Can the Secretary-General Still Act as a Firebreak on Peace and Security?

During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, United Nations Secretary-General U Thant had three things on his side: personal diplomacy, the UN’s neutrality, and a few precious days to negotiate.

Today, the risk from war is once again at a dangerous level. And on this episode of World’s Toughest Job, we ask what leverage the next Secretary-General will have when a threat simmers for months or years and then explodes—not in 13 days, but in 13 hours. Can they still act as a firebreak when the old safety nets are gone? Or is it truly an impossible job?

Jasmin Baoumy and Mark Malloch-Brown are joined by Lynn Kuok, the Lee Kuan Yew chair at Brookings Institution; Ankit Panda, nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, president of the International Peace Institute.

World’s Toughest Job is a co-production of Foreign Policy and the UN Foundation.

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