John Donvan

speaker

2,077 appearances 13 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 18 Sep

John Donvan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 13 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 6.

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Open to Debate · Is the United Nations Obsolete? (Encore) · 18 Sep 2026 podcast

On the other side, the team that's arguing in support of the United Nations is not saying that the organization is perfect, concedes that it does some things poorly, but fundamentally says that it has done more good than harm.

and has an indispensable role in the world.

And it's that indispensable role question I want to take first as a question to you, Rajan.

We heard Mahmoud make the case, basically he's saying that if there were not a United Nations, we would have to invent one.

And Angela made the same point, that individual states, even clusters of states, are incapable of bringing the sort of force and power and organization to certain kinds of challenges

that face the world today.

And so I want you to respond to that sort of more philosophical part of the discussion before we get into the details of the organization as it exists now.

Do you agree with them that we do need a global UN-like type of organization?

peacekeeping approach.

Can you take a moment to remind people what happened in Srebrenica?

incident.

Because the Dutch contingent did not defend them.

The

are totally overloaded.

Let Niall jump in there.

I think we were coming in.

Well, let me jump in, Niles, because you and Rajan have both been making the point that these spectacular failures, which I think your opponents concede happened and were failures and were spectacular, are damaging to the organization's reputation.

But I want to bring Mahmoud into the conversation as well to respond to some of

some of what you're hearing, and what would your pushback be?

Because I heard you in your opening, Mahmoud, saying that what the organization needs is reform, which would imply that you believe that it is reformable, so that you do not see these failures as fatal to the operation of the organization's mission or reputation.

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