THE United Nations is evidently entering an era of renewed vigor and prominence on the world scene. In the near future it will be involved in events of world-shaking impact. Why is this so?

The Middle East conflict in October of 1973 and its aftermath helped to restore much of the U.N.’s prestige. True, the big powers played dominant roles in the truce arrangements between Israel, Egypt and Syria. But as Finnish historian Max Jakobson writes in the Saturday Review/​-World (March 23, 1974):

“Even the superpowers found that they could not do entirely without the United Nations. The cease-fire agreement negotiated . . . was legitimized by the [U.N.] Security Council. Supervision on the ground was provided by the United Nations. The sight of the blue berets along the banks of the Suez Canal revived faith among the believers: The United Nations was needed after all.”

Of U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim’s designation as chairman of the Middle East peace conference, U.N. reporter Anthony Astrachan says:

“His role as chairman of the opening peace talks in Geneva may be symbolic, but symbols develop importance, if not power. Moscow and Washington . . . now cultivate him to protect their options with the world.”

The more recent conflict in Cyprus also brought into sharp focus the peacekeeping role of the U.N.

OTHER KEY FACTORS

As Dr. George W. Shepherd points out, the world is no longer like a chessboard on which the two superpowers confront each other, with the European nations like knights and bishops, and the “Third World” nations like pawns. “That,” says this University of Denver professor, “is why we are seeing a revival of [the United Nations].”

Though previously the “Third World” nations were able only to make noise in the U.N. and pass resolutions that were never enforced, the big powers can no longer treat these smaller nations lightly. The recent Arab oil boycott showed the potential power that exists in the “Third World.” This is true not only of the oil-rich lands. Many of the basic raw materials and minerals​—tin, zinc, copper, manganese, uranium, iron ore, bauxite (for producing aluminum)—​that the industrialized nations depend heavily upon, come from these so-called “undeveloped” nations. What may this lead to?

An article in the German newspaper Schwabacher Tagblatt says it would be astonishing if these poorer countries were to resist for long the temptation to “throw down the gauntlet to the so-called rich nations and flex the muscles of their awakened self-assurance,” imitating the Arab nations. The article adds: “When we feel the grip of the awakened self-assurance of these countries around our Adam’s apple, then it is too late . . . social problems will arise in our industrial world with dimensions such as have never before confronted us.”

All of this adds to the insecurity that moves the political nations, large and small, to seek global agreements and action that will bring relief. Concern for peace and security grips the nations today as seldom before in history and has produced a dominant attitude or “spirit” that is moving the nations more and more to think and act on a global basis. Pointing out why they may be expected to turn increasingly to the United Nations as their instrument, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Charles W. Yost says:

“The U.N., despite everything, has one enormous advantage over all the other devices for the conduct of international relations​—it is a permanent institution. Whatever may be the merits of summit meetings, regional conferences, bilateral and multilateral agreements, they all rest on the shifting sands of capricious and changing leadership and public opinion. Only the U.N., like national governments, is firmly based on a constitution and a bureaucracy which have lives of their own and which endure from decade to decade.”