ill makes it quite an economic bargain for us,” says Luck. He points out the Americans currently are spending just a little over four dollars per person for the U.N. peacekeeping operations.“That’s less than one two-hundredth of what we spend on defense,” Luck continues. “Considering that the total costs of one B-2 bomber is $2.2 billion, our total U.N. peacekeeping costs are half of one B-2 bomber. I don’t think that is such an outrageous amount to spend.”There also is disagreement over how much support the U.S. should give to U.N. agencies specializing in economic and social issues. “There clearly are some that are better than other,” Bolton says. He cites the Universal Postal Union, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Maritime Organization, and the International Civil Aviation Organization as examples of U.N. agencies that merit U.S. support. “The ones that are truly specialized and that stick to their knitting can be very useful,” he says. “The problem is that there is a whole alphabet soup of agencies that overlap and duplicate their responsibilities.”Some experts see the U.N.’s accomplishments in economic and social development as the most convincing case for strong U.S. support of the organization. “U.N. peacekeeping operations have been the center of controversy,” James Gustave Speth, administrator of the U.N. Development Program, said. “But few have mentioned the other U.N. – the U.N. of the developing world. The U.N.’s development work is as important as its peacekeeping work, and is right now under even greater threat in the U.S. Congress. Most importantly, those two U.N. roles are linked – because the U.N. can only be a strong force for peace if it is a strong force for development. (8)CHAPTER 1BACKGROUNDORIGINS IN WARThe establishment of the United Nations was not the worl...
