external military intervention

Main Topic: Coordinator Comments

In theory, external military interventions may be addressed by the United Nations, since the UN Charter. in Article 2, requires that "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from 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."

In practice, however, the United Nations finds it difficult to address external military interventions by the five permanent members of the Security Council (United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia), because they have the right to unilaterally block the actions on any issue by the Security Council, which is the body that should take up such questions.

An authoritative list of external military interventions by the United States, compiled for the US Congress and available on the Internet includes over 200 interventions since the founding of the UN after World War II (as well as an similar number in the prior 150 years). Some of these were authorized by the United Nations, but many were not, including the recent (2003) intervention in Iraq, and yet the United State went ahead with the intervention anyway.

As described vividly by Kwame Nkrumah, the basic purpose of most interventions has been to support the economic and political interests of neo-colonialism.