The US isn't selfish about Security Council reform at all. We explicitly back Japan and India becoming permanent members. A selfish power would not want any new permanent members.

Selfish is the wrong word to use anyhow. States can't be selfish. They aren't people. All they have are interests, and it is in no veto-wielding state's interest to have that power taken away or diminished.


The UN is what it is. It will never be truly effective because it is not a world government. As long as states are sovereign no amount of UN resolutions will really effect their actions. What will effect their actions is what always has in the past: force. Since the UN has no military of its own it relies on members to enforce its decisions militarily, and the only country capable of doing so on a global scale is the United States, with France a respectable second and Britain now a distant third. A big reason that you only see the United States and those two countries poking around all over the world on UN or national missions is that they simply are the only ones who can still do it. Russia's only military base outside the old USSR is a teeny dock in Syria, and China still doesn't really have a blue-water navy.

Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way. An effective UN would be a world government, and I for one find that idea repugnant. All it is, can be, and should be is a place where states can all talk to each other and where international law and programs can be developed and coordinated. That's a fine goal.

I'm not counting peacekeeping missions in my analysis of the US, France, and the UK. I mean sustained military action, like a Korean War, Gulf War, Libya campaign, etc. Most peacekeeping campaigns are ultimately paid for by the big UN donors' (US, Japan, Germany, etc) dues anyway even though the soldiers may be Bangladeshi and Slovak.

No I'm talking about getting rid of the single veto thing. That we are not backing.

Also you're rather wrong about the UN's military capability. You're right that they need a force of their own which is independent, however, MONUSCO is currently in open war with eastern Congolese rebels and the troops are mostly Tanzanian and South African.

In CAR a few months ago South African soldiers died defends the capital from rebels.

In Haiti MINUSTAH is staffed by Brazilian troops. And so on.

Not to mention Kenyan AMISOM troops from the African Union in Somalia.

You're right about who pays, but many of these interventions are real wars, even if they don't get called that.

Congo and Somalia especially are campaigns more than anything else.

Well of course we aren't. Why would we? And even if we were dumb enough to, why would Russia or China? Or, more obviously, why would the now overly-powerful Britain and France? No one ever willingly reduces their power if they can help it.

@Thucy ... why the hell don't you want us to pull back on the UN? I'm not saying we should back out; we should get a vote. We should not lead it; we should not have any more say than every other country. It is the United Nations, not the United States and Friends.

Invictus pointed out the unfortunately obvious though - we aren't about to cut down our own power. I would say unless we ran out of money, but that evidently is no barrier to us.

The UN has been complete bullshit for a long time. That's old news.

They're real wars in the sense people are dying. They are not comparable to the kinds of things the US, France, or UK can do. The UN forces in the Congo are little more than another faction, and one that can't actually do what is necessary to win a war since they have many more restructions than a national army would.

In CAR, these were jsut South African soldiers guarding some things, not a sustained campaign by the South African armed forces.

MINUSTAH is staffed by Brazilians, but again, not a war. And Haiti probably isn't much father from Brazil's Amazon cities than Sao Paulo is, so one should hope they can carry out a peacekeeping mission so close to home.

Kenya is right next to Somalia. Talk to me when Kenya is running operations in Mali or Cambodia.

bo_sox48, that's ludicrous. As if the United States' power is the obstacle to world brotherhood and not dictatorial regimes. If we withdrew as you want then there would either be international chaos due to the leadership vacuum and/or a new, probably less liberal power would rise to become hegemon. Do you really want Red China in the same slot that America is now? Putin's Russia? It sure as hell ain't gonna be Norway or Bhutan that becomes the new superpower should America turn isolationist

What's so unattainable about it, Invictus? Each country gets one vote, majority wins? That's not "ludicrous" at all.

So the vote of teeny Palau should have the same weight as China's?

A sovereign nation is a sovereign nation.

That's fine for the General Assembly. Not for, say, the Security Council.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_War

This is where most of my problems lie.

'Red' China? What makes it Red (not that i think being communist is any worse than being capitalist...) but what force's you too add that nasty pejorative, to a country which has so effectively embraced free market economics?

@Bo, there was a time when the general assemble decided it could overturn decisions made by the US; when african nations became independent in the 60s and suddenly had enough single votes to easily outnumber the US and her allies. Guess what, the US simply threatened to withdraw funding from the UN and it turned out that voting didn't mean a damn thing.

Yes, that's not an unusual reaction, ora. Like Invictus said, no one wants to give up power if they don't have to give it up. The US government is more than afraid to lose its power both at home and abroad though.

My view on funding for the UN is pretty simple: every country in the United Nations should pay for an equal fraction. Things can be corrupted otherwise, as you point out.

What makes it red? What always has. It's run by a communist party.

The General Assembly voting has always not meant a damn thing. It's a debating club. That's not a bad thing, since it's helpful to have a general forum where all states are gathered, but it is not and was never designed to be a world parliament.

Dues aren't unequal to be mean, bo_sox48. It's to be fair. Why should St. Lucia pay as much as the United States when its economy is a rounding error compared to America's? Why should poor Laos pay as much as rich Japan? Put another way, why should neutral and inward looking San Marino have as much influence on UN budgeting as a superpower like the US or the old USSR?

UN corruption is an inevitable result of how an international organization like that must govern itself. It has nothing to do with how dues are divvied up.

Oh, so now the United States is rich? Man, conservatives would have disagreed in November.

If the votes were taken seriously - meaning an 8Y, 40N vote wouldn't mean "yes" - then equal funding would be no problem. Look at this as a whole and tell me it's effective. If not, then open up to changes to the system.

(If you think it's effective, please go look for Atlantis to make better use of your time.)

As countries go, yeah, the US is rich. Spectacularly rich.

You really have no grasp of how organizations function, bo_sox48. Nor should you, really, still being so young. But stop pretending that you do. It's embarrassing.

bo_sox, we barely lead it. But we are in a leadership role because we lead the world. We don't have a choice on that, as China is learning. You can't just step away from the world you live in if you control it.

"Well of course we aren't. Why would we? And even if we were dumb enough to, why would Russia or China? Or, more obviously, why would the now overly-powerful Britain and France? No one ever willingly reduces their power if they can help it."

This, this is precisely the problem. It can change if the countries involved would realize that a more democratic UN is in everyone's interests. Tough problem to solve, of course.

RE: MONUSCO, what about the thousands of Nepalese and Uruguayan troops fighting there? Those countries are tiny.

This is just how the UN works. The US is too chickenshit selfish to put its soldiers in harm's way for the UN since Somalia, so we make poor people do the dying in Africa.

We're in more debt than the entire world's worth. United Nations funding should be the last thing on our minds. We shouldn't be paying for a massive-as-hell military and we shouldn't be paying for an intervention in Syria that the UN hasn't even voted on.

In all honesty, Invictus, the UN is pretty damn cheap compared to some of the things we do. Say that about all of the "pretty damn cheap" things though and you have quite the tab piling up.

By the way, I've pretty much ignored all of your petty remarks about me, and everyone else does too. They just make you look like a dumb jackass. I don't think you're either of those things on the other side of the screen.

@BoSox,
Shows what you know. Atlantis isn't even a *member* of the UN.

Lol Thucy, let's trade doses of reality. Here's mine:

No one in government gives a shit about people in Africa. They just want the stuff there.

And just in case you haven't been following it, Congo has turned into a real-ass war:

https://twitter.com/robynleekriel/status/373137606923804672
https://twitter.com/robynleekriel/status/373137929818091520

I talk to some guys in Uganda pretty regularly; they keep me up to date. It's not pretty.

lol bosox, way ahead of you

"The US is too chickenshit selfish "

Who are you friends in Uganda? Curious

I may have even posted this here but it's a good one, worth posting again:

"US government policy on Africa is capricious because nobody cares."
http://www.nyudri.org/2012/06/22/you-will-not-read-this-blog-post-today/

The one I know best calls himself Fred. That's what I know him by; it's not his traditional name though. They just gave him the spotlight recently. http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2013/08/07/25201/

The other guy I know is Tony. He's been in a number of the IC films; they say he's the original inspiration. He and I usually meet up when he comes back though and we use Skype a lot.