Exhausted by war, nation-states created the United Nations at the end of the Second World War, ostensibly to ensure stability and encourage prosperity. The world body accomplished significant progress in many socio-economic areas and while the UN Security Council imposed some order, the record was mixed because the five veto-yielding powers polarised the planet as they pursued raw national interests.

Regrettably, the system is collapsing under our very own eyes because current leaders lack strength, moral gravitas, serenity and fairness. It has been downhill ever since the middle of the last century with living heads-of-states mere caricatures of their predecessors. Most wallow in others’ miseries, neglect their own, seldom connect the dots and prefer to snoop on each other — and everyone else — even as they regularly gather at obscene pow wows where invitees cover their tracks.

To say that we now live in utterly confused times would be an understatement though the reason for such bewilderment is not because the crises that seem to pop-up just about everywhere are existential in nature — they are not — but because the world seems to be rudderless. Politicians are now in charge, which means that mankind is condemned to endure idiotic pronouncements, fabricated fears and complete inaction when what is called for is determination. Today, partisanship and sectarianism rule when the 21st century ought to represent the best of times, and while unparalleled wealth and technological progress have shrunk the planet and helped narrow gaps, unimaginative officials pontificate without an iota of credibility. Most people deride office-bearers because they are lied to, something few approve of, and even fewer accept.

Of course, this does not mean that genuine leaders did not engage in duplicitous behaviour in earlier times — they most assuredly did — but there were codes of honour, red lines that no one crossed, gentlemen’s agreements and assorted other understandings that officials behaved in a certain way. Honestly, can one compare Tony Blair or David Cameron to Winston Churchill? Nicolas Sarkozy or Francois Hollande to Charles de Gaulle? Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Lenin or even Joseph Stalin? Hu Jintao or Jiang Zemin to Mao Zedong or Zhou Enlai? Not to mention the Barack Obamas, Bill Clintons and the Bushes to the Franklin Roosevelts or Dwight Eisenhowers?

One is not sure when the mould of leadership was broken but, perhaps, it may be traced to the time when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 1973 Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger. With rare exceptions, the committee’s record has not been stellar ever since and while millions perished in Vietnam, Kissinger accepted the award while his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, had the decency to decline it. This was not the only example that illustrated the erosion of influence as mockery replaced gratitude because so-called leaders had no compunction to authorise the killings that transformed the 20th century into one of the bloodiest periods in history. That measure alone — nearly 200 million who perished in conflicts — stood as an irredeemable error.

Naturally, the bulk of these deaths occurred during the First and Second World Wars, but one assumed that successor leaders learned from such experiences to avoid fresh confrontations. To some extent, Washington and Moscow avoided a nuclear exchange because of strong deterrence policies, though Moscow did not wince when it sent its tanks into Hungary, Czechoslovakia or, more recently, into Ukraine’s Crimea. Of course, the US did not stop invading countries after the Vietnam debacle either and ventured into Grenada, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. And while circumstances may have been different, the end result was similar. France, Britain and China behaved in more or less identical fashion within their means, all of which confirmed that few drew the right lessons.

Instead of addressing core problems to ensure security, the world’s major powers opted to ritualise their relationships by organising meetings — there are nowadays so many that one needs a special lexicon: G7, G8, G20, UN, unending commemorations, sports gatherings, etc — that pretend to create opportunities where politicians can settle differences though these are mostly public relations events choreographed by well-paid PR firms. At times, few leaders will snub each other, but that is entertainment. In fact, the processes are so demeaning that few words exist to explain one’s revulsion, because work that is conducted in secret is only geared to dominate wealth, monitor its creation and deny it to others. The utter irony occurs when a few countries try to impose sanctions on others after a tragedy (like the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine), unaware of the futility of such behaviour in an interdependent world.

We now live in a very predictable world in which no earth-shattering geopolitical dangers exist. Nevertheless, all of us pretend that we are fighting open-ended wars (i.e. the war on terrorism and other forms of extremism), while we back supporters of instability. In reality, most of Earth’s inhabitants no longer wish to live under anyone’s thumb as they seek justice and dignity. They crave for reasonable leaders because the opportunities to produce great ones are probably gone forever. They desire harmony to avoid tensions. They seek honesty to prevent extremism and sectarianism. They pray for humane politicians not to exploit the human race.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia (London: Routledge