My new favorite book of all time
"<i>War is illegal.</i> This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations."<p>I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigger deterrent of war - at least among the developed countries of the world:  the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Once the world saw the atom bomb's capability for destruction, the motivation to avoid war increased significantly (to put it lightly).<p>Surely the Cold War would have been a real war if not for nukes, no? I don't think the US and Russia were avoiding conflict because "the UN made it illegal."