{"id":318425,"date":"2026-07-20T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=318425"},"modified":"2026-07-17T08:33:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:33:05","slug":"a-dream-deferred-but-still-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/07\/a-dream-deferred-but-still-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dream Deferred but Still Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Jul 2026 – <\/em>On March 1, 1945, only six weeks before his death, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered an address to Congress that pointed toward a sweeping transformation of international relations.<\/p>\n

With the Axis powers tottering toward defeat in World War II, Roosevelt reported<\/a> that the recently concluded Yalta conference of Allied leaders had agreed upon \u201ca common ground for peace.\u201d \u00a0It would \u201cspell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries\u2015and have always failed.\u201d\u00a0 These approaches would be replaced by \u201ca universal organization,\u201d a \u201cpermanent structure of peace upon which we can begin to build . . . that better world in which our children and grandchildren . . . must live, and can live.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a follow-up, delegates from fifty nations<\/a> met in San Francisco from April 25 to June 26, 1945 and drafted the United Nations Charter<\/a>.\u00a0 Although the Charter affirmed \u201cfaith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small\u201d and promised to promote \u201cjustice,\u201d \u201csocial progress,\u201d and \u201cbetter standards of life in larger freedom,\u201d its first proclaimed goal (and top priority) was \u201cto save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

In subsequent decades, the United Nations did an effective job of encouraging human rights and social progress<\/a>.\u00a0 The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Eleanor Roosevelt occupied a pivotal role in drafting and promoting, represented a substantial advance in social, cultural, and economic rights.\u00a0 In addition, the United Nations played an essential part in the widespread decolonization process in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, in promoting economic development and public health in impoverished nations, and in developing international agreements to address environmental issues.<\/p>\n

Ironically, however, when it came to preventing military aggression and war, the UN record was less impressive. \u00a0Yes, the international organization successfully mediated more than 170 peace settlements<\/a>, deployed over 70 peacekeeping missions<\/a> to stabilize post-conflict zones, and fostered important measures for arms control and disarmament.\u00a0 Nevertheless, more than 285 military conflicts<\/a> have erupted around the world in the years since 1945, taking a vast human and economic toll.\u00a0 Furthermore, the number of wars between nations has increased sharply<\/a> over the past decade, reaching, in 2025, the highest level since World War II.<\/p>\n

If the United Nations has fallen short of its goal of ending war, this is largely due to the behavior of the \u201cgreat powers.\u201d\u00a0 The United States, the Soviet Union (and its successor, Russia), France, Britain, and China have employed their veto at least 320 times<\/a> in the UN Security Council to frustrate UN action.\u00a0 They have also been leading participants in some of the world\u2019s most disastrous wars fought since 1945\u2015in Korea, Hungary, Indochina, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, and numerous other nations.<\/p>\n

With the United Nations frequently hobbled by the most powerful nations, the defense of peace has often been left to citizen activism, especially the peace movement.\u00a0 And, indeed, that movement has managed to stir up popular opposition to militarism, occasionally succeeding in bringing wars to an end<\/a>.\u00a0 Working with its natural allies among smaller nations and at the United Nations, the movement has been particularly successful at generating nuclear arms control and disarmament measures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the movement even made converts among the leaders of the major powers.\u00a0 Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the key government official who brought the Cold War to an end, credited much of his \u201cNew Thinking\u201d<\/a> to the nuclear disarmament activism of his time.\u00a0 In a remarkable address, delivered on December 7, 1988, Gorbachev told the United Nations<\/a> that \u201cthe use or threat of force no longer can . . . be an instrument of foreign policy.\u201d\u00a0 In their place, he said, the world needed the establishment of a strong international security system, under the direction of a revitalized United Nations.\u00a0 It was time \u201cput an end to an era of wars, confrontation and regional conflicts,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThis is our common goal, and we can only reach it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Gorbachev was swept from power thanks to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, another government official, Barack Obama, took up his role.\u00a0 Deeply influenced when still a student<\/a> by the nuclear disarmament movement of the 1980s, Obama, during his 2008 presidential campaign, promised to seek \u201cthe peace of a world without nuclear weapons.\u201d\u00a0 After his election as President of the United States, he followed through<\/a> by chairing a dramatic meeting of the UN Security Council\u2015only the fifth in the Council\u2019s history held at the level of heads of state\u2015that proclaimed a commitment to the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.\u00a0 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon termed it \u201can historic event.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the end of the Cold War provided the best opportunity for a decisive turn toward peace, and that opportunity had already passed.\u00a0 Neither Gorbachev\u2019s successors nor Congressional Republicans could stomach Obama\u2019s proposal, which sank amid a rising tide of rightwing nationalism.\u00a0 New government leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Benjamin Netanyahu took power, assailing the United Nations and embarking on programs of weapons buildups, unilateral action, and wars.<\/p>\n

Even so, the books have not been closed on the future.\u00a0 As opinion polls reveal, public support for heightened global cooperation is widespread<\/a>, as is public disdain for military invasions and occupations<\/a> of other lands.\u00a0 The smaller nations of the world are revolting against the major military powers, as revealed by overwhelming votes at the United Nations to condemn great power military aggression<\/a> and to implement the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons<\/a>\u2015now ratified by more than half the world\u2019s countries.\u00a0 Recently, in fact, an international campaign has begun to strengthen the United Nations<\/a> by amending its Charter.<\/p>\n

The dream has been deferred, but it remains alive.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Lawrence \u2018Larry\u2019 S. Wittner is Professor of History Emeritus at the State University of New York Albany, where he taught courses on the history of U.S. foreign policy and international history for 36 years. He is the author of nine books and the editor or co-editor of another four and has written hundreds of articles. Among his books is the award-winning scholarly trilogy <\/em>The Struggle Against the Bomb (Stanford University Press), a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roosevelt reported that the Yalta conference of Allied leaders had agreed upon \u201ca common ground for peace.\u201d \u00a0It would \u201cspell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the expedients that have been tried for centuries and always failed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":318386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[442,119,124],"class_list":["post-318425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","tag-conflict-transformation","tag-peace","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318426,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318425\/revisions\/318426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}