The United States" Role in Maintaining International Peace.
Is the United States supposed to be the mediator of international peace today? This question has been under dispute throughout the history of the United States. The world, in the shape it is currently in, needs a sort of "super-power" to run the world and keep the peace. The responsibility and duty of the United States in maintaining international peace is crucial to the well-being of the world because of the involvement in the United Nations, both physically and monetarily, and the deployment of the United States Armed Forces around the world when necessary.
On January 1, 1942, representatives met in Washington D.C. to share ideas of a "new, stronger international peace organization." President Franklin D. Roosevelt headed this meeting. He suggested the new organization be called "The United Nations" (Brenner 7). British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt met two weeks after the beginning of World War II. There the two discussed ideas about an international peace group. After this meeting, the Atlantic Charter was issued. This document set their aims of ".peace, freedom, collaboration, and security among nations, overseen by a wider and permanent system of general security" (Ross 10). After all this had happened, fifty nations came together at the United Nations conference on International Organization meeting in San Francisco between April and June 1945. There these nations issued the United Nations Charter. With the issue of this charter on October 24, 1945, the United Nations came to be globally recognized (Ross 11). J. Brian Atwood, an expert on current United Nations involvement, said this about the United States at a recent conference: "Increasingly, we are confronted by countries without leadership, without order, without government itself. We should, in the interest of the United States, do everything in our power to prevent breakdowns of countries leading to widespread bloodshed and starvation.
