Lessons of Cold War must be learned to avoid new one, UN chief warns

“With leadership committed to strategic cooperation and to managing competing interests”, he said, “we can steer the world onto a safer path”.

The Secretary-General also turned his attention to tensions in global politics – notably in the Persian Gulf – and friction between China and the United States as well as between nuclear-armed States.

Referring to recent incidents in the Strait of Hormuz that include the diversion of a British-flagged oil tanker by Iran, the US destruction of an Iranian drone, and the UK's decision to provide a naval escort for tankers, he spelled out that a minor miscalculation in the Persian Gulf could lead to a major confrontation.

On China-US relations, Mr. Guterres said that the lessons of the Cold War must be learned to avoid a new one as two competing blocs emerge, each with their own dominant currency, trade rules, and contradictory geopolitical and military rules.

"With leadership committed to strategic cooperation and to managing competing interests", he said, "we can steer the world onto a safer path".

The imminent end of the landmark Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty means that the world will lose an "invaluable brake" on nuclear war, continued Mr. Guterres.

States with nuclear arms capacity should avoid destabilizing developments and urgently seek a new path towards new international arms control measures, which include extending the so-called "New Start" agreement between the US and Russia; and the 2020 Review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.