UN and the great power retreat

As the United Nations approaches its 80th anniversary, the crisis it confronts is not one of age or institutional fatigue. It is a crisis of political will. The principles on which the UN was founded, territorial integrity, collective security, civilian protection, and restraint by great powers, are being steadily hollowed out, often by the very states that once championed them. The United States, under Donald Trump’s renewed leadership, is at the centre of this shift, not through overt withdrawal from the UN system, but through a pattern of actions that treat its core norms as negotiable.

This is not a sudden rupture. It is the acceleration of a longer drift in which power increasingly substitutes principle, and transactional deals replace rules. Yet the cumulative effect is now stark. From Ukraine to Sudan to Greenland and Gaza, US policy signals a world where aggression can be bargained with, sovereignty can be tested, and humanitarian law can be applied selectively. The result is not merely diplomatic friction, but a deeper corrosion of the post war order the UN was designed to sustain.

The war in Ukraine illustrates this erosion most clearly. Washington’s growing emphasis on a rapid peace settlement, even at the cost of territorial concessions by Kyiv, has been framed as realism, fatigue with an endless war, or the need to stabilise global markets. Yet the underlying message is unmistakable. If a powerful aggressor can seize territory by force and later secure international recognition through negotiation, the prohibition against conquest, one of the UN Charter’s central pillars, is fundamentally weakened.

Supporters of such an approach argue that peace, however imperfect, is preferable to prolonged bloodshed. That argument carries moral weight. But it also establishes a dangerous precedent. For smaller states, particularly those bordering revisionist powers, the lesson is chilling. Security guarantees become contingent, borders provisional, and international law a matter of convenience. In such a world, deterrence shifts from institutions to armaments, and conflict becomes more, not less, likely.

Sudan underscores the other side of this erosion, neglect. As the country descends into one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes, marked by mass displacement, famine, and systematic attacks on civilians, the UN has issued warnings but received little backing from major powers to enforce them. There is no sustained diplomatic pressure, no meaningful accountability, and no urgency commensurate with the scale of suffering. When atrocity crimes provoke statements rather than action, the promise of collective security becomes rhetorical, and the UN’s role is reduced to managing collapse rather than preventing it.

The signal sent by Washington resonates far beyond individual conflicts. In Asia, where unresolved territorial disputes persist, and in Africa, where fragile borders remain vulnerable, the idea that aggression can be retrospectively legitimised corrodes already strained norms. The UN’s authority suffers not because it fails to articulate principles, but because enforcement is no longer expected.

A similar logic underpins renewed US assertiveness over Greenland. Trump’s earlier suggestion of purchasing the Arctic territory was widely dismissed as eccentric. Yet the appointment of a special envoy and the revival of strategic rhetoric surrounding Greenland have reopened anxieties in Copenhagen and Nuuk. Denmark’s insistence on respect for territorial integrity reflects concern that great power competition is once again treating geography as a prize rather than a trust.

Greenland’s strategic value is undeniable. It sits astride emerging Arctic shipping routes, hosts critical US military infrastructure, and holds significant mineral resources. But the manner in which interest is expressed matters. When sovereignty is discussed in transactional terms, it undermines the principle that territories are not commodities, and that the future of such regions lies with their people. For the UN system, which rests on consent and self determination, this erosion of language is itself destabilising.

Nowhere is the gap between UN ideals and US policy more visible than in Gaza. Washington’s near total diplomatic alignment with Israel, even as civilian casualties mount and humanitarian access remains constrained, has left it increasingly isolated at the UN. General Assembly resolutions calling for ceasefires, humanitarian pauses, and accountability have passed with overwhelming support, while the US has repeatedly shielded Israel from binding Security Council action.

This posture has consequences beyond the immediate conflict. It has deepened perceptions of double standards, particularly in the Global South, where appeals to international law are increasingly met with scepticism. When civilian protection is framed as conditional, dependent on alliance politics, the credibility of humanitarian law itself erodes. The UN’s role as a moral and legal reference point weakens not because its principles are flawed, but because they are unevenly defended.

Taken together, these episodes suggest a broader pattern. The Trump led United States is not rejecting the UN outright. It is reshaping the international environment in ways that make the organisation’s core norms harder to sustain. The emphasis on bilateral deals, strongman diplomacy, and transactional outcomes sits uneasily with multilateral restraint and collective responsibility.

This shift matters because the UN was never meant to be a world government. Its strength lies in norm setting, in creating expectations about acceptable behaviour. When leading powers treat those expectations as optional, the institution’s relevance diminishes by default. Smaller states lose faith, middle powers hedge, and rival powers exploit the vacuum.

The danger, however, is not simply American unilateralism. It is what follows. As US commitment to UN principles becomes conditional, other powers feel licensed to do the same. Russia cites Western hypocrisy. China emphasises sovereignty while redefining its boundaries. Regional powers pursue influence with fewer constraints. The rules based order does not collapse in a single act. It frays, strand by strand.

Yet this moment is not without agency. The UN at 80 need not be an obituary. Middle powers, regional groupings, and civil society still have space to reinforce norms through collective action. Europe’s insistence on Ukraine’s sovereignty, small state coalitions defending the law of the sea, and humanitarian diplomacy that transcends bloc politics all matter more in this environment, not less.

The deeper question is whether the United States recognises the long term cost of its current trajectory. By treating aggression as negotiable and humanitarian law as selective, it risks accelerating the very instability it seeks to manage. A world where rules are optional is not one where power is safer. It is one where miscalculation becomes routine.

At 80, the United Nations stands as a mirror rather than a motor of global politics. What it reflects today is not irrelevance, but neglect. The erosion of its ideals is not inevitable. It is the result of choices. And those choices are leaving the world more uncertain, more transactional, and ultimately more dangerous than the one the UN was created to prevent.

The writer is a foreign policy commentator specialising on multilateral institutions and the shifting geopolitics of a multipolar world.