The United Nations is not an effective world peacekeeper and its roles have changed dramatically since its inception, a panel of Boston University professors told about 70 people at a forum Wednesday night at the College of General Studies.

BU’s Model United Nations Association held the forum, titled ‘The Role of the United Nations in Today’s Ever-Changing System,’ in honor of the United Nations Day holiday last Friday.

Journalism Department Chairman Robert Zelnick and international relations professors Andrew Bacevich and William Keylor comprised the panel.

Bacevich started the evening by saying the United Nations’ architects had a limited view of what the organization could accomplish.

Rather than ever being a world government, he said it was intended to be a vehicle for the victors of World War II to collaborate and create a stable world order.

‘However, this plan was frustrated almost immediately by the onset of the Cold War, which caused a divide among the five members of the Security Council,’ Bacevich said.

Bacevich said the first Persian Gulf War and the Korean War are examples of the few times council members have agreed, saying it is not likely to happen again.

‘The division in the council has changed,’ he said. ‘Now it is not East versus West, but the U.S. against the rest.’

However, Bacevich said other powers are eager to employ the United Nations as an instrument to limit the power of the United States, which ‘has no interest in having a strong U.N. and will continue to resist U.N. control.’

But Zelnick said the organization depends on U.S. military capabilities.

A self-proclaimed ‘hawk’ for the war on Iraq, Zelnick said the United States is a superpower and therefore has responsibilities throughout the world. However, he warned against badmouthing the United Nations for failing to ‘rubber stamp’ American actions.

‘Without U.S. power, the U.N. could do nothing to ameliorate the problems in Rwanda,’ he said.

Keylor, who introduced himself as ‘the resident historian,’ took the discussion of the United Nations back before World War II to the days of former President Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations a previous attempt at international organization.

‘The underpinning principles of the U.N. hark back to the image that Wilson created,’ he said.

According to Keylor, the impetus for establishing the League of Nations was creating a forum for peacefully resolving political conflicts.

‘It was supposed to be a world alliance that would improve collective security,’ he said. ‘It was a wonderful idea, but it didn’t work in the 1920s and it didn’t work in the 1930s.’

According to Keylor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt revived Wilson’s platform after World War II with a realist twist.

‘In the U.N., the peace of the world is not managed by all countries, but by a very few, very powerful,’ he said. ‘From the very beginning, a discriminatory principle at the basis of the U.N.’s organizational structure undermined its aim for collective security.’

Keylor said the responsibility for maintaining peace has fallen to regional security organizations like the Organization of American States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

‘The great tragedy of the U.N. is that it has failed to avert war, for the obvious reason that the great superpowers are unwilling to sacrifice their own sovereignty,’ he said.

Bacevich said the war in Iraq could possibly reduce American dominance of the United Nations.

‘The world limped its way through the ’90s accepting that American prominence because they had other things to deal with,’ Bacevich said. ‘What we did in the Iraq war was call that into question.’

Students at the event said the panel was informative.

‘I was impressed with Bacevich’s final analysis of what’s going to happen with the U.N. and how the war in Iraq is going to play out,’ said David Kay, a CGS sophomore who had read portions of a Keylor book before attending the event.

Linda Adami, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman, said she was disappointed that the panelists opinions were not more diverse.

‘They all said the same thing, but in different words,’ she said.