The UN has rarely lived up to its loftier goals. But it’s hard to remember a time when its fundamental principles of forging common solutions for peace, supporting human rights and promoting international law have been so threatened.
Once, the UN was a hotbed of diplomacy in times of war. But those days are gone as Beijing and Moscow wield their Security Council vetoes to hobble efforts to mediate in places like Syria and Ukraine. Following its invasion earlier this year, Russia turned council meetings into a theater of the absurd.
US President Joe Biden will extend his streak of frank talk when he calls on the world Wednesday to stand up against “naked aggression” from Moscow, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said. Biden’s warnings that the world is dividing into a duel between despots and democrats look on the money.
Of course, America’s critics point out that it has often appeared to infringe the principles of the United Nations itself, with its wars in Vietnam and Iraq, for example. And any return to power by former President Donald Trump, who spun US diplomacy on its head by dissing Western allies and coddling tyrants, could obliterate Biden’s efforts to save international law.
All this explains the extraordinarily bleak tone of the Secretary-General’s speech, as he lamented that there was “no cooperation, no dialogue, no collective problem solving” while warning, “the reality is that we live in a world where the logic of dialogue and cooperation is the only path forward.”
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