At 80, the UN should be celebrating endurance. Instead, it faces an audit of relevance. The wars it cannot stop, the money it cannot raise, and the legitimacy it cannot turn into results all raise one question: Does it still matter?

The UN’s founding promise was to maintain peace and security. Eight decades on, that promise is unfulfilled. From Gaza to Ukraine, Sudan to Haiti, today’s crises expose both the UN’s weakness and its necessity. At the General Assembly, in an otherwise rambling speech, US President Donald Trump starkly captured this dilemma: “The UN has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close… It’s empty words and empty words don’t solve war.”

In Gaza, Israel, the United States and regional actors have sidelined the UN with their own diplomacy.

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