The Un At The End Of The Cold War Opportunity Missed

Part II - The UN at the End of the Cold War: Opportunity Missed The end of the Cold War heightened optimism at the United Nations about the prospect of creating a new international order with the UN at its core. The idea came even prior to that. During the 1980s. The USSR was economically enfeebled and could not afford a new arms race against the West. This led to Gorbachev’s â€Å"new thinking†, which was to reform the basis of the communist economies and gain accommodation with the West. By partially accepting Western values, the Soviet leaders tried to seek new allies among the rich Western states so as to restore the rapidly deteriorating economy (Forsberg, 1999). In the 1988, Gorbachev addressed the General Assembly that the UN should now†¦show more content†¦However, by hindsight, the Cold War bipolar equilibrium of power only yielded to a new world order, not based on the United Nations, but rather on American hegemony. There were several reasons causing the missed opportunity. First and foremost, the Soviet Union, on the edge of disintegration, was too weak to take the lead on such large-scale reforms (Johnson, 1999). Gorbachev himself fell from power in 1991, together with the collapse of the USSR. Soon after its appearance, the â€Å"new thinking† reforms no longer had a leader or lead-state and therefore withered and failed. Besides, the Western bloc generally perceived Gorbachev’s intention as suspicious (Larson, 1997). The trust between the two leading blocs had decomposed for decades and were not able to be repaired within a short period of time. Last but not least, when the Cold War was about to end, the United States became the world s preeminent military and economic power. Washington met this opportunity with remarkable short-sightedness. There were few short-term, tangible benefits for it to give up the political primacy to accommodate other states in a better system on a global basis (Johnson, 1999). Additionally, public opinion mattered. Many Americans, at that time, wanted Washington to chase its own interests without the necessity to collaborate with anyone, especially the United Nations. Thereafter, the US began withholding one percentage of its dues to pressure the UN in the mid-1980s (O’Sullivan, 2015).