Born from the ashes of World War II, the UN was envisioned as a guardian of global peace. At 81, it remains ill-equipped to fulfil that promise.
The United Nations turned 81 on Saturday, the anniversary of its Charter coming into force in 1945. The birthday arrives at an awkward hour. The 2026 regular budget has been cut to $3.45 billion, 7 per cent below last year’s, after the United States, normally responsible for a fifth of the funding, left large dues unpaid. And an organisation meant to settle the world’s disputes cannot yet settle its own succession: at the last reported straw poll, on October 16, none of the seven candidates to replace António Guterres had the backing of all five permanent members of the Security Council.
It was born of failure. The League of Nations, created after the First World War, could not enforce its rules and never included the United States; it watched Japan, Italy and Germany defy it, then died in the war that followed. The Charter, signed in San Francisco in June 1945, promised what the League could not: a ban on aggression, an armed Security Council to back it, and a link between peace, development and rights. The price was the veto. The victors would not join a body that could coerce them, so the five kept a lock on enforcement. That bargain is why the UN survived, and why it so often cannot act.
The credit side is real. No third world war, and no nuclear weapon used in anger, since 1945, though not by the UN alone. It grew from 51 members to 193 through decolonisation; its agencies helped eradicate smallpox and feed and shelter refugees; its peacekeepers helped end wars in Namibia, Cambodia and Sierra Leone.
Without it, the world would improvise the same machinery under worse conditions. Against its founding promise, though, the record is poorer. The Council failed Rwanda and Srebrenica, and today’s paralysis is more brazen. In 2025, the United States vetoed two Gaza texts drafted by all ten elected members, while Russia vetoed amendments to a Ukraine text, including one reaffirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Guterres conceded in 2024 that this disunity had perhaps fatally damaged the Council’s authority. The double standard is built in: the five who write the rules are the least exposed to enforcement.
Washington’s complaint of bloat is not baseless, but withholding dues is not reform.
Can it go on like this? Only as a diminishing thing, a relief agency and a stage for speeches. Reform must start with the Council, which still has no permanent seat for Africa, Latin America or India, the world’s most populous country. Charter amendments need every permanent member’s consent, so the realistic goal is veto restraint: a pledge not to use it in mass-atrocity cases, building on the 2022 Assembly resolution mandating a debate after every veto. Dues must be paid in full and on time.
The succession is the nearer test: the five will be tempted to pick whoever offends them least, when the world needs a Secretary-General, ideally the first woman, willing to say awkward things to the powerful. The answer at 81 is reform, not retirement.