# Intervening to stop genocide/atrocities while not wanting to be world police - which events qualify? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2026, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158 "2026-09-17T22:00:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158/21 "2026-09-19T06:19:48Z")
Sanctions WORKED for helping to end Apartheid in South Africa. This is not even debatable, it’s a fact of history. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158/22 "2026-09-19T06:29:56Z")
Best to actually quote me if you’re replying to me, I didn’t get a notification about this reply. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > What would this look like in the early days of Russian invasion of Ukraine? Like Russia attacking a multinational force that could call on global support? Would they even have invaded if a UN force was deployed to Ukraine as soon as they started massing on the border? > [@QuickSilver](#): > > What about when Iran was killing thousands of it’s citizens protesting the regime? Not like the US debacle, that’s for sure. The UN force I’m proposing would not be too cowardly to actually put boots on the ground. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > China’s ethnic cleansing? Yemen? See above. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > But when you can’t? The calculus I see is World \> Any 1 country/group. In terms of numbers, in terms of resources. I’m NOT talking about the current piddly UN peacekeepers. I’m talking about a large, well-resourced global military. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > And what does the world police force look like? Is it a coalition of the willing or a mandatory requirement for each country to provide troops as well as funding? The latter for funding, but not for troop provision. The UN military does its own recruitment, not just hosting member’s existing troops (which in any case would be drastically reduced in this ideal scenario). > [@QuickSilver](#): > > What if some countries or troops feel some non-neural way about a conflict they are being sent in to police? There are no “countries” involved. The units are UN-flagged, UN-hosted, utterly mixed membership down to the unit level. If any individual soldier has a conflict of interest, he sits out that engagement or gets reassigned to a different squad in a different conflict. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158/23 "2026-09-19T14:01:42Z")
I was simply responding to the discussion at large, not you specifically. I think the issue with your scenario is that getting to a “global police force” is completely unrealistic. If the world ever got to that stage we’d be living in a sufficiently globalized utopia where any police action against a nation state would be entirely unnecessary. Else we’re looking at a world war scenario with two very large armies comparable to NATO and BRIC (or similar analogs). So Russian aggression on Ukraine would be a much less regional conflict. As would the case of Iran for that matter. IRGC would still kill protesters at will inside its own borders and the world would still stand by in order to avoid a much larger conflict. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158/24 "2026-09-19T14:08:30Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I think the issue with your scenario is that getting to a “global force” is completely unrealistic. If the world ever got to that stage we’d be living in a sufficiently globalized utopia where any police action against a nation state would be entirely unnecessary. It _does_ seem a bit like saying “if we solved world conflict, we would be able to solve world conflict”. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158/25 "2026-09-19T14:21:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Sanctions WORKED for helping to end Apartheid in South Africa. This is not even debatable, it’s a fact of history. Even so, there are many examples where sanctions have not worked. Cuba and Iran immediately come to mind. NATO intervention worked to end conflict (and ethnic cleansing) in former Yugoslavia. Not so much in Iraq and Afghanistan. I know you know it’s not a one-size-fits-all world. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158/26 "2026-09-19T16:40:49Z")
> **Summary** > > > [@QuickSilver](#): > > > > Even so, there are many examples where sanctions have not worked. Cuba and Iran immediately come to mind. > > It’s almost like they work when right is on the side of the sanctioners…and not when the santioners are evil POSes ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2026, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158/27 "2026-09-19T17:05:03Z")
**Moderating** : Off-Topic reply. ## Replying to something in thread is not the same as staying on-topic to the OP. Start a new thread if you want to Debate this issue. > **How to Reply as a linked Topic** > > Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, _looks like a curving arrow point to the right_. > > Choose **Reply as linked topic** and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it. > > That is actually the best method. Post hidden. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intervening-to-stop-genocide-atrocities-while-not-wanting-to-be-world-police-which-events-qualify/1033158.md?page=1)