– Rishi Jain
The United States of America, a country which has been the epitome for decades for playing and dictating the world politics, vicariously, if not directly to its own wishes, has played a rather crucial role in the formation of United Nations. United Nations is a body having 193 countries as its members. To understand the complex nature of the relation between the USA and United Nations, let’s go back to the roots to understand the multi-dimensional conundrum of the same.
The main motif of the United Nations was to overcome the shortcomings of the League of Nations whose failure resulted in the devastating World War 2. In 1942, 26(Axis Powers+ Other nations) countries signed the Declaration by United Nations which was a follow-up on the Atlantic Charter having the religious freedom excluded from the latter. The above declaration was propagated by the USA, where the President of US played a mammoth role in lobbying with major allies, id est, Joseph Stalin of Soviet Union, Winston Churchill of United Kingdom, et cetera. There were multiple negotiation rounds which took place, such as Dumbarton Oaks Conference(Proposals by the representatives of United States of America, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and Republic of China) and the Yalta conference(Dumbarton Oaks Proposals reviewed by Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill), that eventually lead to the formation of the multilateral forum. The USA also had a major role at the Bretton Woods Conference where a decision for formulating an international body for looking at monetary and trade aspects. It was USA’s President Roosevelt, who initiated and eventually got the agreement of the nations for granting the much controversial Veto Powers for a selected few. The UN was the first international body to get full support from the USA as it is known as the brainchild of it. The League of Nations, though promoted and put forth by Woodrow Wilson, was never ratified by the USA, predominantly due to disagreement on the Lodge or Hitchcock reservation by the US Congress(The League of Nations was given all the powers for military actions and could call on any country to join. US Senator Henry Lodge wanted to join the League under some reservations as, without it, US could enter the war without the approval of the US Congress(Reservation particularly on Article X), just like the brain behind the League Covenant, Woodrow Wilson wanted. Considering the opposition, Senator Hitchcock came up with a version which was more agreeable to Wilson as it was a verbatim of what Wilson had drafted in September 1919. This was up for a lot of controversial debate and eventually, USA did not join the League. But it can be considered as a long-term win for Senator Lodge as the USA eventually got a sublimated version in the form of Veto Powers).
Just around(/after) the second world war, the rising dominance of the USA and the Soviet Union in the global geopolitical interests was witnessed. The UN sanctioned Korean War, Use of force against Iraq after Kuwait’s invasion are a few examples of how USA dominated not only the UNSC but also the United Nations as a whole during the Cold War era. There are lot many more situations where USA has utilized UN as a means for propagating its policies. But the UN was never prepared for a unipolar world where the USA was leading in terms of economic, military, political prowess, id est, the only superpower, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, there have been times where the US-UN relations and foreign policies were not in tandem. The instances could be seen in 1971 during the adoption of Resolution 2758(removal of RoC, US’s ally, and admission of PRC, till US Government changed its policies), Resolution 33/79(Zionism as a form of racism by UNGA, which was repealed by Resolution 46/86). These conflicts were short-lived but yet were a good indication of US policies. The USA, since 1985, has on multiple occasions, denied the authorization of dues to cover its arrears in order to force UN’s compliance to its policies.
To better understand the complex nature of the relationship between UN and the US, let’s take a look at the funding of the world body as it is a quintessential part of any organization for functioning. UN’s funding is rather complicated and so for this article, we consider only two aspects, id est, the UN Regular Budget and the Costs for Peacekeeping operations only without taking into account the voluntary funding or the funding for the sub-bodies of the UN. UN Regular budget’s contribution by countries is based on an assessed rate via a complex formula and this assessment rate goes from 0.001% to 22% for countries depending on their Gross National Income(per capita). Out of this, at present, USA pays 22% of the regular administrative Budget and 28% of the Peacekeeping Budget(the high rate is a result of USA’s high per capita income). This rate was much higher in the early 90’s, where also the talks for reducing the total contribution by the USA were initiated and finally in 1999, Jesse Helms-Biden Legislative compromise was reached with the UN, where the current rate of 22% from the previous 25% of the regular budget was adopted along with a decrease in the peacekeeping contribution capped. As of 2016, USA’s total foreign aid amounted to about $50 billion(<4 % of the total Federal Budget of USA) of which $10 billion($6 billion voluntary and $4 billion assessed) was directed to UN, which happens to be approximately equal to the one-fifth of the total collective budget of the UN. Considering the USA pays about a quarter of the UN’s total budget, it has a hegemony on various matters and this trend has continued since the inception of UN. The USA is single largest foreign aid/donor which spends $10 billion a year, more than the next country in the list, United Kingdom. However, this accounts only for 0.17% of the GDP, which is much less than the 0.7% of the GDP target set by the United Nations. Besides this, USA is also a key player in deciding the mandates and the granting’s of the peacekeeping operations.
The new proposed budget, hard-lining its name, “America First”, is a perfect example of the changing air in the foreign policies and the view of the new administration towards the foreign spending and as the name says, it puts the United States of America, “First”. Mick Mulvaney(Director of the Office of Management and Budget), said ahead of the Blueprints release, “This is a hard-power budget; it is not a soft power budget”, which is a very powerful statement indicating the proposed cuts in foreign aid spending, in UN Climate Change efforts, among others which is being shifted for the US Military. USA has rationalised the above move by stating, that the USA is just one of the 193 countries and it’s not fair to it being asked to pay the huge chunk(USA’s GNI is highest in the world or is 27% of all the countries in the world), the missions and policies of the UN do not advance US foreign policy interest’s, are not well managed and are duplicative in nature. These cuts in the funding would entail USA losing its edge in the voluntary agencies of the UN and it also undermines the US National Security by jeopardizing UN activities and programs that serve the critical interests of US which will hamper the US’s legitimacy and respect internationally. This will also impact on the USA, as the failure of meeting the payments will result in decreased leverage over the UN and eventually its support for vital US interests.
On 19th September 2017, US President Donald Trump addressed the UNGA for the first time which laid forward multiple agenda’s and USA’s policy interests. The speech was a paragon of isolationist patriotism where Trump gave a strong message of America First and the world later. This speech was a huge contrast to his predecessor, Obama, who dealt with everything from behind whereas Trump outright proclaimed his country’s interests and confronted the dictatorial regimes. He also mentioned that the USA “bears an unfair cost burden”, and if the UN could actually accomplish all its goals which are proclaimed and stated, especially the goal of peace, then the “investment would be well worth it”. The speech was a direct question on the lack of transparency, flexibility, efficiency and the mandate of the work and function of the world body. This disagreement is rather not new-founded, and the UN Reform Agenda has been pushed by Trump and various others across the floor. The main agenda’s for reforms include the strengthening of the conflict prevention, ending of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN Peacekeepers, making peacekeeping more effective, achieving gender parity at Upper-Management Levels of the UN and the mammoth other administrative reforms about its cost while cutting the “Fat at the UN”. A day before his speech, Trump hosted a High-Level Meeting along with the UNSG, Antonio Guterres where many other nations participated, on the UN Reform Agenda which was a follow-up to the 10-point political declaration for UN Reform.
Considering the drastic change in the US policies in dealing with the world issues, and the urgent call for the Reforms in the UN, the relationship between USA and UN is of a two-way nature. Wherein both have their own self-interests where the former wants to propagate its policies without bearing all the costs of being the world policeman as being a non-involved country in regional crisis is not a policy option for it and the latter wants it’s functioning to improve with the support of its major financial contributor. Even after multiple times, of being warned of following the US-way or an alternate way, like in the present case of Nikki Hayley for the UN HRC, the UN has managed to hold the negotiations for reaching an agreement. However, the erratic nature of the Trump Administration, along with the blend of impulsive and isolationist patriotism, the cooperation between the two seems to fade, till the former brings in the reforms and the latter get’s to keep its demands for decreasing its contributions to the UN thereby maintaining the present euphoria of stability and active participation. Hence, the ties of both are of a crucial nature for the world and geopolitics.