Has the United Nations run it's course?

The original purpose of the United Nations was to provide a forum through which peace could be maintained across the globe. In some regards, it has been very successful in this objective. There has not been a general conflagration at the global level since 1945. The wars that have broken out in the Post-War era have been limited in scope. The two major superpowers of the Cold War era - the United States and the USSR - whilst having a few contact points, generally stepped back from a full scale engagement.

Whilst having from the outset a peace-keeping and peace-making function, the United Nations, by design, did not have the means by which to undertake these functions. Right from the start, the UN was dependent upon the military inputs from the member states. This was the price paid for American involvement and support. Equally, the mission of the UN was broadened to include protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law. This was the price America paid to include the rest of the world.

The record of the UN since 1945 has been patchy. At times, it has been invaluable in co-ordinating international co-operation. It would be difficult to imagine Saddam Hussein being expelled from Kuwait in the absence of the UN providing the legitimacy of the action and the US providing the material means by which the expulsion took place. At other times, he UN has overseen a costly and embarrassing failure. One example that comes to mind is the genocide at Srebrenica, where the Serb military killed over 8,000 Bosnian men and boys, who were supposed to be receiving the protection of a UN force in a UN designated 'safe area'.  

If the record on delivering peace and security is mixed, the record on sustainable development is even more mixed. The UN embraced a set of Millennium Development Goals at a summit in the year 2000. These goals were supposed to be achieved by 2015. Largely, they weren't. The Millennium Development Goals were then followed by a set of Sustainable Development Goals that are supposed to be achieved by 2030. These are currently being missed to a large extent. The Sustainable Development Goals were further augmented by a set of Climate Action Goals. Adopted in 2015, these also are largely being missed. 

The record on upholding international law is a bit more positive. The International Court of Justice does actually function as a court of justice. It is well respected across the globe and it's judgements tend to bind the parties who are subject to the judgements. The International Criminal Court has been successful in prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has established international maritime property rights and a means to enforce them judicially rather than militarily. This is a major achievement. Less of an achievement has been the role of the UN in promoting human rights. The number of countries operating through a democratic framework has declined in recent years. There is an increase in arbitrary detention and the over-riding of minority rights around the world. 

Taken in the round, the recent performance of the UN against its stated objectives leaves a lot to be desired. This is due to a number of factors. First and foremost is the variable support that members give to the organisation. Some are happy simply to pay lip service to the UN, others blow hot and cold over time towards it. It is difficult to maintain a long term programme when it can be buffeted about by short term considerations. The question of funding arises from time to time as some members baulk at paying their dues to the organisation, especially if it seen as giving voice to the adversaries of those members in question.

It would be fair to say that the UN suffers from a general lack of respect at the political level. It is used as a convenient tool at times, and as a mere inconvenience to be ignored at others. A case in point might be the mission of Secretary-General Guterres to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. After being given a frosty reception in Moscow, the Secretary-General was met in Kiev by a Russian missile salvo. This represented a demonstration of Russian contempt for the office, secure in the knowledge that it could veto any motion of censure the organisation might be tempted to propose.

It is the mixture of contempt and ineffectiveness found in the UN that causes some to question whether or not it has run it's course. The structure of the UN reflects the political realities of 1945. There has been a little bit of updating over the years, but the current structure of the organisation is at serious variance to the contemporary political reality. The organisation stands in need of a significant update, but renewal is nowhere to be found. 

This leaves us in an interesting position. The UN doesn't command the respect that it needs. It largely struggles to achieve its stated objectives. It reflects a world that no longer exists. It has spread itself thinly over a wide ranging number of issues, and it can't command anywhere near as many resources as required for their delivery. In the light of this, perhaps the United Nations has run it's course? Perhaps winding it up would be better than it collapsing? Whichever, the future is bound to be quite different from the past.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2022

Has America squandered it's unipolar moment?

With the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the world was left with a single superpower - the United States. This situation created great opportunities for the US. America occupied a position of undisputed military and diplomatic pre-eminence. The US economy was the key driving force in the global economy. America set the rules by which the world traded, interacted, and dealt with each other. The US Dollar was the de facto global currency and the American banking system provided the financial plumbing through which the world became more integrated. US technology rose to dominance and the internet - largely an American invention - helped to shape the modern world. Such ascendancy begs the question of how that power would be used? Would it be used for the benefit of the US? Would it be used for the benefit of the wider global community? 

The USSR and Warsaw Pact started to dissolve into a number legacy states, some of which functioned normally as members of the international community (Czechoslovakia is an example here), others became failed states (Yugoslavia springs to mind here). More thoughtful Americans realised that this zenith moment was unlikely to last for long. New challengers were emerging, especially in East and South Asia, and the old challengers could well find themselves revitalised. For those of this view, a short period of dominance had arisen to allow the United States to determine the global architecture for the twenty first century. Such ambitions would require a degree of sacrifice on the part of the American people, as they needed, on occasion, to sacrifice their narrow interests for the interest of the wider global community. This has turned out to be too much to ask.

The period of global dominance started well. George Bush Sr (known as 'Bush 41' - the 41st President of the United States) was an internationalist who believed in consensus building and collective operations as the basis for action. He was followed by President Clinton for two terms, who continued much along the same lines. A sharp discontinuity arose with the election of George Bush Jr (known as 'Bush 43'). Whereas Bush 41 represented the old patrician approach to foreign affairs, Bush 43 advanced an agenda more in tune with the Neo-Conservative agenda. Bush 41 advocated a consensual, collegiate, approach to dealing with international issues. In contrast, Bush 43 followed a more unilateral path, ignoring collective institutions such as the UN and NATO, except when it suited him to use them. The contrast is most stark in their dealings with Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Bush 41 built an international consensus around dealing with the invasion of Kuwait, sanctioned action through the UN, and then limited the use of force to simply liberating Kuwait. Bush 43 did none of this. He invaded Iraq almost unilaterally, and certainly against the advice of his NATO allies. He gained a flimsy sanction of legality from the UN and then went on to preside over the abandonment of core American values. He did this because he could and there was no other agency capable of stopping America.

It is the abandonment of core American values in Abu Ghraib and the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay that marks the turning point in the American unipolar moment. The foreign policy of the United States has traditionally been value driven. It seeks to promote liberal democracy, respect for individual liberties, and traditional market based economics. From a political dimension the actions of the US government in the international arena under Bush 43 fell far short of this ideal. It is inconceivable that Bush 41 would have allowed any of this behaviour to occur whilst he was president. A comparison of the two Bush presidencies shows how far we have travelled. 

Bush 43 was followed by President Obama for two terms. He came to office promising a change. That change didn't come. Guantanamo Bay is till open and claims that the US is following a moral foreign policy still ring hollow. Obama personally oversaw the extra-judicial killing of Osama-Bin-Laden rather than his apprehension and trial. This indicated that there would be no return to a principled foreign policy. Obama was followed by President Trump, who even abandoned the rhetoric of Obama in the exercise of naked power. This is now having unfortunate consequences for America in the world.

Over the same period that The United States enjoyed its unipolar moment as the sole superpower, the tectonic plates of the world economy were shifting. The biggest change was the rise of China from being the 10th largest economy in 1990 to being the 2nd largest economy in 2020, and set to overtake the US later in this decade. With the economic rebalancing has come political, diplomatic, and military rebalancing. Away from the US and in favour of China. We no longer live in a unipolar world and more of a bi-polar one. Again!

It is time to take stock and see where we are before assessing how America has used it's unipolar moment. President Biden has taken office at a time of weakness for the United States. President Trump managed to antagonise many of the traditional allies of America, whilst appearing to favour those who didn't quite share the values of the West. President Biden has inherited that legacy. His term started badly when the Americans were chased out of Afghanistan by the Taliban and their anointed Afghan government collapsed with minimal resistance. 20 years of war and little to show for it. This was followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a war which continues to rage as I write. The response of America and the European allies has been to sanction Russia, the consequence of which is a large and growing Russian trade surplus. All this has done is to underscore how much America needs China to enforce it's policy. However, the confrontation with Russia is a bit of a distraction. The main confrontation will be with China. How that may turn out is a matter for conjecture.

The main point is that the US has experienced a period of time where is has enjoyed undisputed power. That moment has passed. China is now strong enough to oppose US policy and offers a credible alternative to those nations who are not inclined towards the western agenda. The abandonment of the US values driven foreign policy by Bush 43, and it's continuation by Obama, Trump, and Biden is starting to feel like a self inflicted wound as the wider world falls out of love with America. It needn't have been like this. Had the trajectory set by Bush 41 and Clinton continued, the US would have been in a much stronger position today than the one in which it now finds itself. It is this loss of moral authority that will cost America dearly in the decades to come. 

This is unlikely to change. Bush 43 acted as he did because the American people wanted him to. The issue of climate change provides an example of how this has played out. Clinton signed America to the Kyoto Protocol to limit global warming. On taking office, Bush 43 took the United States out of the framework. This was because he couldn't ensure that the Senate would ratify the treaty, which was because the Senators had been pressured by their constituencies to reject the framework. On this matter, when it came to the key moment, the United States, reflecting the American people, placed their narrow sectional advantage ahead of the common good. This is another example of how America could have shown leadership, but failed to do so.

In the end, the unipolar moment has come and gone. There is little tangible to show for this former dominance. International institutions more frequently fail to have an American flavour to them. The American president is unable to call to heel those countries that act against US interests. It is even arguable that the spread of liberal democracy, the respect for the individual, and a belief in market based economics has halted, or even, to a degree, reversed. In this respect, it feels as if the American unipolar moment has been squandered.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2022