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After the Cold War, the UN was retooled to manage internal conflicts and deploy peacekeepers. This shift, driven by a unipolar moment with fewer state-vs-state wars, meant it moved away from its classic role as a high-level mediator, leaving it unprepared for today's resurgence of interstate conflict.
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The central idea from the UN's creation is that avoiding another total war, especially in a nuclear age, should be the ultimate priority. Engaging in transactional geopolitics and managing great power tensions without this core focus significantly increases the risk of a catastrophic global conflict.
The current global disarray is often misdiagnosed. The system truly at risk is the deeper, 80-year-old framework created post-WWII to prevent great power war. This is a more profound rupture than the fraying of the 30-year-old, US-led post-Cold War order.
After 1991, without the Soviet Union as a counterbalancing power, US foreign policy shifted from pragmatic containment to an interventionist, 'neocon' crusade. This ideology of a 'responsibility to protect' led to costly, destabilizing 'forever wars' in the Middle East, a departure from the more measured Cold War approach.
For generations, Western societies have viewed peace and prosperity as the default state. This perception is a historical outlier, making the return to 'dog eat dog' great power politics seem shocking, when in fact it's a reversion to the historical norm of conflict.
The modern system of nearly 200 sovereign states wasn't a historical accident. For newly independent nations after colonialism, joining the UN provided a crucial framework of sovereignty that prevented international anarchy and allowed them to focus on internal nation-building.
Critiques of the UN's bloated budget miss the point. Its most vital function—high-level mediation by the Secretary-General—is a matter of political will and skill, not funding. Historically, this role was performed by a tiny team, proving that its revival is not a financial challenge.
The UN Secretary-General's influence during the Cold War wasn't just about mediating between the US and USSR. It was politically energized and supported by a powerful bloc of newly decolonized Afro-Asian states that saw the UN as a defender of their sovereignty.
After the Soviet Union's collapse, Europe incorrectly assumed permanent peace. It divested from defense and technology, focusing on social welfare, which ultimately rendered it economically uncompetitive and geopolitically weak.
The last 80 years of a rules-based international order was an exception, not the norm. The world is reverting to its historical state of raw power politics, where nations act out of self-interest and military strength.
The recent uptick in global conflicts, from Ukraine to the Caribbean, is not a series of isolated events. It's a direct result of adversaries perceiving American weakness and acting on the historical principle that nations expand their influence until they are met with sufficient counter-force.
