The United Nations, which seems to be emerging as the indispensable partner in global affairs even for the United States, will be led for a second five-year term by South Koreas’s Ban Ki-moon who took over as Secretary General in 2007.
The 15-nation UN Security Council decided unanimously today to recommend him to the 192-nation UN General Assembly for confirmation through to the end of 2016. The eighth person to serve since the UN’s creation, Ban has a mixed reputation in this very challenging and controversial job.
Despite periodic bad-mouthing by some members of UN Congress and officials of past administrations, Ban, who many fault for lack of charisma, has quietly brought the UN to a historic turning point. The Barack Obama administration is increasingly discovering that it cannot achieve some of its major foreign policy objectives, both military and economic, without the cooperation of Ban’s office.
This is a new phenomenon. It is interesting because Ban has no power in global affairs. Yet, he is indispensable to making things happen. This is a blessing and a drawback for him. It is a blessing because advice from his office and the activities of the key UN system agencies are crucial for delivery of such central US objectives as preventing terrorism, preserving peace, bolstering democracy, protecting human rights, promoting open markets and ensuring private sector opportunities in the economic development of poorer nations.
It is also a drawback because cooperation with US objectives opens him to accusations of being a Western stooge, which have regularly visited violence and death upon UN staff and associates through terrorism. So Ban has to walk a tight rope to bring consensus and support around what is good for the world and good for the US. The Obama administration often turns to the UN Security Council and other agencies to advance its policies and has worked quickly to repair bridges damaged by previous administrations.
The UN’s already significant role in Iraq and Afghanistan will certainly expand after US troops are withdrawn because only the UN has the credibility needed to win cooperation from all the countries in the surrounding regions. It is also a key player in helping to keep Iran on the track to peaceful nuclear energy rather than building weapons capability.
The most noteworthy area in which Ban may become indispensable for the US and European Union is the aftermath of the Arab spring and similar future movements that free countries from authoritarian regimes. In most such countries, people and civil society groups accept UN agency interventions more willingly and with much less suspicion than direct US help. They include organizing free and fair elections and neutrality in providing humanitarian aid, as the UN has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and elsewhere. This kind of help would take a load of American shoulders. The UN also helps in achieving the broader objectives of alleviating poverty and integrating developing countries into the global economy, while better managing immigration flows.
However, Ban and his associates have a credibility problem that undermines their effectiveness. This derives mainly from mistrust in the UN system’s management efficiency, lack of transparent accountability and potential for wasting the money of mostly Western taxpayers, who finance of its activities.
The biggest challenges facing Ban are the getting governments to do what they promise for their people by honoring commitments they make in agreements reached at UN sponsored conferences and summits.
Many analysts think the UN has become too big for its own good. It has too many agencies doing too many things. So its impacts on people’s lives are spread so thin that very little changes on the ground. Some of its sharpest critics attack its weak-kneed and extremely politicized handling of human rights violations.
In its defense, the UN often notes that its impacts are only as biting as governments allow them to be. It is a system of intergovernmental agencies with no punitive or enforcement powers. It provides forums for analysis and negotiations to reach voluntary agreements on all issues in its purview.
Only a very narrow area related to war and sanctions decided solely by the Security Council involves enforcement. Member states have a contractual obligation to obey such decisions but face no real punishment if they do not, since the UN has no army or police force. When the Security Council approves the use of force or other sanctions against a government, something happens only if the US and others form a separate coalition to enforce the Council’s will. And they have to pay from their own pockets, as the US and others are doing in Libya currently.
Still, there are so many military, economic and other issues that a single country cannot solve by itself that international cooperation is indispensable. The UN alone provides the pathways to obtain the widest scope of cooperation and voluntary implementation. So Ban has a job that needs to be done. And the US must ensure that the empire he controls stays on track without too much duplication or wastage.