The Irrelevant United Nations The annual gabfest in New York underscores its global failures.
New York City this week is full of dignitaries and functionaries from around the world for the United Nations General Assembly, and President Biden chipped in with his annual speech on Tuesday. The Lady Godiva question no one wants to ask is: Why?
Amid the mountain of words this week, what will be accomplished? In the emerging world order of rogue regimes and multi-polar power centers, what good does the U.N. do anymore?
The Presidents of Russia, China and France and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom didn’t even show up. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi made an appearance to lecture about American perfidy. In a show of its respect for the U.N., Iran expelled the U.N.’s most experienced nuclear-weapons inspectors on the eve of Mr. Raisi’s visit. The U.N. has likewise been helpless as North Korea ignores Security Council resolutions and sanctions to expand its nuclear program.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rare trip to New York on Tuesday to make the moral case for support against Russia’s invasion. But the U.N. has been worse than useless during the Ukraine conflict. Russia’s veto in the Security Council with Chinese support has blocked any serious response to the Kremlin’s marauding. The one U.N. contribution was to help negotiate a deal to allow grain exports from Ukraine. But Vladimir Putin recently nixed that agreement.
Mr. Zelensky’s visit to Turtle Bay was a drop-by on his way to Washington, where the real business of enforcing world order will take place, as it has since the middle of the 20th century. The hard power of the U.S. and its allies will determine whether Ukraine wins its war against Russia.
Multilateralism as practiced at the U.N. is increasingly irrelevant as China, Russia, Iran and other rogues assert their power. The liberal internationalists in the Biden Administration can’t give up their vision of groups of nations meeting to settle their differences in peace. But the truth about today’s world order lies in the rubble of Bakhmut.
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