Promoting Peace and Prosperity Through the United Nations.

• Author: Pickering, Thomas R.

Title: Promoting Peace and Prosperity Through the United Nations

Author: Thomas R. Pickering

Text:

Editor's note: The author was U.S. Ambassador to the UN 1989-1992.

Franklin Roosevelt knew a good thing when he saw it. In 1943, in the midst of a military campaign for American survival in the Pacific and clawing our way back against Nazi Germany in the Atlantic, Roosevelt put bright people to work to shape what would come next. International cooperation under the League of Nations had twice failed - the U.S. resolved to stay out and the League's weakness led to World War II.

To fix it, Roosevelt took the name for the victory coalition of that great crusade - the United Nations - and fashioned an international organization to promote peace and prosperity through cooperation. Isolationist opposition in the U.S. endured, but many leaders of both parties had the vision and perspicacity to know that friends and allies working together made sense in achieving both objectives. Failure dogged the pursuit, but in Korea, the Gulf, Afghanistan, and the Balkans the organization made a real difference in war and peace.

Americans have now been through four years of disdain and disparagement about the United Nations and the Trump administration's failure to understand or make good use of it. Chinese and Russian opposition did not help. The Biden team comes to power with the challenge - how can we use more effectively Roosevelt's vision to promote peace and prosperity on the planet?

Two paths are open to us. One is right before our eyes, widely used but seldom understood and even more rarely appreciated - the 24 Specialized Agencies that all together make the world run. The second, the Security Council, raises more daunting political obstacles and trenchant barriers but is well worth a new look and investment.

International Agencies Making the World Work

The second half of the 19th century saw the early blooming of a new trend coming from a simple problem to be solved. How can we make the national postage stamp carry a letter across international boundaries to anywhere on the globe? The Universal Postal Union, a treaty among states, was the result. More importantly, it started the development of a system that continues to this day. Instead of just paper mail, it covers electronics with the International Telecommunications Union, which makes sure radio frequencies are fairly assigned and the internet as a technical matter works effectively and efficiently.

But communications are not the only matter facilitated by these little known and widely ignored treaty agencies that literally make the international activities of the world grow and prosper. Bankers come together around a Basel agreement, maritime and civil aviation move safely from London and Montreal...