It is customary to start the year with predictions of what will happen in the 12 months ahead. From the implications of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House, to the potentially transformative effects of new technologies, there is much that lies ahead in 2025. But perhaps the most important aspects of the year to come are not the events that will occur, but past events that will be commemorated. Specifically, this year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and, relatedly, the founding of the United Nations.
When the U.N. was formed by the signing of the U.N. Charter in 1945, the name referred to the coalition formed in January 1942 to defeat Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. The primary members of that coalition—the U.S., the U.K., the Soviet Union, China and France’s government-in-exile—comprised the key members of the new institution’s primary decision-making body, the Security Council. Given that previous great power concerts, from the Concert of Europe formed after the Napoleonic Wars to the Executive Council of the League of Nations formed after World War I, had faltered or effectively disbanded after perhaps a decade in existence, it is notable that the U.N. Security Council continues to exist.
But is its continued existence enough? The “father” of the U.N., then-President Franklin Roosevelt’s long-serving Secretary of State Cordell Hull, promised it would help secure the peace following the war. Of course, the U.N. has often failed to live up to Hull’s aspiration. Look no further than its continued inability to secure ceasefires in the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But as I wrote back in 2022 when the Security Council was being criticized over its inability to stop or respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “the original purpose of the Security Council was to prevent war between the great powers, not prevent the great powers from waging war.” Given that no major power has gone openly and directly to war with another one in 80 years, that purpose appears to be so far fulfilled.