The United Nations is the successor organization of the League of Nations,

the latter of which was founded following World

War I and was ultimately considered not fit for purpose. It was meant to help prevent future

warfare on a global scale, but didn't have many tools for doing so, and it generally relied on the

strength of the victorious World War I Allied nations for enforcement, some of which,

the U.S. included, didn't even bother to formally join the League.

Then World War II happened, so yeah, not great at preventing warfare.

The UN, in contrast, was formed in the wake of World War II, so about 25 years after the League was established,

and it was tasked with all sorts of things, including keeping the peace on a global scale,

but also managing and delivering humanitarian aid, protecting and expanding human rights,

promoting sustainable projects, and generally maintaining a global legal structure

by which the whole of the world's governments would need to abide.

A pretty tall order, but one that was made more doable by the direct involvement of the two

superpowers that emerged from World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union,

and their adherence to the various

monitoring programs meant to keep tabs on military buildups and movements, and their

pushing for decolonization efforts, which led to a wave of freed colonies in the 1960s in

particular.

That all helped expand the initial group of 51 member nations to 193 as of

2023, which is almost every officially recognized nation on the planet. After the Cold War,

when peacekeeping efforts became a little less pressing and expensive at the high end,

monitoring nukes and such, but more widespread and scattered

...