ABSTRACT
In foreign affairs, President Barack Obama was a present-day pragmatist who remained optimistic about the course of global history. In his 2009 Nobel lecture, he opined, “Let us focus on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions.” This sentiment underpinned his relations with the United Nations. He would disappoint liberal internationalists who expected his administration to “return” to the UN-friendly policies of the 1990s that placed the institution at the center of America’s desire to enhance the global liberal order and eschew President Bush’s unilateralism and distaste for UN engagement. Except in the cases of restraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and addressing climate change, the president’s foreign initiatives, while multilateral in nature, largely sidestepped UN involvement, whether it was in ending two wars, confronting ISIS, or addressing the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. During his second term, the UN Security Council became a place of confrontation between the United States and Russia over the conflict areas of Ukraine, Libya, and Syria.
