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The UN Security Council - Who should be on it?
electricitylikesme
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Registered User regular
This is extremely Ukranian war adjacent, but isn't about that war specifically. Yes, we will be trashing Russia in this thread a lot.
One of the issues the Ukranian war has raised is UN Security Council permanent member status, specifically for Russia. Russia inherited the seat which originally was given to the USSR on the formation of the council, as the presumptive successor. This has been the status quo since that time with relatively little attention.
The Ukraine invasion has brought this issue to the fore as a possible means by which Russia can be cited another diplomatic embarrassment by ejecting them from the UNSC permanent member status, thus revoking their veto power over all rulings of that body.
In discussions of this matter though, one thing becomes apparent though: there's not been a lot of thought as to what actually can or should qualify a country for permanent member status, or what the overall goal of that status is.
There's a lot of people who feel that nuclear arsenal is the one and only determining factor: but this has the obvious problem that Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan by that token would all qualify as members. I've seen arguments that size of nuclear arsenal somehow determines this, but that doesn't much explain why Great Britain and France are members but India and Pakistan is not (France has ~280 deployable weapons, Britain ~225 deployable weapons, India ~160, Pakistan ~165).
My opinion is that Security council member status is actually specifically not able to follow nuclear proliferation guidelines. A Veto-power seat on the Security Council functionally has to represent actionable will and desire to influence events by other members by taking substantial and meaningful action on a global scale - i.e. you need to have an economy large enough and willing enough to engage in sanctions that a diplomatic route to determine that "yes we will do this" actually exists, and thus the benefit to it existing - if something wouldn't succeed because of action you would take, then we can all save ourselves a bad time by just assuming we shouldn't do it.
Within this context: nuclear weapons don't count. As deterrent forces, the existence of a nuclear arsenal cannot be used or allowed as a bludgeon to acquire resources by nuclear blackmail, and so doesn't rise to the level necessary to justify such a power. A country can threaten nuclear retaliation for all sorts of things, but we know in a practical sense the real bounds of that. An extensive conventional military would count - i.e. the existence of a meaningful escalatory ladder of actions and the ability to apply those actions on a meaningfully global scale - but "nukes or nothing" really doesn't.
Within this framework then, recent events by quality alone disqualify Russia from security council status. They can't meaningfully project conventional military power, but more importantly economically after recent events they will have no meaningful ability or capability to influence global economic policy: their various debtors (namely China) will.
One of the issues the Ukranian war has raised is UN Security Council permanent member status, specifically for Russia. Russia inherited the seat which originally was given to the USSR on the formation of the council, as the presumptive successor. This has been the status quo since that time with relatively little attention.
The Ukraine invasion has brought this issue to the fore as a possible means by which Russia can be cited another diplomatic embarrassment by ejecting them from the UNSC permanent member status, thus revoking their veto power over all rulings of that body.
In discussions of this matter though, one thing becomes apparent though: there's not been a lot of thought as to what actually can or should qualify a country for permanent member status, or what the overall goal of that status is.
There's a lot of people who feel that nuclear arsenal is the one and only determining factor: but this has the obvious problem that Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan by that token would all qualify as members. I've seen arguments that size of nuclear arsenal somehow determines this, but that doesn't much explain why Great Britain and France are members but India and Pakistan is not (France has ~280 deployable weapons, Britain ~225 deployable weapons, India ~160, Pakistan ~165).
My opinion is that Security council member status is actually specifically not able to follow nuclear proliferation guidelines. A Veto-power seat on the Security Council functionally has to represent actionable will and desire to influence events by other members by taking substantial and meaningful action on a global scale - i.e. you need to have an economy large enough and willing enough to engage in sanctions that a diplomatic route to determine that "yes we will do this" actually exists, and thus the benefit to it existing - if something wouldn't succeed because of action you would take, then we can all save ourselves a bad time by just assuming we shouldn't do it.
Within this context: nuclear weapons don't count. As deterrent forces, the existence of a nuclear arsenal cannot be used or allowed as a bludgeon to acquire resources by nuclear blackmail, and so doesn't rise to the level necessary to justify such a power. A country can threaten nuclear retaliation for all sorts of things, but we know in a practical sense the real bounds of that. An extensive conventional military would count - i.e. the existence of a meaningful escalatory ladder of actions and the ability to apply those actions on a meaningfully global scale - but "nukes or nothing" really doesn't.
Within this framework then, recent events by quality alone disqualify Russia from security council status. They can't meaningfully project conventional military power, but more importantly economically after recent events they will have no meaningful ability or capability to influence global economic policy: their various debtors (namely China) will.
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The standards are the most important countries in winning WW2. Plus it was the two sides of the cold war and socialism vs capitalism so that the UN wouldn't favor either side
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The UK on the security council seems a bit odd but they had nukes quickly and was a serious world power at the time.
The UK now, compared to what the Empire was within living memory even now seems outrageous. Even though the WW2 narrative now is all the Blitz in London and evacuees.
The Empire contained half the fucking world before India was split and got independence, and now both parts of that are in the nuke club.
I've no idea where my feelings lie (gut feeling says that security council is the nuke club, but I await to see what happens if the world overrules you as in tomorrows human rights vote), but at the start and end of the war. It was more than merry old England involved.
If you don't purposely create a criteria to exclude Russia, the criteria is likely to swing to include numerous countries or narrow down to either just the US or the US and China, maybe a third if the EU is included as a block. The other option is that the criteria is can your country tell the UN to shove it and would they let you leave, this is to some extent what the original criteria was. This probably gets you to the same 2 countries with maybe the EU as a block again.
Honestly, the veto is probably a necessary dumb thing, but I think most the issues with it are really countries using it to protect lesser friends ala the US and Israel, than them using it to protect themselves. No one is going to tell the US/Russia/China No if they really want to do something. France and the UK...have probably lost relevancy a bit but do they every use it on anything the US wouldn't also?
Like say there were no vetos, and the UN condems Russia tomorrow. That does fuck and all if the US isn't willing to go to war with them over it, and if the US does want to do that the veto won't matter one bit.
The issue with some resolutions the US would ignore anyways getting vetoed is less that the US would ignore it, but that it prevents lesser powers from having to make that decision either. Greece for example might not violate a UN resolution against Israel were one ever to pass, but because one will never pass its moot.
Thus UN is crippled not solely because it can't make the US/Russia/China follow a resolution, but because it also can't make the other 95% of countries follow resolutions because there are none.
This is the intention of the veto. That the UN cannot act if the most powerful countries don't want it to. It's intentionally setup this way because these countries wouldn't have joined without it and would likely leave if their veto was removed which would result in a useless body exactly like the League. As I stated above, it then follows that this is also should be the criteria for being a permanent member.
pretty much though the next time we get around to actually realizing that kind of change we would probably structure it around countries capable of FTL travel
oh wait, that's the federation
That isn't "Cold War bullshit" that's literally "the history of all mankind". This is true at every level, tribes, city-states, nations, whatever.
Russia keeps feeding its army into the meatgrinder while its economy is heading towards a point where they cannot replace the material.
Best case they keep it together but as a third rate ex-power that can't afford foreign atrocities.
Worst case they don't keep it together and the security council seat is their safety blanket without which who knows which buttons will be pressed....