The lessons of history

So how do we stop wars? The United Nations has been unbelievably ineffectual in stopping wars, Perhaps we can prevail upon the UN to effectively fulfill it charter of ensuring peace, but many attempts so far have failed.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the UN security council that the way to bring peace in Ukraine and to prevent further wars of aggression is through fundamental UN reform.

The Ukrainian president argued that the war had demonstrated the need to limit veto power, give the UN general assembly the power to override vetoes, and expand the council's permanent members beyond the current five powers, who acquired their privileged position in the wake of the second world war.

Addressing the UN security council in New York, the Ukrainian president said the fact that Russia – the aggressor state in Ukraine – also has a veto to prevent the security .council doing anything to stop the war, made a nonsense of the UN.

So far, the UN has failed at any attempts at reform. This writer's answer is by ensuring that democracy prevails in all countries. All countries.

So what is democracy? We have many types – the overring demand of this writer is that it is government by the choice of the people, and that it be subject to renewal every few years – say every four years. Also that the world's press be able to report on the election.

And that every country in the world sign such an international agreement. Also that the UN supervise a country's compliance with the agreement .Hopefully the UN supervision is of higher quality than its current compliance with its peace keeping objectives.

Hopefully, this suggestion may help us prevent the greatest stupidity of our history - possibly the only stupidity that we have not learned as yet to correct.