The United Nations celebrated its 75th anniversary last Saturday, the day the ratifications of the Charter reached the required number for it to come into force. Surviving for so long is by far the UN's biggest success, and this itself is no mean achievement. The UN is an inter-governmental organisation it can only be what its members make of it. Its predecessor, the League of Nations, had collapsed within two decades due to military aggressions by the big powers leading to World War II. The UN has survived the Cold War and the incessant quarrels among its permanent members who lord over it. It has lived in the shadow of a third world war and many admirers give it credit for averting such a war. The primary purpose for setting up the UN was to maintain international peace and security. The five big military powers, the victors of World War II, promised to jointly protect the world from further wars. They made themselves permanent members of the Security Council to be able to fulfil this grand assurance. Since they were to act jointly, a negative vote by any of them became a veto. The permanent five have never taken any military action jointly in these 75 years. Instead, they have used the veto 254 times between them to kill resolutions. Consequently, wars have been waged in many parts of the world, most of them with their direct or indirect involvement. The US did not have to veto any resolution on the Vietnam War because it commanded a comfortable majority in the Security Council in those days. The Soviet Union had to do so only once during the Afghanistan War. For a brief period of two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and China allowed the Western countries to take military action on behalf of the Security Council in countries like Kuwait, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda and Libya, but they did not join the operations. The legality of some of these military actions was questionable. But with no court to appeal to, this question has never been examined.