Reinhold Niebuhr, the great American theologian, had many and varied things to say about the use of military force. A pacifist early in his life, he supported our involvement in World War I, became a pacifist again in response to Versailles, and later was one of the first voices to encourage our entry into World War II. At the end of his life, he was more than a little skeptical about our campaign in Vietnam, though not as a pacifist. The constant in all of this -- whether promoting military force or condemning it -- was his demand that we account for the reality of sin in human relations.

In the days of the cold war, Niebuhr supported the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction. The M.A.D. doctrine was based on the idea that a balance of power was the best way of staving off a nuclear war. Niebuhr admitted that the policy was indeed mad, but in a nuclear age, balance required that the great powers maintain an equal ability to destroy each other. Only such a mutual threat, Niebuhr (and others) argued, could ensure that nuclear weapons would not be used in the first place.

There are some on the political Left who never forgave Niebuhr for making this argument, but Niebuhr appears to have been right -- the cold war ended peacefully, and though arguments like his laid the groundwork for the arms race, the fact that there was a race reveals that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were never actually interested in a balance of power.

Niebuhr's conception, of course, extended beyond U.S.-Soviet relations; he claimed that any imbalance of power is destabilizing. He understood that when power is unevenly distributed, the powerful are tempted to throw their weight around inordinately and disregard things like sovereignty or the self-determination of others; they trust too much in their own strength.

Ironically, as we now know too well, the status and responsibility that comes with power also makes the powerful a target of violence by the oppressed and disgruntled. Today, as the world's only superpower, the U.S. is named as the cause for many of the world's ills. While there is often truth to these claims, we also serve as a convenient punching bag. As Thomas Friedman has argued, the leaders of the Arab world can, with the aid of religious extremists, effectively deflect the anger and discontent of their people away from themselves and onto the United States.

So in a world where U.S. might is uncontested (and deplored), how is it possible to follow Neibuhr's prescription and achieve balance, mitigate international conflict, and promote goodwill?

On recent campaign stops and in his speech to the United Nations last month, the President questioned the U.N.'s courage and relevancy in responding to Saddam Hussein. The administration's posture is founded on the reality of our unmatched strength, emphasizing our willingness to move unilaterally -- even preemptively -- against our enemies. The President's speech to the general assembly was not only a shot across Saddam's bow, but Kofi Annan's and our fellow members' of the Security Council as well. It suggested, without subtlety, that the U.N. is only relevant as long as it does our bidding.

Remarks by the President in the last few days signal a greater willingness to work within U.N. guidelines, but this may be because a possible compromise agreement with France will give the administration what it wants: freedom to act on its own. Let us hope, instead, that the administration will lend both the deliberations and decisions of the Security Council real weight, for undermining the authority of the U.N. is a mistake. Unilateral military action disregards our own human frailty -- what Niebuhr termed our sinfulness -- something to which both we and our enemies are subject, and consequently, we move along a path toward greater violence and insecurity.

By consistently working through the U.N., the U.S. could signal to the rest of the world that we are interested in the kind of balance that Niebuhr affirmed. This would not be a complete balance. The U.S. still wields veto power over the general assembly, and relatively small gestures, like paying our U.N. dues, hardly represent an abdication of power. But they do demonstrate a voluntary restraint of that power.

One thing, however, is certain. If the current administration decides that the U.N. is irrelevant, the U.N. will be irrelevant; the causes of the world community and international law will take a giant step backward; and nothing and no one will stand in our way.though the oppressed and disgruntled will continue to plot our demise.

Dan Malotky is an assistant professor of religion at St. Olaf College. He received his Ph.D. in Religious Ethics from The University of Chicago Divinity School. His primary area of research interest concerns the relationship between religious convictions and public life.