"The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail, and to be seen to fail"
About this Quote
A brutal little truth hides in O'Brien's line: institutions don't always survive by succeeding; they survive by being useful to the people who fund them, especially when those people fear accountability. Calling the UN lovable because it fails is less a cheap jab than a diagnosis of how sovereignty protects itself. The punch is in the phrasing "to fail, and to be seen to fail" - not private incompetence, but public, legible impotence. Failure becomes theater, a kind of diplomatic scapegoat that member states can point to when conflicts persist, sanctions collapse, or peacekeeping proves impossible. The UN absorbs the blame, governments keep their hands clean, and everyone gets to say they tried.
O'Brien, a politician and former UN insider, is speaking from the vantage point of someone who watched high-minded language collide with vetoes, realpolitik, and selective outrage. The subtext is that the UN isn't designed to override state power; it's designed to manage the appearance of collective action without forcing states to surrender the tools they actually care about. In that light, failure is not a bug but a feature: it reassures capitals that no supranational machine will suddenly acquire teeth.
It's also a warning about our own expectations. We want the UN to be a moral actor; governments want it to be an alibi. O'Brien's cynicism lands because it flips the usual lament - "why can't the UN do more?" - into the more uncomfortable question: who benefits when it can't?
O'Brien, a politician and former UN insider, is speaking from the vantage point of someone who watched high-minded language collide with vetoes, realpolitik, and selective outrage. The subtext is that the UN isn't designed to override state power; it's designed to manage the appearance of collective action without forcing states to surrender the tools they actually care about. In that light, failure is not a bug but a feature: it reassures capitals that no supranational machine will suddenly acquire teeth.
It's also a warning about our own expectations. We want the UN to be a moral actor; governments want it to be an alibi. O'Brien's cynicism lands because it flips the usual lament - "why can't the UN do more?" - into the more uncomfortable question: who benefits when it can't?
Quote Details
| Topic | Sarcastic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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