FM Macinka at UN Security Council: great powers must accept limits
Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka told the UN Security Council that smaller nations need an international order in which great powers accept limits to their own power. Petr Macinka warned that the world is suffering from a breakdown in communication between rival states.
Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka used his address to the UN Security Council in New York to deliver a wider message about international order, diplomacy, and the precarious position of smaller nations in an increasingly unstable world. Speaking from the perspective of a Central European country shaped by the consequences of great-power politics, Petr Macinka argued that smaller states have a distinct understanding of what happens when international order ceases to function:
“Central Europe knows very well what a world looks like when rules between major powers cease to apply,” Petr Macinka said. “In this world, smaller states cease to be subjects of history and become merely the space through which history passes.”
Minister Macinka described the United Nations as imperfect but still essential. While acknowledging that its institutions reflect the geopolitical realities of 1945 more than those of the present day, he argued that abandoning the organisation would not necessarily produce a safer or fairer alternative.
“The alternative to an imperfect United Nations may not be a better world,” Petr Macinka said, warning instead of a return to a system where major powers dominate global affairs while smaller countries are excluded from decision-making. He said the UN remains important precisely because it still offers smaller states a voice in a world shaped by power politics.
Dialogue must not collapse
A central message of Petr Macinka’s speech was the importance of communication between rival powers. He argued that the world’s current tensions are not caused solely by conflicting interests, but by a growing inability of states to listen to one another:
“History teaches us that major conflicts do not begin only with aggression. They also begin with miscalculation, with the loss of communication, and with the conviction that others no longer need to be listened to,” Petr Macinka said. He added that smaller nations often recognise the consequences of geopolitical decisions before larger powers do, making their perspectives particularly valuable in international diplomacy.
Restraint, not ideological certainty
Petr Macinka also warned against political and ideological absolutism, saying danger arises not only from military empires but also from states convinced of their own moral infallibility. Referring to Central Europe’s historical experience, minister Macinka suggested that such certainty can turn dialogue into coercion and reduce international law to a selective political instrument.
He also questioned the increasingly common assumption that a multipolar world is automatically more stable or just. The issue is not whether great powers exist, but how they behave:
“Small states are not seeking a world without great powers. What smaller nations seek is a world in which even great powers are capable of accepting limits to their own power.”
Finally, Petr Macinka said the world does not need a new universal ideology or another hegemonic power, but rather major states willing to act with restraint, respect and an ability to listen.
Minister Macinka is in the United States through May 28. In addition to addressing the UN Security Council, he is scheduled to meet UN Secretary-General António Guterres and hold talks with foreign ministers from China, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Bahrain before continuing to Washington for meetings with senior US administration officials and American investors.
