Captain America vs. the UN: what future does the US attack on Iran paint for the world

This weekend, US President Donald Trump's address to the nation resembled the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster. He announced the successful bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities, mentioning that the country must make peace or «new attacks» will follow. Trump loves spectacular phrases and Hollywood samples, but this speech may go down in history as evidence of the turn of international relations to the new rules of the world order.

The reference to Hollywood in this case is almost direct. The world watched in real time what was shown to it in 2022 in the movie Top Gun: Maverick. Of course, the combat operation of U.S. strategic aviation is different from the spectacular takeoffs and landings of fighter jets on the deck of an aircraft carrier, but the general outline of the strikes «without a declaration of war» repeats the intention of the screenwriters of the movie with Tom Cruise in the lead role;

Even more from the movie is how the President of the United States made this decision. The order was given by the head of state, who has the technological capabilities to plan and carry out strikes. Not a single international institute was involved (unless you count the IAEA with radiation measurements). If it were not for the satellite images and uninterrupted information broadcasting, one could imagine that we found ourselves in Marvel comics with Captain America or, on the contrary, in the 19th century, when one of the parties first strikes a problematic overseas territory or an enemy and then informs the city and the world about it;

The bet on speed and technological superiority was made long before 2025: the U.S. revised its approaches to what security means for America and what war looks like in the 21st century immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But at that time, despite the choice in favor of technology, the main formal actor of retaliatory or preventive strikes was a coalition of U.S. and international forces;

And attacks on the territory of other states were formalized on the UN platform (remember frames with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and a white substance in a test tube when discussing the operation in Iraq in 2003) or under the banner of protecting international order (the fight against maritime piracy in 2009 with the participation of NATO members). In June 2025, this coalition could at best include Israel, and it declares only the goal of eliminating the immediate threat: nuclear capabilities.

Looking at everything that is happening, it is very easy to formulate the thesis that the world has returned to the era of the right of the strong. But the real consequences of the June bombings go beyond mere formulas and generalizations.

Since World War II, the entire system of international institutions - from the UN to the International Court of Justice - has stood on the premise that there is a universally recognized system of decision-making (UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, etc.) and an understandable set of sanctions. Simplistically, they can be described as economic sanctions and military operations;

For the last 70 years, relations between states have been regulated on the basis of common rules and recognition of the boundaries of what is permissible: from understanding what counts as aggression and unconventional warfare to questions of human rights and freedoms and their correlation with the powers of the state;

In June 2025, it's not that this system didn't work - no one even formally addressed it.

This was not required, because the contours of a new system for regulating international relations had emerged. They were formed even before the U.S. attack on Iran, but it was against the backdrop of this U.S. operation that its key features became visible.

The first sign is that military capabilities and technological sophistication are back in the forefront of the world. Iran cannot put strategic bombers in the sky and does not have missiles with the range to hit Washington, Paris or London. Tehran is forced to confine itself to Foreign Ministry statements about «long-term consequences» because its own drones and missiles have proven to be «short-range» weapons. In 19th-century terms, Iran plays the role of a second-order power; it cannot withstand a direct conflict with the first world.

The second sign is the low effectiveness of economic coercive and reactive measures. The multi-year sanctions policy has not prevented Iran from working on its own nuclear program;

Tehran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, which could lead to higher oil prices - here it hits its neighbors in the Middle East (suppliers) and the EU (buyers). The US, on the other hand, will be able to offset the negative effects through domestic production and will not withdraw support for Israel. Moreover, one pinpoint strike may be followed by subsequent ones - this was announced by Trump himself;

The third sign is a shift from a rigid system of interstate relations to a flexible system of alliances and alliances. This was evident in Trump's first term (his negotiations with North Korea, etc.), but it has turned out to be not an exception but a new rule. And it applies not only to the UN, but also to NATO and the G7. Such a policy is visually characteristic of the 19th century. But, as it turned out, nothing prevents the U.S. from returning to it (strictly speaking, at that time the U.S. was not among the major powers such as the Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain), if the system built after World War II does not cope with the challenges;

The fundamental difference between the system of international institutions and the system of blocs and alliances is that the latter are situational in nature and openly take into account the interests not of the world as a whole, but of a group of different states. The drift in this direction is not related to individual personalities, it does not cancel humanistic or social achievements of mankind. It is a direct consequence of the difference in economic and technological potentials, the desire of one part of the world to eliminate or noticeably reduce the risks emanating from the other part of the world.

To visualize the workings of a world divided into blocks, you can mentally rearrange the UN building into a new configuration;

Instead of a General Assembly hall, we have a simple system of floors with offices. In order to move forward in solving the problem, it is necessary to «collect visas» of several important countries and associations at different levels. For example, on the issue of trade and technology - in the cabinets of the EU, the U.S. and China. Washington and Brussels are the main actors on the issue of migration regulation. On the issue of food problems, it is necessary to go through the sectors of China, Russia and India;

The Security Council in this configuration is a meeting of guarantors for each side of the conflict who discuss the terms of peace face to face. The Security Council in this configuration is a meeting of guarantors for each side of the conflict, who discuss the terms of peace face to face.

The main inconvenience of the new design is its situationality. It is not set up to make long-term decisions that require not formal but real agreement of all on common rules or approaches. The world in it is governed by the decisions of different groups.

Also, in this construct, there is no non-alignment movement: if you are without the support of the bloc, you are alone with the world;

This may be good news for those who are averse to North Korean dictatorships or concerned about the complexities of clan-ethnic politics in Central Africa. But the real consequence is more likely to be a hierarchy of countries even within existing blocs and treaty alliances, be it the North American free trade agreement NAFTA, the EU or the WTO. For the world of nominally equal states, whose international history, for many, essentially began with the decolonization of the 20th century, this is very unpleasant news.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor