The United Nations will rarely have suffered such humiliation. Just when Antonio Guterres, the organization’s secretary general, was in the Ukrainian Prime Minister’s office in kyiv on April 28, two Russian missiles fell on the capital. By this aggression, Vladimir Putin proved that he had no respect for the UN, completely marginalized, nor for its leader, who had gone to the Kremlin a few days earlier.
The machine is out of breath. There is nothing to expect from the UN in terms of the resolution of this type of conflict. “We find ourselves in a situation comparable to that of the Cold War with a permanent recourse to the veto”, notes Pierre Grosser, historian of international relations at Sciences po. The main weakness of the United Nations is obvious: its Security Council is paralyzed if one of its five permanent members – which has the right of veto – behaves like an aggressor, as Russia does.
It must be said that the UN was not designed to deal with the bewildering current situation. Established at the end of the Second World War, it was based on a simple principle: it is the responsibility of the great powers to enforce peace. Apart from a golden age in the 1990s, following the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, the logic of the geostrategic balance of power then regained the upper hand.
The UN Security Council has turned into a theater of confrontation between two blocs: the United States, France and the United Kingdom on one side; China and Russia, on the other. For ten years, and the war in Syria, Moscow has activated its veto 22 times – followed 10 times by Beijing.
In this context, it is not surprising that the UN cannot oppose the war in Ukraine militarily. “But what is more worrying is that it has not been able to play its political role and that it can no longer manage to enforce the most basic humanitarian rules, such as the evacuation of civilians and the wounded according to international law”, points out former ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert.
In addition to these institutional flaws, there is another limit: the personality of Antonio Guterres, who is too timid, is not up to the challenge. While the 70-year-old diplomat was quick to condemn the Russian invasion, he was far too late in getting to kyiv amid mounting war crimes and doing little to create a diplomatic breakthrough. Times have changed, we must rethink the UN. And quick.