Ladies and gentlemen, we're experiencing some turbulence. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts".

As passengers on a plane that is shaking we are ready to obey this order. But what happens if we have no safety belt to fasten? Our world is experiencing a lont of turbulence: war, the persistent Covid pandemic, the emergency crisis, cost of living increases due to energy costs, three billion men, women and children still not able to live a decent life free from fear and want on our planet...

International and multilateral organizations like the United Nations (UN) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were set up to be our safety belts. Why are they not adequate to protect in the ongoing turbulence? We certainly cannot blame the UN and the OSCE for the stormy weather our planet is facing. We cannot blame the barometer for the stormy weather we have. The UN and the OSCE are just reflecting the political environment in which they are struggling to operate.

What makes it worse, the pilots in the cockpit are fighting among themselves instead of navigating our planet safely. The major countries with the power of the UN veto and resources to make these international and multilateral organizations work effectively, often manipulate them for their own end, not for the common good of humanity. Before we attack multilateral organizations for being ineffective seatbelts we should remember the English proverb “A bad workman blames his tools” and the Russian proverb: “Don’t blame your mirror for your ugly face.”

As Thomas Greminger (the former secretary general of the OSCE) says: “low levels of trust in multilateral institutions and mechanisms for solving global problems, with the political winds blowing in favour of unilateral and transactional approaches… arms control regimes are in disarray, and the risk of military incidents is growing … we are confronted with a paradox in which multilateral cooperation is being called into question and avenues for discourse are being cut off, all while the need for cooperation and real dialogue grows ever more urgent.”

How are we going to calm the fighting among the pilots in the cockpit so that our planet can survive the turbulence we are facing and create the conditions for common security cooperation? Dialogue and negotiation are mostly needed with those with whom we least agree unless issues are to be resolved on the battlefield. The spirit of compromise cannot mean capitulation and accepting that might is right.

Basic human decency

For basic human decency to return to international relations, the core values of the UN need to be respected: “the equal rights of nations large and small”, the commitment “to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours” and “to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

The Russian invasion of Ukraine last year and the Iraq invasion led by the United States in 2003, to take just two examples, make a mockery of these UN core values. When major powers behave like this they show they respect the international rule of law only when it is convenient. They follow the rules based order only when they create these rules in their own interest.

Our political environment has become so polarised that simply calling for hostile neighbours to sit together is dismissed as naïve at best and denounced as a betrayal at worst. We have weakened multilateralism through division, polarisation and mutual distrust and then we blame multilateral structures as being fragile and ineffective.

We have deprived inclusive multilateral structures and processes of leadership, legitimacy and resources and then blame them for being dysfunctional. We set up alternative arrangements of fake multilateralism that often marginalise and exclude those we disagree with and withdraw into a bubble of “like-minded” countries and talk to ourselves.

We are practising politics as the continuation of war by other means, as the role of the military in formulating and implementing foreign policy continues to grow. The military industrial complex has become an integral part of the export sector of the economy in different countries. The armaments industry needs new markets and so needs new tension and conflicts to justify the purchase of yet more armaments.

The art of diplomacy is being degraded as foreign policy and arms deals become increasingly intertwined. No wonder that we have an arms control crisis. Like war, diplomacy is being practised as trying to cause maximum damage to the enemy and as a zero-sum game. We are always “right” and they are always “wrong”.

At the same time countries using military powers continue to win wars but lose peace. Military expenditure continues to grow. Budgets are always available for war while spending on health, education and humanitarian aid often face budget shortfalls. But even as enemies we need to find ways of working together, not because we love our enemies and wish them well, but because we need to survive. Even our selfishness and narrow interests dictate that we cooperate with our enemies.

We must not abandon attempts at regional cooperation.

Let us define and make workable at least the global minimum cooperation we must have to address our common challenges. If the fighting among the pilots in the cockpit intensifies while turbulence becomes more severe, we will be flying without safetybelts and in a plane with disabled controls. When this happens, planes usually crash, and all those on board are killed.