Is the UN ineffective?

An acquaintance, reading the last post, objected that the world has been relatively peaceful since the UN was formed after World War 2, and that, they argued, was due to the presence of the UN.

“Relatively” is a relative term. The US alone has been in 14 wars since World War 2. The world at large has been in many more (250+ by some estimates). Indeed, there are 63 wars of various sizes going on right now around the world. The US wars thus far are:

1950-1953 – Korean War (as part of a coalition)

1961 – Cuban invasion

1961-1973 – Vietnam War

1965 – Dominican Republic invasion

1982 – Lebanon (as part of a coalition)

1983 – Grenada invasion

1989 – Panama invasion

1991– Gulf War (as part of a coalition)

1993 – Somalia invasion

1994 – Haiti invasion

1994-1995 – Bosnia (as part of a coalition)

1999 – Kosovo (as part of a coalition)

2001-present – Afghanistan (as part of a coalition)

2003-present – Iraq (as part of a coalition)

I argued in my previous post that the UN has been relatively ineffective at preventing wars. I rest my case.