On October 26, 1971, California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Nixon to offer some foreign policy advice: get the United States out of the United Nations. The day before, you see, the General Assembly had voted to give mainland China (The People’s Republic of China) the Chinese “seat” at the UN. This was held previously by United States’ anti-communist ally, Taiwan.

The US Ambassador the UN at the time, one George H.W. Bush, tried to rally support against the General Assembly vote. He was unsuccessful, in part because the Nixon administration was simultaneously was preparing a rapprochment with the PRC.  (Nixon would visit China six months later.) Reagan, of course, would have had no way of knowing this so he called up Nixon to vent. 

The audio of that conversation is now available.  What is so striking to me is the extent to which it parallels contemporary debates about the UN.  One side sticks to emotional pleas and sloganeering to argue that the United States should withdraw from the UN. The other side offers coolly rational explanations about why sticking it out at the United Nations serves American security interests.

Reagan was clearly pursued by the former. He called the UN “morally bankrupt” and argued that pulling out of the UN would make for good domestic politics ahead of the 1972 elections. Reagan was so dedicated to this idea that he even said he would unsign a Gubernatorial proclamation for “UN Week.”

Nixon saw the bigger picture. To a certain extent he tried to placate Reagan (who, by then, was a rising star), but suggested that the United Nations was still an important entity to advance American foreign policy interests. In particular, he cited India-Pakistan. Said Nixon:

“Let me give some thought to the whole thing. It’s a tough one, as you are aware. We got some fish to fry on India-Pakistan --- we are trying to avoid a war there, and the UN may have to play some damn role there, because we don’t want to get involved in that miserable place."

The audio of this exchange, which I discovered via Dave Noon, is well worth 12 minutes of your time.

Relatedly, Gallup has been gauging Americans' opinion about the United Nations since the early 1950s.  You can see that the UN's favoribility ratings remained fairly steady until a slump during the Reagan years. It then peaked when his VP and former UN Ambassador became president in 1988. Americans' perception of the UN, it would seem, can be influenced by the tone set by the president. 

H/t to Attackerman and Rick Pearlstein for the title. 

While war, poverty, health and a range of other pressing global issues affect women worldwide, climate wouldn't be one of the first you'd think of. Well, think again.

According to new research conducting the United Nations, Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and the University of London, climate change severely impacts women's lives and contributes to the already existing gender inequalities that exist across the globe. Inhabitat picked it up:

For example, Amy North, a researcher at the University of London’s Institute of Education, notes that in sub-Saharan Africa, women are responsible for collecting water and firewood. Decreased rainfall brought on by climate change will undoubtedly make these resources more scarce. Women will need to spend more and more time searching for these items, meaning they’ll have less time to engage in money-making activities or attend school. In Kenya, poverty brought on by drought has been linked to a decrease in school attendance, and parents are more likely to withdraw girls from school than boys.

In Uganda, “famine marriages” are all too common. Less rainfall brings agricultural losses, which means increased poverty in rural areas that depend on farming. To combat this poverty, many families are marrying off their daughters at younger and younger ages in order to secure a dowry or bride price. As climate change continues to spur drought and agricultural losses, the situation may only get worse for women.

In short, we have to recognize that issues like water, food and energy are all women's issues. It's necessary for foks to recognize that and begin to address issues of gender when discussing climate change. Check out the entire report, it's pretty eye-opening. 

The Forward is the oldest American Jewish periodical.  From about the turn of the 19th century to the mid 1980s it published exclusively in Yiddish. Today it has seperate Yiddish and English editions, though circulation of the English edition dwarfs the Yiddishkite. 

The point is, it's got major street-cred among American Jews.  Natutally, I was very pleased to see this commentary about the United Nations from Jack Rosen, Chairman of the Council of World Jewry, found in the pages of The Forward:

For many Americans, and most Israelis, the words “United Nations” conjure up an image of an albatross at best, and a vulture at worst. Anti-Israel agendas, advanced by Islamic nations, routinely dominate the General Assembly and the U.N. human rights entities. Without the American veto, Israel would long ago have been the target of hostile binding resolutions in the Security Council.

 Yet, for all this, we must resist the temptation to give up on the U.N.

 The recent catastrophe in Haiti showcased one of the U.N.’s most indispensable roles. U.N. agencies form the backbone of the aid effort there. From Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and special envoy Bill Clinton on down, U.N. officials coordinated fundraising and diplomacy so that nearly four million people have received food assistance and 350,000 have received shelter.

[snip]

Holocaust commemoration and education, mandated by a U.N. General Assembly resolution, would have withered on the vine without persistent follow-through by the same bureaucrats we often malign as “the U.N.” When Ahmadinejad was opening a worldwide convention of Holocaust deniers three years ago, the General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Holocaust denial.

Read the whole thing.

A major South Korean newspaper ran an article today about North Korean arms exports, based on information they received from a North Korean defector. It’s a fascinating view of one of the scariest parts of a frightening economy. North Korea sells everything from small arms to warheads, and it has a whole set of structures set up to support the trade. One highlight “North Korea's main weapons production base is Kanggye General Tractor Plant No. 26”

The defector detailed the methods by which North Korean gets around international sanctions. Apparently, partially filled containers of weaponry are sent to China, where they are forwarded to a third country, filled with other freight, and sent on to their destination. (I find myself wondering why they can’t just add the freight in China. Am I missing something?) The sheer volume of global trade and major ports means that the illegal arms are lost in the flood of freight traffic. Primary arms buyers are identified in the article as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Tractor Plant number 26 is said to have 10,000 workers who produce a wide range of weapons, including chemical and biological agents. It is located by a military weapon research center, in Kanggye, the capital of Chagang province. The city’s other major industrial facility is apparently a timber processing factory.

In case you are wondering what kind of North Korean weapons to purchase, small arms are a hot commodity. “The rugged AK-47s, which can operate flawlessly even in the sand-filled battlefields of the Middle East, are extremely popular…” Tanks, on the other hand, are “extremely poor quality.”

It’s hard to know how much weight to put into one story from one defector. The level of detail given by the unnamed defector comes very close to being suspicious. But we have enough reports on North Korean arms export to know it’s going on, and even an inaccurate report can give us a sense of what the process might look like.