UN Chief to Superpowers: Era of Absolute Dominance Has Ended

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the world’s biggest powers are misjudging the extent of their influence, arguing that recent conflicts have exposed growing constraints on their ability to dictate outcomes.

“I think it’s time for superpowers to understand the limits of their power,” Guterres told the Financial Times.

He pointed to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the U.S. confrontation with Iran as examples of a broader shift in the international system.

“Superpowers need to understand that things have changed,” he said.

Power No Longer Guarantees Outcomes

Guterres argued that military, political or economic strength no longer gives major powers the degree of control they may assume they possess.

In several recent cases, he said, powerful states had sought specific outcomes but had ultimately failed to achieve them.

“So many that think they are powerful, and that they can achieve certain objectives, in the end are not able to do so, and they fail,” Guterres said.

Their actual influence, he added, was now considerably below their own perception of it.

“Today, their weight is much smaller than the power they think they have.”

Global Weight is Shifting

The UN chief framed that gap as part of a wider redistribution of international influence.

The relative importance of individual countries has changed, he said, with consequences for how states exercise and negotiate power.

For Guterres, that shift means existing international structures cannot remain insulated from changes in the balance of power.

Security Council Under Pressure to Adapt

Guterres singled out the UN Security Council as an institution whose composition no longer reflects the world it is intended to represent.

He noted that three of its five permanent members are European if Russia is counted as a European state, while Africa and Latin America have no permanent representation.

Asia, meanwhile, has one permanent member.

“Europe is not three-fifths of the world,” Guterres said.

He argued that demographic and geopolitical realities would eventually force institutional change, regardless of resistance from existing powers.

The Security Council, he said, would “inevitably” have to adapt as realities on the ground increasingly diverged from the distribution of permanent seats.

Guterres Rejects Bias on Palestine-Israel

Guterres also rejected accusations of bias over his position on Palestine and Israel, saying the UN had defended the conditions necessary for a lasting settlement.

“I totally refuse the idea of bias. On the contrary, I think we have been on the right side of history,” he said.

He argued that neither population could eliminate the other and that coexistence required efforts toward reconciliation.