United Nations Relations with the United States

With the end of the fiftieth anniversary year of the United Na tions, UN relations with the United States are troubled yet full of promise?broad, enthusiastic, and rapidly expanding yet likely to break down in acrimony over narrow issues. Many in the United States expected that this anniversary would confirm the renewal and begin the fulfillment of the hopes of 1945. Instead, celebrations were marred and overshadowed by congressional attempts virtually to wipe out peacekeep ing and to micromanage the administration and organization of the UN. The majority in Congress believes, with some justification, that this is what the public wants. Indeed, as seen in foundations, talk shows, and militias, many U.S. citizens reject both the government of the United States and the UN as remote, uncontrollable, and sinister outside forces in their lives. In response, the Clinton administration has abandoned aggres sive multilateralism for harassed, sometimes panicky, damage control. At the same time, at the end of the twentieth century, Americans par ticipate in the work of the UN in numbers and in ways that would have dumbfounded those solemnly gathered in San Francisco fifty years ago. We the peoples was a nice initial flourish in the UN Charter in 1945. Now, as Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has noted, it describes the reality of worldwide popular participation in virtually all of the UN's activities.1 This movement was largely created by American nongovern mental organizations (NGOs). They are likely to remain among the move ment's leaders as it expands and intensifies in the future. Through their NGOs, millions of Americans have participated in the conferences on environment, population, social development, human rights, and women convened by the UN at the millennium's end. These conferences have sharply affected domestic debate in the United States and thus placed the UN in the consciousness of almost every American who cares about these issues. The contrast among official U.S.-UN relations, congressional behav ior, and this private American support for and commitment to UN pro grams and issues is part of the UN Secretariat's perception of the United

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• The Polls--Trends

  Gregory G Holyk•Public Opinion Quarterly•2010

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• Financing Un Peacekeeping

  Open Access•Paul F Diehl, Elijah PharaohKhan•Review of Policy Research•2000

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• The Politics of U.S.-UN Reengagement

  Open Access•Courtney Smith•International Studies Perspectives•2004

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• The 75th Anniversary of the United Nations

  Alynna J Lyon, Alynna Lyon et al.•Global Governance A Review of…•2020

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• America's Leadership, America's Opportunity

  Warren Christopher•Foreign Policy•1995

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