The United Nations in a Changing World of International Polarity

Introduction: Historical Foreword

Today, many of the challenges arrayed against the United Nations (UN) have never been greater or more severe, nor have the stakes been as high. Although the UN's primary mandate remains focused on peacekeeping operations using armed forces comprised of member-states as authorized by the General Assembly, its real-world operations have become far more multifaceted in ways that have assumed new importance and relevance for the international community. The importance of the research that follows for the future of international relations in a changing world cannot be overstated, especially given the new world order that is emerging with China and Russia poised to become global hegemons in the foreseeable future.

Against this backdrop, the central problem of interest to this study concerns how the UN — established with the mentality and tools of the victors of the Second World War — can play a meaningful global role in light of a shifting balance of power and the emergence of new powers and new centers of influence. The guiding hypothesis of this research is that the UN must adapt to current and upcoming circumstances, keep pace with the development of the balance of power, and amend its charter in order to allow the joining of emerging countries and to distribute roles among them through the remainder of the 21st century.

The methodology of this research draws on constructivism and futurology applied to an international relations context as the main tools of analysis, covering the time period from 1945 through 2045. The paper begins with a historical foreword about the UN, followed by an analysis of the UN in a bipolar world and then the UN in the shadow of a unipolar world. Finally, the paper presents an assessment of the UN in a likely multipolar world of the mid-21st century, followed by salient recommendations for national policymakers, military tacticians, and the diplomatic corps, and concludes with a summary of key findings.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, many nations of the world were devastated economically and militarily, and there was a growing consensus among members of the international community that some new mechanism was required to prevent its recurrence. According to UN historians, "The original concept for the UN can be traced back to August 1941 with the promulgation of the Atlantic Charter which included many of the ideas that would form the UN Charter" (Preparatory years: UN charter history, 2021, para. 2). In response to the post-World War II need for an international body, representatives from 50 nations assembled in San Francisco at the UN Conference on International Organization and collaborated for two months to draft the details of the UN Charter (History of the United Nations, 2021).

Following these deliberations, the UN Charter was agreed to and signed by all 50 representatives, who formally approved the document on June 26, 1945 (History of the United Nations, 2021). Shortly thereafter, Poland also joined the original 50 signatories to become one of the 51 founding member-states of the UN (History of the United Nations, 2021). Since that time, membership in the UN has grown to include 193 member-states (About the UN, 2021), representing nearly all (98.9%) of the world's 195 countries today (List of countries and regions of the world, 2021). While the international community has dozens of bilateral and multilateral agreements in place, the UN remains the preeminent organ for international deliberations and the resolution of inter-country differences.

While the UN's mandate remains laser-focused on peacekeeping operations in hotspots around the world, its mission has expanded to include a number of initiatives that were not salient or easily foreseeable when the organization was founded. The UN notes that, "[Today], more than 75 years later, the United Nations is still working to maintain international peace and security, give humanitarian assistance to those in need, protect human rights, and uphold international law. At the same time, the United Nations is doing new work not envisioned for it in 1945 by its founders" (History of the United Nations, 2021, para. 4).

Besides its peacekeeping mandate, another initiative embraced by an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly is the need for a global response to the existential threat represented by climate change (History of the United Nations, 2021). Although the world had been devastated by World War II and the problems confronting the international community were massive, they did not rise to the level of many of the challenges that face the world at present. According to Murthy (2020), "The intertwined relationship between the international system and the US would be difficult to analyze without the other. The evolution of the UN as a working system is a story of the changing nature of the larger international system" (p. 399). Even though the UN has met with mixed results in its peacekeeping efforts to date, the organization has remained a rare bedrock of diplomacy in an increasingly hostile world where diplomatic solutions have become an essential requirement for the survival of humankind.

In some ways, policymakers and military leaders in the United States lament the passage of the bipolar world of the latter half of the 20th century, when America's enemies were clearly demarcated and their military and political actions were readily understandable in context. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were widely regarded by the West as an insoluble monolith that would long remain the source and focus of international conflict between two dueling political and economic ideologies. In other words, the UN became less relevant as the two superpowers unilaterally hammered out their differences on the geopolitical stage. Following the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact during the early 1990s, however, the world became fundamentally unipolar in nature, with the United States as the sole remaining superpower.

In recent years, this unipolarity has been supplanted by yet another bipolar dynamic due to the meteoric rise of China. Kwarteng and Atuahene (2018) report that, "With the continuing rise and influence of China in the international system, the world is gradually transforming from a unipolar world to a bipolar world" (p. 37). Given the profound differences in political and economic ideology between China and the United States at present, it is little wonder that political analysts and military tacticians are sounding the alarm about the emergence of another cold war (Kwarteng & Atuahene, 2018), with the same types of corresponding threats.

The United Nations in a Bipolar World

While across-the-board comparisons of national economies may not reveal all of the underlying mechanisms that contribute to respective national performance, it is clear that China has assumed a leading role in world affairs today simply by virtue of its economic clout. Key metrics from the CIA World Factbook (2021) illustrate this dynamic: China's GDP reached approximately $22.5 trillion compared to the United States' $21.4 trillion, while China's real GDP growth rate of 6.14% substantially outpaced the United States' 2.16%. China's population of approximately 1.4 billion dwarfs the United States' 335 million, and while the United States retains a much higher real GDP per capita ($62,530 vs. $16,117), the overall economic trajectory clearly favors China's continued expansion.

Although the difference in per capita GDP between China and the United States remains significant, China's total GDP outpaced that of the United States by more than a trillion dollars in 2020, and current projections indicate China is on course to match or exceed this performance despite the ongoing dampening effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic and trade disruptions in recent years.

Furthermore, an examination of recent Chinese efforts to expand its global influence — such as its Belt and Road initiatives in developing nations (especially African countries) and efforts to dominate the South China Sea for military and commercial exploitation — underscore the growing bipolarity of the geopolitical sphere. These trends are noted by Kwarteng and Atuahene (2018), who observe:

"The US has been the world superpower since the end of the Cold War, however, in recent times, one can argue that the US is losing its influence and power as the only superpower in the world. China, on the other hand, has over the years implemented measures and policies that have gone a long way to relatively increase its power and influence in the international system." (p. 2)

Applied to a future scenario, it is reasonable to posit that China will replace the once-dominant Soviet monolith as the second pole in a bipolar international system. While China may not yet possess the full range of military capabilities boasted by the United States and Western allies, it is making massive investments in its armed forces, indicating that the geopolitical playing field is not only being leveled but is being stacked heavily in China's favor. Extrapolated to the mid-21st century, current trends suggest that China may become the world's sole superpower within a generation or even sooner (Kwarteng & Atuahene, 2018). These trends therefore carry special implications for the UN as it balances its primary mandate with the expanded missions it has assumed over the three-quarters of a century since its founding.

The United Nations in a Multipolar World

While China remains the dominant emerging power, the other so-called "BRIC" nations — Brazil, Russia, and India — have also become far more influential on the world stage over the past decade. In addition, other actors such as Malaysia and Indonesia are not only investing in space programs but are also seeking to increase their regional influence to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage in a multinational marketplace. At present, however, China and Russia appear to be the main actors poised to challenge the supremacy of the United States in the geopolitical sphere.

A study by Xuetong (2013) examined the role of the UN in a multipolar world and determined that there are significant signs that this transition is already underway. According to Xuetong (2013), "A great historical transition is underway from American-led Globalization 1.0 to Globalization 2.0 — the interdependence of plural identities where no one power or alliance of powers dominates" (p. 12). In support of this assertion, Xuetong (2013) cites the power shift taking place on the world stage as emerging economies begin to exert increasing influence in unexpected ways.

Based on his analysis of recent and current trends, Xuetong (2013) concludes that, "The danger now is that the geopolitical vacuum will invite assertions of national self-interest that will unravel the rules-based order that enabled stability and prosperity over recent decades" (p. 13). Indeed, there are already signs of this eventuality materializing. Russia's attempts to exert increasing influence over the Arctic Region contrary to the provisions of the Arctic Treaty, and the race among the United States, China, and Russia to colonize the moon in search of helium-3 — which can be used to produce vast amounts of environmentally friendly energy — make it apparent that national interests in the mid-21st century will extend beyond the traditional confines of earth (Ian, Ian, Sowers et al., 2019).

It is not too far-fetched to envision a branch office for the UN on the moon by 2045. Many scientists believe that humankind will also successfully colonize Mars by mid-21st century (Sterns & Tennen, 2019), so there will be a continuing need for an international organization with global and extraterrestrial authority to provide various protections for national and international space missions in the coming years. The governance frameworks developed on Earth will need to evolve to address these unprecedented frontiers, and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs may well serve as the foundation for such expansion.

Conclusion

So much has transpired on the international stage so rapidly since the founding of the UN that it is noteworthy that the organization has survived at all, let alone remained relevant in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. It is to the founding member-states' credit that the UN has achieved this remarkable outcome, but the pace of change in the geopolitical sphere has continued to accelerate, and the future relevance of the UN will require close and ongoing collaboration and cooperation on the part of its constituent member-states.

Given the diversity of national interests and differences in political and economic ideologies present in the international community, it is reasonable to conclude that national leaders in the future must set aside their fundamental differences and act in a coordinated fashion through the auspices of the UN if the world is going to survive to see the 22nd century. In the final analysis, the United Nations is humankind's last best hope to overcome the numerous existential threats that already exist or which are expected to emerge by mid-21st century.

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