ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the extent to which the central objective of the United Nations has been realized. The image of the United Nations that guided the founding fathers at Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco suffered from the huge discrepancy between the international system it postulated and the international system that emerged from World War II. The founders of the United Nations intended it to have a leading role in preserving and enforcing international security, this responsibility being vested in the Security Council. Thus the assumption that the United Nations was originally intended to function as a full-fledged collective security system, capable of bringing collective force to bear against any aggressor. The Soviet Union was sharply opposed to the Uniting for Peace plan, which it regarded as a breach of the fundamental understanding that the United Nations would not be used for enforcement against the will of any of the major powers.
