The UN is stuck in 1945. The UNSC needs to throw out the UK, France, and bring in Brazil, India, South Africa and Germany.
And this veto nonsense needs to go away.
And this veto nonsense needs to go away.
in theory its better if you don't give veto power to great powers because they'll abuse it. in practice it's what keeps the fragile system that prevents WW3 from total collapse, as happened with the league of nations.
The only thing which counts is raw power and the means to deliver it. The US just got a lesson in its limits from the Iranian regime.
Countries with natural resources need their own defense against thieves like the US and its vassals. Libya, Iraq, Syria. Oil and no nukes. Fat use the UN was for them.
(Forget about the UN. Take a home owners' association. In due course a clique will take it over and corrupt it.)
And advocating for the dissolution and replacement of the UN due to it being ineffective is deeply ironic, because that's exactly what happened with the League of Nations, which led to the later formation of the UN.
You seem to be in an argumentative mood, but nothing I said is disagreeing with you about the ineffectuality of the UN.
If not South Africa, who from Africa? Egypt? Nigeria?
The current composition of the UNSC is just ridiculous.
Australia would be a better option in either case since they are a continent in of themselves and within spitting distance from being a nuclear power after Biden fucked over the French and beat them to a deal for nuclear subs with Australia.
And re: Britain’s nuclear power being controlled by the US. That’s just the maintenance. They still have the nukes and could easily turn to France as the refurbisher if the US denies them. Might even work out as a conciliatory point for the return to the EU that Burnham is harking about.
While it maybe be true that some of the nukes in the UK(i.e. US B61 gravity bombs) may be under the control of the US, the UK still maintains full control over their submarine launched nukes AFAIU.
1: The new nuclear powers should be included, I guess including N Korea, India, and Pakistan. And possibly Israel, if they admit to having them.
2: Rethink the whole thing. Are nukes really as important as everybody thought they were after WWII? If not, what should we look at to decide who to include?
That's not actually true, the 5 permanent seats on the UNSC were granted in 1945, well before any country aside from the US managed to develop nuclear weapons.
Those 5 countries did all eventually develop nuclear weapons and became nuclear weapon states under the NPT but that happened quite a bit later.
Possibly moreso. Nuclear sovereignty is demonstrably above the conventional type. At the end of the day, having a forum where nuclear powers with long-range delivery capability can veto things reduces the risk of them using that capability to veto in the real world.
By the range requirement, Tel Aviv and Pyongyang qualify for UNSC inclusion. New Delhi and Islamabad do not—they will mostly just nuke each other.
Out of the 9 current nuclear armed countries 5 have invaded another countries this century, and three of the most prolific invaders this century (Israel, USA, and Russia; each with over 3 invasions this century) are all nuclear armed. Out of the 4 countries which haven‘t invaded another country this century, two (India and Pakistan) regularly engage in border skirmishes and bombing campaigns. This leaves China and North Korea as the only two nuclear armed countries (out of 9) which don‘t regularly engage in foreign wars.
By our current experience, the proliferation of nuclear armed states is almost certain to end in a disaster at a previously unseen scale. We should be doing everything in our power to prevent this world of future horrors.
Not exactly.[0]
> and North Korea
Also not exactly.[1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_invol...
and counted 3 or more invasions as prolific invaders.
But your parent is absolutely correct that China and North Korea also regularly engage in wars, though what counts as war and what counts as skirmishes is up for debate, I would count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%... as a war (I had just forgotten about it), ditto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Yeonpyeongdo_bombardment
That however just makes my point stronger.