[maester_miller]

Dr. J,

I recently finished Lecture 41, regarding the United Nations, and I had a question. Early in the lecture you mention that the Security Council consisted of two communist nations and three western nations, which led to mostly deadlock during the cold war. This has always been my understanding as well from the traditional history classes I have taken.

But something I never quite understood is how, if this were the case, the various UN interventions were actually approved. The Korean War in particular seems to be very strange. Wasn’t China actively fighting on the side of North Korea? Wasn’t the USSR quite sympathetic to its aims? Why did they allow such a resolution to pass?

[Jason Jewell]

The communist government in China was not officially recognized by the UN at the time of the Korean War. The Nationalist government in Taiwan still held the UN seat and voted for the security resolution. If memory serves, the USSR ambassador was not present for the vote on that resolution for some unexplained reason.

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