ABSTRACTFor more than 75 years, the United Nations Charter has functioned without the benefit of Chapter VII, Article 43, which commits all United Nations member states “to make available to the Security Council, on its call, armed forces, assistance, facilities, including rights of passage necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.” The consequences imposed by this 1945 decision have had a dramatic negative impact on the United Nation’s functional capacity as a global body for peace and security. This article summarizes the struggle to implement Article 43 over the decades from the onset of the Cold War, through diplomatic attempts during the post–Cold War era, to current and often controversial attempts to provide some semblance of conflict containment through peace enforcement missions. The rapid growth of globalization and the capability of many nations to provide democratic protections to their populations are again threatened by superpower hegemony and the development of novel unconventional global threats. The survival of the United Nations requires many long overdue organizational structure and governance power reforms, including implementation of a robust United Nations Standing Task Force under Article 43. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;13:655–662)
Global security: confronting challenges to universal peace
