I FAIL TO SEE THE PROBLEM.

Common Dreams offers a post by a group of gerontocrats who style themselves "the elders."  They give a post a title that ... suggests a desirable outcome.  "Failures of World Leaders Risk Collapse of International Order."

It's written by a collection of the usual suspects, bureaucrats with the United Nations, socialist politicians, you know, the kind of people who converted those international institutions into nests of grifters.  And yet, they despair of that "international order" coming undone.

The world stands on the edge of a precipice. The foundations of international law and multilateral cooperation are at serious risk of collapse due to cumulative failures of political leadership. We face the most perilous moment since the Second World War.

The United Nations and other institutions created to promote the stability and accountability that come through the rule of law are under attack. The growing climate of impunity for states and leaders, who show no respect for the principles on which they were founded, may take us to a point of no return.

The principles of the UN Charter risk being subsumed by aggressive nationalism and great power rivalry. This is not in any state’s long-term interest, given the existential threats to humanity that can only be tackled by global cooperation within a framework of agreed rules.

The existence of a Security Council with permanent members holding veto powers suggests there is a great power rivalry written right into the Charter.  And what have those principles done for us lately?

Double standards allow autocrats to frame the universal values of human rights and international law enshrined in the UN Charter as Western constructs. They are not. They serve the interests of every country.

The crumbling of the international order can be seen in the proliferation of conflicts, neglected by the world’s leaders and media, affecting 2 billion people in countries including Myanmar, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti.

The failure last week to agree a new pandemics treaty for approval by the World Health Assembly is another example of weak leadership. Scientists are clear that we risk another lethal pandemic. The world has not learned the lessons from COVID-19. We urgently need leaders to engage directly to secure a global agreement to prepare for, prevent and respond to such pandemics, so the world can cope better next time.

With vital negotiations approaching on the future of the world’s climate and biodiversity, countries must have confidence that when they make agreements with each other, those commitments will be implemented.

Now is the time for leaders to be honest with their people. The unpredictability and instability that comes when the rule of law is not guaranteed threatens the security of all countries. In a year of multiple elections, citizens also have a responsibility to cast their vote wisely, choosing leaders who take a longer view of protecting their interests, and rejecting populists who exploit fears and foster division for short-term gain.

Funny, isn't it, what deconstruction gets you?  Didn't I tell you?  "Where there are no ideas, there well might be strongmen."  For all I know, several billions of the world's people have been involved in what the Serious Thinkers used to call "brush fire wars" since the end of the War, since the end of Marxism-Leninism, since the end of history.  That the Boutros-Boutros bureaucrats of the World Health Organization made a hash out of the world's response to what a lot of people believe, in the absence of definitive evidence to the contrary, was a virus engineered by ... people involved in the international institutions.  That citizens show an interest in turfing out precisely those advocates of the "international institutions" might be evidence that the best way to protect their interests, long term, is to chasten their supposed betters.  "Thanks to the lockdowns and the urban carnage, the correlation of forces is currently more favorable to the populists than to the technocrats."  Scolding the Militant Normals isn't going to chivvy them back into line.

The international gerontocrats, however, have learned nothing.  "To step back from the precipice we are at, those in positions of power must show long-view leadership to build a better world for current and future generations. But time is running out to strengthen the institutions that make possible the collaboration needed to do so."  Any time you see "leadership to build a better world" look for the mailed fist, and the policy failures to follow.