U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Andrew Cheatham is the senior advisor for global strategy and disruptive technologies for the USIP, and he joins us this morning. Andrew, good morning. How are you?

Andrew Cheatham: I'm great. Good morning. Laura, how are you?

Laura Coates: I'm doing well. So if anyone was trying to get into a hotel in New York City this week and wondered why the prices were skyrocketing, I mean, asking for a friend, you'll recall that it's now the U.N. General Assembly, the 79th one as well. What's going on now, and what are the types of things they're going to be confronting?

Andrew Cheatham: Well, there's a lot going on besides the bad traffic and all of the problems on the East Side of Manhattan. But we're looking at again, I think this is probably the third or fourth year where they're really trying to raise alarm bells for all the impending crises. We know, we see all these wars all over the world, but people are also confused about AI and new technologies. Also, climate change is still a big problem. I mean, there's these existential risks that the secretary general of the United Nations, and, you know, leaders all around are talking about, and they're going to continue talking about that. Yesterday, they had a big breakthrough in the Summit for the Future, which is running alongside the opening of the General Assembly. They signed the Pact for the Future and its agreements, all by consensus despite some problems from Iran, Russia and North Korea.

Laura Coates: And in terms of the, I mean, first of all, what is expected, for those who might not know, at this General Assembly? In the meeting, what is supposed to take place? What are the expectations?

Andrew Cheatham: Well, the launch last week, and then this week we will have the general debate with all the leaders using the bully pulpit. You know, you have 193 member states getting up there for their chance to address the world and talk about their issues. We will no doubt hear a lot about the ongoing wars in Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, as you mentioned before, they have wars raging in Sudan and across the African continent. That will be heavy on the on the list. But they will also be talking about the need for change inside the U.N. organization itself, especially the Security Council, and that was a big part of this Pact for the Future, a commitment to reform the Security Council. The Secretary General, António Guterres, was on CNN yesterday with Fareed Zakaria. He was talking about how the Security Council reform has been talked about for years and years, but now they have the most serious momentum on really expanding it to include African states, other developing nations, changing the veto power. This will really reform global governance as we know it. So that's a big, big deal.

Laura Coates: You know, we've been seeing, you know, this idea of multilateral cooperation being at risk. That's a concern, that you got a rise of isolationism, regionalism as well. What is that doing to sort of cooperation required for stability?

Andrew Cheatham: I think we have two things sort of happening at the same time that are leading to this problem. We have a growing sort of, well, we have the rise of authoritarian states. And within those authoritarian states we see all over the world, like Russia's Putin and others all over, democracy is eroding, and that means the rule of law is eroding, both at the national level and the international level. So these rules that the institutions you're talking about, the multilateral institutions, are made up of, they're not being respected. So there's a growing cynicism and a lack of participation in the system. At the same time, some Western countries, you know, including probably our own, are growing more insular, looking more at our internal issues and less at these global issues, not seeing the issues that we face, as far as the economy that we're all worried about, climate, wars, national security, these are really global issues. We have to have strong multilateral systems to address them. But the problem is, and the secretary general was talking about this and many leaders, these systems are basically 80 years old. The U.N. and it's Bretton Woods economic systems that were made after World War II, they're just not fit for purpose anymore. They need reform. They need new leadership from youth and other countries, but they also need reinvigoration of just what they're all about. They didn't envision AI and they didn't envision us moving around the world at the pace we do, the global economy being the way it is, trillion-dollar multinational companies. It just was not in the cards in 1945.

Laura Coates: Given that with emerging technologies and AI, as you've mentioned, or biotechnology, etc., you know, these have all fundamentally reshaped our society. And we know here domestically, Congress is having a difficult time either keeping pace with or trying to get ahead of the technologies to be able to regulate it appropriately in a way that works the balance of innovation and also protecting different freedoms. How can the U.N. adapt?

Andrew Cheatham: Well, yesterday was a big, huge step. The global digital compact, which was part of this Pact of the Future, is the first global agreement regulating artificial intelligence and ensuring technology benefits for everyone. At USIP, we really look at two sides of this disruptive technology coin. One is the threats that you, that we, talk about from artificial intelligence: everything from people losing their jobs to the disinformation, misinformation we see every day. But also, there are beautiful things, I guess, wonderful things that we hope to have from artificial intelligence and new technologies in public health and education, so ensuring that those benefits go to all countries around the world. The U.N. can help do both of those things. It can both have agreements that set the rules of the road that the world agrees on for artificial intelligence, new weapons, technologies, cybersecurity, all these things that are moving at just an exponential pace. It can set the rules of the road that we all agree on. The U.N. has done that for years on disarmament, you know, nuclear warfare, rule of law, atrocities. So it's just another set of norms and values that the world agrees on. And then at the same time, it can also promote investment and equity around the world for the development of the technology to benefit everyone all over, because there is hope for great things from new technologies to reach people, especially I think in the fields of education and healthcare.

Laura Coates: That's important to think about, the way in which we have to be nimble, and yet we're talking about all the different nations coming together to try to do something collective and in common. There's also the notion of security, and there has been a dramatic shift in the distribution of power. One of the phrases I often hear is we now live in a multipolar world. What does that mean in terms of what the U.N. Security Council could be doing?

Andrew Cheatham: Yeah, Laura. I think last year, last time I was on here with you, we were talking about this multipolar world. This is a word I like to deploy all the time. We often look at the news and we look at this rivalry between the U.S. and China, U.S. and Russia, this great power rivalry. We might miss that there are countries, other countries, all over the world growing up in power. The share of power, and I mean economically and geopolitically, is just being redistributed all over. So you have powerful countries like India, Turkey, the Gulf states, you have Iran, which is our adversary, growing in power vis-à-vis its alliances. So we just don't have the same old day where it was the U.S. and the Soviet Union, then it was sort of the U.S. alone, and then U.S. and China. Now it's just multiple countries with different shares of power, strategically, economically, and then the private sector. The private sector, like I said, there's trillion-dollar companies that have a say in the world and its affairs. So there needs to be a rethinking of how the structure within the U.N., and maybe outside the U.N. in other multilateral fora, come and make decisions. First you have to consult. There will be varying opinions, but at the end of the day, you have to find a way forward. This Pact for the Future that was recently negotiated, that probably might go unheard of in most of the media, is a good step forward, because 193 countries agreed on big, big things in sustainable development, in new technology, in peace and security and global governance and the role of youth, which is really, really important. So consensus can be had. It can be done. We just have to dial down the cynicism, take things seriously. The world has to be properly afraid, I think, of what could happen if we don't do it.

Laura Coates: And what about the future? I mean, the youth. There's youth leadership and action taking place as well, right?

Andrew Cheatham: Absolutely. Today and tomorrow, there are these youth action days at the U.N. General Assembly. So aside from all the leaders speaking on the pulpit, you have all these side events. And one of the major side events for this Summit of the Future and thoughts for the future is this youth action days. And they will have two days of action where youth look at how there can be leadership from youth, investment in youth, especially in developing countries, on issues like new technology, like climate change, which will be for the youth to deal with, for the most part and future generations. And then they will also look specifically at how youth can be in leadership, both in countries where they live, but also inside the U.N. The U.N. has created several positions and offices that are specifically for championing youth. And I think we see this every day at USIP. Only the youth, people much younger than myself, really understand the world that we live in with the phone attached to us all the time, the way that the economy and the new media system works. I mean, you just have to talk to a young person for a few minutes, and they live in a different world.

Laura Coates: Yeah.

Andrew Cheatham: So they need to be at the table, they really need to be at the table as we seek to chart out a path to hedge away from any of these threats that these things might have.

Laura Coates: Andrew Cheatham, senior advisor for global strategy and disruptive technologies at USIP, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Laura Coates: Thank you, Laura. It's always great to be with you.