How to Fix the United Nations
Kevin Rudd in Time Magazine
In a Time Magazine article published on August 31, 2016, ASPI President Kevin Rudd argues that the UN needs to be reformed for a new age.
In an age of a fracturing political support for the European Union, the re-birth of American isolationism, the growing international political confidence on the parts of both Russia and China, the daily threat of violent jihadism, and a chronically weak global economy, deep questions have arisen about the long-term durability of what we continue to blithely refer to as the “post-war global order.”
The uncomfortable truth is that many of the assumptions underpinning the current order are under profound challenge. Geopolitically, U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia relations are more unstable than they have been in a quarter of a century, even as Russia-China relations have rarely been closer. Geoeconomically, despite the Chinese economic slowdown, China remains on track to surpass the U.S. as the biggest economy in the world sometime next decade — the first time since the reign of Britain’s King George III that a non-western, non-democratic, non-English speaking country has occupied this position.