I'm developing a plot (yeah, this goes on Plot Creation. My bad) about a war in the near future (original, huh?). I came across a problem. I plan to divide the world into three unions or factions: East, West and a Terrorist Faction. I need to get the UN disbanded before the war starts, and also a reason why most of the world is involved in the conflict. You see, this way I can reshape the politics in the World, since I'm no good with politics (But If I make them, that's another story) and with the reasons why wars start, etc. Help is appreciated!
It would be really, really hard to do, to the point of being pretty much impossible. The UN is made up of nearly all of the countries in the world, so you would need a very powerful terrorist group to do such a thing. If a terrorist group were to try to disband it by threats or any other action, the UN would most likely dispatch their peace keeping force to deal with the problem.
I think what has helped the UN become so stable is the idea of Mutual Assured Destruction between powerful nations. Recent talks of missile defense systems could help you in dividing the UN. I think the best idea would to have big powers pull out of the UN leaving countries that can easily become isolationists to do so and the rest of the world doing the complete opposite of the UN and practicing appeasement. I'm assuming when you say terrorist faction your talking of the the middle east and with the bad blood between those people it would be very difficult to unite them. It's extremely complicated so if you know nothing of the area your ignorance will come shining through (IE McCain not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shiite).
You all over estimate the power of the UN. It could fall part at a moments notice. All of the contries have problems with some of the other contries in the UN, and the UN's so called peace keeping forces generally are slow and awkward at deploying. All it'd take was some major political debate, near war type event that got two sides of the UN arguing with each other. Lets so I don't know one UN nation goes to war with another for some reason (Just about any reason could start a war, but for sake of argument i'm gona say that germany decided that it wanted it's ancient boarders back again, the whole reign land thing) and once the two sides got separated and people like the US stood their "moral ground" in support of their allies while others did took the opposite stance and their you go WWIII.
As thirdwind said, disbanding the U.N. would be extremely hard to do. I think that if the terrorist group wasn't outright with its threats, but instead worked behind the scenes, implicating different countries in their actions and turning the U.N. against each other, you have a good chance of the U.N. falling apart. As for a reason why all the world's involved...I'll suggest a series of totalitarian governments taking control of the world and using nationalistic propaganda to coerce the newer generations into fighting. Perhaps the government can have ulterior motives, or could even be secretly involved with the terrorist group. (It just screams 1984, I know, but it's the first thing that came to mind.
Have a slightly dubious country try to join the UN. Then you'd have two sides, one that wants that country to join, one that wants it to stay out. In the same way that politicians often resign over something they don't want to happen, the major countries can pull out, something like Carthonn suggested. However, if you make this joining country a communist one, then the west will want to withdraw, because of the whole anti communism thing, and the east will stay, therefore the UN could still sort of exist in your future world, but it could become rather like the Warsaw Pact during the cold war, in that it could be an alliance of communist countries. You could have it so that the tension between east and west has long since evaportated, and now only a comfort in the norm is what keeps the two halves of the globe in their respective alliances, if you wanted to focus on the terrorist state. As for your question about a war starting, as chad.sims2 said, a war could start for any number of reasons. It would however be interesting to choose a new centre of conflict, rather than Germany again (I know C.S2's was just an example). How about two countries both invade the same terrorist country to liberate it, and having fought side by side and freed the country from it's evil regime or whatever, tension appears between them over who gets to occupy the country and train the army and oversee the electing of a new government. It would need to be two countries with different political or moral codes and systems, however.
The U.N. wouldn't necessarily need to be disbanded by an external force. A much more likely reason would be a break up from the inside-- which i hardly consider to be impossible, or even implausible, for that matter. In fact, there has been talk for years of pulling out of the United Nations, because many political groups in the United States are either entirely opposed to the idea or have lost faith in its effectiveness. Some of the largest powers within the U.N. have obvious tensions running between them. Erosion of relations from the inside and the U.N. could crumble.
Instead of the UN crumbling, all you need is for it to break in half, along some moral/political boundary ie. capitalism and communism as an obvious example. And then you could have both sides claiming to be the "real" UN and that the other side are the traitors.
I didn't see anyone estimate the power of the UN. With increased globalization I find it hard to believe that it will crumble at a moments notice. However, saying that UN has been effective is very questionable and I'll agree with you there.
This would work. The major super-countries pulling out of the UN because of a threat to their country. As in, no country can be trusted and the UN is no longer a viable group to maintain balance of peace.
Ah, political thrillers... Sounds sorta like Empire by Orson Scott Card. Since you claim you know nothing about political, stuff, I recommend you try it from a different approach; social fiction, sci-fi, action-thriller. It's hard to write about something you don't know...
I concure that the UN is a near powerless organization. How does it get destroyed? Simple, it doesn't. Everyone jsut acts like they always do. Its an organization that's always telling countries how to operate but none of the said countries ever do what it tells them too. Problem solved. Conversely, lets say this major war of yours happens and as a result the UN is disbanded in favor of forming these stronger mor epowerful alliances. That seems like a good one. Of maybe the UN tried to stop said war and was destroyed in the process.
My advice is that if you don't know a subject, don't try to write about it. To write a story about something you know nothing about is, unfortunately always going to be end badly. If you really want to write a story exploring wars and politics - you need to do your research. Start by reading books on politics and the history of different wars and what caused each type of war. Without genuine knowledge about what you're writing - you won't be able to write a convincing story, and anyone will see right through it.
