Why America Still Needs the United Nations.

UNITED Nations; INTERNATIONAL organization; INTERNATIONAL law; INTERNATIONAL relations; NATIONAL security; FOREIGN relations of the United States; WAR (International law)

In September 2002, a radical new document declared that "no nation can build a safer, better world alone." These words came not from some utopian internationalist or ivory-tower academic, but from the new National Security Strategy of the United States. For all its underpinnings in realpolitik, the strategy committed the United States to multilateralism. The United Nations (UN) is the preeminent institution of multilateralisrn. It provides a forum where sovereign states can come together to share burdens, address common problems and seize common opportunities. The UN helps establish the norms that many countries including the United States would like everyone to live by. Throughout its history, the United States has seen the advantages of living in a world organized according to laws, values, and principles; in fact, the republic was not yet 30 years old when it first went to war in defense of international law and it has done so multiple times since, including in the first Gulf War. The UN, for all its imperfections, real and perceived reflects this American preference for an ordered world.