UN chief says world is more unstable than during Cold War
UNITED NATIONS – U.N. SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres said Friday the world is “much more chaotic, much less predictable” than during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and it’s dangerous because there are no “instruments” to deal with crises.
He said in a wide-ranging news conference the Cold War was between two opposing blocs where there were clear rules and mechanisms to prevent conflict. It “never became hot because there was a certain level of predictability,” he said.
He said he wouldn’t call the dangerous situation today a Cold War or a Hot War but probably “a new form of tepid confrontation.”
As he starts his second term as U.N. secretary-general, Guterres said in an Associated Press interview Thursday the world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere – but unlike President Joe Biden, he said he thinks Russia will not invade Ukraine.
Guterres said his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin “is that there should not be any military intervention” in Ukraine.
“I am convinced it will not happen, and I strongly hope to be right,” he said.
The U.N. chief spoke after Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva on the crisis over Ukraine, which has seen Moscow deploy tens of thousands of troops on its border and Western nations sending military hardware to Kyiv. Expectations were low for a breakthrough and there was none, but the top U.S. and Russian diplomats agreed to meet again.
“What for me is essential is that this dialogue leads to a good solution and that that good solution is that there is deescalation and this crisis ends,” Guterres said. “That is our objective. I’ve been saying that I strongly hope that diplomacy will prevail.”
Guterres reiterated in the AP interview that the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to uphold international peace and security including by imposing sanctions and ordering military action, is divided, especially its five veto-wielding permanent members. Russia and China are often at odds with the U.S., Britain and France on key issues, including Thursday on new sanctions against North Korea.
The secretary-general reiterated at the news conference that splitting the world in two – with the United States and China creating rival economic systems and rules, each with dominant currency, its own internet, technological strategy and artificial intelligence – must be avoided “at all costs.”
“I always advocated for the need for a unified global market, a unified global economy,” Guterres said. “At the present moment, there are a number of differences and I’ve been advocating both with the U.S. and China on the importance of a serious dialogue and a serious negotiation on the aspect of trade and technology in which the two countries have ... different positions.”
He said his aim is to see the two leading economic powers “overcome those difficulties and to be able to establish that global market in which all can cooperate and all can benefit.”