It was the great sociologist Max Weber who defined the state as the organization that holds a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." And today, if you ask the definition of a "failed state" at the United Nations, the answer is that it is a state that has lost its monopoly of violence. The business of the state has been to prepare for war throughout its five thousand years of history.
When the United Nations was established, some people (but not all!) believed that this would eventually allow the United Nations to secure world peace through disarmament and the states could delegate their national defense to the UN.
But no one believed that the Member States would delegate to the United Nations their "right" of internal military intervention to maintain political power in their own country.
What state would give up its monopoly of violence based on its internal culture of war? Wouldn't that be giving up its very existence as a state? How could that happen?
Even if one could imagine that the United Nations took over the role now played by the state, if that role were to include the preparation and conduct of war, wouldn't we risk the creation of a global tyranny?
