By Swift Correspondent
New York — In a blistering final address to the United Nations General Assembly, outgoing Secretary-General António Guterres issued a stark challenge to global superpowers highly targeting USA President Donald Trump, warning that military might and economic dominance alone can no longer guarantee security or resolve the world’s multiplying crises.
Addressing world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters in New York, the 77-year-old Portuguese diplomat declared that humanity stands at a critical juncture, cautioning that the ultimate test of authority lies not in subjugation, but in shared responsibility.
“The greatest power is not the power to dominate,” Guterres told the assembly. “It’s the power to build a future that works for everyone. This is the challenge before this General Assembly, the United Nations, and humanity itself.”
Reflecting on his decade-long tenure at the helm of the world body, Guterres offered an uncompromising assessment of a global system straining under unprecedented pressures. Over the past ten years, he noted, global fractures have widened into dangerous chasms as international law and humanitarian principles have repeatedly been pushed aside.
“Wars erupted with devastating consequences and dragged on with despicable cruelty,” Guterres said. “Civilians were targeted. Human rights trampled. Hunger weaponised. Humanitarians killed. International law cast aside.”
The outgoing UN chief highlighted a convergence of compounding threats:
- Deepening Geopolitical Divides: Widening hostility between major powers that threatens to divide the world into two rival economic and security blocs.
- Escalating Climate Emergency: Climate impacts shifting from long-term warnings into daily realities, compounded by extreme weather events.
- Unchecked Technological Shifts: Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons that risk outpacing government governance.
In a direct critique of global power dynamics, Guterres noted that traditional superpowers no longer possess the unilateral ability to command global stability. “Superpowers need a recognition that their power isn’t so super,” he urged. “Their power has limits… Military power alone cannot secure peace. Economic power alone cannot command stability.”
Without singling out individual states by name, Guterres took aim at the devastating human toll of ongoing global conflicts, pointing to the immense suffering in Gaza and the West Bank following the October 2023 violence, as well as the widespread destruction in Ukraine caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion.
He reserved particularly sharp criticism for major energy corporations, accusing fossil fuel giants of “treating the atmosphere as an open sewer” while generating roughly half a trillion dollars in profits since the invasion of Ukraine—dwarfing the adaptation funds available to vulnerable developing nations.
Furthermore, Guterres reiterated his call for structural reform within the UN itself, labeling the ongoing exclusion of permanent African representation on the UN Security Council as an indefensible injustice inherited from a bygone geopolitical era.
Despite his sober diagnostic of world affairs, the Secretary-General closed his ten-year tenure with a message of resolute hope and tangible progress. Defending the vital necessity of multilateral institution-building, Guterres pointed to internal structural breakthroughs as proof that systemic reform is achievable.
For the first time in the history of the United Nations, the organization achieved full gender parity across all senior leadership positions, headquarters, and professional staff.
“Equality is not a dream. It is a decision,” Guterres emphasized. “If the UN can change, so can businesses, parliaments, governments, peace processes.”
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