Yes, but narrowly and diminishingly so—primarily as a diplomatic talking shop, humanitarian coordinator, and legitimacy stamp, not as an effective enforcer of peace or global governance.
The UN was created in 1945 to prevent another world war among great powers. By that metric and several others, its record is mixed-to-poor, and structural flaws (especially the Security Council veto) have grown more glaring in a multipolar world. It is not "irrelevant" in the sense of disappearing tomorrow—193 member states still show up, pay (some of) the bills, and use it—but its marginal utility has declined relative to bilateral deals, alliances, markets, and ad-hoc coalitions.
Where it still does useful work
•Humanitarian and technical agencies: Bodies like the World Food Programme, UNHCR, UNICEF, and parts of the WHO deliver tangible goods—food, vaccines, refugee logistics, disease surveillance. These are imperfect, politicized, and sometimes captured (see WHO's early COVID handling or UNRWA controversies), but they coordinate at a scale hard for any single state. Smallpox eradication and certain famine responses are real achievements. The alternative is often fragmented national efforts or nothing.
•Forum and norms: It provides a permanent venue where adversaries talk (or at least glare) without immediate escalation. Treaties, sanctions regimes, and resolutions create a shared (if hypocritical) language of international law. For smaller states, it's one of the few places they have a voice. Decolonization-era transitions and some monitoring missions had value.
•Data and coordination: Climate reporting, development stats, and technical standards (postal, aviation, etc.) reduce transaction costs. States free-ride on this even while complaining.
These functions explain why no serious power has exited entirely. Abolishing the UN tomorrow would create coordination vacuums that someone else (or no one) would fill messily.
Where it fails or actively underperforms
•Peace and security: The core mandate. Security Council paralysis is structural, not accidental—P5 vetoes protect the winners of 1945 (and now their clients). Results: inability to stop or reverse major aggression when a permanent member is involved or shielded (Ukraine, Syria, historical examples like Hungary 1956 or Czechoslovakia 1968). Peacekeeping has occasional successes but also catastrophic failures (Rwanda, Srebrenica) and recurring scandals (sexual abuse, cholera in Haiti). It rarely deters determined actors.
•Bias, capture, and theater: Disproportionate resolutions on some conflicts versus silence or equivocation on others; bloc voting; influence from authoritarian majorities in the General Assembly. This erodes legitimacy among democracies and rising powers alike. Corruption and bloat (Oil-for-Food, excessive bureaucracy) are chronic.
•Enforcement and adaptation: No independent army, weak compliance mechanisms, and an outdated charter. Great powers ignore it when convenient (China in the South China Sea, various interventions). Rising multipolarity + non-state threats + tech change make a 1945 design look antique. "Responsibility to Protect" and similar doctrines are selectively applied.
•Opportunity cost: Resources and attention spent on performative sessions or expansive agendas (some SDG targets, certain human rights machinery) that deliver more rhetoric than results. States increasingly route real business through minilateral groups, NATO-like alliances, trade pacts, or direct power.
Critics from realists (it can't transcend power politics) and sovereigntists (mission creep, unaccountable officials) are largely correct on the hard cases. Idealists oversell "the international community" as if the UN were a nascent world government. It is not.
Bottom line
The UN remains relevant for low-to-medium stakes coordination and as a residual source of procedural legitimacy. It is not relevant as a reliable guardian against major war, aggression by P5 states or their partners, or deep reform of the international order. Its influence tracks the willingness of powerful members to use or bypass it. Calls for abolition are mostly emotional; calls for serious Security Council reform or agency triage are more serious but face the same veto problem that creates the dysfunction.
If the question is whether we should pretend it is the indispensable central nervous system of a rules-based order—no. Treat it as one tool among many, judge agencies by outputs not aspirations, and focus statecraft on interests and capabilities first. For primary sources, read the UN Charter, Security Council voting records, and evaluations from the UN's own oversight bodies alongside independent analyses (e.g., from the Council on Foreign Relations, academic realists, or GAO-style audits of specific programs).