UN chief warns of ‘tepid war’ as global tensions rise

UNITED Nations SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres says the current world is ‘‘much more chaotic, much less predictable’’ than during the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States, and it’s dangerous because there are no ‘‘instruments’’ to deal with crises.

Guterres said the Cold War was between two opposing blocs where there were clear rules and mechanisms to prevent conflict. It ‘‘never became hot because there was a certain level of predictability’’.

He said he wouldn’t call the dangerous situation today a Cold War or a Hot War, but probably ‘‘a new form of tepid confrontation’’.

As he starts his second term as secretary-general, Guterres said the world was worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere.

But unlike United States President Joe Biden and others, he thinks Russia will not invade Ukraine. Guterres said his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘‘is that there should not be any military intervention’’ in Ukraine.

The UN chief spoke after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva on the crisis over Ukraine, which has seen Moscow deploy tens of thousands of troops on its border, and Western nations send military

hardware to Kyiv.

Expectations were low for a breakthrough, and there was none, but the top US and Russian diplomats agreed to meet again.

Guterres reiterated that the UN Security Council was divided, especially its five vetowielding permanent members. Russia and China are often at odds with the US, Britain and France on key issues, including new sanctions against North Korea.

He said that splitting the world in two – with the US and China creating rival economic systems and rules, each with dominant currency, its own internet, technological strategy and artificial intelligence – must be avoided ‘‘at all costs’’.

He said his aim was to see the two leading economic powers ‘‘overcome those difficulties and to be able to establish that global market in which all can cooperate and all can benefit’’.

Guterres said the global landscape was ‘‘not a pretty picture’’.

‘‘I see a five-alarm global fire,’’ he said. ‘‘Each of the alarms is feeding off the others.

They are accelerants to an inferno.’’

He cited inequity and injustice in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, ‘‘a global economic system rigged against the poor’’, insufficient action on ‘‘the existential climate threat’’, and ‘‘a Wild West digital frontier that profits from division’’.

Guterres said all these ‘‘social and economic fires’’ were creating conflicts and unrest around the world, and fuelling mistrust and people’s lost faith in institutions and their underlying values.

He warned that injustice, inequality, mistrust, racism and discrimination ‘‘are casting dark shadows across every society’’, and said all nations must restore ‘‘human dignity and human decency’’ and ‘‘prevent the death of truth’’.