The invocation of the responsibility to protect (R2P) in Libya has drawn surprisingly intense criticism.

The United Nations was neither designed nor expected to be a pacifist organization. Its origins lie in the anti-Nazi wartime military alliance among Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. The all-powerful U.N. Security Council is the world's duly sworn in sheriff for enforcing international law and order. It was given sharper focus and tougher enforcement powers than the League Council.

The system of collective security against interstate aggression never materialized. In the decades after World War II, the nature of armed conflict was transformed. Interstate warfare between uniformed armies gave way to irregular conflict between rival armed groups. The nature of the state too changed from its idealized European version. Many communist and some newly decolonized countries were internal security states whose regimes ruled through terror, often with U.S. material assistance and diplomatic support.