UN Security Council membership

Post Reply New Topic

As most know the UN Security Council is anchored by five permanent members who have veto power over all matters; those countries are the US, Russia, China, the UK, and France. Does this seem right?

France and the UK have no long since been world powers, they do have nuclear weapons but so other countries without veto power so should they be excluded or should it be expanded? Shouldn't India be a permanent member of the Security Council? Japan, Germany, Brazil maybe?

F*** the UN. They need to be disbanded.

The UN reflects the geopolitical situation after World War 2 and as the Cold War began. The primary purpose is avoiding nuclear war. The reality is that France and Britain are still very powerful in economic and military terms, so it makes sense not to boot them off the Security Council.

As for new members, Brazil is not there, any suggestion of bringing India on will outrage Pakistan and they would have the support of many Muslim nations. If Germany and Japan rearm, they should probably be on it. China would be very, very unenthusiastic to the idea of Japan on the SC.

It's complicated. Diplomacy is annoying and messy, but still necessary and the UN is the best available venue for conducting it on a global scale. If you want to get rid of it, you will have to replace it with something better. Good luck with that!

The permanent security council gives disproportionate power to the members and ideally should be abolished.

If it has to continue, then membership should rotate every two years.

One place for North America and the Caribbean.
One place for Europe.
One place for Asia.
One place for Africa.
One place for South America and Oceania.

It would be up to delegations to decide how their "region" would be represented. Does South America just want to elect Brazil or Argentina? Should Africa let a few of the bigger nations draw lots? Should Europe just have a straight lottery? Should NA just let the US handle it? All up to them.

The goal is not utopian universal fairness but preventing nuclear war. It is entirely appropriate to give disproportionate power to nations that wield disproportionate power.

The alternative is that the UN enacts some stupid resolution that completely alienates some very powerful nation and that nation then acts without regard for the UN. If that nation is the US, Russia or China, the result could be the end of civilization.

I would advise those who imagine that France and Britain are weak to look at the strength of their militaries not in terms of sheer numbers, but in terms of capabilities. Argentina was, on paper, stronger than the UK in 1982.

France and UK aren't weak and I wouldn't kick them off the security council because I see them as mostly aligned with American interests, it's more just spitballing on the fact that there are more bigger more powerful nations without that veto power. Other countries not liking it seems like a poor excuse to not allow the ascendance of India to permanent membership considering they are the largest democracy in the world and a nuclear power, it will be interesting to see what Trump and Modi's relationship will be like. Consider the communist People's Republic of China wasn't always the UN representative for China, the R.O.C. was ejected from the council and almost all recognition taken away so it's not with precedence to remove someone and add another. Japan needs to modernize it's constitution and start to assert itself in its own defense, India and Japan along with the US can work as a hedge against the Chinese in south Asia. I believe Japan and then India are the #2 and #3 contributors to the UN after the US. Taiwan and South Korea can play an important role in containing China as well, I hopeful Trump can mend fences with the Philippines which has been drifting in the direction of Beijing. If you can get Russia in the fold then all the sudden China isn't too much a threat anymore I think.

The problem with expanding the permanent members of the security council is that I imagine things would become even more unworkable and ineffective, I question the usefulness of the UN in general. I think a lot of people like this idea of it being this Star Treky world government but it's not that and shouldn't be that, I have zero interest in ever ceding any soveirgnty away from the US and think our money could better spent on unilateral relationships with the relevant Great Powers rather than giving tin pot dictators voices at the table. The US doesn't and shouldn't withdraw from the UN since there is this worry that it would be turned into a vehicle against American interests so rather just defund it and kick them out of Manhattan. Some prime real estate I'm sure somebody would want to develop...

I don't see any advantage to moving the UN out of the US.

Perhaps the UN should create incentives for rapid nuclear proliferation by offering a Security Council seat to any nation that can demonstrate possession of a nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver them to distant targets? And it would be so great to have a mouthpiece for North Korea's Kim family with veto power. Or maybe not.

The US is primus inter pares at the UN. The dingbats there may launch any number of nonbinding resolutions with anti American messages, but the big resolution go the way the US wants almost all the time.

This is a close to a "capital of the World" as we are ever likely to see and it's in the US because of America's global dominance at the end of the second world war. Having the capital here is still a recognition of that fact. Getting out of it and having it move to China or Russia would not yield any benefits for the US. The US has ceded no sovereignty to the UN so that's a non-issue. All the great powers had unilateral relationships in 1914 and 1939 and that's why people went along with the idea of a UN while they watched the embers of Nagasaki and Hiroshima cool.

It's not a global government but it is a pressure valve and communication channel. Those things will be needed again, and soon.