Studies of Diplomacy at Opposite Ends of the Scale

The Irrawaddy

Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s
by Thant Myint-U
Atlantic Books, London, 2025
368 pp. £22

Putin’s Russia and Southeast Asia: The Kremlin’s Pivot to Asia and the Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War
by Ian Storey
ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, 2025
502 pp. S$50

There was a time when the United Nations actually mattered and had not been stifled by a slow-moving, cumbersome bureaucracy and the incompetence of overpaid people working for an alphabet soup of ineffective agencies, and before it was rocked by scandals such as large-scale sexual abuse of children perpetrated by peacekeepers in African conflict zones. Established in 1945 to prevent another world war, promote and protect human rights, and help with the economic and social development of poorer nations, the UN saw its golden era in the 1950s and 1960s, headed by Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish economist and diplomat, and U Thant, a former Burmese schoolmaster born in Pantanaw in the Irrawaddy delta region.

The UN’s first secretary-general, the Norwegian politician and labor leader Trygve Lie, had to resign in 1952 because of Soviet opposition to his and the UN’s support for the American-led side in the Korean War. His successor Hammarskjöld presided over the UN’s first peacekeeping missions, to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Israel in 1956-57, and efforts to bring the civil war in the Congo to an end. He died in a plane crash in September 1961 on his way to the Congo to negotiate a ceasefire between UN peacekeepers and forces that had declared independence for the Congolese state of Katanga. The circumstances of the crash are still shrouded in mystery and have given rise to various conspiracy theories, but it is clear that Hammarskjöld was a proponent of the rights of the then newly independent countries, primarily in Africa, and in that capacity had stood up to major colonial powers. He also strengthened the UN internally and is remembered for saying that the world body “was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”

He was succeeded by U Thant, who was as well-respected and influential as his predecessor. Andrew Keen, a British-American author who has also reviewed this recently published book by U Thant’s grandson Thant Myint-U, wrote that this was a time when the UN secretary-general, “could summon presidents at will, mediate between nuclear superpowers, and command respect from [Cuban communist leader] Castro to [U.S. President] Kennedy.”

Thant Myint-U outlines how his maternal grandfather took over Hammarskjöld’s role as a peacemaker in the Congo and then handled—largely unnoticed and behind the scenes—the 1962 missile crisis, when the Soviets had deployed nuclear devices on Cuba, only 150 km off the southern coast of the U.S. U Thant worked tirelessly to defuse the 13-day standoff that brought the two superpowers to the brink of what could have become a full-scale nuclear war.

He was also involved in trying to find a solution to the war in Vietnam, the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, and the wars between Israel and the Arab states.

Many unsolved problems remained when he retired. In the breakaway Nigerian region of Biafra as well as newly independent Bangladesh, Thant Myint-U writes, “immense suffering had occurred without anything like the needed relief and intervention from the outside world.” But “from a different vantage point, the United Nations was an extraordinary success. It had become the first truly universal association in human history, with a membership spanning the Earth.” And when U Thant retired in December 1971, people as different as Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York, and the former Beatle John Lennon gathered at the city’s Pierre Hotel to honor a man who had fought for peace, justice, and human rights for all.

U Thant died in New York on Nov. 25, 1974, and family and friends arranged for his body to be repatriated to Burma. “In Rangoon,” Thant Myint-U writes, “there was no official reception by the ruling military regime. Instead, thousands of ordinary men and women, in sarongs [longyis] and leather slippers lined the nine-mile route from the airport to an abandoned racetrack, where the coffin was housed within a large makeshift tent.” There, thousands more came to pay their respects to their compatriot who had done so much for world peace and also put their country on the world map.

It was clear that General Ne Win’s military government was not going to give U Thant the state funeral he deserved, so, according to Thant Myint-U, a group of “students and Buddhist monks snatched the casket containing U Thant’s body.” They took it to the campus of Rangoon University “and declared their intention to build a proper mausoleum for the man they called a national hero.” The military responded in the way it always has done to manifestations which could be perceived as hostile to it: “bayonet-wielding troops stormed the campus, killing an unknown number of protesters, and seized the casket.” Days of bloody rioting followed, though a small mausoleum was later built around the burial site, “which for decades remained virtually neglected, green snakes slithering in the tall grass, ordinary people fearing that any association with the former UN secretary-general might incur the ire of the ruling generals.” The events of December 1974 have been documented in Death of a Hero: The U Thant Disturbances in Burma, December 1974, a 32-page academic paper by Australian scholar Andrew Selth.

Before Thant Myint-U wrote his detailed, 368-page volume, only two books had been dedicated to the life and work of U Thant, the humble schoolmaster from Pantanaw who became a world leader. The first, U Thant of Burma: The Search for Peace, was written by the American author and playwright June Bingham and published in 1966, when U Thant was still in office. The other, U Thant in New York 1961-1971: A Portrait of the Third UN Secretary-General by Ramses Nassif, an Egyptian who served as U Thant’s spokesman, was published in 1988. But Thant Myint-U’s book is a much better read, personal as well as informative, and contains unique information drawn from recently declassified documents as well as family archives. It is bound to become a classic among studies about the strength and weaknesses of the UN.

The UN has not been the same since. His successor, the Austrian Kurt Waldheim, remained in the post until 1981 and then, from 1986 to 1992, served as the president of his home country. During the election campaign in 1986, it was revealed that he had lied about his wartime record. When Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, far from being an innocent clerk and interpreter when he was drafted into the German Wehrmacht to serve in the Balkans in World War II, it turned out that he had been an intelligence officer responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews from Greece and Yugoslavia to concentration and death camps. Shortly after this dark past became known, Waldheim was banned from entering the U.S. on suspicion of war crimes, which marked the first time a head of state was put on a U.S. immigration watchlist.

Waldheim was succeeded by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, a Peruvian politician and diplomat described by critics as “consistently unexciting.” His cautious diplomatic style meant that the UN was only peripherally involved in international dramas such as the aftermath of a war between Israel and Lebanon in 1978, the fallout of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Islamic revolution in Iran and the subsequent Iraqi attempt to invade it, Argentina’s invasion of the British-held Falkland Islands, and the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

De Cuellar’s term as secretary-general ended in 1991, and his successor Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian politician and diplomat, was heavily criticized for the UN’s failure to act during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, during which over half a million people were killed.

Next came Kofi Annan from Ghana, who had before he became secretary-general headed the UN’s peacekeeping efforts and then faced criticism for his failure to prevent the Rwandan genocide and the killing of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in in Srebrenica in Yugoslavia. He was later involved with the UN’s oil-for-food-scandal in Iraq, although he was largely exonerated of personal corruption.

During the tenure of Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean who served from 2007 to 2016, it was revealed that UN troops had on a number of occasions abused children during peace missions in Africa. Anders Kompass, the Swedish whistleblower who leaked the information to French authorities, was suspended as the UN launched an investigation into the leak. Frustrated by the lack of action, Kompass resigned from his post as director of field operations at the UN human rights office in Geneva. Equally controversially, Ban congratulated then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his 2009 election victory even though it had been marred by allegations of serious fraud. The protests that followed in Iran led to the death of about 70 demonstrators and the arrest of as many as 4,000. Many in Iran appealed to the UN for help, but Ban refrained from saying anything about the carnage.

Which brings us to Antonio Guterres, the current secretary-general who assumed office in 2017. At least in the beginning, the Portuguese politician was outspoken about the war in Gaza, but international human rights organizations have criticized him for turning a blind eye to China’s ethnic cleansing of ethnic Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Kenneth Roth, then Human Rights Watch chief, stated in 2019 that Guterres “has been notably silent on one of the most important…the most brazen human rights abuses…because he is worried about upsetting the Chinese.”

The UN under Guterres had also failed to have any impact on Ukraine, the most vicious war being fought in Europe since World War II. In Myanmar, Guterres is infamous for saying after the February 2021 coup that the UN would do everything it could to “unite the international community and create conditions for the military coup in Myanmar to be reversed” but doing nothing of the sort. Guterres may well go down in history as the worst and most inefficient secretary-general the UN has ever had.

Thant Myint-U doesn’t dwell on the accomplishments, or lack thereof, of U Thant’s successors. But his focus on the 1960s can and should be compared with what the UN has become since then. The contrasts are striking, which makes this book essential reading for anyone who would like to see a healthier, less corrupt, and more principled UN.

Ian Storey’s book about Russia and Southeast Asia is an entirely different study of international diplomacy—and of a man who could not be more unlike U Thant the peacemaker. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s de facto dictator, is once again turning the Kremlin’s attention to the East.

Storey analyzes Russia’s historical and current relations with all 11 Southeast Asian countries as well as China in a comprehensive manner, and does it in a way no other scholar has before. The emphasis is on developments after the end of the Cold War. The erstwhile Soviet Union is gone, and what remains of it has become a second or even third-rate superpower. But Putin obviously wants to “make Russia great again.” Moscow’s relations with its former close allies Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia may not be the same as before, but some cooperation continues—and Russia has found a new economic and strategic partner in Myanmar.

Storey writes that two events have led to a tightening of relations between Moscow and Naypyitaw: the February 2021 coup in Myanmar, and Russia’s ill-fated attempt to invade Ukraine, which began exactly a year later. In response to both events, Naypyitaw and Moscow “stepped up mutual support and assistance in four areas: diplomatic validation; defense cooperation; energy supply; and economic collaboration.” As soon as the Myanmar military had seized power, “Western countries denounced the coup and imposed sanctions on the [junta],” but Russia seized on it “as an opportunity to promote closer ties,” and Myanmar became the only Southeast Asian country to endorse the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has also become heavily dependent on China, and that reliance on support from its former communist rival has become even stronger after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. Russia may not have regained its Cold War position as a global superpower and now has to be content with playing second fiddle to China on the world stage. But having alienated the West by starting a war in Ukraine, Russia is turning its attention to the East.

Storey concludes that Russia cannot compete economically, politically, or strategically with the U.S. and China, and what gains the Putin regime has made in Southeast Asia are still “limited and undermined by the assault on Ukraine, an act of self-destruction that will cost Russia dearly in the decades to come.” Nevertheless, following years of turmoil at home since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin has stabilized the new Russia. Moscow is back in Southeast Asia, and Storey’s meticulously researched book explains how that has been done, and what it means for the region. His study is a well-written must-read for security planners and general researchers alike.