There is a particular kind of impatience that powerful men cultivate, a theatrical sigh aimed at the slow machinery of institutions. The United Nations, with its circular speeches, its stubborn translators and its devotion to procedure has long been an easy target for that impatience. Donald Trump’s recurring antagonism toward the UN fits neatly into this tradition, the disdain for multilateralism, the preference for deals struck like backroom card games, the belief that history is moved not by consensus but by pressure applied with a well-polished thumb.
Trump has never disguised his irritation with the idea that the world might govern itself through rules rather than personalities. The UN, in his telling, is less a forum than a nuisance, a club that charges dues but refuses to applaud loudly enough. This attitude is not unusual among nationalist leaders but Trump adds a particular flourish, the notion that what cannot be bent should be replaced. Over the years, he and his allies have occasionally floated the idea of alternative international frameworks, new “peace” initiatives or leadership councils that sound benign, even philanthropic, while quietly centering authority in fewer, louder hands.
It is tempting to dismiss such ideas as branding exercises, the diplomatic equivalent of gold-plated hotels. Yet they gesture toward something more unsettling, a vision of global order built not on shared restraint but on personal leverage. The old system, flawed and bureaucratic as it is, assumes that power must be diluted to be survivable. The new fantasy assumes the opposite, that peace can be managed like a hostile takeover.
In this imagined architecture, nations do not gather as equals around a table; they line up like clients outside an office, waiting to be told what their cooperation is worth. Membership becomes transactional. Loyalty is measured not in votes but in favours. The language of “peace” is repurposed as a marketing slogan, a dove stitched onto the sleeve of a strongman’s suit.
History is heavy with warnings about such substitutions. When leaders declare existing institutions obsolete and promise sleeker replacements, they are rarely interested in efficiency alone. They are interested in obedience. They speak of stability but mean control; of order but mean silence. The rhetoric is always hygienic, clean lines, new beginnings, the future without the clutter of compromise. It is the vocabulary of authoritarian renovation.
Trump’s political style thrives on antagonism. He does not merely criticize institutions; he stages feuds with them, turning structural disagreements into personal vendettas. The UN becomes another foil in the long gallery of enemies; the press, the courts, the “deep state,” anybody that refuses to kneel. The message to supporters is simple and seductive, complexity is a conspiracy and only a singular will can cut through it.
This is where the danger lies. Not in any single proposal, which may never materialize, but in the normalization of the idea that global cooperation is a weakness and intimidation a legitimate tool of diplomacy. Once that notion takes root the difference between negotiation and coercion begins to blur. Smaller nations, already navigating the gravitational pull of larger powers, find themselves reimagined as bargaining chips. Sovereignty becomes a coupon to be redeemed or revoked.
The United Nations, for all its failures, is built on a stubbornly unglamorous premise, that peace is maintained not by dominance but by constant, imperfect conversation. It is a building full of badly translated hope, of tedious committees arguing over commas while wars smoulder elsewhere. It does not satisfy those who crave spectacle. It cannot be summarized in a slogan. It is by design resistant to the charm of strong personalities.
Trump’s contempt for this model is therefore ideological as much as tactical. He favours the clarity of hierarchy over the murk of collaboration. In his world, the loudest voice should carry the furthest and the strongest handshake should decide the terms. The trouble is that history’s most catastrophic chapters were often introduced with precisely this promise of clarity.
One does not need to invoke any single dictator to recognize the pattern. It is written in the architecture of every cult of leadership that ever claimed to streamline chaos. First, discredit the existing order. Then, propose a simpler one centered on yourself. Finally, describe dissent as sabotage.
An international system built on intimidation would not prevent conflict; it would merely privatize it. Wars would not disappear; they would be rebranded as enforcement actions. Alliances would become subscriptions, renewable at the pleasure of the dominant partner. The vocabulary of peace would remain, polished and hollow, like a trophy cabinet filled with empty cups.
The real tragedy is that the UN’s genuine shortcomings make this sales pitch easier. Its failures provide the stage upon which demagogues perform their critique. But dismantling the stage does not improve the play. It merely hands the script to whoever shouts the loudest.
In the end the question is not whether the United Nations deserves criticism, which it does, but whether the alternative offered by its loudest detractors is improvement or regression dressed as innovation. A world organized around personal leverage rather than collective restraint would be simpler, perhaps. It would also be far more fragile.
Peace, like democracy, is boring work. It requires patience, anonymity and the willingness to accept that no single figure, however confident, should be allowed to redesign the planet in his own image.
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