a game without umpires?

I was just now watching a football game. What got me was just how the umpire's vigilance and authority were the only things that stopped the game from descending into a free-for-all in which the most vicious and meanest would invariably win.

And I got to thinking that we don't really have a global umpire of any note. So it's no wonder that the rule of the jungle seems to be the operating paradigm.

Oh, the UN is supposed to be the umpire, but it has neither the capacity for vigilance nor the real authority to act. It is a crippled body with any one of five nations having the power of veto. No, the UN is not a body that can be an effective global umpire and gendarme. Its architects made sure of that!

The US? Sure the US sees itself as the global sheriff, but who pinned the star on the US? A study of 100 years of US foreign policy will show to all but the most myopic that the US is interested only in its own supremacy. This is not a candidate for global umpire or sheriff.

And this is part of the global problem. None of the nation players can be trusted to act in any way other than in their own self-interest, so who will be the umpire? And who will respect the umpire's decision? And what authority would the umpire have?

Someone please help me out here. I can only see the doom that will be wrought by unbridled might. Am I wrong?