UN Assembly shadowed by war clouds, chaos

When the new U.N. General Assembly session opens Tuesday, world leaders and diplomats will be commemorating the 80th anniversary of the global organization established in the wake of World War II to “maintain international peace and security” for future generations.

But at its headquarters here on the East River in New York, delegates and staff will be doing far less celebrating than previously planned.

Instead, the membership will be confronted by a spate of long-running crises ranging from the Russia-Ukraine war to the war in Gaza and at least a dozen perilous humanitarian crises in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. Tragically, all these situations are converging at a time when the United Nations itself is financially running on empty due to a continuing budget crisis from late dues payments as well as the organization’s overstretched mandates.

A kind of perfect storm plagues the global body, which has grown from the ashes of WWII, expanding from its original 50 member states to 193 today, with its newest member possibly being Palestine.

Hot wars

Following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the central European country has been immersed in battle and chaos on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II. Though the Russians had been systematically dismembering Ukraine’s territory since seizing the strategic Crimean Peninsula in 2014, the wider conflict exploded in February 2022.

Amid continuing fighting, in a few months Ukraine faces the fourth winter of the full-scale war. Currently there are over 5 million Ukrainian refugees, with millions more internally displaced by Moscow’s attacks.

Just a year ago, as the Ukraine war raged, there were few calls for a formal ceasefire or peace talks. Now the United States and the Europeans have vigorously pressed for an end to the conflict through summit diplomacy. Nonetheless, Russian President Vladimir Putin has failed to take serious actions to stop the carnage.

“We renew the Secretary-General’s appeal for a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire,” U.N. officials have stressed. “A ceasefire that results in a just, comprehensive and sustainable peace in Ukraine, one that fully upholds Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”

Gaza chaos

The long-running Palestinian issue has plagued the U.N. since its creation. But when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the intractable conflict took on a new, darker, genocidal dimension. This was no longer the traditional Arab-Israeli war like the ones fought in 1967 or 1973, but an attack to confront not just the Israeli Army but also unarmed Israeli civilians in vulnerable settlements near the Israel-Gaza border.

In the nearly two years since, the U.N. Security Council and relief agencies have spent endless sessions trying to square this circle of hate promoted by Hamas, to little avail. Now the conflict has assumed a deadly momentum of its own. Vast and tragic refugee numbers shift within Gaza’s churning Armageddon as Israeli troops root out terrorist cells. A durable ceasefire, release of Israeli hostages and humanitarian aid distribution remain crucial.

Simmering crises

Iran’s longstanding support to terrorist proxies has been dealt a deadly blow with continuing Israeli attacks on Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But what of Iran’s long-term ambition to possess a working nuclear weapons program? The Islamic Republic has faced serious setbacks after the American bombing of key nuclear research instillations in June. Yet Tehran still relentlessly pursues the nuclear weapons genie. Recently, France, Germany and the U.K. stated they back pre-2015 international sanctions on Iran given the regime’s waffling on international transparency.

Humanitarian crises

Sudan, Yemen, Haiti, Somalia, Congo and Myanmar face massive long-running humanitarian crises. One serious problem is that the world community and U.N. relief apparatus are facing crisis overload. Refugee numbers have swelled too; Venezuela has the largest numbers with 6.3 million, followed by long-suffering Syria at 6 million and Afghanistan at 5.8 million, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Palestine recognition?

Western democracies seem to be tripping over themselves in a mad rush to offer diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state, the same guys who brought you Hamas.

Ireland, France, Great Britain, Canada and Australia added their names and reputations to the list of shame and the diplomatic isolation of Israel. One could ask whether the U.N. is making itself more inclusive, or more irrelevant?

Now, for the first time in a generation, the world faces a serious great power rivalry. The U.N. Security Council has remained deadlocked for a decade with no end in sight. Have these geopolitical challenges eclipsed the United Nations?

John J. Metzler (jjmcolumn@earthlink.net) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China."