The Foreign Service Journal, April 2004

A P R I L 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 51 s World War II was drawing to its close, I was a newly minted 19-year- old ensign in the U.S. Navy, impa- tiently awaiting onward transport from San Francisco to the South Pacific. I was unaware that on that very day, President Harry Truman, seated across town on the stage of the San Francisco Opera House, was putting his signature to the charter of the United Nations. I could not foresee that my own future career would be much involved with the institution launched on that day. But I still remember the heady, opti- mistic sense of hope that the postwar world would be different, that a kind of Parliament of Man had been cre- ated with the birth of the United Nations. Just as there would be optimistic talk of a “new world order” following the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly half a century later, the United Nations represented the postwar vision of its founders in 1945 for a better world. But sadly, the original idea that a coalition of the World War II victors, working together, could be relied on to enforce the peace did not last long. Throughout the Cold War, the Security Council — the heart of the organization’s political and security decision- making — was rendered almost inert by the veto and the inability of its permanent members to achieve consensus. Consequently, today many of our fellow citizens and leaders believe the U.N. has lost its relevance. Partly for that reason, unilateralism in American foreign policy seems in the ascendancy. Taking its cue from a president inexperienced in, and incurious about, foreign affairs, this administration has instinctively re- sisted anything that smacked of mul- tilateralism or “nation-building.” In its first year alone, it targeted a lengthy roster of already negotiated agreements and conventions like ducks in a shooting gallery: among others, the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Control, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Landmine Convention and the International Criminal Court. In addition, with- drawal from the ABM Treaty became a priority, whatever the cost to U.S.-Russian relations. I do not mean to suggest that any of these agreements was perfect, but their faults were clearly susceptible to further negotiations. Instead, the Bush administration dismissed them out of hand. Disdain for the U.N. The unilateralist theory seems to be that the United States, enjoying almost a monopoly of power and superior Ambassador Ronald Spiers was a Foreign Service officer from 1955 to 1989, serving as minister in London, ambas- sador to the Bahamas, Turkey and Pakistan, assistant secre- tary for political-military affairs and for intelligence and research, and under secretary for management. Following retirement from the Service, he served as U.N. under secre- tary-general for political affairs from 1989 to 1992. He writes and lectures on foreign affairs and is a fellow of the American Academy of Diplomacy. B Y R ONALD S PIERS T OWARD A N EW U.S.-U.N. R APPROCHEMENT I F THE U.N. DID NOT EXIST , IT HAS BEEN SAID , IT WOULD HAVE TO BE INVENTED . P ERHAPS IT ’ S TIME TO REINVENT THIS IMPERFECT BUT INVALUABLE INSTITUTION . A Jefferson’s warning against “entangling alliances” has been twisted by the Bush administration into a preference for going it alone wherever possible.