The architect of order: Redesigning the UN for a century of crisis

Introduction: A Global Order at the Crossroads

The international system is currently under exceptional strain, facing a convergence of threats that no single nation can manage in isolation. From the Sahl to the Pacific Islands, climate change is eroding livelihoods, while industrial accidents and pandemics disrupt societies regardless of borders. Pressures regarding energy transitions, hunger, and water scarcity are deepening insecurity in both wealthy and developing nations alike. Simultaneously, the fragmented global order, selective adherence to international norms, and unilateralism by powerful states continue to expose the inherent weaknesses of the present system when confronted by shared dangers. For militarily weaker and poorer countries, survival is becoming increasingly dependent on collective solutions. Even for major powers, acting alone has become strategically less sustainable, reputationally riskier, and significantly more costly. The antiquated assumption that raw power alone can secure order is wearing thin.

This urgency is no longer merely theoretical. The ongoing conflict involving Israel, Iran, and the United States has demonstrated how rapidly a regional confrontation can outpace its original objectives and generate consequences far beyond what was first anticipated. What starts as deterrence or strategic signalling can quickly escalate into risks for civilians, the disruption of energy and shipping routes, economic shocks, and even threats to sensitive nuclear infrastructure. As António Guterres warned, such escalation risks “grave consequences for civilians and regional stability”. Furthermore, the IAEA has repeatedly emphasised that attacks on nuclear facilities carry risks that extend far beyond the immediate battlefield. This conflict serves as a stark reminder that fragmented power cannot safely govern interconnected danger.

The Case for Reform: From Morality to Material Necessity

The world does not lack institutions, but it lacks those with sufficient representativeness, legitimacy, operational capacity, and financial autonomy. A properly reformed United Nations could serve as the hub of a broader global coalition capable of shaping the incentives that prevent crises from spiralling in the first place. This is not a utopian fantasy, but a pragmatic quest to redesign collective governance before disorder becomes the default state of world politics. The strongest pressure for such a change is likely to emerge from states with the greatest stake in stability but the fewest independent means to secure it. For smaller or resource-rich but militarily weak states, a stronger international system is an instrument of protection, leverage, and voice.

Shared threats—such as climate disruption, pandemics, and supply-chain shocks—create shared incentives because they do not respect national borders. As these pressures intensify, the appeal of common governance grows not out of idealism, but out of practical necessity. A strengthened UN would offer these states practical advantages, including more reliable climate finance, a more credible humanitarian response, and a buffer against raw power politics. In an era where many states cannot individually shape trade routes or technological standards, collective institutional strength becomes the nearest equivalent to strategic insurance.

A Three-Phase Pathway to Transformation

The path to a stronger UN is unlikely to come through one grand constitutional moment; it is more plausible as a cumulative process. Phase One begins with a broad consensus among mid-tier and vulnerable states. Regional organisations like ASEAN, the African Union, and Latin American groupings are natural platforms for translating shared priorities into diplomatic pressure. This organised majority can shift the moral centre of gravity, framing reform as a necessary response to global realities rather than a concession from the powerful. While building such a coalition requires careful sequencing to address diverse priorities like debt or migration, the material pressures driving it are real and growing.

Phase Two requires securing major power sponsorship. The UN system cannot be effectively reformed by moral appeal alone; it requires at least one state with major strategic weight to decide that sponsoring reform serves its own long-term interests. Whether it be China, Russia, or the United States, a sponsoring power would gain influence through authorship, helping to build a more legitimate order. In a world fatigued by coercion, there is strategic value in being the power that underwrites stability through institutions rather than episodic force. Such sponsorship would create immediate pressure on rivals to either join and shape the framework or risk gradual isolation.

Phase Three focuses on overhauling the machinery of the UN through three linked areas: representation, finance, and capacity. The Security Council must reflect the twenty-first century rather than the 1945 settlement, requiring expanded representation for emerging powers and underrepresented regions. Simultaneously, voluntary veto restraint in cases of mass civilian risk would signal that paralysis cannot remain the norm. To be operationally credible, the UN also needs predictable financing—perhaps through global levies on aviation, carbon, or trade—to end its structural dependence on politically conditioned funding. Finally, a reformed UN needs stronger mechanisms for crisis coordination and disaster response to ensure it provides practical security rather than procedural theatre.

The Core Logic: Structural Deterrence

The central argument of this vision is structural deterrence. In a broad, UN-backed coalition, even the most powerful state could no longer exercise a “right of way” form of hegemony without facing costs that are strategically self-defeating. Military superiority would not vanish, but its utility would change. A state contemplating unilateral adventurism would have to weigh the risk of coordinated diplomatic resistance, the withdrawal of trade preferences, technological exclusion, and reputational damage. This systemic deterrence does not require defeating a great power in a conventional sense; it merely requires making unilateralism too costly and isolating to be worth the attempt.

Once such a coalition acquires substance, its pull would grow because participation brings access to trade, finance, and influence over emerging norms. Conversely, remaining outside would carry cumulative costs, including reduced voice in rule-setting and exposure to political isolation. This balance of attraction and exclusion does the work that coercion alone rarely secures. However, to remain sustainable, the coalition must remain adaptive, transparent, and fair. Weaker states will not invest faith in the system if they suspect new machinery merely disguises old hierarchies. Inclusion of civil society and regional bodies is essential to ensure the coalition does not harden into a purely state-centric bargain among elites.

Conclusion: From Power to Organised Legitimacy

The case for a stronger United Nations does not rest on sentiment, but on the hardening reality that the greatest dangers of our century are beyond the management of unilateral power. The current conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran has only sharpened this truth, showing how quickly force can outrun intention and how dangerous it is to rely on fragmented power in the face of interconnected risk. As Dag Hammarskjöld famously suggested, the United Nations was not created to take us to heaven, but to save us from hell.

The goal is not perfection, but a survivable order based on restraint and legitimacy. By shifting the foundation of international order from raw predominance to organised legitimacy, we can ensure that weak and mid-tier states gain a voice while major powers are incentivised to act through institutions rather than above them. This vision is not naïve; it is pragmatic optimism anchored in the logic of survival. In a century of cascading crises, our future may well depend on whether the world can finally make legitimacy strong enough to discipline power.

(The author is a retired officer of the Indian Information Service and a former Editor-in-Chief of DD News and AIR News (Akashvani), India’s national broadcasters. He has also served as an international media consultant with UNICEF in Nigeria and continues to write on politics, media and ethics.)