A Strong UN Keeps Us From the Worst Global Scenarios

As I wrote in Part I of this column: "The world conference on Manhattan’s East Side, unlike scientific or sales conferences, is permanently in session, now into its 77th year as marked by the UN’s birthday this week (Oct. 24)."

In writing about the UN, this writer admits thinking of it in the abstract, as many do of "Washington" or "Wall Street" — each one a milky way of ordered chaos.

So, let's at least try to break down the UN nebula here as it completes its latest birthday.

It started with a big bang.

Two big bangs, actually.

The Great War, and then World War II.

After those scourges, there was an urgency to prevent further global meltdowns.

Diplomacy to that date was practiced between one side and another; like a telephone call, it was a two-dimensional thing.

Solution: diplomacy needed to be expanded into an "everybody" event, "a conference call."

It needed to be cubed.

Born of those nations united in World War II to quell axis oppression once and for all, the United Nations continued as an allied network of states advocating a liberal international order against repression among countries.

It then evolved into a real-time chat room with messaging and live action body language. It built meeting rooms and hired a staff.

To tease you, let me note that there was a United Nations before there was a United Nations — a United Nations Organization, that is.

Designs needed nuts and bolts to make impacts and outcomes, hence the UN Organization.

The peoples of the world are co-owners of this machinery, the diplomats are their advocates, and the UN staff are their employees.

Its purpose, again, has been to avoid the scourge of world war again in our time.

What it does is program shared principles of international cooperation into measures for peace, security, development, and human rights.

But this had been attempted before. After the post-World War I League of Nations lost its following, a rev. 2.0 (second revision) needed to do more than merely tempt states to the table.

It needed to keep them at the table, particularly those with the most threatening designs and arsenals against a freedom-based world order.

Who are they in the UN roster?

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — only about 2.5 percent of countries.

How to keep those sovereign entities from straying when it might suit them?

The UN rules let a rogue know that if absent, they miss the chance to veto a decision taken by the others that could damage the rogue’s foreign interests.

In other words, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.

So, while many bemoan the use of the veto and want it stopped or otherwise qualified in use, the exercise of a veto by a state should remind of a big "take-it-for-granted" we all have of the UN — that despite its other failings, it gets — and keeps — adversaries in the same room as an alternative to the same battleground.

I agree that in negotiations it is frustrating when veto use is threatened, and too often little doubt that the sitting secretary-general has been doing only that.

Yes, progress takes forever, but forever is better than never. Although the Security Council often appears paralyzed, it is actually and fortunately far from dead.

Somehow these disappointments have not quelled public idealism for the United Nations experiment. This is due to its enduring power to convene to the table, especially those 97.5 percent of the countries without the veto.

And when it calls a meeting, they all come.

And this is due to more than to the fear of missing out.

So, what is it?

Why does a mere talk shop continue to grow its magnetic appeal?

Especially since such gatherings can be about as comfortable as a family reunion— avoiding about half the room while not missing a go at the chocolate fondue fountain?

The appeal, beyond dessert, is the efficiency of such conference diplomacy.

Again, like the efficiency of our internet era, all members are together in real-time facilitated by language interpretation for reporting and reaction from their bosses at home.

To the public it looks more like a large game of parking ticket bingo on the east side of Manhattan. But behind the speechifying there are off the record exchanges, impromptu encounters, and eye wink understandings otherwise hard to imagine under glaring publicity.

But we expect more than happenstance encounters.

For all its bravado about global ills, one would expect a fully staffed emergency room beyond the waiting rooms groaning with the war in Ukraine, the pandemic, Chinese genocide, and other cases.

Ultimately, the treatment requires UN member states back in their capitals, and not paid experts in New York City, to call the shots and do the difficult.

So, what is the diagnosis out of the September presidential speechfest?

• For humanity, this is a new era; conditions of global cooperation have changed resulting in new challenges, changing priorities, changing roles, and changing ways.
• The war in Ukraine should end, as well as 30 armed conflicts globally.
• Economic growth must be balanced with limiting emissions and preserving biodiversity.
• Human rights need improving and the freedom of speaking out is strongly supported; diversity is a strength.
• The UN needs ongoing reform for relevance and effectiveness.

Its overall prescription is the following: increased trust among all to deepen solidarity toward a more peaceful, post-COVID-19 world.

I trust that the UN’s power to bring to the table and keep at the table will continue strong.

I also trust that the UN will always hint and inspire to realizing more, God willing.

For, as Churchill, Hammarskjold, and others each observed, the United Nations might not get us to Heaven, but it might keep us from Hell.

Hugh Dugan served as Acting Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and Senior Director for International Organization Affairs in the National Security Council after having advised 11 U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations since 1989. Read Hugh Dugan's Reports — More Here.