Chinese Rocket Force personnel march during the rehearsal ahead of a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in Beijing, China, September 3, 2025. Tingshu Wang/Reuters

As world leaders gather in New York this week for the UN General Assembly (UNGA), their focus will be on immediate crises, including Gaza and Ukraine, with both conflicts now poised to last through the rest of this year and into 2026.

I have participated in numerous UNGA meetings with presidents of both political parties. The issues tend to be dominated by the current headlines, but looking back, the story of those gatherings is often what wasn’t covered, rather than what was.

At UNGA in 2013, for example, nobody anticipated the following year would be dominated by the global scourge of

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