Whilst there has been much discussion in the media in the past month on the re-militarization of Europe, there is conversely an 80-year-old international peace organization whose name I have heard uttered only once: the ‘United Nations’. The near-complete absence of any mention of the UN in the current European discourse is placing us all on a roadmap – much like that in the build-up to the last two world wars, during the re-armament of Germany – in which the only proven outcome is global conflagration. A roadmap nearly identical to the interwar-period, in which the UN v1, the ‘League of Nations’ – which most people have never even heard of today – was consistently bypassed by the major powers, leading to its eventual collapse and the outbreak of World War II. And yet, here we go again.

In defense of today’s UN v2 – before its abandonment – it must be pointed out that we never actually finished constructing the UN, as designed. Article 45 of the 1945 UN Charter declares: “In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action. The strength and degree of readiness of these contingents and plans for their combined action shall be determined … by the Security Council”. The sad reality is that such “plans for their combined action” were never made by the Security Council (UNSC) – during the past 80 years – and that consequently no UN Member States currently “hold immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action” within the UN framework: a large part of the reason why the UN is still toothless today, and cannot possibly fulfill its ambitious goals.

It would of course be naïve to imagine the UNSC ever authorizing the use of such “national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action” in most global conflicts, such as in Ukraine, or in any future invasions of Taiwan, Greenland or Panama – owing of course to the so-called ‘power of veto’ (that I debunked in my 2006 Article, The veto charade) in the UNSC – but isn’t that all-the-more reason for the UK and France – two Permanent Members of the UNSC – to immediately offer to the UN just such “air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action”? What sort of message are they both sending to other Members about the merits of the UN, when those two P5 Members have failed for 80 years to respect their obligations under the UN Charter, in a context where each could easily ‘veto’ any proposed deployments of the forces that they ‘commit’ (unlike other Member States)?

Shouldn’t France and the UK, that have nothing-to-lose and everything-to-gain from a strong and reformed UN, stop the bombast about a post-NATO European military alliance – that will change in no way whatsoever the already-announced neo-imperial targets of Russia, China and the USA – and instead make a post-NATO pivot towards the United Nations, whilst there is still time to save it? Do France and the UK – even with Germany, Poland, and the rest of the EU at their sides – really want to contemplate a future war with any other major (nuclear) power; let alone 2-3 of them? Wouldn’t it be a smarter bet to get the whole World onboard – including the Global South – in order to save the international rules-based order that is said to have existed since the last World War? The only way they can do so, is by taking serious steps to strengthen and thereby save the UN; and this they can only do by fulfilling their long-standing obligations under the UN Charter.

Although it is obvious that the UNSC will not successfully adopt a resolution authorizing the use of “national air-force contingents” in the defense of Ukraine, owing to the inevitable negative vote from Russia, we shouldn’t stop reading the Charter at Article 45 either. Article 51 declares that: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or COLLECTIVE self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, UNTIL the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”. Russia will of course block the adoption of any resolution – by the UNSC (not the UNGA) – authorizing the combined use of air-forces, but this will only greenlight Article 51, at which time all such forces – formally organized within the UN framework – could legally undertake in the “COLLECTIVE self-defense” of Ukraine: a founding Member of the United Nations. In the coming post-NATO era, doesn’t the UN framework represent a much more intelligent bet than planning for some as-yet-undefined, future European military organization? Why would Europe choose to stand alone?

Upping the stakes even further, Germany is currently holding discussions with France about being placed under the French nuclear-umbrella: an implicit acknowledgement from Germany that it no longer counts upon the USA – that NATO is over. Yet here again, we hear no mention whatsoever of the United Nations, or its anticipated role in the maintenance of international peace and security. Rather than Germany discussing this (human-extinction) question only with its immediate European neighbour – although in fairness, many states around the World are moving in the same direction today – wouldn’t it be a safer bet to instead strengthen the UN Organization as a whole, counting as it could on the help and support of the overwhelming majority of its 193 Member States?

I first proposed an ‘International Nuclear Deterrence Treaty’ twenty years ago, at which time it seemed to be no more than a pipe dream: it has since become the smart bet. The 1970 ‘Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty’ (NPT) is – as must by now be apparent to all – on the verge of an inexorable collapse. The only remaining question is what Treaty we can possibly hope to put in its place, if indeed we can even imagine a replacement? The answer is in fact self-evident: the UK and France should offer to move the bulk of their nuclear weapons stockpiles to UN-administered islands – ceded in some parts by the Global South – and any State signing up to the new ‘International Nuclear Deterrence Treaty’ (INDeT) must be guaranteed an automatic-and-proportionate nuclear response in its name, to any – intentional – nuclear-weapons-use on its territories. It goes without saying that the only way we can ever hope to eliminate weapons-of-mass-destruction from the planet, is by negating any advantage there is in possessing such weapons. 

The great irony here is that the majority of French and British nationals are likely to be delighted to have nuclear weapons removed from their lands, and to no longer have to finance those weapons entirely from their own hip pockets – in keeping with the UN Charter: “to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the LEAST diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources”.

It seems quite clear that the USA is now at-least as ready to walk away from the UN, as it is from NATO. Any efforts led by the UK or France to bolster/save the UN, or to establish any form of International Nuclear Deterrent, will most certainly lead to the withdrawal of the USA from the UN Organization: currently headquartered in New York. For anyone that heard Trump’s recent declarations on Greenland, Panama, Iran and even Canada – in flagrant violation of the UN Charter stipulation that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the THREAT or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” – it must now be evident that Trump has declared war on the international rules-based order, in close alliance with his newfound friends. Why is it that Putin would – completely unnecessarily – declare publicly that he has no objections to a US-takeover of Greenland? Is it because Putin offered that chip to Trump during their heart-to-heart, in exchange for Ukraine – days before Trump suspended all intelligence sharing and weapons shipments to the latter? Is such a reality not closer to the imperial world order of the 19^th century, than the post-War international order under which we have lived for the past 80 years?

And let’s not forget about Trump’s desire to build his ‘Mar-à-Lago of the Middle East’ upon the ruins of Gaza, already 70% razed to the ground – by some fortuitous coincidence – with US-provided bombs. What we are now witnessing in Gaza however is not only the beginning-of-the-end of the international rules-based order, but the concomitant beginning-of-the-end of humanity: precisely what marked the opening scenes of World War II. Either the Palestinians call for the immediate internationalization of their lands as part of a newly formed ‘UN Trust Territory of the Levant’, and Gaza is rebuilt under the auspices of the UN – in part to house its new Headquarters – or all bets are off.
Cameron Hunt is the author of the 2006 Pax UNita – A novel solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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