The United Nations Assembly

Abstract

Abstract In this paper Wight discussed “three conflicts of interest which are mirrored in the United Nations. The first is the conflict between the Western imperial Powers and the new ex-colonial nations, chiefly of Eastern Asia. The second conflict is the conflict between Great Powers and Small Powers. Thirdly, there is the conflict between the Soviet bloc and the West. These all interpenetrate and influence one another, but each of them would exist without the others. The first two are at present governed by the third—the Soviet-Western clash; but they are quite independent of it in origin and may surpass it in potential importance.” India and the Philippines have been exceptionally successful in championing the interests of the ex-colonial nations against the Western imperial Powers. The discord between Small and Great Powers has been most visible concerning the veto held by the permanent members of the Security Council. The split between the Soviet bloc and the West has conditioned the deliberations about “the most conspicuous topics on the agenda,” including “the reduction of armaments,” and “lurked behind the discussions of practically everything else.” Despite the prominent Soviet diplomacy in the United Nations, Wight concluded, “It is in the conferences of the Big Three and in the Council of Foreign Ministers that the Soviet Union bargains for her strategic lines, her provinces ceded, her economic advantages. The United Nations has the secondary function of propaganda, moulding opinion, trial balloons, defamation of opponents, and, above all, preaching of the gospel.”