The hypothesis was that the UN is largely controlled by the Euros, which have a rough proximity to said area. Keep up, man, keep up!
But the Kosovo test rejects that hypothesis. You got the US and practically all of Europe on board, but Russia (European but not exactly in the same bloc as western Europe) and China would have vetoed action.
There's participation and there's participation. I can't really do the research from work, but I'd bet that no more than 5 countries (if even that) put more than 50 heads in the hot zone. Like I said, lots of talkie, not so much walkie.
As pointed out by others your recollection simply is wrong, so I am not going to bother more with details of the contributions, but I will keep the quality of your news filter in mind.
Your analysis is interesting though. The sanctions and talkie talkie is apparently UN, while the huge coalition greenlighted by the talkie talkers to do the actual fighting isnt. That kind of analysis resembles that of British eurosceptics vs the EU, where they blame the union for any crap thrown at them (regardless of whether said crap is of British or EU making), while giving Britain credit for any constructive measures (also regardless of origin).
I have communicated poorly. My complaint is that the UN does next-to-nothing that isn't done better by other organizations. They talk about doing quite a bit. You're never going to gain meaningful agreement if there's more than 5 people in a room, so even your "international coffee house of talkie talkie" breaks down. It's a redundant waste of perfectly good oxygen.
I'd actually prefer to strip the organisation clean of all the fluff, essentially anything except for the talkie talkie, diplomacy, and international law aspects. That would probably give people more realistic expectations, and much of the rest can as you say be done better by other organisations.
Having an international coffee house and diplomatic does have some significant value though. Not so much for getting the every day minutiae done quickly (that is better done by smaller alliances), but for keeping channels open to the bad guys. Like in sports you dont need rules to deal with the sportsmen but to rein in the bastards. Here I think the Bush administration leaves a malign legacy by creating a precedent of invasion and occupation outside of the international framework, making it much harder to bust others for breaking the rules in the future (the way Saddam was handled in GW1).
I do also think that we could get the UN to act as a slightly more responsive and constructive beast by making sure that the democracies act in tandem and build an internal consensus before taking things to the UN. That would make it easier to get other countries on board as well. Maybe a loose league of democracies could act as a complement (but not replacement, as we primarily need a talking shop to deal with the less savoury countries) to the UN. Building such a democratic bloc would require policies opposite to having cabinet members call natural allies an "axis of weasels" (admittedly happily exploited by enthusiastic anti-american populists like Schröder and Chirac), but maybe there is hope of a more constructive era now that a new generation of less boneheaded politicians take over.
Interesting article you link.
Even your source says the UN's first response to armed invasion (interstate warfare, that) was strongly worded sanctions. Talkie, talkie.
How hard is it to get that "the UN" doesnt have resources of its own to prepare for war. It doesnt really have the resources to impose sanctions on its own either as it isnt an autonomous entity, it can only call upon its member states to do so (pretty much as it can ask the US to build a coalitin to throw out the Iraqis of Kuwait).
That leads to another odd idea I sometimes see among American right wingers, that a more cooperative attitude towards the UN somehow would put US forces under some sort of UN command and give up American sovereignty. But no such command exists. The UN can only ask (or maybe beg) its member states to contribute troops to its operations, not force members to contribute. That the developed world isnt too keen on risking soldiers in remote locations is the reason that most of the troops that do act under UN banner (mostly peacekeeping in Africa, there are plenty of other nasty places than Darfur) are from poorer countries such as Sri Lanka.
By the way, you're completely ignoring the UN peacekeeping operations. They often work, they're generally regarded as neutral, and there is no substitute available.
Given his grasp of his own chosen examples I suspect that whatever media sources he relies on simply dont mention these.
