Examining the US-UN Relationship in the Context of Counter-Terrorism

This report delves into the multifaceted relationship between the United States and the United Nations, specifically within the context of counter-terrorism. It identifies and analyzes the key factors that underpin this relationship, including the significant financial contributions made by the US to the UN, which enable various counter-terrorism initiatives. The report also explores the role of technological advancements in facilitating the UN's efforts to combat terrorism and maintain global security, highlighting the potential and challenges of utilizing new technologies. Furthermore, it examines the impact of global security concerns, particularly in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and how these events have shaped the US-UN collaboration on counter-terrorism strategies. The report discusses both the successes and the challenges in this relationship, including the formation of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the debates surrounding the Iraq War, ultimately providing an in-depth understanding of the dynamics and complexities of this crucial partnership.

COUNTER-
TERRORISM

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE UNITED NATION......................................1
FACTORS THAT HAVE UNDERPINNED THE US-UN RELATIONSHIP...............................1
Financial Contribution............................................................................................................1
Technological Advancements................................................................................................3
Global Security.......................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
United Nations is an organisation which is responsible for maintaining international
security and peace. This intergovernmental organisation works towards creating friendly
relationships between different nations1. Moreover, the agenda of this organisation states to
achieve international co-operations and centralise itself for the harmonisation of actions
undertaken by the nations. Moreover, the organisation is working towards Counter-Terrorism
and has developed several strategies to ensure the same. The report below emphasises on the
factors underpinning the relationship between United Nations and United States since 1945.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE UNITED NATION
After the end of Second World War in 1945, international leaders around the globe
integrated their efforts to form the United Nations. The agenda of formation of this organisation
was with respect to maintain international peace and stability, along with establishment of an
order in international society. United Nations is not a solitary unit; rather the organisation is an
amalgamation of different institutes, for instance, World Health Organisation and International
Labour Organisation.
The United States have a major political, economical as well as military influence globally
and currently are indispensible elements of the UN, Furthermore, there are certain specific
factors which have been essential in underpinning this relationship of United States and United
Nations2.
FACTORS THAT HAVE UNDERPINNED THE US-UN RELATIONSHIP
Financial Contribution
The first and foremost factor which has been responsible for underpinning this relationship
between United Nations and United States is the financial contribution which has been made by
the latter to the former throughout these years. It is an evident fact that the US has been
consistent in funding the UN regarding its several operations. Moreover, it also has a wide
1 Koops, Joachim A. "Theorising inter-organisational relations: the “EU–NATO relationship” as
a catalytic case study." European security 26, no. 3 (2017): 315-339
2 Wurst, James. The UN Association-USA: a little-known history of advocacy and action.
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2016.
1

impact in their relationships. Apart from peace keeping, the UN functions have been serving in
several aspects in relation to health and humanitarian needs, cultural and economic development
and most importantly, the organisation has been consistent in setting up strategies related to
counter-terrorism. Financial contributions acquired by the US have a consistent and prominent
impact on the UN for conducting such activities smoothly3. Furthermore, for even more than 70
years, The United States has been a consistent guide as well as major funder to United Nations.
Illustration 1: Total Gross Contributions to the U.N.
(Total Gross Contributions to the U.N., 2018)
As per the graph, out of all the major nations associated with the funding of the UN, The
United States has been one of the most prominent funder of this organisation in its peace keeping
operations, in which counter terrorism is one of the most prominent functions. As per this
analysis, the total contributions to the UN in last year total up to $6.8 Billion, in which, almost
$2 Billion dollars were contributed by The United States itself 4. This helps the UN in conducting
each of its peace keeping activities. This is how financial contributions by The United States
underpin its relationship with The United Nations.
3 Hooijmaaijers, Bas, and Stephen Keukeleire. "Voting Cohesion of the BRICS Countries
in the UN Genral Assembly, 2006-2014: A BRICS Too Far." Global Governance 22
(2016): 389.
4 U.S. Funding to the United Nations System. (2018)
2

However, this factor has not always been quite effective for their relationship. The United
Nations have been consistent in facing issues where members of the organisations refused to pay
amount of assessment that has been levied upon them. This amount is imposed upon them under
the United Nations Chartered. However, the most recent aspect which has had the most severe
impact on the organisation is the refusal by the United States. Since 1985, there has been a
refusal by the US Congress to authorise UN dues payment5. This step was taken in order to
ensure compliance of the United Nations to wishes of the country. However, several negotiations
were made in relation to persuade the nation to pay the due amount and an agreement was
formed whereby The United States was obligated to pay the UN a large share of the amount
which is owed by the country, in exchange to the reduction in assessment rate imposed by the
organisation. It was among the reforms which have been contained in 1999 Helms Biden
Legislations. Currently, this amount is near about $1.3 Billion. However, as for the future, this
factor seems effectively strong in relation to underpinning the relationship of the US and the UN.
Majority of population of the country are still in favour of their active engagement with the
organisation. Furthermore, as for its peace keeping activities like counter-terrorism, in future too,
their relationship would have a positive impact on ensuring effective steps taken by the
organisation to address such issues, with a consistent financial support from the United States6.
Technological Advancements
New technologies as well as innovation together play an imperative and essential role in
taking into account the global crises. In this regard, the risks that are known to be associated with
the implementation and formulation of new technologies across the organisational premises are
numerous. In this relation, the most dominant one out of these is found to be the imminent risk of
drone capabilities in the hands of persons who use it for illegal and unethical purposes, such as
terrorists. The other risks that are ascertained to arrive out of the implementation of new
technologies are genetic modification of pandemic threats and ISIS by making use of social
5 Brooks, Stephen G., and William C. Wohlforth. "American primacy in perspective."
In Paradoxes of Power, pp. 29-38. Routledge, 2015.
6 Bayram, A. Burcu, and Erin R. Graham. "Financing the United Nations: Explaining variation in
how donors provide funding to the UN." The Review of International Organizations 12, no. 3
(2017): 421-459.
3

media which significantly serves as a recruitment tool. In this relation, United Nations is a
worldwide organisation and thus the before mentioned discussion related to use of new and
innovative technologies offer United Nations with the lucrative opportunity aimed at maintaining
close link with the populations, understanding relevant and potential drivers of conflicts and to
spread a message more effectively against terrorism and the issues such as global crisis. In this
regard, the United Nations has undertaken a few of the positive steps which strive to bring the
view of local actors into action by way of use of technology7.
This comprises of, for instance: the utilisation of social networking within the Eastern parts
of the Democratic Republic of Congo with a view to determine where any kind of violent
incident is expected or anticipated to take place together with a much more systematic as well as
structural monitoring of social media within Kosovo. However, these can be said to be the minor
steps whereas a major or primary one is required and initiatives tend to be present within the
relatively obscure parts of such system. When the SCUD missile was introduced from Yemen in
Saudi Arabia within the year 2015, the first news in association with this came from the side of
civilians who tweeted from the ground, namely, the UN. In this, the major funding of United
Nations is done by United States. This reflects that this organisation is able to implement new
technologies and innovations with a view to combat issues such as terrorism and global crisis.
Thus, technological factor demonstrates and facilitates the relationship between United Nation
and United States to develop so that the former can grab the opportunity to make use of latest
and new technologies such that terrorism across the world can be tackled. In this relation, the UN
comprises of people on the ground within over 193 countries across the globe but they are found
to be limited by the lack of resources, particularly, the funds. Directing meaningful resources
towards harnessing the tremendous power of big data as well as the social media with a view to
gain information and also with a view to communicate with a wide range of audience in an
effective manner. This would serve as an immediate force multiplier for United Nations that
would also cause the work of this organisation to get closer to the people. Further, it can be thus
seen that the relation between United Nation and United States is further going to improve in the
upcoming years as the UN would like to procure funds from US so that new technologies can be
7 Mobekk, Eirin. UN Peace Operations: Lessons from Haiti, 1994-2016. Routledge, 2016.
4

adopted and implemented by the organisation at rapid intervals such that counter-terrorism can
be promoted.
Global Security
The biggest agenda of the United Nations is to ensure global security. Since its inception,
the organisation has taken several steps with respect to effectively ensure that this peace is
appropriately made and their strategies adopted for the same withstand the course of time.
However, this factor too has its effects on the relationship of the United Nations and the United
States.
One of the biggest global tragedies which led to question the whole humanity was the
attack with took place on September 11th, 2001, where four well-coordinated terrorist attacks
were executed on places like the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, etc. and which resulted in
tragic death of thousands of people. The attack took place just a mile away from the United
States Headquarters, which led to emergence of an international response to such a grieve assault
as well as assurance to the world regarding their protection.
With respect to the United States, Security Council Resolution 1373 was formed in
response to the attacks of 9/11. This resolution was adopted to call on states to take several
mandatory actions against the attacks within the US. Some of these actions were taking actions
to ensure freezing any sort of international financing, prevention of travelling of suspected
terrorists, passing several anti-terrorism laws, etc. Under the UN Charter, all these activities were
considered under international law to prevent any such assault from happening within the United
Nations. This factor, hence, underpinned the relationships of the organisation and the United
States.
However, there were several aspects which were not considered within the resolution
which further led to heavy criticism of the 1373. One prominent factor was that human rights
were completely ignored, which was then used by several nations as an excuse to further crack
down on this dissent through claiming it as terrorism. Moreover, there were no adequate
resources approved by the council to several UN agencies to ensure availability of technical
capacity for implementation of this resolution. All these aspects, for once, were a setback on the
relationship of United Nations and the United States. However, later on in 2006, Kofi Annan, a
diplomat in the organisation led the creation of a uniform UN platform for counter-terrorism. It
was being called as Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. Moreover, there has been effective
5

support given by the United States to ensure implementation and management of this strategy in
a positive and effective manner, further identifying more opportunities to combat terrorism. Once
again, this factor led to stabilisation and underpinned US-UN relationship.
However, a big issue on their relationship which rose after formation of this strategy and
the UN’s immediate response to 9/11, is that it is being perceived that US is using the United
Nations to shape up the global norms. The biggest example which is evident in this scenario is
Iraq War, where US military action against the country led to damage in the institutional orders
which were embodied by the UN. Most states were effectively prepared for compliance
regarding invasion of Iraq, giving in to the support for certain self-defensive actions in Security
Council Resolution 1373. However, there were states that were not prepared for the compliance,
seeing the action by the US which led to disruption of the institutional framework. This resulted
in the damage of UN Charter-based legal framework and a negative impact on the US-UN
relationship. Moreover, the debate is still ongoing regarding this relationship as it is still being
considered as fragile and ambivalent. However, attempts have been made by the country as well
as the organisation to keep this relationship as effective as possible in relation to ensuring global
peace and activities such as counter-terrorism. A prominent example of the same is end of
operations of the United States in the Iraq War formation of United States Institute of Peace
which has been consistent in peace keeping within the nation. As of to conclude, sheer attempts
could be made by the US in order to effectively ensure peace keeping by the UN and prosperous
and effective relationship between the nation and the organisation8.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it is concluded by the above information, that the US and UN share a rather complex yet
effective relationship, Several factors like Financial Contributions, Technological Advancements
and Global Peace have underpinned this relationship since 1945. However, to make this more
strengthening, it is essential that continuous efforts and crucial steps are made to ensure a more
prominent relationship and effective execution of peace keeping activities by the United Nations
such as counter-terrorism.
8 Aoi, Chiyuki, and William Flavin. "US military doctrine and the challenges of peace
operations." In UN Peacekeeping Doctrine in a New Era, pp. 53-87. Routledge, 2017.
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aoi, Chiyuki, and William Flavin. "US military doctrine and the challenges of peace operations."
In UN Peacekeeping Doctrine in a New Era, pp. 53-87. Routledge, 2017.
Bayram, A. Burcu, and Erin R. Graham. "Financing the United Nations: Explaining variation in
how donors provide funding to the UN." The Review of International Organizations 12,
no. 3 (2017): 421-459.
Brooks, Stephen G., and William C. Wohlforth. "American primacy in perspective."
In Paradoxes of Power, pp. 29-38. Routledge, 2015.
Hooijmaaijers, Bas, and Stephen Keukeleire. "Voting Cohesion of the BRICS Countries in the
UN Genral Assembly, 2006-2014: A BRICS Too Far." Global Governance 22 (2016):
389.
Koops, Joachim A. "Theorising inter-organisational relations: the “EU–NATO relationship” as a
catalytic case study." European security 26, no. 3 (2017): 315-339.
Mobekk, Eirin. UN Peace Operations: Lessons from Haiti, 1994-2016. Routledge, 2016.
Wurst, James. The UN Association-USA: a little-known history of advocacy and action. Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 2016.
Online
U.S. Funding to the United Nations System. (2018). Available Through: <
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45206.html>
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