2026-05-28
54 分钟I’m Dan Kurtz-Phelan and this is the Foreign Affairs Interview.
When we think about the future as well,
we should be thinking again less about the UN as an institution
and whether or not we’re still committed to those principles
on which the UN was founded and emerged in the 40s, 50s, and 60s
of a world of peace and a world without empire.
The world today is more dangerous and more violent than it's been at any time since 1945.
States everywhere have jettisoned commitments to cooperation and opted for aggression,
and the so-called rules-based order seems to have come apart.
Yet the international body founded after World War II
with the charge of preventing World War III
finds itself increasingly on the margins.
In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs,
the historian and former UN official Thant Myint-U
considered what it would take for the United Nations
to regain a meaningful role in preventing and managing global conflict.
That question is particularly relevant as the UN begins the process
of picking its next secretary-general.
Deputy editor Kanishk Tharoor spoke with Thant
about the past and future of the United Nations