If I could redesign the UN from scratch it would function like a very large secretariat. There’d be a board of directors elected by member countries in proportion to their contributions. The board of directors would be the Security Council. It would have a professional manager whose main job would be to let contracts to build comms and logistical infrastructure.

The UN would consist of a secure, high-bandwidth real time video conferencing system linking all the capitals of the world together. The professional UN staff would prepare plans, like the military prepares for contingencies. They should have a contingency op for every conceivable disaster, uprising or refugee flow on the planet, plus a database of NGOs, contractors, etc. Any time Burma sinks or a genocide threatens in Africa, the UN should dust off their latest plan and it should all be laid out as an options plan for approval by the Board. Smaller discretionary operations can be left to the professional manager.

Such a UN shouldn’t have any more than 2,000 employees max. All the rest can be performed by contractors, NGOs, or sovereign countries. The Secretary General should have no independent diplomatic authority. His job is to keep the comms and logistical system ready so that member countries will always have high quality plans and staff work to go on. Secretaries General should never be recruited from foreign ministries but from the ranks of the CEOs of large companies or executive organizations. Former presidents, governors of big states, city mayors, etc should be the only public servants who might qualify.

And that’s it. Why do we need more?