According to The Economist, the UN is close to bankruptcy, in part because the U.S. and China are not paying their agreed share. I believed in the UN back in the first Gulf War era, when it seemed like the so-called great powers could come together through the security council and collectively decide what to do when a regional power invaded its sovereign neighbor. That simple model, where if one country steps out of line all other countries will turn against it, seems so appealing to me. But that model is clearly out the window, at least since the second Gulf War and possibly since the NATO adventures in the Balkans in the late 1990s.

It’s sad. As a mechanism to prevent war, the UN is clearly completely ineffective at this point. If they were to just close up shop in New York, I am not sure the war and peace situation would be worse off – to be clear, it is very bad and just can’t get that much worse with or without the UN. When serious discussions even happen, they are not happening through the UN.

The UN still does important things on the humanitarian and science fronts, however, and if nothing else the General Assembly gives the world’s smaller, poorer, and less powerful nations a way to speak more collectively and be heard.

As the UN has faded, I suppose we have seen other organizations rise in parallel to fill in some of the void, like the G20, BRICs, etc. Maybe this is the future, but it really seems like we need a functioning organization like the Security Council, in parallel if the actual Security Council is hopeless, and we need it now.