The end of the Cold War triggered an historic shift in world politics, and nowhere was his more keenly felt than in the United Nations. In New World Disorder, David Hannay – who, as Britain’s ambassador to the UN, sat in the Security Council from the time of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait until the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia – gives a first-hand view of events as they unfolded. Just weeks after George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev’s historic handshake, the UN was being asked to repel the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, to wind up a string of Third World proxy wars, and to find a solution to the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change. At first, the five permanent members of the Security Council worked together to an unprecedented extent, with notable success. But as Hannay shows, little was done to prepare for the problems of state failure – in Somalia, in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and in Afghanistan – which proved beyond the UN’s capacity to handle and which frayed the solidarity of the main powers.

After retiring from diplomatic service, Hannay was appointed by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the UN High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, set up to identify ways of making the UN better equipped to deal with the range of challenges facing humanity. He recounts here with insight and candour why this programme – the most ambitious attempt at reform of the organisation since it was founded in 1945 – came to be derailed.

New World Disorder is an invaluable source of information for anyone seeking to understand the current structures, dynamics and trends of world politics. It is also a compelling account of one of the great turning points in world history, as seen from inside the eye of the storm.