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With conflict at record levels, former Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman on what it will take to make the UN hard to ignore.
The morning of Dec. 29, 1941, shortly after Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a guest in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s White House, emerged naked from his bath to find the President in his room. He looked like a “pink cherub,” FDR recalled.
During a sleepless night trying to find a name for those fighting for a “better future of the world,” the American President had been struck by inspiration. “How about the United Nations?” he asked his naked guest. “Good,” Churchill replied.
What’s striking about this exchange isn’t just that two national leaders were moonlighting as brand consultants. It’s that, with war still raging, they carved out time to build consensus behind the principles upon which a postwar order would be constructed: freedom from fear and want, self-determination and economic cooperation, and, above all, a “wider and permanent system of general security” to stop conflict from engulfing the world again.
Since that morning in the White House, Member States have used the UN “to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security.” And to great effect. On [Re]Group, we have quantified the impact of its efforts to de-escalate great power conflict, restrain the spread of destructive weapons, and end wars (or prevent them from starting). As these calculations have shown, the net impact has not just been positive, it has been widely profitable for humanity.
In her playbook for the first year of the next Secretary-General (out now in the print edition of Envoy Magazine and online soon), Elizabeth Cousens argues that peace and security should be the new leader’s first priority. “Early, visible wins will force the world to sit up and realize the UN is back in business,” she writes, “providing the space for the harder slog of securing deeper change.”
To see what those early wins might look like, I asked former UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman what it would take for a new Secretary-General to rebuild that “wider and permanent system of security” for an increasingly dangerous age.
Jeff also wants the UN to “elevate and amplify” its work on peace and security. He came to the interview with a five-point plan for how that could happen. Not as a final blueprint, but to get people talking. “Maybe my ideas are terrible,” he warned, “but you’re provoked to think of good ideas because of my terrible ones.”
The ideas are far from terrible, of course. Jeff’s roadmap would put the UN back on the front lines of peace and security, drawing only on what is within a Secretary-General’s power to deliver. This isn’t about low-hanging fruit, because there isn’t any. It’s about taking risks to push the UN from a “culture of caution” to one of “agency and action.”
“I think that the Secretary-General does have room to navigate,” Jeff argues. “I go back to what [Re]Group wrote about forced proximity. How the UN can’t make adversaries agree, but it can force them to acknowledge each other, and stop each from pretending the other doesn’t exist.
“In the same way, the new Secretary-General can use this five-point agenda to make the UN hard to ignore. It wouldn’t overcome the Security Council’s paralysis, but it would keep diplomacy alive.”
1. Elevate Sudan: Demonstrating relevance when the stakes are high
In Sudan — the world’s worst humanitarian crisis — the UN already holds a Security Council mandate, yet it has no active peacekeeping or political mission.
As foreign actors continue to funnel weapons, drones, and finance to both warring parties, the humanitarian system is close to collapse. More than two-thirds of the population is now in need of lifesaving support. This is where the culture of caution costs lives. As UN humanitarian lead Tom Fletcher recently put it, “Sudan does not suffer from a lack of analysis. It suffers from a lack of action.”
The UN “has not responded with the urgency the crisis warrants,” Jeff argues. Instead, parts of the system have allowed the warring parties to impose restrictions on the movement of relief convoys, or confused Khartoum’s claims of sovereignty with legitimate governance across the entire country.
Jeff believes that visible leadership on Sudan is less likely to trigger great-power pushback than it would on Gaza, Ukraine, or Iran. That gives an incoming Secretary-General an opportunity to reclaim the initiative in their first 100 days by creating “room to navigate” through existing diplomatic coalitions.
Convene and chair a meeting of the Quintet (UN, Africa Union, League of Arab States, Intergovernmental Authority on Development, European Union) in Geneva, meet with Permanent Representatives of the Quad and Quint in New York, and travel to Addis Ababa to align with the Chairperson of the AU Commission, the Expanded Mechanism on Sudan, and the AU High-Level Panel on Sudan. In this way the new Secretary-General can signal: “I am elevating this issue in as many fora as I can.”
Push for a nationwide arms embargo, capitalizing on the momentum generated by recent U.S. proposals and support from the UAE, while transforming the Personal Envoy position into a Security Council-backed Special Envoy with a dedicated political mission.
Enforce a “no-regrets policy” on aid delivery, directing agencies to route assistance through regional hubs like Nairobi on a notification-only basis, ensuring lifesaving support is “not hostage to permits and restrictions” from warring parties.
Make clear to UN staff and major NGOs that if they are targeted or expelled for doing their job in territories not controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces, you “will have their backs.” Tell them: “The priority is to save lives and not buckle under political pressure.”
Accelerate civilian-led initiatives for transitional governance, acknowledging that “neither the SAF nor the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] have popular legitimacy.” The Secretary-General should support preparations for “a postwar scenario without that being held hostage to getting to the ceasefire first.”
“I’m not saying there’s going to be an immediate resolution,” Jeff concludes, “but the UN needs to be ‘caught trying’ something different. As Sudan doesn’t provoke absolutism among Member States, you can raise the profile of the UN on peace and security by showing you are willing to navigate around structural constraints.”
2. Humanity in War: Building a culture of compliance
The Sudan war is also the poster child for repeated violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), at a time of growing pressure on the rules that seek to limit the suffering caused by armed conflict. According to a recent assessment by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, “while the threat to IHL is not yet existential, it is at a critical breaking point.”
“This isn’t about opening up the Geneva Conventions, rewriting international humanitarian law, or expanding the obligations on Member States,” Jeff argues. “You aren’t looking to impose new rules but to make existing rules stick. We need a ‘culture of compliance’ campaign, rather than a legal reform project.”
Jeff believes the next Secretary-General can build on the Global Initiative to Galvanize Political Commitment to International Humanitarian Law, launched in 2024 by Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan and South Africa, with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
This initiative, which has engaged over 150 states in an ongoing consultation process, aims to counter the erosion of the rules of war, elevate IHL as a political priority, and prevent unconstrained violence in modern conflicts. That creates momentum the incoming Secretary-General can harness to make the culture of compliance stronger:
Capitalize on the High-Level Meeting on Humanity in War (hosted by Jordan on December 7, just weeks before the leadership transition) as it aims to increase political commitment, agree on actionable recommendations, and create a path for their implementation.
Increase the visibility of IHL by endorsing the High-Level Meeting’s conclusions upon taking office, and by using them to raise the political costs of non-compliance and to create pressure around implementation, reporting, and best practices.
Make Sudan the test case for this campaign, so it is harder for Member States to look away from the world’s most flagrant violations.
While an incoming Secretary-General “is not going to be able to stop war atrocities tomorrow,” they can use the UN’s platform to make the rules of war much harder to ignore.
3. Security in the Gulf: A Helsinki process for the Middle East
“Neither the United States nor Iran has looked to the UN to end the conflict in the Middle East, and that is unlikely to change,” Jeff argues, “but the UN can already start to play an important role in looking ahead to the post-conflict period.”
With the conflict both broadening and escalating, there is “an acute need for a new type of security understanding or organization for the Gulf and Middle East area.” Jeff agrees with those who think that the Helsinki Accords could provide a model.
“At the height of the Cold War,” Jeff points out, “you had an inclusive process across the Cold War lines.” The 1975 Helsinki Accords brought the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies to the same table to ease tensions. By establishing a shared baseline for security, the agreement laid the groundwork for what is now the OSCE, proving that a functional security architecture can be built even for sworn enemies.
The Middle East has no shortage of Track 1.5 and Track 2 initiatives (“I’m part of a few of them,” Jeff notes). But backchannels can only go so far. Participating states demand the exclusion of either Israel or Iran, argue about the role of the Palestinians, and ask, “Should the U.S. be there? Should Turkey? The principle of inclusivity that made Helsinki work is bypassed,” he concludes.
But the UN has “all of these states with equal status,” allowing the Secretary-General to offer a universal platform to lay the groundwork for a regional security architecture:
Initiate a “staged exploration of regional security principles” to prepare for the day after, emphasizing that planning for a postwar scenario is prudent now, even while fighting continues.
Anchor the initiative in the inclusivity principle of the 1975 Helsinki Accords, bringing all regional powers — including Israel and Iran — to the table, while ensuring the State of Palestine is represented as an observer.
Manage expectations by making it clear that this is not an attempt to solve intractable bilateral conflicts, but a practical mechanism to “lower the diplomatic temperature.”
Build trust and momentum by focusing early dialogues on shared interests, starting with “first-phase topics such as incident prevention and response, crisis communication, environmental protection, [and] maritime security.”
4. Secure the AI Revolution: The geopolitics of artificial intelligence
The current Secretary-General is credited with inserting the UN into the AI governance space. But conventional wisdom suggests that it will only ever play a supporting role.
I used to think this was true, but am now not so sure. Barely a day passes without a new warning that this technology is running out of control. And the most vocal Cassandras are those building new AI models, not those regulating them.
Polling shows public fears are growing. More than half of Americans say there is a real risk AI will destroy humanity (and an eye-watering 17% think that will almost certainly happen). At a recent meeting of governments, I was struck by a mood not of panic, but certainly of deep anxiety.
That creates demand for multilateral action. Claire Melamed wrote for [Re]Group: “As the risks of climate change or nuclear apocalypse became too big to ignore, and beyond any single government’s ability to handle alone, it brought governments to the table.” The UN is already building institutions to save AI from itself, she argued, although they may only get to play a full role once a crisis hits.
For Jeff, the Secretary-General is the only one who can bridge the gap between the multilateral and national security debates on AI. He identifies four intertwined risks: the technology itself, the scramble for critical resources to develop it, the race for AI supremacy, and the resulting transformation in the way wars are fought.
During the Cold War, governments invented foundational technologies (GPS, the internet) and spun them out to the civilian world. Today, the flow has reversed. The tech sector innovates, and the military spins it in. With risks outpacing regulation, Jeff’s advice to a new Secretary-General is to act quickly:
Seize the opportunity presented by next year’s Global Dialogue on AI Governance (May 3–4, UN Headquarters) to establish the UN as the “custodian of the AI governance floor.” Coming just months into the new leader’s term, though, who comes is almost as important as what happens. Will AI’s revolutionary vanguard bother to turn up?
Shape an agenda that tackles the geopolitics of AI head-on and confronts the risks that keep national security advisors up at night.
Use the Dialogue as a launching pad to help the Security Council grapple with how AI is rewriting the rules of modern warfare, bridging its governance to the UN’s peace and security mandate. That could mean building on Guterres’s campaign to ban “killer robots” (lethal autonomous weapons), as part of a broader framework to create rules of engagement for the AI age.
5. Get Them Appointed: Restoring authority to UN Special Envoys
“The last one is easy,” Jeff says. “Get the envoys appointed.”
Right now, three of the UN’s most sensitive political posts are sitting vacant or operating with acting officials: the Special Envoy for Syria, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and the Special Coordinator for Lebanon (where Jeff served as U.S. Ambassador).
The Secretary-General needs heavyweight mediators, Jeff argues. “Take Lebanon. It’s at a critical juncture. Jean Arnault is a very talented guy, but he is only acting in the role. You need an envoy who has been formally notified to and endorsed by the Security Council to carry out a mandate at a moment like this. This is a make-or-break moment for Lebanon to emerge from being controlled by a state-sponsored militia.”
The message that the “UN is back” on peace and security will only resonate if the new Secretary-General moves immediately to put the right people in the right places.
Fill the Lebanon vacancy immediately, Jeff advises, as Beirut is unlikely to object to a high-profile, competent envoy, making this the easiest of the three appointments to land early in the term.
Prepare for harder fights over the Syria and Middle East appointments, which Damascus and Jerusalem will intensely scrutinize, by identifying candidates during the transition so the incoming team is ready to move on day one.
Break the grip of Member State patronage by refusing to confine these roles to diplomats promoted by their home capitals, drawing instead from the growing pool of private mediation actors to find envoys with on-the-ground conflict resolution experience.
“Fill these positions quickly with competent people that get people’s attention,” Jeff advises. The goal is to make the international community look at an appointment and realize they are dealing with people who have the mediation experience the job needs.
The Hard Slog of Deep Change
This 100-day playbook will not magically fix a paralyzed Security Council, but it will create political space for the new leader to operate and secure early wins in preparation for the harder work of securing deeper change.
“The new SG has to build up credibility,” Jeff advises, before hitting the pain points that could trigger a P5 backlash. That authority is what earns a leader the right to act as a firebreak when tensions risk spiraling out of control (as covered in our World’s Toughest Job episode on how U Thant defused the Cuban Missile Crisis).
Jeff warns against the trap of believing that peace is just one more rearrangement of the organogram away. “I don’t think the Secretary-General should spend their first 100 days rolling out great reform packages,” he argues. Structural reforms turn the system inward and burn political capital. Better to first restore confidence by embodying the normative ideals of the Charter through action, not more proposals for reform.
None of this matters if the culture of the Secretariat remains broken. Jeff describes a profound crisis of morale, where caution undermines creativity and turf wars displace delivery. Reversing this is less about structures, and more about behavior. A new Secretary-General can reboot the UN’s machinery by projecting trust, demanding internal respect, and, as Jeff notes, making the staff “feel that they’re useful again.”
When we interviewed Mark Malloch-Brown for the World’s Toughest Job wrap party, he called for the new Secretary-General to start with a 100-day sprint.
Each candidate will already be developing their own playbook, but with Jeff’s plan for peace and security — and Elizabeth’s parallel vision (which we’ll link to as soon as it’s online) — [Re]Group will continue to publish ideas that will help shape that sprint.
A closing thought from me. When Roosevelt was busy naming the “United Nations,” he and Churchill knew they had to roll up their own sleeves if a “permanent system of general security” was to be built.
We need a Secretary-General who can sprint for 100 days, before settling into the marathon that will follow. But maybe we shouldn’t leave the new leader to run unaccompanied when it is “We the Peoples” and “our respective Governments” who have always held the lion’s share of the power.
Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
