At the dawn of uncertainty

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza most likely mark the end of the system of global government instituted after World War II. However dysfunctional the UN Security Council was from the start, it had not been undermined to the level that it is today. Of its five permanent members, the United States, Britain and France are on one side (the "West"), while Russia and China are part of the eclectic BRICS group, now also part of the "Global South." Other major countries - among them India, Japan and Germany, with their powerful economies - are excluded from the core of the international power structure. The problem is not so much that the global architecture shaped by the winners of WWII does not represent today's political dynamics, as that it is does not work. With the permanent members' veto, the Security Council cannot safeguard peace. Nor can it restore it. 

The United States and...