How the United Nations Tries to Promote Peace in a World Full of Wars

With wars raging in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and other conflicts threatening, it seems that the system set up to prevent and resolve conflicts through the United Nations isn’t working terribly well. 

The UN emerged in the wake of World War II as an effort to try to prevent another devastating worldwide conflict. From the start, though, it was hobbled by Cold War tensions, which rendered its Security Council mostly ineffectual in achieving its mission of dealing with international conflicts. The Security Council is made up of five permanent members—the U.S., Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom—and each has veto power, leading to frequent stalemates. 

But sometimes the UN has been effective in conflict resolution, especially when led by dynamic leaders. One was Kofi Annan, who served as secretary-general of the UN from 1997 to 2006. “He had extraordinary diplomatic skills and was a consensus builder, able to wrap a tough message in soft phrases,” says Abiodun Williams, F85, FG87, professor of the practice of international politics at The Fletcher School and Tisch College of Civic Life. 

Williams reported directly to Annan at the UN as his director of strategic planning from 2001 to 2006. “It was an enormous privilege and pleasure to work with him,” he says.

In his new book, Kofi Annan and Global Leadership at the United Nations, Williams details how Annan breathed new life into the organization, extended its mission to include welfare for people the world over, and used personal diplomacy to bring peace. Annan, for example, personally helped negotiate peace between two African countries—Nigeria and Cameroon—that were very close to war over simmering border disputes, even as he was unable to avert war in Iraq.

Tufts Now talked with Williams about what it takes for the UN and its leaders to help prevent conflict and to end wars, and what other efforts the UN makes that help people around the world. 

How did Kofi Annan view the United Nations’ conflict prevention mission? 

Conflict prevention was a priority, and Annan believed that it was essential to move the United Nations from what he called a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention, to reduce the human and economic costs of wars. 

But he warned that building a culture of prevention is not easy, because while the costs of prevention must be paid in the present, the benefits—the wars and the disasters that do not happen—lie in the future. He argued that conflict prevention has to be a strategic priority at all three stages of the conflict cycle: preventing the initial outbreak, continuation, and recurrence of conflict. 

He was the architect of the UN’s peace-building architecture, which includes the Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Support Office, and the Peacebuilding Fund, all of which help countries build sustainable peace, and prevent a relapse into conflict.

How can the UN be effective in stopping wars? 

It is important to remember that the UN is the actor of last resort when all other avenues are exhausted. The high-profile impotence of the UN—because of the deadlock in the Security Council—in situations like Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine, tends to color global opinion. But these are the hardest cases. 

The UN’s peacekeeping missions are making extraordinary contributions to containing deadly conflict. Peacekeeping is the most visible instrument that the UN uses for the prevention and the management of conflict. Peacekeeping missions operate in all corners of the world, and they help countries to make the transition from war to peace. UN peacekeeping missions are active now in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Kosovo, and Cyprus, among other missions. 

In the book, you talk about Annan using the secretary-general’s office as a bully pulpit to argue for peace and development. How important is it for a secretary-general to do that to be effective?

I think it is critically important. Kofi Annan was the communicator-general—that’s what I call him in the book. He used the bully pulpit to exhort, to challenge, to inspire, to speak out on specific crises, to shape norms, to call attention to critical issues, and to mobilize different coalitions that could help the UN to achieve its objectives. I think of all the UN secretaries-general, he’s the one who most commanded global public attention. He had charisma and he understood the importance of communication and the power of persuasion.

You describe how Annan got involved personally in preventing a conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon that could have led to war. How important is it for a secretary-general to facilitate conflict resolution?

First, it’s important to remember that a secretary-general has no hard power. A secretary-general is not a head of state, has no battalions, does not command any territory, cannot impose taxes. And yet a secretary-general is expected to come up with solutions to some of the most difficult challenges confronting the world in peace, security, development, and human rights.

Conflict resolution is an essential task of a secretary-general. Kofi mediated between Nigeria and Cameroon on the Bakassi Peninsula border dispute over many years. One lesson from that experience is that he got involved very early on. Cameroon had taken Nigeria to the International Court of Justice, and Kofi recognized that the ICJ decision would alone have been insufficient to settle the dispute. 

His patient and careful diplomacy was needed to encourage Cameroon and Nigeria to implement the World Court’s decision. His mediation also suggests that focusing not only on the headline-grabbing disputes is an important component of global leadership.

Current Secretary-General António Guterres said recently that the Security Council has systematically failed to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts we face today, in Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine. How does the organization move forward if it is divided in dealing with these conflicts?

This is a huge problem, because the effectiveness of the Security Council is premised on the five permanent members working together to find solutions to important global issues. The Council reflects the real world and its permanent members are powerful states with their own diverging interests.

I think the General Assembly could get its foot in the door on peace and security issues when the Security Council is deadlocked, but this is no easy task. An interesting recent proposal by a group of states is for the Assembly to debate cases that have been vetoed by one or more of the Council’s permanent members. The Assembly could also use its authority more frequently to request the Secretary-General to exercise good offices to help resolve international conflicts.

Some have argued that the current moment is reminiscent of the 1930s, with the growth of authoritarian regimes and increasing conflict between countries. In the 1930s, the League of Nations showed it couldn’t do anything to prevent war. Is there a parallel between the League then and the UN now?

Undoubtedly, we’re going through a very difficult time in international politics, there are geopolitical fractures in the world, and a growing skepticism about multilateralism. But it is important to remember that the UN is doing vital work in a range of fields. It is providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people. It is helping refugees fleeing war and famine. It is providing vaccines to millions of children each year. It is working with countries to tackle the existential crisis of climate change. 

These are what Annan called problems without passports, which need blueprints without borders. That is what gives me hope—that even when the UN is having a huge challenge dealing with the most difficult geopolitical conflicts, we can look elsewhere and see the important contributions which the organization is making.