CIAO DATE: 07/04

The United Nations, the Cold War, and After: A Lost Opportunity?

Abstract

The conclusion of the Cold War between 1989-1991 opened new horizons for the United Nations and created expectations that the UN would emerge from the margins of world events to the focus of world politics. But many events since then — in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Iraq — have undermined confidence in international institutions. A history of the UN’s activities since the end of the East-West conflict conjures up names of recent infamy, such as Sarajevo, Mogadishu, Kigali, and Srebrenica, and revisits images of failure and impotence in the face of violence. These crises undermined much of the optimism that greeted the end of the Cold War at the United Nations. The founding dream in 1945 of a community of nations defending human rights and promoting collective security still seems as far from being realized as it did during the height of the Cold War.

This paper examines the lessons for the United Nations from the Cold War (1945-1991) which dominated the relations among states during the UN’s first four decades, and assesses the UN’s effectiveness since the end of the East-West struggle. The United Nations had played a significant role in the Korean War (1950-1953), but it would be marginalized during the Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and the Vietnam War. The controversy over seating the Peoples Republic of China on the Security Council and the growing antagonism between the United Nations and the United States over Cold War objectives — particularly in Central America — further preoccupied the United Nations during the Cold War. The UN also played a role in resolving the Soviet-Afghan conflict and faced new challenges in the emerging post-Cold War world.

Full text (PDF, 18 pages, 123 KB)