The United Nations, with its rigid moral and political limitations against force, has become a benchmark of peace and a social achievement of modern times. From war torn Europe, the United Nations developed from five major powers with an initial goal to prevent the spread of warfare through peaceful means and to establish and maintain fundamental human rights. Through the past fifty years, this organization has broadened its horizons with auxiliary organizations from peace keeping missions to humanitarian aid, to economic development. However, in a modern example of ethnic cleansing, the UN faces new a new role as a bystander as its power is bypassed by NATO forces. The UN, however, promises to be an organization of the future with its origins rooted deeply in the histories of nations, both big and small. The United Nations began as a symbol of power and peace. Its goals remain set for peace, and consequently, it will remain to be such a figure.Its beginnings were anything but humble. In 1947, following the end of the Second World War, five major powers of the time, England, Russia, China, France, and the United States pioneered an institution to safeguard the peace of the world. Based on Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points peace proposal, submitted to congress January 8, 1918 (Patterson, UN, 10) a "general association of nations to guarantee political independence and secure borders for great and small powers alike" (Patterson, UN, 11) was needed to prevent future wars. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson's idea of peace was accepted by a ravaged Europe and the last of his Fourteen Points, that an alliance: the League of Nations, must be formed. This last point was added to the Treaty of Versailles (Patterson, UN, 12) and became the first step in forming what is now the United Nations. However, the League, once secure used its representatives' power and presence as a threat, but did not follow through with such thr...
