providing an effective instrument to promote international peace and security and to prevent future conflicts. Forty years later, we must recogize that, although global war has been prevented, the goal of ensuring a stable and peaceful world based on mutual co-operation and understanding has not been attained. This is an urgent matter for reflection on the part of the United Nations as a whole, but particularly within the First Committee, where issues directly related to ~ternational peace and security are debated. The fortieth anniversary of the United Nations provides us with a unique opportunity to review our past activitis and to assess to what extent an increasingly frequent attitude of benign neglect towards the search for consensus on issues which are crucial to the security of some of us, together with the pursuance even if in good faith -of comprehensive but unrealistic goals are responsible for lost opportunities, as well as for the lack of progress in all major disarmament negotiations. The prevention of war, particularly in the nuclear age, is clearly the main goal towards which all activities of an Organization like the United Nations should be aimed. Arms control and arms reduction, economic development, cultural exchanges, are all means through which security perceptions can be modified and international tensions lessened, thus reducing the risks of war. Complete disarmament under effective international control is obviously the most basic condition for preventing war. For all the time needed to achieve this fundamental goal a balance of forces at the lowest possible level of armaments, both nuclear and conventional, will continue to be of the utmost importance. Only with this goal in mind will nuclear wapons continue to play a role for the future by compensating for the huge imbalances existing in conventional forces. Italy being JSM/MO A/C.l/ 40/PV .11 58 (Mr. Franceschi, Italy) 
**Analysis**
The text discusses the role of the United Nations in promoting international peace and security, disarmament, and arms control. It highlights the importance of achieving a stable and peaceful world through mutual cooperation and understanding. The text does not mention specific economic or social issues, but rather focuses on the political and security aspects of international relations.

**Category**
International relations, Security