That seems to me completely absurd. I don't think anyone has ever taken the UN or the rules associated with it seriously enough to refrain from fighting. In the absence of any argument in support of that contention it can't be taken at all seriously.
I share this doubt. I don't think the relatively peaceful world we've had since the Cold War has anything to do with anyone's foreign policy, or with the UN.
That's because the US are the primary military power of our times. Those who have the capacity for aggression use it, always have. If anything the US, given the power disparity in their favor, has been quite moderate. Imagine for a moment that the military dominance the US enjoyed at the end of WW2 had been held by any of the other contending parties in that conflict. Do you think any of them would have controlled their aggressive impulses to the extent that the US has?
I've said this before, but European complaints about American aggression always seem to me reminiscent of a campaign for chastity initiated by a faded whore grown too old to play the trade.
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