By M Muneer, Fortune-500 advisor, start-up investor, and co-founder of Medici Institute for Innovation X: @MuneerMuh
Questions are once again swirling about the relevance of the United Nations as the world watches yet another war unfold with impressive indifference to diplomatic efforts. As the Iran attacks continue for the third week, critics argue that the conflict—widely described in some circles as illegal and unfair—has left the UN helpless and ineffective.
Social media has filled the analytical vacuum with its usual mix of geopolitical insight and conspiracy theory. Some speculate that the war conveniently diverts attention from lingering scandals tied to Jeffrey Epstein. Others propose darker scenarios involving strategic leverage, diplomatic blackmail, or mysterious dossiers that allegedly make a certain global leader unusually cooperative.
And what has the UN done? It has convened meetings. It has expressed grave concern. It has issued statements urging restraint.
To be fair, this is not entirely surprising. The UN was designed to prevent global conflict through diplomacy and collective pressure, but it has always struggled when major powers decide to ignore polite multilateral disapproval. When the permanent members of the Security Council themselves take sides—or hold veto power—the organisation’s ability to enforce peace is minimal.
Which raises an impolite but increasingly popular question: if the UN cannot meaningfully stop wars involving powerful nations, what exactly is the world buying with its annual membership fee?
The UN’s regular annual budget for 2026 is about $3.45 billion, covering its core activities such as diplomacy, human rights work, and development coordination. Add to that the peacekeeping budget of roughly $5.38 billion, which funds around 70,000 military, police, and civilian personnel deployed across conflict zones worldwide. Together, the world spends roughly $8-9 billion annually to run the central machinery of the UN.
In global finance terms, this is pocket change. It is less than half a percent of the world’s military spending, which runs into trillions annually.
If the world were to dismantle the UN, how may they utilise this $9 billion for humanity welfare? Here are some options:
The global mosquito eradication project: Consider malaria. Insecticide-treated mosquito nets cost roughly $2-5 each depending on scale and procurement. With $9 billion, the world could buy over a billion nets annually. Imagine the headline: “Global malaria declines dramatically after world replaces diplomatic speeches with mosquito nets.”
Instead of ambassadors explaining “grave concern”, humanity could simply stop mosquitoes from spreading malaria.
The world’s largest classroom construction programme: Education economists estimate that building a basic classroom in many developing regions costs $50,000-200,000 depending on location and material. At the lower end of that range, the funds could finance around 180,000 classrooms every year. That is roughly equivalent to building a medium-sized country’s school infrastructure annually.
Of course, classrooms do not generate press conferences, emergency summits, or diplomatic communiqués. So there is a risk the world might actually get something done.
The global drinking water blitz: According to development organisations, providing basic clean-water systems in rural communities can cost $20-50 per person. Funds worth $9 billion could help hundreds of millions of people every year.
It would be the first international programme where the outcome is refreshingly clear: people drink water instead of reading resolutions about water.
A universal coffee fund for diplomats: Assuming a modest $2 per cup of coffee, the UN’s annual budget could buy 4.5 billion cups of premium coffee. This would allow diplomats to remain awake during negotiations long enough to notice that wars are happening outside the conference room.
It might even reduce speeches by 40%, which alone would qualify as a major breakthrough in international relations.
The politician silence initiative: Perhaps the boldest idea would be to create a global incentive scheme where politicians are paid to talk less. Offer $10 million per year to any political leader who agrees not to deliver grand speeches about global peace unless they can actually enforce it.
With $9 billion, humanity could silence 900 politicians annually. Historians might call it the most effective peacekeeping initiative in history.
But here’s the irritating reality. For all its inefficiencies and theatrical diplomacy, the UN still performs functions that no other institution reliably provides. Its peacekeeping missions, though imperfect, deploy tens of thousands of personnel to stabilise fragile regions, monitor ceasefires, and protect civilians in conflict zones. And for roughly $5-6 billion a year, those missions operate at a fraction of the cost of national military deployments.
The UN is also the only forum where 193 countries regularly meet to negotiate global norms on everything from climate to nuclear proliferation. Yes, it is slow, spectacularly bureaucratic, and sometimes totally powerless as we see it now.
But dismantling it would not eliminate global conflict. It would simply remove the one place where adversaries still sit at the same table before walking out to continue arguing elsewhere.
The uncomfortable truth is that the UN is less a world government than a world conversation, and conversations are messy. The organisation cannot stop wars because its members are the very countries fighting them. Expecting it to enforce peace is a little like expecting a neighborhood association to stop a bar fight involving its own committee members.
Still, for about $9 billion annually, the world buys a permanent venue for diplomacy, humanitarian coordination, and crisis response. That may not sound glamorous. But compared with the trillions spent on war, it might be the cheapest insurance policy humanity has ever purchased.
Which means dismantling the UN would certainly free up billions for mosquito nets, classrooms, and coffee. The only catch is that the next war might cost a few trillion more.