UN General Assembly
1976

142. In discharging this primary responsibility of maintaining peace under the Charter the record of the United Nations is not consistent. Although it was unable to set up the machinery of collective security, based on the harmonious collaboration of the great Powers, it can be stated without any doubt whatsoever that, directly or indirectly, it has helped to avert a third world conflagration which would have endangered man's survival. Certainly, on not infrequent occasions it has been powerless to prevent the outbreak of local wars but even so, in many cases, its intervention has served to limit the extent or duration of the conflict. By offering a forum for venting grievances and passions, it has managed, to a significant extent, to ward off situations which in the past would inevitably have led to armed confrontations.