Book Reviews : Utopia Lost - The United Nations and World Order by Rosemary Righter. New York: The Twentieth Century Press, 1995. 420pp. $29.95 cloth; $12.00 paper
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| Author | Anthony Parsons |
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711789501200606 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
104
rather
than
qualitative
and
vertically
extended.’
Certainly
there
have
been
successes,
as
in
Namibia,
Cambodia,
El
Salvador
and
(probably)
Mozambique.
But
there
have
also
been
failures,
and
the
author
judges
the
situation
in
Bosnia
to
be
a
’shambles’.
Parsons
attributes
the
down-side
of
the
UN’s
recent
record
to
be
partly
due
to
the
Security
Council’s
’unfortunate
habit’
of trying
to
combine
in
single
operations
the
two
distinct
activities
of
peacekeeping
and
peace-enforcement.
In
connection
with
the
Somali
fiasco,
he
wonders
whether
’Washington
was
not
told
that
the
mighty
British
empire
pursued
the
so-called
Mad
Mullah
of
Somaliland
for
thirty
years
until
his
death
from
natural
causes
in
1920!’
No
basic
change
is
foreseen
in
the
UN’s
present
situation,
but
it
is
suggested
that
there
are
some
’incremental
possibilities
for
improvement’.
Three
are
identified.
First,
the
author
would
deal
with
the
UN’s
endemic
financial
problem
by
imposing
a
limit
(he
suggests
10
per
cent)
on
the
proportion
of
the
budget
which
is
levied
on
any one
state.
This
would
reduce
the
contribution
of
the
United
States
by
more
than
half
and,
if
Parsons
had
his
way,
lead
to
some
small
but
rich-per-capita
countries
paying
a
lot
more.
Secondly,
he
calls
for
more
effective
preventive
action
(including,
where
appropriate,
the threat
of force),
asserting
that
there
is
no
lack
of
the
information
and
analysis
on
which
such
a
development
would
have
to
be
grounded.
Finally,
he
says
there
must
be
a
sharp
improvement
in
the
UN’s
command
and
control
of
its
military
forces.
However,
Parsons
also
expresses
some
doubts
about
the
practicality
of
one
or
two
of
these
prescriptions,
and
points
out
that
the
United
Nations
is
going
to
remain
’the
quintessence
of
the
Lowest
Common
Denominator’.
Clearly,
the
world
is
not
always
an
especially
congenial
place
for
internationalist-
minded
people,
such
as
the
author
of
this
book.
But
he
takes
some
comfort
from
the
fact
that
’the
Security
Council
has
evolved
into
a
kind
of
touchstone
of
legitimacy
for
operations
which
in
earlier
days
would
have
been
carried
out
by
Great
Powers
without
multilateral
sanction’.
That
is
truly
a
significant
change
in
the
way
in
which
interna-
tional
relations
are
conducted.
It
also
underlines
the
point
that
the
idea
of
a
general
international
organization
at
the
diplomatic
centre
of
things
has,
in
no
more
than
a
couple
of
generations,
’arrived’.
For
Lord
Davies
and
other
enthusiastic
supporters
of
the
League
of
Nations,
that
would
surely
have
been
a
matter
for
rejoicing.
One
of
the
strengths
of
the
book
is
its
emphasis
that
the
UN’s
peacekeeping
activity
is
quite
distinct
from
enforcement.
The
latter,
at
whatever
level
of force,
’means
taking
sides’.
Whether
the
UN
is
prepared
to
undertake
or
to
authorize
that
’is
conditioned
not
so
much
by
the
gravity
of
the
act
of
aggression
itself
but
by
the
international
stand-
ing
and
alliances
of
the
victim
and
of
the
aggressor’.
Peacekeeping
by
contrast
involves
helping
the
parties
to
get
out
of
or
live
with
some
kind
of
mess,
the
UN’s
role
in
this
respect
sometimes
having
entailed
the
provision
of
’a
ladder
down
which
the
two
superpowers
were
only
too
ready
to
climb’.
Keele
University
ALAN
JAMES
Utopia
Lost -
The
United
Nations
and
World
Order
by
Rosemary
Righter.
New
York:
The
Twentieth
Century
Press,
1995.
420pp.
$29.95
cloth;
$12.00
paper.
At
first
glance
it
would
be
easy
to
mistake
this
book
for
another
anti-UN
polemic,
a
heavy
barrage
from
the
Heritage
Foundation.
It
is
not
an
easy
read.
Ms.
Righter
looses
off
so
many
well-aimed
salvos
at
so
many
targets,
frequently
blasting
the
same
one
again
and
again,
that,
like
Flanders
in
1916,
it
becomes
difficult
to
follow the
contours
of
the
analytical
landscape,
to
know
where
you
are,
where
you
have
come
from
and
where
you
are
likely
to
go -
except
into
another
rain
of
intellectual
shellfire.
But
the
truth
is
that
this
is
a
thoughtful
and
thought-provoking
book.
I
wish
it
had
been
available
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