Has the UN been abandoned?

August 14, 2026

Dr Peck channels Dr Strangelove to a degree. I could almost hear Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again as I read her forewarning. Sadly, as the world hurtles down the highway with all the certainty of a driverless car, the UN shrinks to a speck in the rear vision mirror. True, the Doomsday Clock has never been closer to midnight, but a more insidious and inexorable threat is fed by the accelerating global military budget. The heavy industry involved in manufacture and deployment of the global military machine generates, per dollar, twice the greenhouse emissions as peaceful commercial and domestic activity. It comes to an estimated 5.5% of global emissions. And that’s without firing a shot in anger.

Now here’s the catch 22; with a deteriorating environment we’ll have unbearable living conditions and further societal breakdown, which in turn boost fears that lead to more military spending and deployment. And of course, eventually, the sort of mindless military adventures we’re witnessing in the Persian Gulf and Ukraine.

The UN has outlived the League of Nations by nearly a century, but the message is clear; its proposed purpose of maintaining world order has been abandoned.