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

may I

I was going to go to you, Rajan, actually.

With all due

want to move forward to look at some of the things that I want to

uh look at the are not theoretical problems but they're the problems of the present day and to ask certain kinds of challenges that exist today that did not exist certainly 76 years ago uh when the organization was set up and when france for example was established as a member permanent member of the security council uh and india was not which shows the passage of time um but cyber war cyber war is because it was not even on the radar at the time and i'll throw this question out generally

whoever wants to take it first, but is the United Nations an organization that is well suited to helping the world deal with and control the dangers of cyber warfare?

So in a way, you're saying the well is poisoned completely on that one.

I want to let Angela take on that question.

Finally, there was one more point I wanted to bring up that actually, Niall, you brought up.

It's the fact that China sits on the Security Council as a permanent member with a veto.

And, you know, we're in a period of time when China is, you know, so to speak, getting kind of hegemonic these days.

Its ambitions are growing and it's acting on those ambitions.

It's causing concern among some of its neighbors.

It certainly is causing concern in Washington.

If China became a threat of any kind, and one might also argue that it's already a threat to certain members of its own population, is the United Nations in a position to do anything about that?

Is the United Nations, in fact, doing anything about that given the fact that China is a member with enormous influence?

I'd like to throw that to whoever would like to take that on.

but would you would you have would you have said in in the 1950s that the un was obsolete in the 1950s because the soviet union had a seat on the security council

We have 30 seconds left to this section, and I want to give it to Niall.

Niall, you get the last word in this

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