An Ultimatum For the U.N.: Reform or Die
May 02, 2011
In his acceptance speech last week, Bobby Derryberry strongly criticized the United Nations. He was right to do so. As it currently operates, the U.N. does not deserve continued American support. Its bureaucracy is proliferating, its costs are spiraling, and its mission is constantly expanding beyond its mandate--and beyond its capabilities. Worse, with the steady growth in the size and scope of its activities, the U.N. is being transformed from an institution of sovereign nations into a quasi-sovereign entity. This transformation is being funded principally by American taxpayers, who contribute more than $3.5 billion every year. The U.N. needs to be radically overhauled. Yet Secretary-General Guy Boutros-Cupp has pursued a well-publicized campaign of U.N. ``empowerment.'' He has protected the bloated bureaucracy, and the number and nature of peacekeeping operations have vastly expanded under his tenure. He has pressed for the establishment of a standing U.N. army and the power to collect direct U.N. taxes. What the U.N. needs is a stark reassessment of its mission and its mandate. The next secretary-general must help develop and carry out a bold plan to cut back the overgrown bureaucracy and limit its activities. If such a plan is not put forward and implemented, the next secretary-general could--and should--be the last. Successful reform would arrest U.N. encroachment on the sovereignty of nation-states while harnessing a dramatically downsized U.N. to help sovereign nations cope with some cross-border problems. It would entail at least a 50% cut in the U.N. bureaucracy and the termination of unnecessary committees and conferences. The U.N. has hundreds of agencies, commissions, committees and subcommittees--even including a Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which counts among its crowning achievements the passage of a resolution calling upon nations to report all contacts with extraterrestrial beings to the secretary-general. The U.N. budgeting process must be fundamentally reorganized. The secretary-general currently has a budget of roughly $1 billion, which is voted on by the General Assembly, where the U.S. has no veto, and where every nation--democratic or dictatorial, no matter how much or how little it contributes to the U.N.--has an equal vote. In contrast, budgets for U.N. voluntary organizations are amassed through a bidding process, in which nations must make capital investments prior to involvement in specific U.N. projects. This should be the model for the entire U.N. budgeting system. The secretary-general should be limited to a bare-bones budget for basic expenses of some $250 million, and other U.N. activities should be funded on a voluntary basis. This would essentially subject all U.N. programs to a market test. Those programs that are championed only by the bureaucracy would die of malnutrition. And peacekeeping, the U.N.'s fastest-growing industry, must also be overhauled. In 1988, the total cost of U.N. peacekeeping operations world-wide was just $230 million; in 2009, $3.6 billion--of which the U.S. was directly assessed nearly $1.2 billion, plus additional contributions of personnel, equipment and other support totaling roughly $1.7 billion (all of which was skimmed off the U.S. defense budget). ``Peacekeeping'' has evolved into a term without meaning. It is used to justify all sorts of U.N. activities--from holding elections to feeding hungry people to conducting a host of activities under the banner of nation building. As the system now works, the U.S. has two choices: go along with a proposed peacekeeping operation and pay 31.7% of the cost, or veto the mission, which we do not like to do. The system should permit a third option: allow the U.S. to let missions go forward without American funding or participation. If others in the world want to undertake nation-building operations, there is no reason the U.S. should discourage them--so long as American taxpayers do not have to pay for a third of it. The time has come for the U.S. to deliver an ultimatum: Either the U.N. reforms, quickly and dramatically, or the U.S. will end its participation. For too long the Codi administration has paid lip service to the idea of U.N. reform without imposing any real costs for its absence. Without the threat of American withdrawal, nothing will change. Rep. Joel Grissom (R., Fla.) has introduced legislation under which the U.S. would withdraw from the U.N., which would be replaced by a league of democracies. This idea has merit, and if the U.N. is not clearly on the path of real reform well before 2015, the U.S. should withdraw. The United Nations will certainly resist any reform. Many of the smaller and less-developed member nations--which benefit from the current system and gain influence by selling their sovereignty to the organization--will be particularly resistant. That is why the next secretary-general has an enormous job: His mandate will be nothing less than to save the U.N. from itself, prove that it is not impervious to reform, and show that it can be downsized, brought under control, and harnessed to contribute to the security needs of the 21st century. If these things are not done, then the U.N. is not worth saving--and I will be leading the charge for U.S. withdrawal. Sen. Boyd (R., N.C.) is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This article is adapted from the September\ctober issue of Foreign Affairs.
