The best way to rally Americans against anything the UN might do is to yell this phrase at the top of your lungs, particularly while wearing eating a hot dog and revving your V8 engine while idling, out of spite. Carbon, schmarbon.
For Americans, National Sovereignty was born primarily from the fact of being out of the reach of other countries, which are the main threats to sovereignty. Of course, there was our obstreperous seizing of nation-hood from the British. Looking back, the event becomes a powerful symbol (We kicked them out), but it is not actually the source of the national noninterference. Sovereignty is expressed as a right over oneself, which another may not infringe. It develops into a "feeling of right" the same way any other right does - by surviving. The right to vote, or drive, or know what's going on in Congress, are not easily removed when they have been in existence for a while. Direct election of Senators (17th Amendment) cannot be taken away. The ownership of guns is held by some people as a more important political issue than abortion. People's inherent conservatism means they are loath to let go of the way their lives are, especially if it involves a right over oneself.
It has now been almost 200 years since we fought the last war dealing with our National Sovereignty, the War of 1812. Even that was begun by the Americans, though. So we have not been challenged.
This is very different in Europe, where all countries have challenged each other's sovereignty for centuries. (It is worth noting that there is no idea of national sovereignty until there is an idea of the nation. Thus, a king challenging another is not exactly the same, because the people may not have had a sense of right over themselves. It has more to do with the monarch's dominion. The English have expressed national sovereignty since 1688, drawing from their self-rule during the Interregnum. The Americans cannot properly be said to be a modern nation until after the Civil War, when the Southern cause was defeated, along with it's threat to the idea of the American nation.)
The American sovereignty, though, got its huge boost as we moved to global power, and then superpower. We became answerable to none, even when we acted internationally. China's nation-centric outlook developed in much the same way. Millennia of self-rule, and expressing the will of the government over anything it wished. The shame of Japan's invasion in the 1930s and Western exploitation earlier could have begun to undo this process, but Communist isolation enabled an unbelievable propaganda regime to let the people know again that the Chinese were the best in the world. They were answerable to none in international affairs because no one could ask them questions. They did not take part and so could not be rebuked.
As China's actual ascendency continues, it is engaging countries. It has not really done this in a way, yet, that has produced significant friction, but this is inevitable.
Russia, also, in its proud history, hopes to reassert its national will. And the Europeans like to boast that their collective population and economy are greater than that of the US. It seeks to lead on moral initiative, and like the others, it wants to be a counterbalance to the US. India and Brazil round out the list of great economic-cum-political potential.
Shift back to the UN for a minute. It often seems like the US is the only country
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