Is the United Nations Still Relevant in Preventing State-to-State Aggression?

By Jeff G. Gilmour, 22 March 2024

The UN Security Council chamber on 16 November 2023. Credit: Wikiweeki, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

With permanent members of the Security Council having exclusive power of veto, the United Nations has in reality become a lame duck.  As a result, in the case of Russia invading Ukraine, the UN is unable to take any measures or actions to halt this unlawful aggression. When it was written in 1945, the UN Charter aimed to prevent a situation like the Russian invasion. Article 2(4) states that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

By invading a UN member country for a second time in less than a decade, Russia under President Putin has repudiated the international rule of law and order. As noted by Nicholas Rostow of the US Naval War College, “Putin has never accepted Ukraine as an independent state. That refusal, whatever its justification, does not change the international and legal character of Ukraine.”[1] This is similar to the circumstances of the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990, claiming that Kuwait was actually a province of Iraq that colonial powers had severed from the country.

The sanctions imposed by the UN against Iraq were different due to the break-up of the Soviet Bloc. At that time the Kremlin was willing to agree with the Security Council to counter the attack on Kuwait by Iraqi military force. Now with President Vladimir Putin at the helm, he is using Russia’s veto to thwart any action of the Security Council.

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Volume 19, Number 3 (2024)

Another issue of Canadian Naval Review is coming soon. As you’ll see, we continue to produce ‘insightful and engaging’ material! Pour a hot beverage, settle into a comfy chair and prepare to be delighted!

The issue begins with an Editorial by John Orr which examines recent developments in the Multi-Mission Aircraft Project. Then our first article, “The RCN and African Maritime Security: Forward Security Strikes Back?” looks at little-known activities of the RCN – i.e., operations and exercises with African countries. These activities are important but, as the authors point out, they currently lack a strategic focus.

The second article, “Learning Destroyers: Harry DeWolf and HMCS Patriot, 1925-1926,” tells us about how a young Harry DeWolf learned his trade on the destroyer HMCS Patriot, after which he became one of the RCN’s most effective officers in WWII. The third article, “A Peripheral Theatre: Rethinking Conflict in the Arctic,” examines the literature on conflict in the Arctic and proposes a new framework. The author suggests that referring to the Arctic as a region of cooperation, or alternatively a place for resource competition, no longer fits the reality and proposes a theory that the potential for conflict in the North is dependent on geopolitical dynamics in Europe and the Pacific. Our final article, “Public Communication for the Halifax-class Frigates,” examines a sample of the media coverage of the Halifax-class procurement to see how it was perceived in the media, with an eye to learning lessons for the coverage of the CSC.

As usual, we have a number of thought-provoking Making Wave commentaries and columns. For example, we have a column about subsea cable security in the Indo-Pacific region, and a look at how/why the RCN eagerly awaits the Defence Policy Update.

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