# United Nations The United Nations is the intergovernmental organization founded in 1945, after [[World War II]], to maintain international peace and security, foster cooperation among states, and uphold international law and human rights. Headquartered in New York, it has near-universal membership (193 states) and operates through a sprawling system of organs and specialized agencies. For this vault, the UN matters less as a subject in its own right than as a recurring foil and target: the central symbol of the "globalism" that the American right has distrusted since the [[Cold War]], the body the [[George W. Bush]] administration overrode on the way to the [[Iraq War]], and — under [[Donald Trump]] — an institution being actively defunded and abandoned. ## Structure The UN's principal organs include the General Assembly (the plenary body where every member has one vote), the [[UN Security Council]] (the binding peace-and-security organ where the five permanent members hold vetoes), the Secretariat headed by the Secretary-General — [[António Guterres]] since 2017, whose term ends 31 December 2026 — the International Court of Justice, and the Economic and Social Council. Around these sit the specialized agencies and programs that do most of the system's day-to-day work — the [[World Health Organization]], UNESCO, the refugee agency UNHCR, the Palestinian relief agency [[UNRWA]], the Human Rights Council, and many others. Most of these bodies have no enforcement power; their authority is moral, legal, and financial rather than coercive. ## The UN and the Iraq War The UN is woven through the vault's [[Iraq War]] narrative. The [[George W. Bush]] administration sought UN cover for the invasion — securing Resolution 1441 and dispatching [[Colin Powell]] to the [[UN Security Council]] in the [[Powell UN Presentation]] — but failed to win explicit authorization for war and invaded anyway. The episode crystallized a durable critique from both directions: to internationalists, it showed Washington discarding the multilateral order when it proved inconvenient; to the realignment right, it became evidence that even the UN's caution could not stop the [[Neoconservatism]] war machine. ## A Target of the American Right Hostility to the UN is a long-running thread on the American right. Cold War conservatives saw it as a forum that amplified Soviet and Third World voices; the contemporary "America First" movement frames it as an unaccountable globalist bureaucracy that infringes on national sovereignty. The body also recurs in conspiracy theories — from Cold War "one-world-government" fears to later panic over [[Agenda 21]] and its Agenda 2030 successor. UN bodies dealing with Israel and the Palestinians, especially the Human Rights Council and UNRWA, are particular flashpoints, tying the UN into the vault's [[Israel]] and [[Project Esther]] material. ## The Trump Retrenchment (2025–2026) In his second term, [[Donald Trump]] moved from rhetoric to rupture. In early 2025 he withdrew the United States from the [[World Health Organization]], the [[Paris Agreement]], and the UN Human Rights Council, and cut funding to [[UNRWA]], citing agencies that "drifted from their mission" and "propagat[e] anti-Semitism." By January 2026 the administration announced plans to pull the U.S. out of dozens of UN and international organizations following a review of which bodies were "contrary to the interests of the United States." Because the U.S. has historically been the UN's largest funder, these cuts triggered a system-wide budget crisis and a debate over whether the postwar multilateral order can survive American disengagement — a real-world test of the sovereigntist principles the vault tracks across the [[Neoconservatism]]-versus-realignment divide. The rhetorical break arrived on **22 September 2026**, the opening day of the 81st session's high-level General Debate, when [[Donald Trump]] told the [[UN General Assembly]] that "[t]o the victor belong the spoils" and asserted an American right of dominance over the Western Hemisphere — the [[Spheres of Influence]] position that Article 2 of the [[UN Charter]] was written to foreclose. Guterres answered the same day with a farewell address arguing for "networked multipolarity" under common rules. The full exchange is recorded at [[UN General Assembly]]. ## See Also - [[UN Security Council]] - [[Iraq War]] - [[Powell UN Presentation]] - [[Donald Trump]] - [[Israel]] - [[NATO]] - [[Neoconservatism]] - [[António Guterres]] — Secretary-General, 2017–2026 - [[UN General Assembly]] — the 2026 General Debate - [[UN Charter]] - [[Spheres of Influence]]