U.S.-UN Relations: Briefing Memorandum to the 44th President of the United States

This analysis is based on the conclusion that the state of U.S.-UN relations is a barometer of U.S. leadership in the world. Because the new president will assume office presiding over a country whose standing in the world has been seriously damaged, he will have to reestablish the credibility of the United States as a world leader. In that effort the UN, with its membership of 192 sovereign states, constitutes an important venue in which the United States is challenged to exercise its leadership role in world affairs. As he faces each foreign policy problem or crisis, the 44th president will be influenced by the decisions of his predecessors. Moreover he, like they, will authorize the practice of synchronized diplomacy—in which bargains are struck, compromises are arranged, and diverse causes are reconciled—after determining whether a problem can be handled unilaterally or multilaterally and if the latter, whether the UN is the most effective diplomatic tool. In the final analysis, this analysis makes clear, the next president can succeed in strengthening the U.S.-UN relationship by remembering that despite its multilateral ethos, the UN is a vehicle in which member states seek to attain their national interests.