These are sad days at the UN. Ten years ago, the world body seemed set to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the Cold War. Today, the UN is sidelined - irrelevant and divided - as NATO forces bomb Yugoslavia.
In reality, the Kosovo crisis is only highlighting a trend that has been apparent for some time. For several years, we have witnessed the marginalisation of the UN as a force in world politics. Many factors have contributed to this but nothing has demonstrated it as forcefully as the strikes against Slobodan Milosevic.
To the chagrin of UN chief Kofi Annan, the US and its European NATO allies did not even bother to obtain UN Security Council backing for the strikes. As the head of the premier body for world peace, Mr Annan might have reasonably expected some sort of consultation before military action was launched.
But the US and its European allies concluded there was nothing to be gained by raising the matter at the UN. The Security Council is hopelessly divided on the question of Kosovo simply because Russia and China, which both hold veto power on council resolutions, will never support military action against Yugoslavia. Faced with the certain knowledge that the council would never back a military strike against Yugoslavia, the US and NATO simply bypassed the organisation and acted independently.
This is not the first time the UN has been marginalised recently. In December, when Iraq refused to allow UN weapons inspectors to carry out their work freely, the US and UK decided to launch a four-day bombing offensive against Iraq. As with Kosovo, the US and Britain did not seek Security Council backing because they knew Iraq's sympathisers on the council - Russia, China and France - would not back the use of military force against Baghdad. A decade ago, it was hoped that the end of the Cold War would reduce these kind of deadlocks in the Security Council but, with the brief exception of the 1991 Gulf War, that has not transpired.
Instead, the council is as divided as it ever was. But these days, the US is the dominant superpower and no longer needs to pander to Russia's wishes. As a result, the US is increasingly willing to ignore the UN (and therefore Russia's Security Council veto) and act unilaterally, or through regional groupings such as NATO, to achieve its international aims.
Former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali argues that the US has provoked divisions in the council by trying to bully other nations to agree with it. "The marginalisation (of the UN) began in 1993 with the Somalia intervention and the subsequent change of majority in Congress," Mr Boutros-Ghali told The New York Times. It increased with "America's discovery of its role as the sole remaining superpower. Weaker States depend heavily on diplomacy. When you're powerful, you don't need it".
