To save the United Nations from the irrelevance in which it now wallows, the next secretary general will require the concerted backing of the few powers that govern the security council.
asserted
that → save → council
The paradox is that the great powers who created the institution in the 1940s and recently treat it with a cavalier cynicism are now the ones who need it most, as does the rest of the world.
asserted
rest → create → world
This is not about nostalgia for what was created after the second world war.
asserted
what → create → war
That world has changed.
asserted
world → change → ?
But it is carelessness of high order to assume that some mystical process will create a world while, in the meantime, the most powerful give license to some dangerous pathologies that have brought us to ruin in the past.
asserted
that → assume → past
The resort to war over dialogue and diplomacy has reared its head again.
asserted
resort → rear → head
Restraint has given way to calculated recklessness.
asserted
Restraint → give → recklessness
Changing facts on the ground before talking now creates leverage, and that is why we see an unprecedented multiplication of centers of violence.
asserted
we → change → violence
Militias and mercenaries abound.
asserted
Militias → abound → ?
Collective security to which all commit to be effective is now supplanted by a petulant isolationism.
asserted
all → commit → isolationism
Revolutionary new technologies have spurred a rush to secure minerals and supply routes upending traditional notions of sovereignty.
asserted
technologies → spur → sovereignty
Drone warfare has made violence much more affordable.
asserted
violence → make → ?
The permanent members of the security council, anachronistically still composed of the victors of the second world war, have a tall order.
asserted
members → compose → order
Quarrels that are as old as tribes, communities and nations now have new, more lethal weapons.
asserted
that → have → weapons
They drive the war in Ukraine, the drift toward conflict in the Horn of Africa, the instability around the Gulf and the Red Sea, and the standoff over Taiwan.
asserted
They → drive → Taiwan
These conflicts are now multiplying at a scale and speed in a time when global regulatory arrangements over existential threats are denigrated.
asserted
arrangements → multiply → threats
Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, pandemics, climate change will either be fueled or managed by artificial intelligence.
asserted
Proliferation → fuel → intelligence
As AI is woven into military planning, early warning and command systems, it compresses the time leaders have to think before they act, and it multiplies the tools of deception and destabilization.
asserted
it → weave → deception
A world that learned, slowly and at great risk, to live with nuclear weapons must now learn to live with machines that may shape decisions about using them.
uncertain
that → learn → them
These dangers can only be contained if we dispense with some misplaced assumptions.
asserted
we → contain → assumptions
It was never meant to be.
asserted
It → mean → ?
The UN exists so that states that distrust or even detest one another have somewhere to meet – a place that offers hospitality to adversaries.
asserted
that → exist → adversaries
If the hard conversations about war and technology do not happen there, where else will they happen in a way that protects the rest of humanity?
asserted
that → happen → humanity
The second assumption is that power can be evenly distributed.
asserted
power → distribute → ?
Pretending otherwise is idealism to the point of fault.
asserted
Pretending → pretend → fault
A handful of states possess the disproportionate capacity to contain these dangers or to unleash them.
asserted
handful → possess → them
In practice, today this means the United States, China and Russia.
asserted
this → mean → States
Even if they do not trust one another, they need only recognize a shared interest in a world that remains manageable.
asserted
that → trust → world
This harsh reality should temper the fashionable faith in “middle powers”.
asserted
reality → temper → powers
Their activism is understandable, even admirable: they see the great powers changing character and are trying to respond.
asserted
powers → see → character
But they are called middle powers for a reason.
asserted
they → call → reason
They cannot, on their own, end a major war or govern a technology developed mostly elsewhere.
asserted
They → end → technology
This does not mean that might makes right.
uncertain
might → mean → ?
Neither does it mean that complicated times need simple answers which would be a repudiation of politics at the international level.
asserted
which → mean → level
Power checked by reasonable deliberation, negotiation and diplomacy is a core principle that inspired the charter of the United Nations.
asserted
that → check → Nations
This moment calls for a rededication to principled pragmatism.
asserted
moment → call → pragmatism
History has much to teach.
asserted
History → have → much
When the plague swept Europe in the 14th century, the city states of Italy established the practice of quarantines and an early form of health certification.
asserted
states → sweep → certification
But it worked well enough, and it rested on self-interest, not virtue.
asserted
it → work → interest
Since the mid-20th century, in a radically different technological era, nuclear proliferation and the risk of nuclear war have been contained, so far, through a lengthy process of negotiation and agreements.
asserted
proliferation → contain → negotiation
…and 6 more, not listed.
The Aporia
