The UN Security Council has a weak link.
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| [Erdogan in Africa/Europeans24] |
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, has launched an attack on Moscow, as well as London, Paris, Washington, and Beijing. “The fate of mankind cannot be left at the mercy of the handful of countries that won the Second World War,” Erdogan stated during his visit to Angola. According to Erdogan, the globe is “far more than five” countries that currently have veto power in the United Nations Security Council. Much more than five, but not quite as much as seven?
You don’t need to consult a fortune teller to figure out what type of international order, in Recep Tayyipovich’s perspective, would be completely honest and fair: Turkey as the UN’s sixth permanent member. But the fact that Erdogan, a politician with a highly developed “tongue without bones,” does not dare to reveal his secret yearning to the public explains a lot. For instance, why is it that the existing horribly obsolete “global security architecture” is still afloat and has a good chance of surviving?
The UN Security Council’s current “big five” is a retro-style body. Even inside the European Union, France is not a leader or a locomotive. It used to share this responsibility with Germany until recently.
However, Angela Merkel’s “bridge partner” was no longer required in recent years. Of course, Paris may place its hopes in Germany’s incoming chancellor. What if he proves to be such a knucklehead that the leader’s baton slips from Berlin’s “pocket”? Is it, however, only a question of personalities? Obviously not. The argument is that Paris’ political clout in international affairs is dwindling.
The same may be said about London. Britain is no longer the imperial powerhouse it once was. Inertia holds together the structure in which these two great powers from the past play the first violins. And this apathy stems from the reality that it is now impossible to replace the outmoded system with a new one: there are just too many individuals wanting to join the world’s most exclusive club.
Erdogan, for example, is persuaded that Turkey has a legal right to a “entry ticket.” But, if Turkey has such a right, does not India, a country with a population of almost one billion four hundred million people and a population more than fourteen times that of Turkey, have the same right? And, if population size is the most essential requirement, why not make Indonesia a permanent member of the UN Security Council, with a population nearing a quarter of a billion people?
But, honestly, you shouldn’t forget about political correctness! Unlike the other continents, Africa is not represented by the term “at all” in the Big Five, with the exception of the fragile Australia. South America, on the other hand, will be furious if you “pitch the bone” to the Black Continent. We didn’t grant the Yankees the authority to represent our interests, for example!
However, admitting everyone (or at least a portion of everyone) to the Security Council’s permanent membership club is not an option. Then, as happened with the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the conclusion of Gorbachev’s tenure, something similar will happen in the UN’s top body. The Politburo lost all political relevance once representatives from all union republics were brought into this Areopagus, governed by the criterion of “justice” (the Estonians gained two seats for themselves). The presence of such a labyrinth of unsolvable difficulties in the case of a prospective enlargement of the UN Security Council ensures that all complaints about the “injustice of the present world order” may be securely submitted to the “League of Sexual Reforms.” But how long is this “goodbye” going to last? It’s quite probable that the primary world organ has developed a flaw.
The United Kingdom may lose Scotland, Northern Ireland, or both in the next decades. This is the cost of leaving the EU. Scotland is adamant about rejoining the European Union. Separatist fervour has resurfaced in the region. London is under pressure to call a second vote on independence.
On the one hand, things are simpler in Northern Ireland, where the Protestant majority of the population passionately clings to its connections to London. Everything, on the other hand, is more difficult. Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom’s main geographical region are two separate customs areas from a legal standpoint. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now frantically attempting to resolve the issue. But he hasn’t been particularly successful thus far, and he is unlikely to succeed in the future.
Let’s pretend that all of these centrifugal factors conspire to blow up the United Kingdom from inside. Will England and Wales’ stub, which has lost its area for basing nuclear weapons (the base for submarines equipped with nuclear missiles is in Scotland), have the moral right to demand participation in the United Nations Security Council? The solution is self-evident.
Reform of the world’s most powerful body will be unavoidable. And this will undoubtedly harm Russia’s interests. Being a member of the top five is one thing; being a part of something nebulous and inexplicable is quite another. Of course, this isn’t Moscow’s most pressing or distressing issue. Even if the relevance of permanent membership in the UN Security Council is substantially diminished, Russia will remain a strong power. But, if we ignore the reality that we have one of the world’s greatest arsenals of nuclear weapons, how many more such “great powers” will arise beside us?