If Russian dictator Vladimir Putin continues to prosecute his self-chosen war in Ukraine, the United Nations ought to use its Article 42 powers to do a collective military intervention against Russian forces.
It can and should do so after implementing Ukraine’s suggestion to evict Russia from the U.N. Security Council, because the U.N. never officially authorized Russia to take the former Soviet Union’s permanent Security Council seat. Furthermore, as Russia is brazenly violating the U.N. Charter, it could and should be booted from the whole assembly, regardless. Without a veto from Russia, the U.N.’s collective security provisions can be activated and a no-fly zone enforced in order to keep Ukraine from being conquered.
As a collective action of the entire world against Russia’s aggression, it would leave Russia in a bind, unable to blame, or retaliate against, just one or two nations for taking arms against it. And as a purely defensive action that does not threaten Russian territory, but only protects that of the sovereign nation of Ukraine, a no-fly zone and other targeted military assistance for the latter would leave Russia hard-pressed to respond.
Even those of us who are no fans of the U.N. should see that using its existence to good advantage in a crisis is a way to make lemonade from bitter lemons. Rarely in modern history has one nation, or rather the president of one nation, become such a universal international pariah as Putin now has. And deservedly so. The world should put some muscle behind its desire to isolate Putin in a cage.
Yes, a caged Putin might again threaten nuclear war. But what can he do? Nuke the entire world? Surely, Putin’s generals would evict him in a coup before carrying out such orders from him.
The United Nations was founded, and its collective-security provisions created, exactly for circumstances such as this one, in which a heavily nuclear-armed state invades an innocent neighbor. Let’s stop Russia now, before the invasion can succeed.
