"'The Inspectorate is supposed to tell the U.N. Moon bases where to plant their rocket bombs; the Service tries to make bombardment unnecessary by forestalling hostile action.'" (p. 70)
"'Never forget that the U.N. exists first, last and all the time to keep the peace. Everything else is secondary.'" (ibid.)
At this point, Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History thematically parallels Robert Heinlein's Future History on which it had been structurally modelled.
"The League of Nations had folded up; what would keep the United Nations from breaking up, too, and thus lead to another World War?"
-Robert Heinlein, "The Long Watch" IN Heinlein, The Green Hills Of Earth (London, 1967), pp. 36-50 AT p. 37.
In the Psychotechnic History, nationalists conspire to overthrow the UN world government. In "The Long Watch," the Executive Officer of Moon Base tries to lead a military coup:
"...it was not safe (so he said) to leave control of the world in political hands; power must be held by a scientifically selected group. In short - the Patrol."
-Heinlein, (ibid.)
In both cases, the bad guys are rounded up but the issues remain.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And of course the real UN is a discredited and failed farce for which Anderson came to have only contempt for. Whatever "peace" we have now came not from the UN but from balance of power arrangements keeping the rivalries between great powers and would be great powers in some check. Short of some of some Napoleon type conquering the world, I don't see anything better coming to exist.
Correction, something like the speculations I've seen about the "Anglosphere" might or could be the beginning of something better.
Ad astra! Sean
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