The United States and the United Nations: toward a new realism

Abstract

Quantitatively, international governmental organizations (IGOs) are still an expanding force in international affairs. According to one recent count, there now exist more than 1,100 such organizations all told. Some 40 percent more IGOs were created in the 1970s than in the 1960s. And, with the passage of time, more and more are being created by decisions of existing organizations rather than by treaty ratification by states.' Qualitatively, however, the world of IGOs is not in good shape. Indeed, there is widespread talk these days about a crisis of multilateralism, especially but not exclusively in the context of the United Nations.2 With regard to peace and security, the UN secretary general himself has remarked that the organization's machinery functions so poorly that the international community finds itself perilously near to a new international anarchy.3 NorthSouth economic negotiations in the United Nations have been stalemated for a decade, and the decade-long Law of the Seas negotiations failed to produce a universally acceptable treaty. The administrative performance of the United Nations and its agencies is said by many critics to be inferior, the salary and benefit levels inflated. Many of its technical agencies are