I don’t disagree with your criticisms of the UN. They’re not a perfect organization, and UN membership shouldn’t be some standard of sovereignty. However, diplomats have always been able to talk whenever they want, the problem that the League of Nations and then the UN tried to address was all the backrooms conversations nations used to have that were part of the causes that lead up to the first world war. Having an international platform every nation needs to at least listen to is better than the alternative. Arguably, untill now the UN has succeeded, there hasn’t been a WWIII.
I’ve learned to call it socialized capitalism when I talk to older generations, and I’m pretty old. I find it an easier pill for them to swallow. We have to remember that the baby boomers were children in the middle of the red scare, that shit got internalized deep. It’s almost like they’re traumatized.