UN General Assembly 2025 — An age of “reckless disruption” and the battle for the rules-based order

By Ephraim Agbo 

The 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly opened in New York under an unusually stark atmosphere. Secretary-General António Guterres used his opening “state of the world” address to issue what amounted to an emergency wake-up call: the multilateral project that has underpinned the post-war international order is under pressure from impunity, inequality and a creeping indifference that is translating into human catastrophe. Guterres’s language was blunt and cinematic — “an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering” — and he urged member states to return to the founding principles of the UN: peace, cooperation and the rule of law.

That reprimand set the tone for an Assembly that quickly split into competing narratives. From one vantage, leaders gathered to defend the idea of collective security and humanitarian law; from another, some of the most prominent speakers used the platform to argue that multilateral institutions have become inefficient, ossified or even hostile to national sovereignty. The competing frames were not merely rhetorical — they map onto real geopolitical shifts now playing out across Ukraine, Gaza, and the wider Middle East.

Enter President Donald Trump. In a high-profile address that followed, Trump leaned hard into the line that global institutions have failed ordinary citizens and that nation-states must assert control — particularly over migration and borders — to protect their people. He framed his administration’s foreign policy as proof that unilateral action and bilateral deals deliver results, even claiming a record of ending multiple conflicts. His message was at once a personal vindication and a direct challenge to the UN’s capacity to adjudicate or mediate in major disputes.

The UN platform this year has been dominated by the Israel-Palestine crisis. In a geopolitical jolt, several major Western governments have moved to formally recognize a Palestinian state — a cascade that includes countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and a clutch of smaller EU states. That shift reflects a broader international impatience with the stalemate and the humanitarian toll in Gaza; advocates of recognition argue it preserves the political space for a two-state solution, while opponents say it risks rewarding armed groups and preempting negotiated outcomes. The diplomatic ripple effects are immediate: recognition has provoked strong pushback from Israel and complicated the United States’ position as broker.

Against this backdrop, Trump has been using the Assembly’s sidelines to court Arab and Muslim leaders with new proposals for Gaza’s post-war future. U.S. officials and regional sources say the proposals — which are intended to define post-conflict governance, the fate of Hamas, and conditions for Israeli withdrawal — are contingent on obtaining Arab contributions of manpower and money. The stated aim: craft a post-war security and administrative arrangement that excludes Hamas and creates a pathway for reconstruction. Whether such a plan can win acceptance across the fractured Palestinian political scene and among skeptical Arab capitals remains an open question.

Those Arab capitals are watching closely — and warily. Gulf states and others that normalized ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords have made clear that unilateral Israeli moves to annex parts of the West Bank would be a red line. Abu Dhabi in particular has warned that annexation would undermine the spirit of normalization and could unravel the diplomatic payoffs that governments in the region and in Washington have invested in. That warning is more than rhetorical: it ties together regional security, economic integration, and the fragile political bargains that Trump himself points to as foreign-policy wins.

What to read between the lines

1. An institutional crossroads. Guterres’s charge and the reactions from powerful member states make this Assembly less a ritualized diplomacy show and more a referendum on whether the UN can still shape outcomes in acute crises. The question is not only moral but practical: can the UN marshal the political will, peacekeeping resources and legal authority necessary to stabilize places like Gaza and protect civilians? If not, members will continue to improvise with bilateral and regional instruments — and the patchwork will produce gaps.

2. Recognition as leverage. The wave of recognitions is tactical as much as symbolic. For many governments, recognition is a lever intended to reset negotiations and create diplomatic pressure on Israel to change course; for others, it is a reflection of domestic political pressures and humanitarian outrage. But recognition alone cannot restore what decades of negotiation and trust have eroded; it may instead harden positions in the short term.

3. A U.S. pivot toward transactional diplomacy. Trump’s approach is unapologetically transactional: bilateral bargains, security guarantees in exchange for concessions, and plans for post-war governance that rely on coalition partners. That may produce quick deals, but it risks excluding key stakeholders (notably Palestinian governance actors) and undermining long-term legitimacy unless broad buy-in is achieved.

4. The fragility of regional architectures. The Abraham Accords showed that geopolitical normalization is possible — but also fragile. Warnings from the UAE and Saudi signals that regional integration can unravel quickly if core Palestinian issues are sidelined or if annexation occurs. The accords’ survival now depends on whether leaders can square between normalization gains and domestic and regional political red lines.

What to watch this week

• UN General Assembly 2025 — An age of “reckless disruption” and the battle for the rules-based order meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders: any joint communiqué, concrete funding pledges, or troop-contribution offers would be signals that a working post-war plan is taking shape.
• Reactions in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: whether the Israeli government publicly responds by threatening annexation, pivoting toward a different security plan, or seeking damage control with Gulf partners.
• Follow-through on recognition: which additional states move to recognize Palestine and whether recognition leads to tangible shifts in diplomatic leverage at the UN and beyond.

Bottom line

This General Assembly is not only the UN’s 80th birthday — it is an inflection point. Guterres’s alarm and the competing counter-narratives from powerful capitals expose an international system trying to reconcile multilateral norms with resurgent nationalism, asymmetric warfare and mass suffering. Whether the Assembly produces pragmatic, inclusive pathways out of crisis — or merely hardens new divides — will matter for the stability of the region and for the credibility of the institutions designed to prevent the very disorder Guterres described.