As the United Nations convened in New York City this week to observe the 80th anniversary of its founding, it garnered world headlines when the President of the United States addressed the body and denounced it as an “institution of great potential that had utterly failed to achieve its high purpose".
Though most world media decried the “harsh attack” (New York Times) as another example of Donald Trump's erratic behavior, others recognized its resonance with the American people as exemplified by the small group of protesters – lost in a sea of anti-Israel marchers – carrying signs proclaiming “U.S. out of U.N. – U.N. out of U.S.”
Clear proof that doubts about the efficiency of the United Nations aren’t a new story shows up in two articles– one from The Guardian 10 years ago, and another from The Hill five years ago. The latter, penned by this writer (11/29/20) is reprinted here, demonstrating how little has changed at Turtle Bay across many decades.
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The UN’s Long, Sad Decline Continues
In a seminal 2015 article in The Guardian, “70 years and half a trillion dollars later, what has the UN achieved?” Chris McGreal’s opening line captured the deep ambiguities that are revealed in any balanced assessment of the world organization: “The United Nations has saved millions of lives and boosted health and education across the world, but it is bloated, undemocratic – and very expensive.”
Since then the political, financial and personal pathologies described by McGreal have only gotten worse, and all are now starkly illuminated in the burgeoning controversy surrounding the World Health Organization (WHO) and its deplorable handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
No evaluation of the WHO can be understood unless seen in the wider context of the U.N. itself and its evolution from the brave beginnings of 1945 to the problem-plagued institution of today.
The political dysfunction of the U.N. is directly traceable to its having granted the Soviet Union's demand that each member of the dominant Security Council should have the absolute power to veto any initiative. Absent this concession, the Soviet Union would not even join the U.N. and with only one of the world's two Great Powers as a member, the organization would have been reduced to little more than a loose federation of American client-states with no unifying purpose.
Franklin Roosevelt's dream of succeeding with the United Nations where his mentor Woodrow Wilson had failed with the League of Nations would be dead. Such was simply reality in a broken world in the immediate aftermath of a cataclysmic world war, a reality that has haunted the U.N. ever since.
The hope that the Soviet Union – the “Great Ally” of World War II – would evolve progressively and be a reliable partner in making the U.N. a true guarantor of world peace was dashed by the onset of the Cold War, which would become the world’s central political reality for over 40 years. Thus, the U.N. became not a “consequential arbitrator” but rather a “weak referee” utilized by the Great Powers when it served their interest and ignored when it did not.
The U.N.'s decline in status and effectiveness worsened in 1964 when 77 of the smaller and weaker member states – a voting majority in the general assembly – joined together seeking to counterbalance the excessive power wielded by the wealthy Western nations who were the principal financial support of the organization.
Known ever since as the G-77, but now including 133 of the U.N.’s 195 members, the group rapidly spread its influence throughout the body's systems, particularly its budgetary committees. Given the prominence of authoritarian governments, including some of the world's most odious and oppressive regimes – for example, Libya, Zimbabwe, Syria – the group early on showed a strong bias toward inefficient central planning, rather than free-market forces, in the allocation of resources.
The most lamentable damage done by this group was its utter corruption of the U.N.’s personnel practices, transforming them from a merit-based system into a metastasizing patronage scheme that infected every key position from secretary-general on down. Jobs were awarded not on the basis of qualifications, but through furious behind the scenes lobbying and horse trading. There is no better example of this syndrome than the last two WHO directors, both manifestly unfit for this critical important position.
Any effort to impose true accountability on the U.N.’s sprawling aggregation of 17 specialized agencies, 14 funds, and a secretariat with 17 departments employing over 40,000 people worldwide is made next to impossible by bureaucratic anachronism such as having 80 separate locations processing payrolls, using different methodologies, and each agency having its own information technology system.
The last serious effort at reform, in 2005, conducted by a credible panel chaired by the prime ministers of Norway, Mozambique and Pakistan, issued a devastating report and proposed a new approach called “Delivering as One,” but this led only to the usual cascade of lofty goal statements with no subsequent results.
Yet, amid all these disorders, it must be remembered that there still remain thousands of U.N. personnel at the field level – proud, capable and dedicated –who are doing good things for needy peoples in some of the most remote and often most dangerous places on earth. However, it is sad to think how much more could be done if the United Nations as an institution had not fallen so far short of the hopes and dreams of its founders. (The Hill 11/29/2020)
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Finally, it has often been pointed out that the useful humanitarian functions of the United Nations can easily be continued from the large U.N. facilities in Geneva and Vienna – both in neutral countries – while the political circus in New York City would be missed by few thoughtful observers. As all previous attempts to reform the United Nations have failed miserably, it’s obviously time, indeed far past time, to look for such a Plan B. Donald Trump, always willing to wear the black hat, would likely be all too glad to bear the blame.
William Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his doctorate from Harvard University. His articles have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, The Hill. The Washington Post, Washington Times. Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.
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