The League of
Nations was born with a congenital weakness—the United States’ refusal
to join it. During its short-lived existence it put to the test the ability of a
multinational organisation to manage crises of different kinds and prevent
a clash of interests between great powers from degenerating into another
conflict of a similar scale. The result is only too well known. Important
lessons were learned from that experience. The first was that it is no use
creating a multinational system if the member states do not believe in it
and do not embrace its logic. The founding principles were abandoned
when, instead of sanctioning infringing powers, it relaxed its obligations
and sought entente. The pacification policies fuelled expansionist conduct
and precipitated the conflict. Giving in was an act of irresponsibility and
cowardliness, proof that the nations did not believe in the fledgling organisation
and in the diplomatic logic that underpinned it. The member states
betrayed the League of Nations while betraying their own interests. The
second lesson was that only by including the great powers in its system
could it work. As the decisive players withdrew owing to isolationism or
because they felt uncomfortable, the League’s room for manoeuvre shrank
to the point that it became inoperable. After the Second World War ended
there were attempts to rebuild the multinational organisation that was
once the League of Nations but without making the same mistakes that
led it to fail. The lessons learned conveyed a contradictory message. In
order to be able to count on all the great powers it was necessary to grant
them privileges that would be costly. Only if they were guaranteed that
nothing could be done against their will would they agree to join. That was
the origin of the right of veto, the ability to block any procedure considered
detrimental to their interests. In order to have all of them inside the system,
it renounced being able to act in most of the really important cases.
The delegates of all the world’s governments need to meet somewhere
to settle issues of general interest. That place is the General Assembly. As
most of these governments are hardly exemplary—and nor is their behaviour
on the international scene and in the Assembly itself—its resolutions
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