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Questions for Thought and Discussion

• Why was the United Nations created?
• What are its principal goals and purposes?
• How did the successes and failures of the League of Nations affect the organizing principles and rules of the United Nations?
• What factors explain the growth of the United Nations’ membership over the past seven decades?
• What are the main organs – and their functions – of the United Nations?
• Has the UN Security Council been successful in maintaining peace and security?
• What have been the main challenges to international peace and security and how have they affected the UN's effectiveness over time?
• Has the Security Council itself changed? If so, in what ways?
• Is the United Nations the best organization (or actor) to deal with modern challenges of peacekeeping and peacebuilding? Why/why not?
• Do the different UN and UN-related agencies (World Bank, IMF, UNDP) share the same goals regarding economic development?
• What do the Millennium Development Goals consist of?
• How does the UN promote human rights?
• How important is the notion of ‘responsibility to protect’ to the UN agenda?
• Why does the UN have a difficulty to ‘deliver as one’?
• What are the major reform agendas for the UN in the early 21st century?
• How likely is it that any/some/all of these challenges will be met?
• Do you think the UN is an indispensable organization?

Other Books by the Author

• International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2014, 3rd edition)
• Transatlantic Relations Since 1945: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2012)
• The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)
• The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)

Further Reading

• Paul Kennedy,The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations (New York: Random House, 2007)
• Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The History of An Idea (New York: Penguin, 2013)
• T. G. Weiss, D. P. Forsythe and R. A. Coate, The United Nations and Changing World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2013, 7th edition)