80 Years of United Nations: Navigating Through Global Challenges

In 2025, the United Nations marks its 80th anniversary. Since its founding in 1945, the UN has represented the idea that global order could be based on cooperation, institutions, and law. Today, however, the challenges it faces (geopolitical rivalries, fragmentation of powers, and diverging national interests) raise questions about its effectiveness and centrality. It is therefore useful to examine how this system of governance developed, identify its limits at each stage, and understand how it adapts to an increasingly unstable world.

I. Foundations of Global Governance

At the end of World War II, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom sought to create a system that would prevent another global conflict. The UN Charter was signed in June 1945, establishing an institution aimed at maintaining peace and coordinating international cooperation. The UN complemented the economic system set up by the IMF and the World Bank and provided a framework for states to resolve disputes peacefully.

From its early years, however, the UN faced tensions between its ambitions and the realities of global power. The 1947 partition plan for Palestine revealed the organization’s limitations when confronted with geopolitical rivalries and divergent national interests. The UN found itself in a delicate balance: formally upholding international law while relying on the cooperation and consent of powerful states.

The Cold War reinforced this tension. While the UN provided a platform for diplomacy, most strategic decisions were shaped elsewhere, in Washington and Moscow.

The Security Council became both its greatest strength and its primary constraint. The veto power of its five permanent members allowed for stability but also produced paralysis, preventing collective action whenever major powers’ interests were at stake.

In several of these crises, the Security Council has been unable to reach decisions due to repeated vetoes and lack of consensus among its permanent members, illustrating the institutional rigidity of the UN system.

The Balkans crisis of the 1990s remains one of the most illustrative examples of the UN’s limitations in managing post–Cold War conflicts. Despite the establishment of UNPROFOR, the organization failed to prevent atrocities such as the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, where over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed under the supposed protection of UN peacekeepers. The Security Council’s divisions and the reliance on consensus among major powers paralyzed effective intervention, eventually leaving space for a unilateral U.S.-led NATO operation to end the conflict.

Yet NATO’s primary function was never to establish peace, but to serve as a strategic alliance structured against Russian influence and under U.S. leadership.

A notable reversal of roles where the UN, created to preserve collective peace, became secondary to a military bloc built for deterrence, in an episode that laid bare how the UN’s legitimacy could persist even as its operational relevance declined.

Despite these constraints, the UN remained a symbolic space of dialogue, capable of de-escalating limited conflicts, coordinating humanitarian action, and promoting development. Multilateralism favoured the strengthening of international cooperation and a framework to manage interstates conflicts.

II. The Dynamics of Multilateralism

The post-1945 multilateral system was designed for a rather different world. It depended on consensus among powerful States and the capacity to enforce global rules. The end of the Cold War and the emergence of a multipolar world changed this dynamic. Today, no single actor can define global order, and multiple centers of power complicate collective action.

Recent conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, tensions in the Sahel, and instability in the Levant, highlight the limitations of the UN and other international organizations.

Its peacekeeping missions, since the 1950s, gradually became one of its most visible tools: from Suez to Congo, Cyprus, and later Rwanda or Mali, these operations reflected both the UN’s ambition to maintain order and its dependence on the political will and resources of member states.

However, these missions often struggle to act neutrally and effectively when major powers’ interests directly influence decisions. The inability to reach global consensus frequently results in prolonged conflicts.

The 1990s and early 2000s saw the rise of regional powers, the acceleration of globalization, and the emergence of new economic centers outside the transatlantic space. US policy, for example, has increasingly favored selective engagement and pragmatic bilateral arrangements rather than comprehensive multilateral commitments. This trend predates the Trump administration but became more visible during his presidency and continues, as we see, to influence strategic choices.

III. Challenges in a Multipolar World

Today’s world is multipolar, with powers operating at various levels and scales.

In this context, multilateral cooperation becomes more complex. Post-1945 institutions must navigate competing priorities and the desire of each state to protect its sovereignty and interests. Mechanisms for conflict resolution and economic regulation are tested, and compromises become increasingly difficult due to the fragmentation of interests and increased normative competition, combined with the need for an institutional reform.

Fragmentation of interests is now an enduring feature of the international system. States increasingly prioritize national strategies over collective norms, and while this does not imply the disappearance of multilateralism, it does limit the scope for universal consensus. Agreements tend to be narrower in reach, harder to negotiate, and slower to implement. Reforming decision-making structures, updating peacekeeping mandates, and modernizing global economic governance remain recurring demands.

Meanwhile, global governance is increasingly shaped by normative competition. The rise of new actors, public  (BRICS, ASEAN, ECOWAS) and private (Investment funds, multinationales), brings not only economic weight but also new ideas about sovereignty, development, and regulation. New frameworks challenge established norms and complicate the search for shared rules, deepening the need for institutions capable of adapting to a more diverse and contested international landscape.

BRICS, for instance, now function not only as an economic bloc but as a “norm factory,” promoting alternative standards on finance and sovereignty, from the New Development Bank to de-dollarization efforts. This reflects a shift from functional institutionalism to normative competition, where influence is measured as much by rule-making as by economic strength.

IV. Conclusion

The UN’s 80th anniversary highlights the tensions between ambition and reality in the contemporary world. Challenges remain significant: rivalries among great powers, regional crises, and the need to respect state sovereignty while promoting international cooperation.

The organization cannot prevent all conflicts or eliminate power rivalries. But it can mitigate tensions, support peace processes, and provide legitimacy to collective decisions.

Its role has shifted from enforcing global order to managing the complexity of international relations. And its anniversary invites an honest assessment of what multilateralism can achieve and what must be adapted.

While the UN has not always met expectations, it remains a vital framework for coordinating international efforts and managing global crises. The multilateral system is imperfect, but it continues to provide an essential tool for addressing the complexities of a fragmented world.