The UN Near Financial Collapse (Yawn)

United Nations Secretary‑General António Guterres recently warned member states that the organization is facing an “imminent financial collapse.” To which many people around the world—particularly Americans who have been footing a disproportionate share of the bill—responded appropriately with a collective yawn. The UN going broke is like a career politician announcing retirement — dramatic headline with zero real‑world consequences, and most folks wondering why it did not happen sooner.

After all, the UN has been teetering on the edge of irrelevance for decades. Guterres’ announcement simply gives the bureaucracy a new storyline. The organization was founded to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Instead, it has spent most of its existence providing a very expensive stage for diplomats to deliver speeches no one remembers and pass resolutions no one enforces. If the UN were a business, it would have been liquidated shortly after the Korean War.

The idea that the UN is suddenly in trouble is adorable. This is an institution that has been in trouble since the Eisenhower administration. Back in the 1960s, critics were already chanting, “Get the U.S. out of the UN and the UN out of the U.S.” That was six decades ago. The only thing that has changed since then is the size of the UN’s budget and the number of bureaucracy-laden agencies it has created to justify its existence.

Meanwhile, the world has continued to be plagued by regional conflicts, proxy wars, and humanitarian crises—many of which the UN has observed with the enthusiasm of a bored security guard at a shopping mall. Syria burned. Yemen starved. Ukraine was invaded. The UN held meetings. Lots of meetings. If talking could stop wars, the UN would be the most powerful force on Earth.

And then there’s the uncomfortable fact that major diplomatic breakthroughs in recent years have happened outside the UN entirely. President Donald Trump, for example, brokered several peace agreements without any meaningful involvement from the UN. The Abraham Accords—normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco—were negotiated directly between the parties, with U.S. mediation, not UN intervention. Whatever one thinks of Trump, the accords demonstrated something the UN has spent decades trying to avoid admitting — peace can be negotiated without a blue‑helmeted chaperone.

The UN’s defenders insist that the organization is essential for global stability. But if the UN is essential, why does the world look the way it does? Why do conflicts persist? Why do rogue states sit on human‑rights councils? Why does the Security Council spend half its time deadlocked by vetoes? The UN is like a fire department that shows up after the building has burned down, hoses in hand, ready to “condemn” the flames.

Now we are told the UN is facing a liquidity crisis. The irony is rich. The organization that has spent decades lecturing the world about sustainability cannot sustain its own finances. The same institution that demands accountability from member states cannot balance its own books. And the same UN that insists it is indispensable is now rattling a tin cup, hoping someone will refill it.

The United States, of course, has historically been the UN’s biggest donor—paying far more than its proportional share. American taxpayers have been underwriting this global debating society for generations. And what has the U.S. received in return? A lot of criticism, a lot of finger‑wagging, and the privilege of hosting an organization that cannot even pay its own electric bill.

If the UN were to actually collapse financially, the world would not descend into chaos. Diplomats would simply have to find another place to talk. Regional alliances would continue to function. Nations would still negotiate treaties. Conflicts would still be resolved—or not—based on the same geopolitical realities that have always shaped them. The UN’s financial crisis is only a crisis for the UN – not the world.

The truth is that the organization has long been too costly for the results it produces. Its bureaucracy is bloated, its mission unfocused, and its track record unimpressive. If the UN wants to survive, it will need more than another round of emergency funding. It will need to prove that it can actually accomplish something meaningful in the 21st century.

Until then, the world will keep spinning, wars will keep ending or continuing based on real diplomacy, and the UN will keep doing what it does best — talk.

So, there ‘tis.