联合国很糟糕，但我们需要联合国。测验题：哪个国家在拖欠会费和流氓国家方面超过了海地、索马里和刚果民主共和国？答案：在联合国大厅里，这个国家就是我们熟悉的美国。
The U.N. Is Terrible. We Need the U.N. Quiz question: What country surpasses Haiti, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo as a deadbeat and rogue nation? Answer: In the halls of the United Nations, it’s the good old U.S.A.
特朗普政府拖欠联合国会费，而包括上述国家在内的141个国家已全额缴纳。当其他国家至少还在假装以联合国精神推动和平时，特朗普总统却利用他在联合国的演讲威胁要“彻底摧毁”伊朗，并“将他们打入地狱”。这在世界领导人中极为罕见，竟在联合国讲台上公然考虑是否要实施听起来像是种族灭绝的行为。
The Trump administration is delinquent in U.N. dues, while 141 countries — including those mentioned above — are fully paid up. And while other countries at least pretend to advance peace in the spirit of the United Nations, President Trump used his U.N. speech to threaten to “annihilate” Iran and “drive them into hell.” It was a rare instance of a world leader taking to the U.N. podium to muse about whether to commit what sounds like genocide.
这一切凸显了我们这个时代的悲剧：据红十字国际委员会统计，全球目前有约130场武装冲突正在进行，是2009年的两倍多。困扰我们的挑战中，越来越多的问题具有国际性，需要多边解决方案，然而大国却在边缘化联合国，使其比以往更加无能。
All this underscores a tragedy of our era: Some 130 armed conflicts are underway around the globe, more than double the number in 2009, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a growing share of the challenges afflicting us are international and require multilateral solutions, yet the major powers are marginalizing the United Nations and rendering it even less effective than usual.
燃油价格飙升。特朗普发起的伊朗战争已蔓延至也门和红海。俄罗斯正在欧洲进行所谓的“灰色地带”攻击。与中国在台湾或南海问题上爆发战争的风险依然存在。毒品、流行病、人工智能、计算机黑客攻击、恐怖主义、人口贩卖、气候变化，以及乌克兰、苏丹和加沙战争造成的伤亡，还有索马里迫在眉睫的饥荒——所有这些挑战都需要合作应对，而联合国显然是制定这些对策的论坛。然而，对于其中许多问题，联合国正变得几乎无关紧要。
Fuel prices are surging. Trump’s Iran war has spread to Yemen and the Red Sea. Russia is engaging in so-called gray-zone attacks in Europe. There is a risk of war with China over Taiwan or the South China Sea. Drugs, epidemics, artificial intelligence, computer hacking, terrorism, human trafficking, climate change, the toll of war in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza, looming famine in Somalia — all these challenges demand cooperative responses, and the United Nations is an obvious forum to develop them. Yet for many of these problems, the United Nations is becoming almost irrelevant.
特朗普去年嘲讽联合国充斥着“空话”，他确实说中了一点。联合国是一座胆怯的巴别塔，在解决冲突方面，它发出的文件比实际行动更有效；参加联合国会议简直就是一场噩梦。
Trump last year derided the United Nations as full of “empty words,” and he had a point. The United Nations is a timid Tower of Babel that is more effective at issuing paper than at solving conflicts; hell is a U.N. meeting.
多年来，我无数次因联合国的官僚主义而感到沮丧，恨不得撞墙。2009年，当我与乔治·克鲁尼一同报道达尔富尔种族灭绝事件时，联合国撤走了我们的安保人员，生怕与克鲁尼可能对苏丹实施种族灭绝行为提出的任何批评产生关联。当波斯尼亚人、卢旺达人以及雅兹迪人遭到屠杀时，联合国却犹豫不决。
Many times over the years I’ve wanted to beat my head against the wall in frustration with U.N. bureaucracy. In 2009, when I was covering the Darfur genocide with George Clooney, the U.N. pulled our security escort, for fear of being associated with any criticism that Clooney might make of Sudan for committing genocide. When Bosnians, Rwandans and Yazidis were slaughtered, the United Nations dithered.