fatvegan

How would it go if aid was conditional on cancellation of all military expenditure? The UN could provide vastly increased resources to peace-keeping operations, and have a presense in every single aid-receiving nation. You would probably want to transfer many of the national armies' resources into UN forces - perhaps to help avoid what happened in East Timor. I suspect this idea will be unpopular with lefties who think that the West already has far too much military control over poor nations. But if you could make it accountable to many members of the UN, rather than just the US or just Britain, then I think it would be OK.

If there was some body aware of the military resources in every country, then they could sensibly downgrade and reallocate military force as it thought it was possible. You'd remove a huge power from governments, which they often don't deserve to wield.

Except the problem would be that the UN wouldn't know when to fight against rebels and when to let them take control. Perhaps it could just say that there is no justification for violent rebellion against a state with no military power. So it would be reasonable to fight against any rebellion. Those rebels could, relatively safely, join the political process.

It just seems bizarre to me that so much aid that is given either goes into military expenditure, or allows military expenditure to increase because it frees up other money. Military expenditure has to be the least productive use conceivable for a chunk of money. I guess it keeps young testonerony men off the streets - although they arguably do more damage inside an army than outside it.

I suspect a large component of conflict is the legacy of history, and maybe it wouldn't take that long for people to forget. The UN would have to do a very good job of it, or you'd get crazy Iraqiness. It would have to be fair, and effective, and not accidentily kill too many children.